The Sacred and Profane Love Machine Read Online Free PDF

bis mother’s audible munching was polluting the atmosphere. If only his mother would not stare at him and sigh like a lovesick girl. Of course he loved his parents dearly, only now everything about them grated on his nerves until he could scream. Their self-conscious air of a happy home life made him want to go and starve in a garret. If only he had gone to a boarding school, then home might have been a treat. He rose and mumbled good night and went out quickly and silently. Later in his own room he listened to the murmurous sound, so rarely heard by an outsider, of spouses communing privately with each other. How much it had soothed him when, as a small child, he had fallen asleep night after night, lulled to security by that noise as by the murmur of a friendly brook.
 
    ‘You did my Japanese bowl so beautifully.’
    ‘I’m glad David came.’
    ‘I wish he wouldn’t keep blinking like that.’
    ‘I wish he’d either cut his hair or wash it.’
    ‘He says he’s going to grow a beard as soon as he can.’
    ‘Oh God.’
    ‘What does the blinking mean?’
    ‘Adolescents are full of ticks.’
    ‘He ate no supper. Do you think he’s got anorexia nervosa!’
    ‘Dear girl, I do wish you wouldn’t read those Sunday supplement articles!’
    ‘Don’t worry him about Italian, leave it a while.’
    ‘I’m not going to let him give up Greek. He can do Italian in his spare time.’
    ‘By the way, the Andersons have asked us for tomorrow night.’
    ‘Tomorrow is Magnus Bowles night.’
    ‘Oh dear. Can’t you change Magnus for once?’
    ‘You know I can never change Magnus.’
    ‘I suppose he must be recovering after all these years. He doesn’t need you quite so often.’
    ‘It is hard to say,’ said Blaise, ‘what recovering would be in the case of a man like Magnus Bowles. He so much is his obsessions.’
    ‘If only he could paint again.’
    ‘He messes with paints.’
    ‘What was that horrible thing you said about paint?’
    ‘Paint equals shit.’
    ‘The unconscious is so coarse. Does he still go around his room on his knees touching things?’
    ‘He is surrounded by gods which he has to placate. Everything is holy. In another age he would have been revered as a saint.’
    ‘Poor crazy creature.’
    ‘Primitive man lived in a world of frightful small deities. Roman Catholics still do.’
    ‘I know you think all religion is just obsession!’
    ‘Dear girl, I don’t think anything so silly. Religion is very important. It’s just that it isn’t what it seems. Few things that are very important are.’
    ‘I’d love to meet Magnus one day. I feel sure I would help him to feel more normal.’
    ‘Women always think that about homosexuals.’
    ‘I don’t mean – I’d just tidy his room and talk to him about painting. He sometimes sends me his greetings after all. He must think about me a bit.’
    ‘Oh you quite exist for him. Perhaps you are the only woman who does. But your meeting him would simply destroy my ability to help him. So it’s impossible.’
    ‘A man it’s impossible to meet. How interesting. I just hate to think of him being all alone, seeing practically nobody but you, sleeping in the day and waking in the night, and terribly frightened of things that aren’t there.’
    ‘You’d be surprised, dearest girl, how many people have such fears, and most of them manage to lead quite ordinary lives.’
    ‘Well, he doesn’t. One is lucky not to be pursued by imaginary devils. He has quite a funny one, hasn’t he?’
    ‘A Bishop with a wooden leg who follows him like Hook’s crocodile.’
    ‘That’s rather nice. I can’t quite feel I’d be frightened. But those awful hallucinations about having killed his mother and the corpse sprouting up like a young girl. And telling you he’d cut his finger off and not being convinced he hadn’t even when you were showing him his own hand! He’s much madder than the others. I’m sure he should be having electric shocks or