Evelyn Waugh - The Complete Stories Of Evelyn Waugh

It would make a splendid ending if the House could be allowed to win the Shield, but this is a story of school life and anyone who knows the House will know that that is out of the question. Suffice it to say, however, that they were third, and that as Ross went down the grass slope to Chapel that evening, arm in arm with Stewart it seemed almost as if he had forgiven the House rather than that they had forgiven him. And after all that is greatness.

Jeremy came into my room at half-past six, just as I was assembling my sponge and towels and dressing gown and things for a bath. I saw him as I came out of my bedroom, looking for something to write a message on. He was making straight for my portfolio of drawing paper. I called and made myself known to him.

Jeremy was in my house at school; he has what would be known in North Oxford as a “personality.” That is to say he is rather stupid, thoroughly well satisfied with himself, and acutely ambitious. Jeremy purposes to be President of the Union.

I said to him, “Hullo, Jeremy, I am afraid you find me on the point of going to have a bath. I never miss a bath before dinner; I shall tonight if I do not go at once. The bathroom is shut at seven. But do stay and drink some sherry won’t you?”

“Thanks,” said Jeremy, and sat down.

I reached for the decanter and found it empty. There must have been nearly a bottle there that morning.

“Jeremy, that damned man of mine has finished the sherry. I am sorry.”

“Never mind. I’ll just smoke a cigarette and go.”

My cigarettes are particularly large and take at least a quarter of an hour to smoke. I banished all my dreams of white tiles and steam and took a cigarette myself.

“I haven’t anything particular to say,” said Jeremy, “I was just passing your College and thought I might as well drop in for a little. It is hard to know what to do before hall, isn’t it?”

“I generally have a bath.”

“Ah, our baths are not open at this hour.”

He propped his feet on the side of the fireplace. He was wearing that detestable sort of dark brown suede shoes that always looks wet.

“Oh, I know one thing I wanted to ask you. I want to meet Richard Pares. I feel he is a man to know.”

“An amiable rogue.”

“Well, will you introduce me to him.”

“You know, I hardly know him.”

It was quite true and, besides, I dislike introducing Jeremy to people; as a rule he begins by calling them by their Christian names.

“Nonsense, I’m always seeing you about together. I am not doing anything ’fore lunch on Tuesday. How about then? Or Friday I could manage, but I should prefer Tuesday.”

So it was arranged.

There was a pause; I looked at my watch; Jeremy took no notice; I looked again.

“What is the time,” he said, “Twenty-three to. Oh, good! — hours yet.”

“Before a fool’s opinion of himself the gods are silent—aye and envious too,” I thought.

“On Thursday I’m speaking ‘on the paper’.”

“Good.”

“About the Near East. Macedonia. Oil, you know.”

“Ah.”

“I think it ought to be rather a good speech.”

“Yes.”

“Evelyn, you aren’t listening; now seriously, what do you really think is wrong with my speaking. What I feel about the Union myself is…..”

A blind fury, a mist of fire. We struggled together on the carpet. He was surprisingly weak for his size. The first blow with the poker he dodged and took on his shoulder; the second and third caved his forehead in. I stood up, quivering, filled with a beastly curiosity to find what was inside his broken skull. Instead I restrained myself and put his handkerchief over his face.

Outside the door I met my scout. I forgot the sherry.

“Hunt”—I almost clung to him. “There is a gentleman in the room lying on the carpet.”

“Yes sir. Drunk, sir?”

I remembered the sherry. “No, as a matter of fact he’s dead.”

“Dead, sir?”

“Yes, I killed him.”

“You don’t say so, sir!”

“But Hunt, what are we to do about it?”

“Well, sir, if he’s dead, there doesn’t seem to be much we can do, does there? Now I remember a gentleman on this staircase once, who killed himself. Poison. It must have been ’93 I should think, or ’94. A nice quiet gentleman, too, when he was sober. I remember he said to me…..”

The voice droned on, “… I liked your speech, but I thought it was ‘a little heavy.’ What do you think Bagnall meant by that?”

It was the voice of Jeremy. My head cleared. We were still there on opposite sides of the fire. He was still talking.

“… Scaife said…..”

At seven o’clock Jeremy rose. “Well, I mustn’t keep you from your bath. Don’t forget about asking Richard to lunch on Tuesday, will you? Oh, and Evelyn, if you know the man who reports the Union for the Isis, you might ask him to give me a decent notice this time.”

I try to think that one day I shall be proud of having known Jeremy. Till then…..

Revolution came late to St. Romeiro and suddenly. Cazarin, the journalist who had been educated in Paris, was said to have proclaimed it. Messengers came to him with the news that students at Vienna had driven out Prince Metternich and perhaps had murdered him; that all Lombardy was in revolt, that the Pope had fled and all his cardinals. And from the coast the fishermen brought other tales, of how the foreigners were torturing men and women at Venice and of things that were done in Naples; how when the Pope left Rome the pillars of St. Peter’s were shaken and many of the peasants affirmed that it was the Emperor Napoleon who had done these things, not knowing that he was dead.

Thus and thus revolution came to St. Romeiro and Cazarin and the people came out in the heat of the day and cried before the Duke’s palace; Cazarin crying for liberty and the people for the removal of the duty on olives. Then the news came that the Duke had fled and with him all his family. So the people broke down the iron gates which the Duke’s grandfather had brought from Milan and burst into the Palace. And they found only a very few, very young soldiers, and since these seemed ill inclined to resist, they killed them; and then feeling much enraged at their own valour, they sought what further they might do. And they cried, “To the Castle!” for there were the prisoners kept and each had some near relative who for some crime or foolishness was imprisoned.

And Cazarin remembered the Count Antony who had been shut up with his lady in the Castle ten years ago. But when the prison was broken open, they found many debtors and thieves and a poor mad woman who had thought herself to be the Queen of Heaven, but of the Count Antony they found nothing, nor of his lady.

Now this is the story of Antony, called by his friends, “Antony, who sought things that were lost.” Cazarin, who had been educated at Paris, learned it, in part from what he himself knew and in part from what the turnkey told him.

He was a tall man, this Count Antony, and very beautiful and he was born of a proud family. His fathers had been great men in Italy and had fought with the Spaniards against the French and had their origin, it was said, from no less a person than a Pope himself. And Count Antony had the estates of his fathers and their beauty, but there was that in the heart of Antony which none of his fathers had known. And for this cause Antony’s friends called him, “Antony, who sought things that were lost,” because he seemed always to be seeking in the future for what had gone before.