The Complete Short Stories of Evelyn Waugh - Evelyn Waugh [170]
The neighbour on Scott-King’s left did not speak until the dessert, except to the waiters; to them he spoke loudly and often, sometimes blustering, sometimes cajoling, and by this means got two helpings of nearly every course. His napkin was tucked into his collar. He ate intently with his head bowed over his plate so that the morsels which frequently fell from his lips were not permanently lost to him. He swigged his wine with relish, sighing after each draught and tapping the glass with his knife to call the waiter’s attention to the need of refilling it. Often he jammed glasses on his nose and studied the menu, not so much, it seemed, for fear of missing anything, as to fix in his memory the fleeting delights of the moment. It is not entirely easy to achieve a Bohemian appearance in evening dress but this man did so with his shock of grizzled hair, the broad ribbon of his pince-nez, and a three days’ growth of beard and whisker.
With the arrival of the dessert, he raised his countenance, fixed on Scott-King his large and rather bloodshot eyes, belched mildly and then spoke. The words were English; the accent had been formed in many cities from Memphis (Mo.) to Smyrna. “Shakespeare, Dickens, Byron, Galsworthy,” he seemed to say.
This late birth of a troublesome gestation took Scott-King by surprise; he hiccuped noncommittally.
“They are all great English writers.”
“Well, yes.”
“Your favourite, please?”
“I suppose Shakespeare.”
“He is the more dramatic, the more poetic, no?”
“Yes.”
“But Galsworthy is the more modern.”
“Very true.”
“I am modern. You are a poet?”
“Hardly that. A few translations.”
“I am an original poet. I translate my poems myself into English prose. They have been published in the United States. Do you read the New Destiny?”
“I am afraid not.”
“It is the magazine which publishes my translations. Last year they sent me ten dollars.”
“No one has ever paid me for my translations.”
“You should send them to the New Destiny. It is not possible, I think,” continued the Poet, “to render the poetry of one language into the poetry of another. Sometimes I translate English prose into Neutralian poetry. I have done a very beautiful rendering of some selected passages of your great Priestley. I hoped it would be used in the High Schools but it is not. There is jealousy and intrigue everywhere—even at the Ministry of Education.”
At this moment a splendid figure at the centre of the table rose to make the first speech. “Now to work,” said his neighbour, produced a notebook and pencil and began busily writing in shorthand. “In the new Neutralia we all work.”
The speech was long and provoked much applause. In the course of it a note came to Scott-King by the hand of a waiter: “I shall call on you to reply to his Excellency. Fe.”
Scott-King wrote in answer: “Terribly sorry. Not tonight. Indisposed. Ask Whitemaid,” stealthily left his place and, still hiccuping, passed behind the table to the dining-room door.
Outside the foyer was almost deserted; the great glass dome which throughout the years of war had blazed aloft nightly, a candle in a naughty world, rose darkly. Two night porters shared a cigar behind one of the pillars; a huge empty carpet, strewn with empty chairs, lay before Scott-King in the subdued light to which a parsimonious management had reduced the earlier blaze. It was not much past midnight but in the New Neutralia memories persisted of the revolutionary curfew, of police roundups, of firing squads in the public gardens; New Neutralians liked to get home early and bolt their doors.
As Scott-King stepped into this silent space, his hiccups mysteriously ceased. He went through the swing doors and breathed the air of the piazza where under the arc-lamps workmen were washing away with hoses the dust and refuse of the day; the