"Aldous Huxley - Crome Yellow" - читать интересную книгу автора (Huxley Aldous)

they seemed the dinted imprints of some huge divine body that had
rested on these hills. Cumbrous locutions, these; but through
them he seemed to be getting nearer to what he wanted. Dinted,
dimpled, wimpled--his mind wandered down echoing corridors of
assonance and alliteration ever further and further from the
point. He was enamoured with the beauty of words.

Becoming once more aware of the outer world, he found himself on
the crest of a descent. The road plunged down, steep and
straight, into a considerable valley. There, on the opposite
slope, a little higher up the valley, stood Crome, his
destination. He put on his brakes; this view of Crome was
pleasant to linger over. The facade with its three projecting
towers rose precipitously from among the dark trees of the
garden. The house basked in full sunlight; the old brick rosily
glowed. How ripe and rich it was, how superbly mellow! And at
the same time, how austere! The hill was becoming steeper and
steeper; he was gaining speed in spite of his brakes. He loosed
his grip of the levers, and in a moment was rushing headlong
down. Five minutes later he was passing through the gate of the
great courtyard. The front door stood hospitably open. He left
his bicycle leaning against the wall and walked in. He would
take them by surprise.


CHAPTER II.

He took nobody by surprise; there was nobody to take. All was
quiet; Denis wandered from room to empty room, looking with
pleasure at the familiar pictures and furniture, at all the
little untidy signs of life that lay scattered here and there.
He was rather glad that they were all out; it was amusing to
wander through the house as though one were exploring a dead,
deserted Pompeii. What sort of life would the excavator
reconstruct from these remains; how would he people these empty
chambers? There was the long gallery, with its rows of
respectable and (though, of course, one couldn't publicly admit
it) rather boring Italian primitives, its Chinese sculptures, its
unobtrusive, dateless furniture. There was the panelled drawing-
room, where the huge chintz-covered arm-chairs stood, oases of
comfort among the austere flesh-mortifying antiques. There was
the morning-room, with its pale lemon walls, its painted Venetian
chairs and rococo tables, its mirrors, its modern pictures.
There was the library, cool, spacious, and dark, book-lined from
floor to ceiling, rich in portentous folios. There was the
dining-room, solidly, portwinily English, with its great mahogany
table, its eighteenth-century chairs and sideboard, its
eighteenth-century pictures--family portraits, meticulous animal
paintings. What could one reconstruct from such data? There was
much of Henry Wimbush in the long gallery and the library,