For a time we smoked in silence....
“Did I tell you, Ponderevo, of a wonderful discovery I’ve made?” Ewart
began presently.
“No,” I said, “what is it?”
“There’s no Mrs. Grundy.”
“No?”
“No! Practically not. I’ve just thought all that business out. She’s
merely an instrument, Ponderevo. She’s borne the blame. Grundy’s a man.
Grundy unmasked. Rather lean and out of sorts. Early middle age. With
bunchy black whiskers and a worried eye. Been good so far, and it’s
fretting him! Moods! There’s Grundy in a state of sexual panic, for
example,—‘For God’s sake cover it up! They get together—they get
together! It’s too exciting! The most dreadful things are happening!’
Rushing about—long arms going like a windmill. ‘They must be kept
apart!’ Starts out for an absolute obliteration of everything absolute
separations. One side of the road for men, and the other for women, and
a hoarding—without posters between them. Every boy and girl to be sewed
up in a sack and sealed, just the head and hands and feet out until
twenty-one. Music abolished, calico garments for the lower animals!
Sparrows to be suppressed—ab-so-lutely.”