the
turned-in feet--these things were terrible. And, more terrible still,
was the likeness, was the magisterial certainty with which his physical
peculiarities were all recorded and subtly exaggerated.

Denis looked deeper into the book. There were caricatures of other
people: of Priscilla and Mr. Barbecue-Smith; of Henry Wimbush, of Anne
and Gombauld; of Mr. Scogan, whom Jenny had represented in a light that
was more than slightly sinister, that was, indeed, diabolic; of Mary and
Ivor. He scarcely glanced at them. A fearful desire to know the worst
about himself possessed him. He turned over the leaves, lingering at
nothing that was not his own image. Seven full pages were devoted to
him.

"Private. Not to be opened." He had disobeyed the injunction; he had
only got what he deserved. Thoughtfully he closed the book, and slid the
rubber band once more into its place. Sadder and wiser, he went out on
to the terrace. And so this, he reflected, this was how Jenny employed
the leisure hours in her ivory tower apart. And he had thought her a
simple-minded, uncritical creature! It was he, it seemed, who was the
fool. He felt no resentment towards Jenny. No, the distressing thing
wasn't Jenny herself; it was what she and the phenomenon of her red
book represented, what they stood for and concretely symbolised. They
represented all the vast conscious world of men outside himself; they
symbolised something that in his studious solitariness he was apt not to
believe in. He could stand at Piccadilly Circus, could watch the
crowds shuffle past, and still imagine himself the one fully conscious,
intelligent, individual being among all those thousands. It seemed,
somehow, impossible that other people should be in their way as
elaborate and complete as he in his. Impossible; and yet, periodically
he would make some painful discovery about the external world and the
horrible reality of its consciousness and its intelligence. The red
notebook was one of these discoveries, a footprint in the sand. It put
beyond a doubt the fact that the outer world really existed.

Sitting on the balustrade of the terrace, he ruminated this unpleasant
truth for some time. Still chewing on it, he strolled pensively down
towards the swimming-pool. A peacock and his hen trailed their shabby
finery across the turf of the lower lawn. Odious birds! Their necks,
thick and greedily fleshy at the roots, tapered up to the cruel inanity
of their brainless heads