The Complete Short Stories of Saki Page 5
The hen that laid three moons ago, who knows
In what Dead Yesterday her shades repose;
To some election turn thy waning span
And rain thy rottenness on fiscal foes.
I thought there was enough suggestion of decay in that to satisfy a jackal, and to me there was something infinitely pathetic and appealing in the idea of the egg having a sort of St Luke’s summer of commercial usefulness. But the Duchess begged me to leave out any political allusions; she’s the president of a Women’s Something or other, and she said it might be taken as an endorsement of deplorable methods. I never can remember which Party Irene discourages with her support, but I shan’t forget an occasion when I was staying at her place and she gave me a pamphlet to leave at the house of a doubtful voter, and some grapes and things for a woman who was suffering from a chill on the top of a patent medicine. I thought it much cleverer to give the grapes to the former and the political literature to the sick woman, and the Duchess was quite absurdly annoyed about it afterwards. It seems the leaflet was addressed ‘To those about to wobble’ – I wasn’t responsible for the silly title of the thing – and the woman never recovered; anyway, the voter was completely won over by the grapes and jellies, and I think that should have balanced matters. The Duchess called it bribery, and said it might have compromised the candidate she was supporting; he was expected to subscribe to church funds and chapel funds, and football and cricket clubs and regattas, and bazaars and beanfeasts and bell-ringers, and poultry shows and ploughing matches, and reading-rooms and choir outings, and shooting trophies and testimonials, and anything of that sort; but bribery would not have been tolerated.
I fancy I have perhaps more talent for electioneering than for poetry, and I was really getting extended over this quatrain business. The egg began to be unmanageable, and the Duchess suggested something with a French literary ring about it. I hunted back in my mind for the most familiar French classic that I could take liberties with, and after a little exercise of memory I turned out the following:
Hast thou the pen that once the gardener had?
I have it not; and know, these pears are bad.
Oh, larger than the horses of the Prince
Are those the general drives in Kaikobad.
Even that didn’t altogether satisfy Irene; I fancy the geography of it puzzled her. She probably thought Kaikobad was an unfashionable German spa, where you’d meet matrimonial bargain-hunters and emergency Servian kings. My temper was beginning to slip its moorings by that time. I look rather nice when I lose my temper. (I hoped you would say I lose it very often. I mustn’t monopolise the conversation.)
‘Of course, if you want something really Persian and passionate, with red wine and bulbuls in it,’ I went on to suggest; but she grabbed the book from me.
‘Not for worlds. Nothing with red wine or passion in it. Dear Agatha gave me the album, and she would be mortified to the quick –’
I said I didn’t believe Agatha had a quick, and we got quite heated in arguing the matter. Finally, the Duchess declared I shouldn’t write anything nasty in her book, and I said I shouldn’t write anything in her nasty book, so there wasn’t a very wide point of difference between us. For the rest of the afternoon I pretended to be sulking, but I was really working back to that quatrain, like a fox-terrier that’s buried a deferred lunch in a private flower-bed. When I got an opportunity I hunted up Agatha’s autograph, which had the front page all to itself, and, copying her prim handwriting as well as I could, I inserted above it the following Thibetan fragment:
With Thee, oh, my Beloved, to do a dâk
(a dâk I believe is a sort of uncomfortable post-journey)
On the pack-saddle of a grunting yak,
With never room for chilling chaperon,
’Twere better than a Panhard in the Park.
That Agatha would get on to a yak in company with a lover even in the comparative seclusion of Thibet is unthinkable. I very much doubt if she’d do it with her own husband in the privacy of the Simplon tunnel. But poetry, as I’ve remarked before, should always stimulate the imagination.
By the way, when you asked me the other day to dine with you on the 14th, I said I was dining with the Duchess. Well, I’m not. I’m dining with you.
The Innocence of Reginald
Reginald slid a carnation of the newest shade into the buttonhole of his latest lounge coat, and surveyed the result with approval. ‘I am just in the mood,’ he observed, ‘to have my portrait painted by some one with an unmistakable future. So comforting to go down to posterity as “Youth with a Pink Carnation” in catalogue-company with “Child with Bunch of Primroses”, and all that crowd.’
