I couldn’t have done, because then I did not really know why.
Forget, my dear Desmond, all about the supernatural! There had been nothing inexplicable, except for the momentary possession of Mukhtar when he chased Pierre to the wrong side of the altar. And I think your vet could give you a dozen reasons for that. As for the fact that the ants were more effective avengers, it’s nothing but tragic coincidence. The hospital said that the resistant staphylococci which my body was still tolerating could be transferred by an insect bite, though the odds against any of the same four individual ants biting Pierre seemed enormous.
There was no other connection between our moonlight expedition and his death. Those primitive old monks in the next valley might have insisted there was; but my own conscience sees nothing reprehensible in a sincere act of worship directed at Artemis, Astarte, whatever her name and address. As a jealous virgin goddess, kindly only to animals, she seems a fair choice for farmers. As the Moon, we all worship her in our way.
No, there’s nothing supernatural. Even the motive, assuming there was one, is simple and very human. It was no way to treat a woman: to offer, to excite and then to say ‘I cannot’. One sees a parallel to what Pierre had done. With a bull I thee worship. That was in the hymn. For better or for worse, and so on. And then he deserts her on the altar steps. Literally the altar steps.
I don’t think I believe in disembodied spirits: but I confess I wondered uneasily whether I, as best man, could be involved, and comforted myself with the thought that anyway her character was bold and decisive. Pique, yes. Fury, certainly. But not against me and not against Antiochus. He was already and for always sacred to her—if that was what Pierre meant. I felt that there might even be some contemptuous hand-out. ‘It’s not your fault, you poor bastards’ she might say to us over her silver shoulder, and throw us the bridal bouquet, as it were, to remember her by.
I took Antiochus home with me by ship. There was no one else worth talking to, or else I did not feel like talking. So we got to know each other. Four years later, his cow calves began to go straight into the 2,000 gallon class. His bulls don’t carry the hand-out until it has been passed through the female line. Then the second generation is most promising. All I can do in return is to keep the ministry boys and their test tubes off the premises. Antiochus and I both prefer the personal touch.
It would be good business to sell him. I do not need so valuable a beast. I detest all the correspondence he costs me, and I could do with the capital he represents. But it’s unthinkable. For example, it would obviously pay you to dredge out that attractive, hidden spring of yours and stop the seepage which bogs the lower meadow. Why don’t you brick it in? And why is there sometimes a little crock of milk among the ferns?
All rights reserved, including without limitation the right to reproduce this ebook or any portion thereof in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher.
These are works of fiction. Names, characters, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 1979, 2014 by Geoffrey Household
Cover design by Drew Padrutt
978-1-5040-1045-0
This edition published in 2015 by Open Road Integrated Media, Inc.
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The Europe That Was Page 24
