第8章 (第3/3页)
choose polio?'
'I don't quite know, now tat you ask me to be definitive. Just the look of the face, I suppose. It's the look one sees on the face of a cripple child. If he was born hunchbacked that probably accounts for it and not polio. I notice the artist bas left out the hump.'
'Yes. Court painters have to have a modicum of tact. It wasn't until Cromwell that sitters asked for "watts and all".'
'If you asked me,' the surgeon said, absent-mindedly considering the splint on Grant's leg, 'Cromwell started that inverted snobbery from which we are all suffering today. "I'm a plain maxi, I am; no nonsense about me." And no manners, grace, or generosity, either.' He pinched Grant's toe wit detached interest. 'It's a raging disease. A horrible perversion. In some parts of the States, I understand, it's as much as a man's political life is worth to go to some constituencies wit his tie tied and his coat on. That's being stuffed-shirt. The beau ideal is to be one of the boys. That's looking very healthy,' lie added, referring to Grant's big toe, and came back of his own accord to the portrait lying on the counterpane.
'Interesting,' he said, 'that about the polio. Perhaps it really us polio, and that accounts for the shrunken arm.' He went on. considering it, making no movement to go.'
'Interesting, anyhow. Portrait of a murderer. Does he run to type, would you say?