第42章

His income,as she pointed out to him,was secure,from his father's trust,even though it was not large.The pits did not really concern him.It was the other world he wanted to capture,the world of literature and fame;the popular world,not the working world.

Now he realized the distinction between popular success and working success:the populace of pleasure and the populace of work.He,as a private individual,had been catering with his stories for the populace of pleasure.

And he had caught on.But beneath the populace of pleasure lay the populace of work,grim,grimy,and rather terrible.They too had to have their providers.

And it was a much grimmer business,providing for the populace of work,than for the populace of pleasure.While he was doing his stories,and 'getting on'in the world,Tevershall was going to the wall.

He realized now that the bitch-goddess of Success had two main appetites:one for flattery,adulation,stroking and tickling such as writers and artists gave her;but the other a grimmer appetite for meat and bones.

And the meat and bones for the bitch-goddess were provided by the men who made money in industry.

Yes,there were two great groups of dogs wrangling for the bitch-goddess:

the group of the flatterers,those who offered her amusement,stories,films,plays:and the other,much less showy,much more savage breed,those who gave her meat,the real substance of money.The well-groomed showy dogs of amusement wrangled and snarled among themselves for the favours of the bitch-goddess.But it was nothing to the silent fight-to-the-death that went on among the indispensables,the bone-bringers.

But under Mrs Bolton's influence,Clifford was tempted to enter this other fight,to capture the bitch-goddess by brute means of industrial production.Somehow,he got his pecker up.

In one way,Mrs Bolton made a man of him,as Connie never did.Connie kept him apart,and made him sensitive and conscious of himself and his own states.Mrs Bolton made hint aware only of outside things.Inwardly he began to go soft as pulp.But outwardly he began to be effective.

He even roused himself to go to the mines once more:and when he was there,he went down in a tub,and in a tub he was hauled out into the workings.

Things he had learned before the war,and seemed utterly to have forgotten,now came back to him.He sat there,crippled,in a tub,with the underground manager showing him the seam with a powerful torch.And he said little.

But his mind began to work.