‘Youth,’ said the Other, ‘should suggest innocence.’
‘But never act on the suggestion. I don’t believe the two ever really go together. People talk vaguely about the innocence of a little child, but they take mighty good care not to let it out of their sight for twenty minutes. The watched pot never boils over. I knew a boy once who really was innocent; his parents were in Society, but they never gave him a moment’s anxiety from his infancy. He believed in company prospectuses, and in the purity of elections, and in women marrying for love, and even in a system for winning at roulette. He never quite lost his faith in it, but he dropped more money than his employers could afford to lose. When last I heard of him, he was believing in his innocence; the jury weren’t. All the same, I really am innocent just now of something every one accuses me of having done, and so far as I can see, their accusations will remain unfounded.’
‘Rather an unexpected attitude for you.’
‘I love people who do unexpected things. Didn’t you always adore the man who slew a lion in a pit on a snowy day? But about this unfortunate innocence. Well, quite long ago, when I’d been quarrelling with more people than usual, you among the number – it must have been in November, I never quarrel with you too near Christmas – I had an idea that I’d like to write a book. It was to be a book of personal reminiscences, and was to leave out nothing.’
‘Reginald!’
‘Exactly what the Duchess said when I mentioned it to her. I was provoking and said nothing, and the next thing, of course, was that every one heard that I’d written the book and got it in the press. After that, I might have been a goldfish in a glass bowl for all the privacy I got. People attacked me about it in the most unexpected places, and implored or commanded me to leave out things that I’d forgotten had ever happened. I sat behind Miriam Klopstock one night in the dress-circle at His Majesty’s, and she began at once about the incident of the Chow dog in the bathroom, which she insisted must be struck out. We had to argue it in a disjointed fashion, because some of the people wanted to listen to the play, and Miriam takes nines in voices. They had to stop her playing in the “Macaws” Hockey Club because you could hear what she thought when her shins got mixed up in a scrimmage for half a mile on a still day. They are called the Macaws because of their blue-and-yellow costumes, but I understand there was nothing yellow about Miriam’s language. I agreed to make one alteration, as I pretended I had got it a Spitz instead of a Chow, but beyond that I was firm. She megaphoned back two minutes later, “You promised you would never mention it; don’t you ever keep a promise?” When people had stopped glaring in our direction, I replied that I’d as soon think of keeping white mice. I saw her tearing little bits out of her programme for a minute or two, and then she leaned back and snorted, “You’re not the boy I took you for,” as though she were an eagle arriving at Olympus with the wrong Ganymede. That was her last audible remark, but she went on tearing up her programme and scattering the pieces around her, till one of her neighbours asked with immense dignity whether she should send for a wastepaper-basket. I didn’t stay for the last act.
‘Then there is Mrs – oh, I never can remember her name; she lives in a street that the cabmen have never heard of, and is at home on Wednesdays. She frightened me horribly once at a private view by
saying mysteriously, “I oughtn’t to be here, you know; this is one of my days”. I thought she meant that she was subject to periodical outbreaks and was expecting an attack at any moment. So embarrassing if she had suddenly taken it into her head that she was Cesare Borgia or St Elizabeth of Hungary. That sort of thing would make one unpleasantly conspicuous even at a private view. However, she merely meant to say that it was Wednesday, which at the moment was incontrovertible. Well, she’s on quite a different tack to the Klopstock. She doesn’t visit anywhere very extensively, and, of course, she’s awfully keen for me to drag in an incident that occurred at one of the Beauwhistle garden-parties, when she says she accidentally hit the shins of a Serene Somebody or other with a croquet mallet and that he swore at her in German. As a matter of fact, he went on discoursing on the Gordon-Bennett affair in French. (I never can remember if it’s a new submarine or a divorce. Of course, how stupid of me!) To be disagreeably exact, I fancy she missed him by about two inches – over-anxiousness, probably – but she likes to think she hit him. I’ve felt that way with a partridge which I always imagine keeps on flying strong, out of false pride, till it’s the other side of the hedge. She said she could tell me everything she was wearing on the occasion. I said I didn’t want my book to read like a laundry list, but she explained that she didn’t mean those sort of things.
