Under the Volcano

by Malcolm Lowry

M. Laruelle poured himself another anís. He was drinking anís because it reminded him of absinthe. A deep flush had suffused his face, and his hand trembled slightly over the bottle, from whose label a florid demon brandished a pitchfork at him.

Well, after I lookèd the Consul in his garden I sended a boy down to see if he would come for a few minutes and knock my door, I would appreciate it to him, if not, please write me a note, if drinking have not killèd him already.’

Ah well! He had few emotions about the war, save that it was bad. One side or the other would win. And in either case life would be hard. Though if the Allies lost it would be harder. And in either case one’s own battle would go on.

leaning over just like this, drunk but collected, coherent, a little mad, a little impatient – it was one of those occasions when the Consul had drunk himself sober –

this maniacal vision of senseless frenzy, but controlled, not quite uncontrolled, somehow almost admirable, this too, obscurely, was the Consul

But by this time the poor Consul had already lost almost all capacity for telling the truth and his life had become a quixotic oral fiction.

But alas for the Knight of Sorry Aspect!

An old woman with a face of a highly intellectual black gnome the Consul always thought (mistress to some gnarled guardian of the mine beneath the garden once, perhaps),

‘but are you the man to weaken and have a drink at this critical hour Geoffrey Firmin you are not you will fight it have already fought down this temptation have you not you have not then I must remind you did you not last night refuse drink after drink and finally after a nice little sleep even sober up altogether you didn’t you did you didn’t you did we know afterwards you did you were only drinking enough to correct your tremor a masterly self-control she does not and cannot appreciate!’

I have resisted temptation for two and a half minutes at least: my redemption is sure.

Far less could I have dreamed you would attempt morally to justify yourself on the grounds that I was absorbed in a debauch: there are certain reasons too, to be revealed only at the day of reckoning, why you should not have stood in judgement upon me.

was not the person to be seen reeling about in the street. True he might lie down in the street, if need be, like a gentleman, but he would not reel.

‘I was just being more than unusually bloody stupid.’

The Consul, an inconceivable anguish of horripilating hangover thunderclapping about his skull, and accompanied by a protective screen of demons gnattering in his ears, became aware that in the horrid event of his being observed by his neighbours it could hardly be supposed he was just sauntering down his garden with some innocent horticultural object in view.

He paused, peeping, tequila-unafraid, over the bank.

I have seen all this going on; I know all about it because I am God, and even when God was much older than you are he was nevertheless up at this time and fighting it, if necessary, while you don’t even know whether you’re up or not yet, and even if you have been out all night you are certainly not fighting it, as I would be, just as I would be ready to fight anything or anybody else too, for that matter, at the drop of a hat! ‘And I’m afraid it really is a jungle too,’ pursued the Consul, ‘in fact I expect Rousseau to come riding out of it at any moment on a tiger.’

frowning in a manner that might have meant: And God never drinks before breakfast either.

Might I ask you if the next time you inspect your jungle you’d mind being sick on your own side of the fence?’ ‘Hicket,’ answered the Consul simply. ‘Hicket,’

– Hullo-hullo-look-who-comes-hullo-my-little-snake-in-the-grass-my-little-anguish-in-herba –’ the Consul at this moment greeted Mr Quincey’s cat, momentarily forgetting its owner again as the grey, meditative animal, with a tail so long it trailed on the ground, came stalking through the zinnias: he stooped, patting his thighs – ‘hello-pussy-my-little-Priapusspuss, my-little-Oedipusspusspuss,’ and the cat, recognizing a friend and uttering a cry of pleasure, wound through the fence and rubbed against the Consul’s legs, purring. ‘My little Xicotancatl.’ The Consul stood up. He gave two short whistles while below him the cat’s ears twirled.

But if he had expected to leave British snobbery astern with his public school he was sadly mistaken. In fact, the degree of snobbery prevailing on the Philoctetes was fantastic, of a kind Hugh had never imagined possible.

The chief cook regarded the tireless second cook as a creature of completely inferior station.