“You are not an Italian person of quality, you see,” she said. “You are a beef-eating Britisher, and retain a barbaric fondness for the greenwood tree. You are like Peter Bell, who never felt the witchery of the soft blue sky. You have never felt the witchery of brick and mortar.”
Pontycroft, puffing his cigarette, regarded her through the smoke with a feint of thoughtful curiosity.
“The worst thing about the young people of your generation,” he remarked, assuming the tone of one criticising from an altitude, “is that you have no conversation. Talk, among you, consists exclusively of personalities—gossip or chaff. Now, I was on the point of drawing a really rather neat little philosophical analogy; and you, instead of playing flint to steel, instead of encouraging me with a show of intelligent interest, check my inspiration with idle, personal chaff. Still, hatless young girls in greenery-whitery frocks, if they have plenty of reddish hair, add a very effective note to the foreground of a garden; and I suppose one should be content with them as they are.”
Ruth ostentatiously “composed a face,” bending her head at the angle of intentness, lifting her eyebrows, making her eyes big and rapt.
“There,” she said, taking a deep breath, “I hope that is a show of intelligent interest. Let me hear your really rather neat little philosophical analogy.”
“No,” said Pontycroft, with a melancholy shake of the head, “that is only a show of the irreverence of youth for age. What is the fun of my being a hundred years your elder, if you are not to treat me with proportionate respect? And as for my analogy (which, perhaps, on second thoughts, is not so neat as I fancied), if I give it utterance, I shall do so simply for the sake of clarifying it to myself. It has reference to the everlasting problem of evil. Human life is like a city; and a city seen from a distance”—he waved his cigarette towards Florence—“is like human life taken as a whole. Taken piecemeal, bit by bit, as it passes, life dismays us, and terribly tries our faith, by the Evil it presents: the pain, disease, foul play, inequalities, injustices, what you will: just as a city, when we are in its streets, revolts us with its dirt, decay, squalor, stagnant air, noise, confusion, and its sordid population. But just as the city seen from a distance, just as Florence seen from here, loses all its piecemeal ugliness, and melts into a beautiful and harmonious unity, so human life viewed as a whole.... Well, you have my analogy—which, perhaps, after all, is really rather banal. Ah me, I wish I could marry you off. Why do you so systematically refuse all the brilliant offers that I so tirelessly contrive for you?”
But Ruth seemed not to have heard his question, though he underlined it by looking up at her with a frown of grave anxiety.
“Unfortunately for us human beings,” she said, “no one has yet invented a process by which we can live our life as a whole. It's all very well to talk of viewing it, but we have to live it; and we have to live it piecemeal, bit by bit.”
“Well,” demanded Pontycroft, cheerfully inconsequent, “what can we ask better? Given health, wealth, and a little wisdom, it's extremely pleasant to live our life piecemeal. It's extremely pleasant to take it bit by bit, when the bits are sweet. And what, for instance, could be a sweeter bit than this?” His lean brown hand described a comprehensive circle. “A bright, crisp, cool, warm September morning; a big beautiful garden, full of fragrant airs; Italian sunshine, and the shade of ilexes; oleanders in blossom; cool turf to lie on, and a fountain tinkling cool music near at hand; then, beyond there, certainly the loveliest prospect in the world to feed our eyes—Val d'Arno, with its olive-covered hills, its cypresses, its white-walled villas, and Florence shining like a cut gem in the midst. Add good tobacco to smoke, and a simple child in white-green muslin, with plenty of reddish hair, to try one's analogies upon. What could man wish better? Why don't you get married? Why do you so perversely reject all the eligible suitors that I trot out for your inspection?”
Ruth's eyes laughed at him again. It was a laugh of frank amusement, but I think there was something dangerous in it too, a quick flash of mockery, even of menace and defiance.