Peter Carey - Parrot and Olivier in America

The whiskey was coarse but I took comfort from the burn.

"I apologize," I said. "I mean nothing but the best for her."

He filled my glass another inch. "I made you promise not to take her away from me. You are a good man, Garmont. How I admired you for that sacrifice."

So he saw I had my good points. He was not against me.

"You know I love your daughter."

"That I do."

"I am prepared to give up my past for her, my country, everything."

"You are an extraordinary man. I will be proud to call you my son."

"Then sir, it is as I said to you in Charleston. It is not my noble character that makes me say this, but it is nonetheless a fact: We cannot be married in France."

"You do not understand. I have withdrawn my objection. She shall marry where she pleases."

"Mr. Godefroy. It will not work."

"No, no, she will turn Catholic. Her mother must get used to it. There, that's it. It is done."

"It is not a question of religion sir."

"Then what is it a question of?" he cried. "Not me, certainly. There is no impediment. I will sail to France tomorrow if she so directs it."

"French society has none of your vigor, your love of innovation. It is looking backward while it marches to its doom."

"What are you saying?"

"I have no intention of being insolent."

"Slap my face, man. I do not care. I have been wrong."

"They will not be able to grasp Amelia's originality."

"Amelia, original?"

"My mother, my father, the family. Their lives are circumscribed."

"Circumscribed?" he asked, looking at me directly across his glass and then placing it, extremely carefully, on the table.

"Should I be more blunt?"

"You mean they are snobs?"

"They have a way of living."

"Snobs."

"You may think them so."

"Well, to hell with them sir. Did they never meet Ben Franklin, sir?"

"Indeed. But we must marry here. In Wethersfield."

"And to my daughter you will say, You are not good enough for France. What of Lafayette? He never said we were not good enough for him. He was a noble, sir, in case you forget."

"And I would say you are twice as good as all of them."

To a stranger this conversation might be thought to be proceeding badly, but I had reason to hope for a favorable result, for Godefroy, no matter what his passion, was a man who liked an argument, and if he sometimes began in confusion he would finally fit the whole together.

However, it was at this point, when the pieces lay in confusion between us, that Amelia entered the room, not in her gown but fully dressed, with her hair drawn up and held in combs in a way that emphasized the handsome severity of her jaw.

"I heard you."

I thought, She looks rather like her mother.

"Amelia," her father said, half standing. His tone was suddenly quite mild. "You promised not to do this. How long have you been listening?"

"Long enough to break my heart."

Then Godefroy was fully on his feet and following his daughter from the room. I heard them on the stairs, his bare feet, her leather soles. A door slammed. Then began the striding to and fro above my head, I drank my whiskey and poured another. I was still in the chair when the sun's first rays struck Old Farm, so harsh that I turned my back on the spectacle, arranging my chair to more directly face the bourbon.

It was around this time that Godefroy returned.

"I am so sorry, old chap," he said. He was dressed to do business for the day and I understood my situation from this as much as anything he said.

"I will pack my things immediately," I offered.

"There is a good inn at New Britain," he said. "I will take you there."

Dear God, the Americans are brutal. I was dispatched like a wounded doe, killed with a fast hard cracking of the neck.

THE MARQUIS DE TILBOT was turned into a peddler, and it suited him to be the representative of Watkins' birds, perhaps not quite as much as spying, but it fitted his character far more comfortably than cadging invitations to the chateaux of his old friends. As to whether he understood the artistic worth of what he was selling, I was never exactly sure for it is very hard to resist the notion that a man who praises you has a good brain connected to his eye.

My dear M. Perroquet, he wrote to me, this is all fine work, indeed the best I ever saw, and the Devil take the Duke of York for saying otherwise. If John Larrit & Co. can continue this excellent production, your name will go farther than we might have ever thought. My father would wake from the dead to think of our association, but this is a mighty enterprise and I have managed, on the strength of my widely trusted opinion and the evidence supplied by the recent birds of Delaware, to procure forty-three new subscriptions, a number I am still astonished to see before me on the page.

Hereafter, I think, you could increase the price as much as twenty percent and if you agree to this I will increase my percentage also but by a smaller amount, perhaps seven. Be assured this shall result in no diminution of appetite among the future subscribers. Should such a thing occur, which it will not, then I would take it upon myself to make up your loss. You know my word.

I am still in Bruges and have taken an additional five subscriptions for the second volume, being completely successful in every approach except for a certain banker I am sure you must remember as his wife had a high opinion of you in the past. I am positive you cannot have written to her, so I am puzzled as to what has caused this female to so turn against our enterprise. She now wishes her husband's subscription canceled. She told me that what folios she has received are so very bad that she could not think of providing them houseroom. I took this news as if wounded, but later enjoyed a glass of genever and allowed myself the luxury of imagining what past deviltry of your own had caused this.

Herr de Kok, burgher of Bruges, was shown up to my apartments but half an hour ago, so for a short while my quill has been dry. With all the peculiar character of his nation he set very directly to business: that is, he subscribed. So please, M. Perroquet, please find him a handsome clean copy, well colored-twenty numbers with the sheet of title, page of contents and subscriber's name-in a good portfolio with silver paper for the whole. Pack it as you did the recent shipment. It is well worth the extra expense.

I thank you, by the by, for the portrait of your house on the handsome river. It was much admired by the Comtesse d'Angerbaud de Texerau who, in unison with her daughters, deemed it of the period, whatever that might mean. I took great pleasure in asking them if they remembered you, my servant.

What, the awful one? they shrieked.

In America, I said, this is his house.

What fun! They were quite beside themselves with the most exhilarating mixture of wonder and outrage, and the younger daughter would not be quiet about the perfection of the bridge across the stream and demanded to know who was your architect.

All three of them were very taken with Mr. Watkins' White-headed Eagle with Eggs, which I unpacked in their presence and I do believe we may have three subscriptions here although the business will not be pleasant. The comtesse cannot buy a ticket to the Comedie-Francaise without haggling like a peasant. I thought it best to withhold from view that work which is to me most fascinating. You know what I mean-that small hand-colored engraving of your exceptionally handsome wife who, as much by her pose-the hand resting, just so, upon her stomach-as by certain subtle changes in her figure, gives every indication that you are to be, at your considerable age, a father. I have understood this engraving, I hope correctly, as a personal memento, a gift in celebration of our unusual friendship. Tell me I am correct? I am completely confident of this assumption, for who would buy a portrait of a woman enceinte I do not know.