Evelyn Waugh: The Complete Stories Of Evelyn Waugh

“She’s been very odd all the evening, I consider.”

“She told me she lunched with Adam before she came down.”

“I expect she ate too much. One does with Adam, don’t you find?”

“Just libido.”

“But you know, I’m rather proud of that character all the same. I wonder why none of us ever thought of Dublin before.”

“Basil, do you think Imogen can have been having an affaire with Adam, really?”

Circumstances

NOTE. — No attempt, beyond the omission of some of the aspirates, has been made at a phonetic rendering of the speech of Gladys and Ada; they are the cook and house-parlourmaid from a small house in Earls Court, and it is to be supposed that they speak as such.

The conversations in the film are deduced by the experienced picture-goer from the gestures of the actors; only those parts which appear in capitals are actual “captions.”

THE COCKATRICE CLUB 2.30 A.M.

A CENTRE OF LONDON NIGHT LIFE.

The “Art title” shows a still life of a champagne bottle, glasses, and a comic mask—or is it yawning?

“Oh, Gladys, it’s begun; I knew we’d be late.”

“Never mind, dear, I can see the way. Oh, I say—I am sorry. Thought the seat was empty—really I did.”

Erotic giggling and a slight struggle.

“Give over, can’t you, and let me get by—saucy kid.”

“’Ere you are, Gladys, there’s two seats ’ere.”

“Well I never—tried to make me sit on ’is knee.”

“Go on. I say, Gladys, what sort of picture is this—is it comic?”

The screen is almost completely dark as though the film has been greatly over-exposed. Fitful but brilliant illumination reveals a large crowd dancing, talking and eating.

“No, Ada—that’s lightning. I dare say it’s a desert storm. I see a picture like that the other day with Fred.”

EVERYBODY LOVES MY BABY.

Close up: the head of a girl.

“That’s ’is baby. See if she ain’t.”

It is rather a lovely head, shingled and superbly poised on its neck. One is just beginning to appreciate its exquisite modelling—the film is too poor to give any clear impression of texture—when it is flashed away and its place taken by a stout and elderly man playing a saxophone. The film becomes obscure—after the manner of the more modern Continental studios: the saxophonist has become the vortex of movement; faces flash out and disappear again; fragmentary captions will not wait until they are read.

“Well, I do call this soft.”

A voice with a Cambridge accent from the more expensive seats says, “Expressionismus.”

Gladys nudges Ada and says, “Foreigner.”

After several shiftings of perspective, the focus becomes suddenly and stereoscopically clear. The girl is seated at a table leaning towards a young man who is lighting her cigarette for her. Three or four others join them at the table and sit down. They are all in evening dress.

“No, it isn’t comic, Ada—it’s Society.”

“Society’s sometimes comic. You see.”

The girl is protesting that she must go.

“Adam, I must. Mother thinks I went out to a theatre with you and your mother. I don’t know what will happen if she finds I’m not in.”

There is a general leave-taking and paying of bills.

“I say, Gladys, ’e’s ’ad a drop too much, ain’t ’e?”

The hero and heroine drive away in a taxi.

Halfway down Pont Street, the heroine stops the taxi.

“Don’t let him come any farther, Adam. Lady R. will hear.”

“Good night, Imogen dear.”

“Good night, Adam.”

She hesitates for a moment and then kisses him.

Adam and the taxi drive away.

Close up of Adam. He is a young man of about twenty-two, clean-shaven, with thick, very dark hair. He looks so infinitely sad that even Ada is shaken.

Can it be funny?

“Buster Keaton looks sad like that sometimes—don’t ’e?”

Ada is reassured.

Buster Keaton looks sad; Buster Keaton is funny. Adam looks sad; Adam is funny. What could be clearer?

The cab stops and Adam gives it all his money. It wishes him “Good-night” and disappears into the darkness. Adam unlocks the front door.

On his way upstairs he takes his letters from the hall table; they are two bills and an invitation to a dance.

He reaches his room, undresses and sits for some time wretchedly staring at himself in the glass. Then he gets into bed. He dare not turn out the light because he knows that if he does the room will start spinning round him; he must be there thinking of Imogen until he becomes sober.

The film becomes darker. The room begins to swim and then steadies itself. It is getting quite dark. The orchestra plays very softly the first bars of “Everybody loves my baby.” It is quite dark.

Close up: the heroine.

Close up: the hero asleep.

Fade out.

NEXT MORNING 8.30 A.M.

The hero still asleep. The electric light is still burning.

A disagreeable-looking maid enters, turns out the light and raises the blind.

Adam wakes up.

“Good morning, Parsons.”

“Good morning, sir.”

“Is the bathroom empty?”

“I think Miss Jane’s just this minute gone along there.”

She picks up Adam’s evening clothes from the floor.

Adam lies back and ponders the question of whether he shall miss his bath or miss getting a place at the studio.

Miss Jane in her bath.

Adam deciding to get up.

Tired out but with no inclination to sleep, Adam dresses. He goes down to breakfast.

“It can’t be Society, Gladys, they aren’t eating grape fruit.”

“It’s such a small ’ouse too.”

“And no butler.”

“Look, there’s ’is little old mother. She’ll lead ’im straight in the end. See if she don’t.”

“Well, that dress isn’t at all what I call fashionable, if you ask me.”

“Well, if it isn’t funny and it isn’t murder and it isn’t Society, what is it?”

“P’r’aps there’ll be a murder yet.”

“Well, I calls it soft, that’s what I calls it.”

“Look now, ’e’s got a invitation to a dance from a Countess.”

“I don’t understand this picture.”

The Countess’s invitation.

“Why, there isn’t even a coronet on it, Ada.”

The little old mother pours out tea for him and tells him about the death of a friend in the Times that morning; when he has drunk some tea and eaten some fish, she bustles him out of the house.

Adam walks to the corner of the road, where he gets on to a bus. The neighbourhood is revealed as being Regent’s Park.

THE CENTRE OF LONDON’S QUARTIER LATIN

THE MALTBY SCHOOL OF ART.

No trouble has been spared by the producers to obtain the right atmosphere. The top studio at Maltby’s is already half full of young students when Adam enters. Work has not yet started, but the room is alive with busy preparation. A young woman in an overall—looking rather more like a chorus girl than a painter—is making herself very dirty cleaning her palette; another near by is setting up an easel; a third is sharpening a pencil; a fourth is smoking a cigarette in a long holder. A young man, also in an overall, is holding a drawing and appraising it at arm’s length, his head slightly on one side; a young man with untidy hair is disagreeing with him. Old Mr. Maltby, an inspiring figure in a shabby silk dressing gown, is telling a tearful student that if she misses another composition class, she will be asked to leave the school. Miss Philbrick, the secretary, interrupts the argument between the two young men to remind them that neither of them has paid his fee for the month. The girl who was setting up the easel is trying to borrow some “fixative”; the girl with the cigarette holder lends her some. Mr. Maltby is complaining of the grittiness of the charcoal they make nowadays. Surely this is the Quartier Latin itself?