The Secret Places of the Heart

tio

eater distinctness and able to recall nothing but queer, ominous and minatory traits. The doctor's impression of the great fuel specialist grew ever darker, leaner, taller and more impatient. Sir Richmond took on the likeness of a monster obdurate and hostile, he spread upwards until like the Djinn out of the bottle, he darkened the heavens. And he talked too much. He talked ever so much too much. Sir Richmond also thought that the doctor talked too much. In

nce of the other. Dr. Martineau at once perceived that the fierceness of Sir Richmond was nothing more than the fierceness of an overwrought man, and Sir Richmo

r than Dr. Martineau that some dissension had arisen between the little, ladylike, cream and black Charmeuse car and its

y. Frozen in a sprightly attitude, its stiff bound and its fixed heavenward stare

of fawn tweeds, a fawn Homburg hat and a light Burberry, with just that effect of special preparation for a holiday which betrays the habitually busy man. Sir Richmond's brown gauntness was, he noted, greatly set off by his suit of grey. There had certainly been some sort of quarrel. Sir Rich

ommunication to the little car. And it was an extremely low and disagreeabl

accurate decisions without apparent thought. There was very little conversation until they were through Brentford. Near Shepherd's Bush, Sir Richmond had explained, "This is not my own particular car. That was butted into at the garage this morning and its radiator cracked. So

the topi

no consequence about its being

tween them. "I don't know how deep we are going into these psychological probings

ot," said D

't see that there is anything positively

the doctor. "You are wasting

l idiosyncrasy. This little car, for instance, isn't pulling as she ought to pull--she never does. She's low in her class. So with myself; there

e imperfection--"

ircumstances," said Sir Richmond,

se new methods of treatment are based on the idea of imperfec

our psychoanalyst starts, it seems to me, with a notion of stripping down to something fundamental. The ape before was a tangle of

it," said

d Sir Richmond,

particular you

eeble little engine!) I am a creature of undecided will, urged on by my tangled h

e of incompatible things you are urged

ltimately disastrous struggle began between Sir Richmond and

sengaged great volumes of bluish smoke, and displayed an unaccountable indisposition to run on any gear but the lowest. Sir Richmond thought aloud, unpleasing thoughts. He addressed the little car as a person; he referred to ancient disputes and temperamental incompatibilities. His anger betrayed him a coarse, ill-bred m

ir Richmond sat li

at last in a profound and awf

, after a grim search and the displacement and replacement of the luggage, p

ome UP!" he said, and the small e

remulous but obdurate car, but rather as if he looked for offences and accusations than for displacements to adjust. Quivering and refusing, the little car was extraordinarily like some recalcitrant little old aristocratic lady in the hands of revolutionaries, and this made the behaviour of Sir Richmond seem even more outrageous than it would otherwise have done. He stopped the engine, he went down on his hands and knees in the road to peer up at the gear-box, then without restoring the spark, he tried to wind up the engine again. He spun the little handle with an insane violence, faster and faster f

er this cataclysmal lunatic had revert

his back on the car. He remarked in a voice of melanch

s rested on his hips and his hat was a little on one side. He was inclined to agree wit

id

That car must be som

at it as if he expected it to display some surprising and yet familiar f

No. And at times they are even costly. But they certainly lift a burthen from the n

ichmond. "No. There's lots of

"Somewhere I have the R.A.C. order paper, the Badge that will Get You H

and Sir Richmond too

g fire. Then for the first time Dr.

said Sir Richmond.

ork. "The little car loo

ain. "I suppose I

tuation. "As between doctor

begins.... I'm really very sorry." He reverted to his original train of thought which had not c

tio

er of a defensive silence or of a still more defensive irony; but now that Sir Richmond had once given himself away, he seeme

head garage. "You were talking of the ghosts of apes and monkeys

we first met a

f mine seems to have be

"Gorillaesque. We are not

ng a fit o

e vegetable world, and even among the animals--? No, it is not universal." He ran his mind over classes and orders. "

sluggish things. Oysters sulk, which is after all a smouldering sort of rage. And take any more active invertebrate. Take a spider. Not a smas

among the vertebrata; who has

fight?" questio

au admitted

ily. There were whole days of wrath--days, as I remember them. Perhaps they were only hours.... I've never thought before what a peculiar thing all this raging is in the world. WHY do we rage? They used to say it was the

e, "so far as man is concerned, is understood to be the

ng out. Brooking no contradiction." He came round suddenly to the doctor'

Dr. Martineau. "N

ent again. "I suppose you have

oner would do. There's a lot of rage abou

e been seeing one. A spit of red wrath, clenching its fist

and glanced quickly and questio

orce," said Sir

" he asked the doctor. "Essentially--Rage

footnoted the

id Sir Richmond.

without di

fterwards. Th

ainst what?

S the little beast squalling itself crimson for? Ultimately? ..

ress what sent this?" a

line with the psychoanalysts. They talk of LIBIDO, meaning a sort of fundamental d

t desire. Desire would have a definite direction, and t

as the voice of a mechanic in an Overland car. He was holding up the

ers returned to p

tio

h Sir Richmond and Dr. Martineau, the brass Mercury lay unheeded in

brass he knew that he had made the find of his life. But his nurse was a timor

nowadays, not by no man

man came along arsting people

me by it and look pr

autiful thing he had ever possessed. He was the darling of fond and indulgent parents and his nursery was crowded with hideous rag and sawdust dolls, golliwogs, comic penguins, comic lio

was recognized. But he carried his point at last. The Mercury became his inseparable darling, his symbol, his private god, the one dignif