. And I did know. It
was the bond between us. We had become aware of it unconsciously. It had
nothing to do with our age or our sex or our position in life. It was
the common ground of our intense anger with the other people on the
ship. Do you know, I have often thought that Circe has been misjudged.
Men become swinish before women who are unconscious of their unlovely
transformation. Circe should be painted with her eyes fixed in severe
meditation, oblivious of the grunting, squeaking beasts around her.
Artemisia was like that. She really cared nothing for the ridiculous
performances of the various animals on the ship. Nothing for the
magniloquent Mr. Basil Bloom, clearing his throat behind his dirty hand;
nothing for the Second Mate, with his perpetual expression of knowing
something about her and being mightily amused by it. Nothing even for
poor young Siddons, badly hit, moping out of sight, heaving prodigious
sighs and getting wiggings for being absent-minded. As for the Second
and Third, my particular henchmen, she didn't know they existed.
Honourable! Why of course, they were all honourable in their intentions.
Didn't Mr. Bloom express his willingness to throw over the young lady at
Greenwich, although he owed her father fifty pounds? Didn't the Second
Engineer drop a note down her ventilator saying he had a hundred in the
Savings Bank and she had only to say the word? (And didn't Mrs. Evans
pick it up and take it, speechless with annoyance, to Jack, who roared
with laughter?) Honourable? Of course they all wanted to marry her.
Swine are domestic animals."

The Surgeon, who had caused this digression, made a vague murmur of
protest. Mr. Spenlove drummed on the chair between his legs and shrugged
his shoulders, but he didn't turn round.

"I didn't offer to tell you a love-story. Captain Macedoine's daughter,
if she means anything, means just this: that love means nothing. She
passed through all the dirty little gum-shoe emotions which she inspired
on the _Manola_ like a moonbeam through a foul alley. For it is foul,
this eternal preoccupation with sex, like a lot of flies over a
stagnant, fecundating pool. Beauty! You all talk largely of appreciating
beauty, and you don't know, the most educated and cultured of you, the
first thing about it. Your idea of beauty is a healthy young female
without too many clothes. I tell you, I have seen ships so perfect and
just in modelling that I have marvelled at the handiwork