For some days Spandrell skillfully rubbed the horror in; and then, when she was thoroughly penetrated with the sense of guilt and creeping with self-disgust, cynically and violently renewed his now obscene lovemaking. In the end she had left him, hating him, hating herself. That was three months ago. Spandrell had made no attempt to have her back or to renew the experiment on another victim. It wasn’t worth the effort; nothing was worth the effort. He contented himself with talking about the excitements of diabolism, while in practice he remained sunk apathetically in the dismal routine of brandy and hired love. The talk momentarily excited him; but when it was over he fell back again yet deeper into boredom and despondency. There were times when he felt as though he were becoming inwardly paralyzed with a gradual numbing of the very soul. It was a paralysis which it was within his power, by making an effort of the will, to cure. But he could not, even would not make the effort.
“But if you’re bored by it, if you hate it,” Philip Quarles had interrogated, focusing on Spandrell his bright, intelligent curiosity, “why the devil do you go on with the life?” It was nearly a year since the question had been asked; the paralysis had not then crept so deep into Spandrell’s soul. But even in those days Philip had found his case very puzzling. And since the man was prepared to talk about himself without demanding any personalities in return, since he didn’t seem to mind being an object of scientific curiosity and was boastful rather than reticent about his weaknesses, Philip had taken the opportunity of cross-examining him. “I can’t see why,” he insisted.
Spandrell shrugged his shoulders. “Because I’m committed to it. Because in some way it’s my destiny. Because that’s what life finally is—hateful and boring; that’s what human beings are, when they’re left to themselves—hateful and boring again. Because, once one’s damned, one ought to damn oneself doubly. Because … yes, because I really like hating and being bored.”
He liked it. The rain fell and fell; the mushrooms sprouted in his very heart and he deliberately cultivated them. He could have gone to see his friends; but he preferred to be bored and alone. The concert season was in full swing, there was opera at Covent Garden, all the theatres were open; but Spandrell only read the advertisements—the Eroica at the Queen’s Hall, Schnabel playing Op. 106 at the Wigmore, Don Giovanni at Covent Garden, Little Tich at the Alhambra, Othello at the Old Vic, Charlie Chaplin at Marble Arch—read them very carefully and stayed at home. There was a pile of music on the piano, his shelves were full of books, all the London Library was at his disposal; Spandrell read nothing but magazines and the illustrated weeklies and the morning and evening papers. The rain went sliding incessantly down the dirty glass of the windows; Spandrell turned the enormous crackling pages of the Times. “The Duke of York,” he read, having eaten his way, like a dung beetle’s maggot in its native element, through Births, Deaths, and the Agony Column, through Servants and Real Estate, through Legal Reports, through Imperial and Foreign News, through Parliament, through the morning’s history, through the five leading articles, through Letters to the Editor, as far as Court and Personal and the little clerical essay on “The Bible in Bad Weather,” “the Duke of York will be presented with the Honorary Freedom of the Gold and Silver Wire Drawers Company on Monday next. His Royal Highness will take luncheon with the Master and Wardens of the Company after the presentation.” Pascal and Blake were within reach, on the bookshelf. But “Lady Augusta Crippen has left England on the Berengaria. She will travel across America to visit her brother-in-law and sister, the Governor General of South Melanesia and Lady Ethelberta Todhunter.” Spandrell laughed, and the laughter was a liberation, was a source of energy. He got up; he put on his mackintosh and went out. “The Governor General of South Melanesia and Lady Ethelberta Todhunter.” Still smiling, he turned into the public house round the corner. It was early; there was only one other drinker in the bar.
“But why should two people stay together and be unhappy?” the barmaid was saying. “Why? when they can get a divorce and be happy.”
“Because marriage is a sacrament,” replied the stranger.
“Sacrament yourself!” The barmaid retorted contemptuously. Catching sight of Spandrell, she nodded and smiled. He was a regular customer.
“Double brandy,” he ordered, and leaning against the bar examined the stranger. He had a face like a choirboy’s—but a choirboy suddenly overwhelmed by middle age; chubby, prettily doll-like, but withered. The mouth was horribly small,
