Those Barren Leaves Aldous Huxley (best biographies to read txt) đ
- Author: Aldous Huxley
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He was startled out of his speculations by the sound of his own name, loudly called from a little distance. He turned round and saw Mr. Cardan and Chelifer striding up the road towards him. Calamy waved his hand and went to meet them. Was he pleased to see them or not? He hardly knew.
âWell,â said Mr. Cardan, twinkling jovially, as he approached, âhow goes life in the ThebaĂŻd? Do you object to receiving a couple of impious visitors from Alexandria?â
Calamy laughed and shook their hands without answering.
âDid you get wet?â he asked, to change the conversation.
âWe hid in a cave,â said Mr. Cardan. He looked round at the view. âPretty good,â he said encouragingly, as though it were Calamy who had made the landscape, âpretty good, I must say.â
âAgreeably Wordsworthian,â said Chelifer in his precise voice.
âAnd where do you live?â asked Mr. Cardan.
Calamy pointed to the cottage. Mr. Cardan nodded comprehendingly.
âHearts of gold, but a little niffy, eh?â he asked, lifting his raised white eyebrow still higher.
âNot to speak of,â said Calamy.
âCharming girls?â Mr. Cardan went on. âOr goitres?â
âNeither,â said Calamy.
âAnd how long do you propose to stay?â
âI havenât the faintest idea.â
âTill youâve got to the bottom of the cosmos, eh?â
Calamy smiled. âThatâs about it.â
âSplendid,â said Mr. Cardan, patting him on the arm, âsplendid. I envy you. God, what wouldnât I give to be your age? What wouldnât I give?â He shook his head sadly. âAnd, alas,â he added, âwhat could I give, in point of actual fact? I put it at about twelve hundred quid at the present time. My total fortune. Shouldnât we sit down?â he added on another note.
Calamy led the way down the little path. Along the front of the cottage, under the windows, ran a long bench. The three men sat down. The sun shone full upon them; it was pleasantly warm. Beneath them was the narrow valley with its smoky shadows; opposite, the black hills, cloud-capped and silhouetted against the brightness of the sky about the sun.
âAnd the trip to Rome,â Calamy inquired, âwas that agreeable?â
âTolerably,â said Chelifer, with precision.
âAnd Miss Elver?â he addressed himself politely to Mr. Cardan.
Mr. Cardan looked up at him. âHadnât you heard?â he asked.
âHeard what?â
âSheâs dead.â Mr. Cardanâs face became all at once very hard and still.
âIâm sorry,â said Calamy. âI didnât know.â He thought it more tactful to proffer no further condolences. There was a silence.
âThatâs something,â said Mr. Cardan at last, âthat youâll find it rather difficult to contemplate away, however long and mystically you stare at your navel.â
âWhat?â asked Calamy.
âDeath,â Mr. Cardan answered. âYou canât get over the fact that, at the end of everything, the flesh gets hold of the spirit, and squeezes the life out of it, so that a man turns into something thatâs no better than a whining sick animal. And as the flesh sickens the spirit sickens, manifestly. Finally the flesh dies and putrefies; and the spirit presumably putrefies too. And thereâs an end of your omphaloskepsis, with all its byproducts, God and justice and salvation and all the rest of them.â
âPerhaps it is,â said Calamy. âLetâs admit it as certain, even. I donât see that it makes the slightest difference.â ââ âŠâ
âNo difference?â
Calamy shook his head. âSalvationâs not in the next world; itâs in this. One doesnât behave well here for the sake of a harp and wings after one is deadâ âor even for the sake of contemplating throughout eternity the good, the true and the beautiful. If one desires salvation, itâs salvation here and now. The kingdom of God is within youâ âif youâll excuse the quotation,â he added, turning with a smile to Mr. Cardan. âThe conquest of that kingdom, now, in this lifeâ âthatâs your salvationistâs ambition. There may be a life to come, or there may not; itâs really quite irrelevant to the main issue. To be upset because the soul may decay with the body is really medieval. Your medieval theologian made up for his really frightful cynicism about this world by a childish optimism about the next. Future justice was to compensate for the disgusting horrors of the present. Take away the life to come and the horrors remain, untempered and unpalliated.â
âQuite so,â said Chelifer.
âSeen from the medieval point of view,â Calamy went on, âthe prospect is most disquieting. The Indiansâ âand for that matter the founder of Christianityâ âsupply the corrective with the doctrine of salvation in this life, irrespective of the life to come. Each man can achieve salvation in his own way.â
âIâm glad you admit that,â said Mr. Cardan. âI was afraid youâd begin telling us that we all had to live on lettuces and look at our navels.â
âI have it from no less an authority than yourself,â Calamy answered, laughing, âthat there areâ âhow many?â âeighty-four thousandâ âisnât it?â âdifferent ways of achieving salvation.â
âFully,â said Mr. Cardan, âand a great many more for going to the devil. But all this, my young friend,â he pursued, shaking his head, âdoesnât in any way mitigate the disagreeableness of slowly becoming gaga, dying and being eaten by worms. One may have achieved salvation in this life, certainly; but that makes it none the less insufferable that, at the end of the account, oneâs soul should inevitably succumb to oneâs body. I, for example, am savedâ âI put the case quite hypothetically, mind youâ âI have been living in a state of moral integrity and this-worldly salvation for the last half-century, ever since I reached the age of puberty. Let this be granted. Have I, for this reason, any the less cause to be distressed by the prospect, in a few yearsâ time, of becoming a
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