Chapter 28 - Page 2

together into the darkness.
The music grew fainter behind them. Some of the higher notes
faded out altogether. Jenny's drumming and the steady sawing of
the bass throbbed on, tuneless and meaningless in their ears.
Henry Wimbush halted.

"Here we are," he said, and, taking an electric torch out of his
pocket, he cast a dim beam over two or three blackened sections
of tree trunk, scooped out into the semblance of pipes, which
were lying forlornly in a little depression in the ground.

"Very interesting," said Denis, with a rather tepid enthusiasm.

They sat down on the grass. A faint white glare, rising from
behind a belt of trees, indicated the position of the dancing-
floor. The music was nothing but a muffled rhythmic pulse.

"I shall be glad," said Henry Wimbush, "when this function comes
at last to an end."

"I can believe it."

"I do not know how it is," Mr. Wimbush continued, "but the
spectacle of numbers of my fellow-creatures in a state of
agitation moves in me a certain weariness, rather than any gaiety
or excitement. The fact is, they don't very much interest me.
They're aren't in my line. You follow me? I could never take
much interest, for example, in a collection of postage stamps.
Primitives or seventeenth-century books--yes. They are my line.
But stamps, no. I don't know anything about them; they're not my
line. They don't interest me, they give me no emotion. It's
rather the same with people, I'm afraid. I'm more at home with
these pipes." He jerked his head sideways towards the hollowed
logs. "The trouble with the people and events of the present is
that you never know anything about them. What do I know of
contemporary politics? Nothing. What do I know of the people I
see round about me? Nothing. What they think of me or of
anything else in the world, what they will do in five minutes'
time, are things I can't guess at. For all I know, you may
suddenly jump up and try to murder me in a moment's time."

"Come, come," said Denis.

"True," Mr. Wimbush continued, "the little I know about your past
is certainly reassuring. But I know nothing of your present, and
neither you nor I know anything of your future. It's appalling;
in living people, one is dealing with unknown and unknowable
quantities. One can only hope to find out anything about them by
a long series of the most disagreeable and boring human contacts,
involving a terrible expense of time. It's the same with current
events; how can I find out anything about them except by devoting
years to the most exhausting first-hand study, involving once
more an endless number of the most unpleasant contacts? No, give
me the past. It doesn't change; it's all there in black and
white,