Evelyn Waugh - The Complete Stories Of Evelyn Waugh

Ernest is somewhat surprised at Adam’s visit, who, indeed, has never shown any very warm affection for him. However, he pours out whisky.

HALF AN HOUR LATER.

It has begun to rain again. Dinner is about to be served in Ernest’s College and the porch is crowded by a shabby array of gowned young men vacantly staring at the notice-boards. Here and there a glaring suit of “plus fours” proclaims the generosity of the Rhodes Trust. Adam and Ernest make their way through the cluster of men who mutter their disapproval like peasants at the passage of some black magician.

“IT’S NO GOOD TAKING ME TO ANY CLUB, DOURE, I’VE BEEN BLACK-BALLED FOR THE LOT.”

“I should imagine that would have happened—even in Oxford.”

AN HOUR LATER. AT THE CROWN.

Adam and Ernest are just finishing dinner; both show marked signs of intoxication.

The dining room at the Crown bears little resemblance to Adam’s epicurean dream. The walls, pathetically frescoed with views of Oxford, resound with the clattering of dirty plates. Swithin’s dinner party has just left, leaving the room immeasurably more quiet. The three women who up till now have been playing selections from Gilbert and Sullivan in the corner have finished work and begun eating their dinner. An undergraduate who has very grandly signed the bill is engaged in an argument with the manager. At a table near Adam’s three young men with gowns wound round their throats have settled themselves and ordered coffee and cream cakes; while they are waiting they discuss the Union elections.

Adam orders more double whiskies.

Ernest insists on sending a bottle of gin over to the party at the next table. It is rejected with some resentment, and soon they rise and go away.

Adam orders more double whiskies.

Ernest begins drawing a portrait of Adam on the tablecloth.

He entitles it “Le vin triste,” and, indeed, throughout dinner, Adam has been growing sadder and sadder as his guest has grown more happy. He drinks and orders more with a mechanical weariness.

At length, very unsteadily, they rise to go.

From now onwards the film becomes a series of fragmentary scenes interspersed among hundreds of feet of confusion.

“It’s going queer again, Ada. D’you think it’s meant to be like this?”

A public-house in the slums. Adam leans against the settee and pays for innumerable pints of beer for armies of ragged men. Ernest is engrossed in a heated altercation about birth control with a beggar whom he has just defeated at “darts.”

Another public house: Ernest, beset by two panders, is loudly maintaining the abnormality of his tastes. Adam finds a bottle of gin in his pocket and attempts to give it to a man; his wife interposes; eventually the bottle falls to the floor and is broken.

Adam and Ernest in a taxi; they drive from college to college, being refused admission. Fade out.

GABRIEL’S PARTY in Balliol is being an enormous success. It is a decorous assembly mostly sober. There are bottles of champagne and decanters of whisky and brandy, but most of Gabriel’s guests prefer dancing. Others sit about and talk. They are large, well-furnished rooms, and the effect is picturesque and agreeable. There are a few people in fancy dress—a Queen Victoria, a Sapphist and two Generals Gordon. A musical comedy actor, who is staying the weekend with Gabriel, stands by the gramophone looking through the records; as becomes a guest of honour he is terribly bored.

Henry Quest has escaped from the Chatham and is talking about diplomatic appointments, drinking whisky and regarding everyone with disapproval. Lord Basingstoke stands talking to him, with his mind still worrying about the Constitution of the Commonwealth of Australia. Swithin is making himself quite delightful to the guest of honour. Mr. Egerton-Verschoyle sits very white, complaining of the cold.

Enter Mr. Sayle of Merton.

“GABRIEL, DO LOOK WHO I’VE FOUND IN THE QUAD. MAY I BRING HIM IN?” He pulls in Adam, who stands with a broken gin bottle in one hand staring stupidly about the room.

Someone pours him out a glass of champagne.

The party goes on.

A voice is heard roaring “ADAM” outside the window, and suddenly there bursts in Ernest, looking incredibly drunk. His hair is disordered, his eyes glazed, his neck and face crimson and greasy. He sits down in a chair immobile; someone gives him a drink; he takes it mechanically and then pours it into the carpet and continues to stare before him.

“ADAM, IS THIS IMPOSSIBLE PERSON A FRIEND OF YOURS? DO FOR GOODNESS’ SAKE TAKE HIM AWAY. GABRIEL WILL BE FURIOUS.”

“HE’S THE MOST MARVELLOUS MAN, HENRY. YOU JUST DON’T KNOW HIM. COME AND TALK TO HIM.”

And to his intense disgust Henry is led across the room and introduced to Ernest. Ernest at first does not seem to hear, and then slowly raises his eyes until they are gazing at Henry; by a further effort he continues to focus them.

“QUEST? ANY RELATION TO ADAM’S WOMAN?”

There is about to be a scene. The musical comedy actor feels that only this was needed to complete the melancholy of the evening. Henry is all indignation and contempt. “IMOGEN QUEST IS MY SISTER IF THAT’S WHAT YOU MEAN. WHO THE DEVIL ARE YOU AND WHAT DO YOU MEAN BY SPEAKING ABOUT HER LIKE THAT?”

Gabriel flutters ineffectually in the background. Richard Basingstoke interposes with a genial, “Come on, Henry, can’t you see the frightful man’s blind drunk?” Swithin begs Adam to take Ernest away. Everybody is thrown into the utmost agitation.

But Ernest, in his own way, saves everyone from further anxiety.

“DO YOU KNOW, I THINK I’M GOING TO BE SICK?”

And makes his way unmolested and with perfect dignity to the quad. The gramophone starts playing “Everybody loves my baby.” Fade out.

THE OXFORD CITY LIBERAL ASSOCIATION

DANCE AT THE TOWN HALL.

Tickets are being sold at the door for 1s. 6d.

Upstairs there is a table with jugs of lemonade and plates of plum cake. In the main hall a band is playing and the younger liberals are dancing. One of the waitresses from the Crown sits by the door fanning her face with a handkerchief.

Ernest, with a radiant smile, is slowly walking round the room offering plum cake to the couples sitting about. Some giggle and take it; some giggle and refuse; some refuse and look exceedingly haughty.

Adam leans against the side of the door watching him.

Close up; Adam bears on his face the same expression of blind misery that he wore in the taxi the night before.

LE VIN TRISTE.

Ernest has asked the waitress from the Crown to dance with him. It is an ungainly performance; still sublimely contented he collides with several couples, misses his footing and, but for his partner, would have fallen. An M.C. in evening dress asks Adam to take him away.

Broad stone steps.

Several motors are drawn up outside the Town Hall. Ernest climbs into the first of them—a decrepit Ford—and starts the engine. Adam attempts to stop him. A policeman hurries up. There is a wrenching of gears and the car starts.

The policeman blows his whistle.

Halfway down St. Aldates the car runs into the kerb, mounts the pavement and runs into a shop window. The inhabitants of St. Aldates converge from all sides; heads appear at every window; policemen assemble. There is a movement in the crowd to make way for something being carried out.

Adam turns and wanders aimlessly towards Carfax.

St. Mary’s clock strikes twelve.

It is raining again.

Adam is alone.

HALF AN HOUR LATER.

AN HOTEL BEDROOM.

Adam is lying on his face across the bed, fully clothed. He turns over and sits up. Again the vision of the native village; the savage has dragged himself very near to the edge of the jungle. His back glistens in the evening sun with his last exertion. He raises himself to his feet, and with quick unsteady steps reaches the first bushes; soon he is lost to view.