Page:Tono-Bungay.djvu/220

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212
TONO-BUNGAY

middle age. With bunchy black whiskers and a worried eye. Been good so far, and it's fretting him! Moods! . . . There's Grundy in a state of sexual panic, for example,—'For God's sake cover it up! They get together—they get together! It's too exciting! The most dreadful things are happening!' Rushing about—long arms going like a windmill. 'They must be kept apart!' Starts out for an absolute obliteration of everything—absolute separations. One side of the road for men, and the other for women, and a hoarding—without posters—between them. Every boy and girl to be sewn up in a sack and sealed, just the head and hands and feet out until twenty-one. Music abolished, calico garments for the lower animals! Sparrows to be suppressed—ab-so-lutely."

I laughed abruptly.

"Well, that's Mr. Grundy in one mood—and it puts Mrs. Grundy—— She's a much maligned person, Ponderevo—a rake at heart—and it puts her in a most painful state of fluster—most painful! She's an amenable creature. When Grundy tells her things are shocking, she's shocked—pink and breathless. She goes about trying to conceal her profound sense of guilt behind a haughty expression. . . .

"Grundy meanwhile is in a state of complete whirl-about. Long lean knuckly hands pointing and gesticulating! 'They're still thinking of things—thinking of things! It's dreadful! They get it out of books. I can't imagine where they get it! I must watch! There're people over there whispering! Nobody ought to whisper! There's something suggestive in the mere act! Then, pictures! In the museums—things too dreadful for words. Why can't we have pure art—with the anatomy all wrong and pure and nice—and