‘And there’s the Chilworth boy, who can be charming as long as he’s content to be stupid and wear what he’s told to; but he gets the idea now and then that he’d like to be epigrammatic, and the result is like watching a rook trying to build a nest in a gale. Since he got wind of the book, he’s been persecuting me to work in something of his about the Russians and the Yalu Peril, and is quite sulky because I won’t do it.
‘Altogether, I think it would be rather a brilliant inspiration if you were to suggest a fortnight in Paris.’
REGINALD IN RUSSIA
First collected in 1910
Reginald in Russia
Reginald sat in a corner of the Princess’s salon and tried to forgive the furniture, which started out with an obvious intention of being Louis Quinze, but relapsed at frequent intervals into Wilhelm II.
He classified the Princess with that distinct type of woman that looks as if it habitually went out to feed hens in the rain.
Her name was Olga; she kept what she hoped and believed to be a fox-terrier, and professed what she thought were Socialist opinions. It is not necessary to be called Olga if you are a Russian Princess; in fact, Reginald knew quite a number who were called Vera; but the fox-terrier and the Socialism are essential.
‘The Countess Lomshen keeps a bull-dog,’ said the Princess suddenly. ‘In England is it more chic to have a bull-dog than a fox-terrier?’
Reginald threw his mind back over the canine fashions of the last ten years and gave an evasive answer.
‘Do you think her handsome, the Countess Lomshen?’ asked the Princess.
Reginald thought the Countess’s complexion suggested an exclusive diet of macaroons and pale sherry. He said so.
‘But that cannot be possible,’ said the Princess triumphantly; ‘I’ve seen her eating fish-soup at Donon’s.’
The Princess always defended a friend’s complexion if it was really bad. With her, as with a great many of her sex, charity began at homeliness and did not generally progress much farther.
Reginald withdrew his macaroon and sherry theory, and became interested in a case of miniatures.
‘That?’ said the Princess; ‘that is the old Princess Lorikoff. She lived in Millionaya Street, near the Winter Palace, and was one of the Court ladies of the Old Russian school. Her knowledge of people and events was extremely limited; but she used to patronise every one who came in contact with her. There was a story that when she died and left the Millionaya for Heaven she addressed St Peter in her formal staccato French: “Je suis la Princesse Lor-i-koff. Il me donne grand plaisir à faire votre connaissance. Je vous en prie me présenter au Bon Dieu.” St Peter made the desired introduction, and the Princess addressed le Bon Dieu: “Je suis la Princesse Lor-i-koff. Il me donne grand plaisir à faire votre connaissance. On a souvent parlé de vous à l’église de la rue Million.”’
‘Only the old and the clergy of Established churches know how to be flippant gracefully,’ commented Reginald; ‘which reminds me that in the Anglican Church in a certain foreign capital, which shall be nameless, I was present the other day when one of the junior chaplains was preaching in aid of distressed somethings or other, and he brought a really eloquent passage to a close with the remark, “The tears of the afflicted, to what shall I liken them – to diamonds?” The other junior chaplain, who had been dozing out of professional jealousy, awoke with a start and asked hurriedly, “Shall I play to diamonds, partner?” It didn’t improve matters when the senior chaplain remarked dreamily but with painful distinctness, “Double diamonds”. Every one looked at the preacher, half expecting him to redouble, but he contented himself with scoring what points he could under the circumstances.’
‘You English are always so frivolous,’ said the Princess. ‘In Russia we have too many troubles to permit of our being light-hearted.’
Reginald gave a delicate shiver, such as an Italian greyhound might give in contemplating the approach of an ice age of which he personally disapproved, and resigned himself to the inevitable political discussion.
‘Nothing that you hear about us in England is true,’ was the Princess’s hopeful beginning.
‘I always refused to learn Russian geography at school,’ observed Reginald; ‘I was certain some of the names must be wrong.’
‘Everything is wrong with our system of government,’ continued the Princess placidly. ‘The Bureaucrats think only of their pockets, and the people are exploited and plundered in every direction, and everything is mismanaged.’
