The Pilgrim's Regress Read Online Free PDF Page B

about?’ whispered John.
    â€˜They are not angry,’ said Gus; ‘they are talking about Art.’
    Then he brought John into the middle of the room and said:
    â€˜Say! Here’s a guy who has been taken in by my father and wants some real hundred per cent music to clean him out. We had better begin with something neo-romantic to make the transition.’
    Then all the Clevers consulted together and presently they all agreed that Victoriana had better sing first. When Victoriana rose John at first thought that she was a schoolgirl: but after he had looked at her again he perceived that she was in fact about fifty. Before she began to sing she put on a dress which was a sort of exaggerated copy of Mr. Halfways’ robes, and a mask which was like the Steward’s mask except that the nose had been painted bright red and one of the eyes had been closed in a permanent wink.
    â€˜Priceless!’ exclaimed one half of the Clevers, ‘too Puritanian.’
    But the other half, which included all the bearded men, held their noses in the air and looked very stiff. Then Victoriana took a little toy harp and began. The noises of the toy harp were so strange that John could not think of them as music at all. Then, when she sang, he had a picture in his mind which was a little like the Island, but he saw at once that it was not the Island. And presently he saw people who looked rather like his father, and the Steward and old Mr. Halfways, dressed up as clowns and doing a stiff sort of dance. Then there was a columbine, and some sort of love-story. But suddenly the whole Island turned into an aspidistra in a pot and the song was over.
    â€˜Priceless,’ said the Clevers.
    â€˜I hope you liked it,’ said Gus to John.
    â€˜Well,’ began John doubtfully, for he hardly knew what to say: but he got not further, for at that moment he had a very great surprise. Victoriana had thrown her mask away and walked up to him and slapped him in the face twice, as hard as she could.
    â€˜That’s right,’ said the Clevers, ‘Victoriana has courage. We may not all agree with you, Vikky dear, but we admire your courage.’
    â€˜You may persecute me as much as you like,’ said Victoriana to John. ‘No doubt to see me thus with my back to the wall, wakes the hunting lust in you. You will always follow the cry of the majority. But I will fight to the end. So there,’ and she began to cry.
    â€˜I am extremely sorry,’ said John. ‘But—’
    â€˜And I know it was a good song,’ sobbed Victoriana, ‘because all great singers are persecuted in their lifetime—and I’m per-persecuted—and therefore I must be a great singer.’
    â€˜She has you there,’ said the Clevers, as Victoriana left the laboratory.
    â€˜You mustn’t mind her being a little bitter,’ said Gus. ‘She is so temperamental and sensitive, and she has suffered a great deal.’
    â€˜Well, I must admit,’ said one of the Clevers, ‘now that she had gone, that I think that stuff of hers rather vieux jeu. ’
    â€˜Can’t stand it myself,’ said another.
    â€˜I think it was her face that needed slapping,’ said a third.
    â€˜She’s been spoiled and flattered all her life,’ said a fourth. ‘That’s what’s the matter with her.’
    â€˜Quite,’ said the rest in chorus.

II
    A South Wind
    â€˜P ERHAPS,’ SAID GUS, ‘someone else would give us a song.’
    â€˜I will,’ cried thirty voices all together: but one cried much louder than the others and its owner had stepped into the middle of the room before anyone could do anything about it. He was one of the bearded men and wore nothing but a red shirt and a cod-piece made of the skins of crocodiles: and suddenly he began to beat on an African tom-tom and to croon with his voice, swaying his lean, half-clad body to and fro and staring at them