The Grotesque Read Online Free PDF Page B

His soft baby’s skin grew puckered with silliness. “Oh you don’t!” he said, with a shrill laugh.
    “No,” declared Cleo, “I think you look more like a ferret.”
    “A ferret!” he screamed, and the pair of them dissolved in giggles.
    Harriet smiled indulgently. “A ferret,” she said. “Oh no, darling, Sidney doesn’t look at all like a ferret. I should say Sidney looked like—an otter. Yes, an otter.”
    As this fascinating conversation went forward Fledge appeared and announced that dinner was served.
    I am not, as you will have observed, a man greatly enamored of his fellow human beings. I do not enter lightly into the foibles and whimsicalities of others, I do not suffer fools gladly, I seem able, in conversation, only to needle or be needled. My relationships, as a result, are few, and those few are tenuous, prickly sorts of arrangements, altogether lacking in the spontaneity and intimacy for which humans, I’m told, have an instinctive need. I am aware of no such instincts in myself. But there is a type of dour and taciturn individual in whose company I can, I find, be at ease —men with strong, uncomplicated natures and no interest in chatter. Silent, solid men. My gardener, George Lecky, was just such a man, and it is high time, I think, after listening to Sidney’s fatuous nonsense, and witnessing the furtive mockery of Fledge, that you were introduced to him.
    ❖
    One morning, shortly after the Sykes-Herring letter, unable to work, I left the barn and set off briskly down the road to Ceck. This was not a thing my doctor recommended, on account of my sclerotic coronary arteries, but it was something I used to do anyway, as nothing gave me more pleasure than a brisk walk in the country round Crook. Sadly, I had no dog with me—my old setter Wallace had died during the summer, and I hadn’t had the heart yet to replace him. Well, the sky was blue, with squadrons of big, thick white clouds blustering across it, and the air was rank with the good strong smell of manure, and of fallen leaves just beginning to rot. The fresh-turned soil in the fields beside the road contributed its own rich odors to the day, and there were still, I noticed, a number of birds about, swallows and martins for the most part, and of course the crows that stay with us year round; a group of them were assembled on the roof of the Hodge and Purlet, and as I approached the pub they set up a raucous chorus of derisive caws.
    The Hodge and Purlet is an old establishment, almost as old as Crook itself, and it shows its age. The ceilings are low, the floors uneven, and the framing timbers that stand out so blackly against the white-plastered walls are riddled with deathwatch beetle. But while Crook is built on high ground, the Hodge and Purlet stands not far from the marsh, and the dampness of the earth beneath has for centuries been seeping up through the cracks in the flagged stone floors such that the building has a faintly greenish tinge to it today, caused by tiny fungoid colonies that, despite being constantly scrubbed off, always come creeping back. As for the name, hodge derives from an Old Dutch word for mutton stew, and purlet refers to a chain of twisted loops such as might once have been embroidered on the edge of a piece of lace, or inlaid in the border of a violin. Accordingly, upon the weathered sign that hung over the door of the inn was painted a steaming stewpot within a faded circle of interlinked, oval-shaped loops. This wordless sign was gently creaking on its rusty chains as I passed beneath it and entered the public bar, seeking the solace of men with strong, uncomplicated natures. Shortly before noon George appeared, accompanied by old John Crowthorne, who helped him with the pigs.
    George was a big man, and he had to bend his head to get through the door. Then, straightening up, he cast his eye over the room and, finding it occupied only by myself, he suddenly opened wide his jaws and displayed a set of