‘With us,’ said Reginald, ‘a Cabinet usually gets the credit of being depraved and worthless beyond the bounds of human conception by the time it has been in office about four years.’
‘But if it is a bad Government you can turn it out at the election,’ argued the Princess.
‘As far as I remember, we generally do,’ said Reginald.
‘But here it is dreadful, every one goes to such extremes. In England you never go to extremes.’
‘We go to the Albert Hall,’ explained Reginald.
‘There is always a see-saw with us between repression and violence,’ continued the Princess; ‘and the pity of it is the people are really not in the least inclined to be anything but peaceable. Nowhere will you find people more good-natured, or family circles where there is more affection.’
‘There I agree with you,’ said Reginald. ‘I know a boy who lives somewhere on the French Quay who is a case in point. His hair curls naturally, especially on Sundays, and he plays bridge well, even for a Russian, which is saying much. I don’t think he has any other accomplishments, but his family affection is really of a very high order. When his maternal grandmother died he didn’t go as far as to give up bridge altogether but he declared on nothing but black suits for the next three months. That, I think, was really beautiful.’
The Princess was not impressed.
‘I think you must be very self-indulgent and live only for amusement,’ she said. ‘A life of pleasure-seeking and card-playing and dissipation brings only dissatisfaction. You will find that out some day.’
‘Oh, I know it turns out that way sometimes,’ assented Reginald. ‘Forbidden fizz is often the sweetest.’
But the remark was wasted on the Princess, who preferred champagne that had at least a suggestion of dissolved barley-sugar.
‘I hope you will come and see me again,’ she said in a tone that prevented the hope from becoming too infectious; adding as a happy after-thought, ‘you must come to stay with us in the country.’
Her particular part of the country was a few hundred versts the other side of Tamboff, with some fifteen miles of agrarian disturbance between
her and the nearest neighbour. Reginald felt that there is some privacy which should be sacred from intrusion.
The Reticence of Lady Anne
Egbert came into the large, dimly lit drawing-room with the air of a man who is not certain whether he is entering a dovecote or a bomb factory, and is prepared for either eventuality. The little domestic quarrel over the luncheon-table had not been fought to a definite finish, and the question was how far Lady Anne was in a mood to renew or forgo hostilities. Her pose in the arm-chair by the tea-table was rather elaborately rigid; in the gloom of a December afternoon Egbert’s pince-nez did not materially help him to discern the expression of her face.
By way of breaking whatever ice might be floating on the surface he made a remark about a dim religious light. He or Lady Anne were accustomed to make that remark between 4.30 and 6 on winter and late autumn evenings; it was a part of their married life. There was no recognised rejoinder to it, and Lady Anne made none.
Don Tarquinio lay astretch on the Persian rug, basking in the firelight with superb indifference to the possible ill-humour of Lady Anne. His pedigree was as flawlessly Persian as the rug, and his ruff was coming into the glory of its second winter. The page-boy, who had Renaissance tendencies, had christened him Don Tarquinio. Left to themselves, Egbert and Lady Anne would unfailingly have called him Fluff, but they were not obstinate.
Egbert poured himself out some tea. As the silence gave no sign of breaking on Lady Anne’s initiative, he braced himself for another Yermak effort.
‘My remark at lunch had a purely academic application,’ he announced; ‘you seem to put an unnecessarily personal significance into it.’
Lady Anne maintained her defensive barrier of silence. The bullfinch lazily filled in the interval with an air from Iphigénie en Tauride. Egbert recognised it immediately, because it was the only air the bullfinch whistled, and he had come to them with the reputation for whistling it. Both Egbert and Lady Anne would have preferred something from The Yeoman of the Guard, which was their favourite opera. In matters artistic they had a similarity of taste. They leaned towards the honest and explicit in art, a picture, for instance, that told its own story, with generous assistance from its title. A riderless warhorse with harness in obvious disarray, staggering into a courtyard full of pale swooning women, and marginally noted ‘Bad News’, suggested to their minds a distinct interpretation of some military catastrophe. They could see what it was meant to convey, and explain it to friends of duller intelligence.