"And if, Julius, you want this
ecstasy of reduction with the Pussum, you must go on till it is
fulfilled. But surely there is in you also, somewhere, the living
desire for positive creation, relationships in ultimate faith, when all
this process of active corruption, with all its flowers of mud, is
transcended, and more or less finished--" I do wonder what the flowers
of mud are. Pussum, you are a flower of mud.'
'Thank you--and what are you?'
'Oh, I'm another, surely, according to this letter! We're all flowers
of mud--FLEURS--HIC! DU MAL! It's perfectly wonderful, Birkin harrowing
Hell--harrowing the Pompadour--HIC!'
'Go on--go on,' said Maxim. 'What comes next? It's really very
interesting.'
'I think it's awful cheek to write like that,' said the Pussum.
'Yes--yes, so do I,' said the Russian. 'He is a megalomaniac, of
course, it is a form of religious mania. He thinks he is the Saviour of
man--go on reading.'
'Surely,' Halliday intoned, '"surely goodness and mercy hath followed
me all the days of my life--"' he broke off and giggled.
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