William Gerhardie - The Polyglots

As the time of jollity came to an end and we were dancing in one another’s caps in the corridor (General ‘Pshe-Pshe’ in Colonel Ishibaiashi’s, I in the Italian Major’s, the French Colonel in mine, Beastly in the Czech’s, the Jap in the Yank’s, and so forth) suddenly I noticed Captain Negodyaev’s badge on a table in the hall. I picked it up quickly and went into the dining-room where he stood by the fire-place, brooding, and handed it back to him. ‘There.’

He took it darkly. Then, suddenly, he flung the badge into the fire, which, however — it being spring — was laid but not lit. ‘Well, that’s his affair,’ I thought, and went out into the hall to see the guests out.

When I returned to the dining-room I saw Vladislav crouching at the fire-place, and Captain Negodyaev standing over him, saying:

‘You blithering idiot! What are you squatting and staring at me for? Look for the damned thing! Look for it!’

Let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth:

For thy love is better than wine .

‘SADIE.’

‘Yes. Sadie. I am afraid I shall always have that name now.’

The evening sun pressed through the window, over the carpet, over the silk chair. The flies raced like mad round the globe. They seemed to make this their headquarters — a meeting-place. And a wasp, too, was not long in coming. For a moment, we were alone.

‘What can I say? What is there to say?’ My words choked in my throat.

‘Little Prince, you cannot be as lonely as I am.’

The sun vanished, vanished from the carpet, from the silk chair. The flies dispersed to the windows and walls. It had become difficult to breathe. The clouds gathered more and more ominous. A sudden gust; the garden gate slammed. Then a few large and warm drops pelted the hard dusty road, and at once there was the sound of fine rain on the leaves and the hum, long and loud, in the air. And from afar rolled the dim basso of thunder. Already the lightning zigzagged once or twice, in front of your very brows, it seemed. The rain was one mass of grey vertical mist. We stood at the window, inhaling the fresh breezy boon. How long would it last?

‘He?’

‘He is there, with maman —talking.’

‘Gustave—’ I sighed.

‘I don’t like his name.’

‘Why? Flaubert was called Gustave. It ought to be distinguished. It’s no worse than mine any day. Georges — there’s only Georges Carpentier. Unsuitable association for an intellectual!’

‘If it were just the name …’ She looked at me. Suddenly, shyly: ‘I dreamt last night you and I were flying in an aeroplane,’ she said. ‘I threw out two of your books, and you were so angry, so angry — you leapt after them straight out of the aeroplane, and we were so high up, so dreadfully high up. I cried my eyes out, but they could not find you. Afterwards somehow you returned — but how I forget.’

I looked at her. My soul, after much pain, had become strangely quiet. I just looked at her and could not speak.

‘In the Daily Mail ,’ she said, ‘there was an article the other day about love— How to win and keep a woman’s love .’

‘The Daily Mail … The Daily Mail … But why the Daily Mail ? Why do you read the Daily Mail ?’

‘Because I like these articles they have about love and things. I follow them to know how we stand, how we love each other, you see? You should read them.’

‘I have been so weak,’ I wailed melodramatically — and really feeling the part. ‘So miserably weak, so indecisive. I have imbibed this curse of a Hamletian vacillation with the name, I suppose.’

‘Never mind, darling, we shall travel. We shall come over to Europe one day and see you; won’t it be nice?’

‘And Gustave!’ I wailed, almost in tears. ‘Gustave! Gustave! of all people! Casting pearls — So silly, so really idiotic when one comes to think — isn’t it? Why was he dragged into this affair? Oh, when you consider, think ahead, weigh up, select — it’s almost better, really better, if you never thought at all.’

‘Never mind, darling.’

‘I deserve what I got — and with interest — I deserve it, honestly. But you; why you? Why should you have been let down as you have been, by me and your mother — me and your mother!’

‘Never mind, darling. He doesn’t count. Nothing will count. We shall think of each other all the time, and nothing, nothing will count.’

I looked at her, I looked long and steadily, and her eyes blinked several times in the interval. I looked — and suddenly the tears welled up from my eyes. ‘Queenie!’

‘What?’

‘My little queenie.’

‘Yes … Prince.’

‘What?’

‘My little prince.’

‘Yes. Oh, must we part?’

‘How cruel!’

‘Sixteen thousand miles.’

‘Don’t, or I shall cry.’

And the evening seemed to listen, to grieve, to sympathize with our losing each other.

‘The fact of the matter,’ she purled, looking into my face with her dark velvety eyes, ‘is that I shall never see you again.’

‘Gustave!’ called my aunt. He went back to her.

‘There, he’s coming now’—Sylvia turned to me as if to go. She liked Gustave well enough against a background — the background of other people; the more the better. Being alone with him was another matter. Then he was like a thread pulled out of a pattern — a poor thing. When she was engaged to him she would never be alone with him, but insisted on going out with friends, myself included. And now she must be pointedly alone with him.

‘Gustave! Good night,’ said my aunt. ‘Sylvia won’t go home with you to-night. Elle n’ira pas .’

And, again, I was reminded of military orders: ‘B Company will parade.’ But she deigned to add:

‘She is too tired to-night and will stay at home. Elle restera à la maison. À demain, alors !’

Gustave just raised his faint brow a little — as though it came to him that the practice was rather against precedent in most marriages. He gulped once or twice, coughed a little, and adjusted his Adam’s apple. He pulled at his collar in a timid gesture, cleared his throat half-heartedly, and said, ‘Well, then, good night, maman ’.

‘Good night, Gustave’—she touched his faint brow as he bent over her and licked her blanched hand—‘ à demain !’

For a moment he stood there as if wanting to say something, then gulped and went out.

He was gone.

If you doubt this, I simply say to you: you do not know my aunt. We stood there, Sylvia and I, it seemed both of us breathless. The thing was too sudden. Even Aunt Teresa herself looked as though she had astonished herself. Suddenly I understood the secret power of that woman. I understood — what so far I had failed to understand — how she had managed to take her husband with her all the way to the Far East in the midst of ‘the greatest war the world had ever seen’.

‘Now all go to bed. Ugh! I feel so done up.’

‘But it’s barely eight o’clock!’

‘Never mind. All go to bed. You are leaving early tomorrow.’

I strolled about the house, pondering on my departure. My trunks were packed. My cupboards bare. My hours void.

Sylvia was in the drawing-room. She rose to meet me. ‘I’m so glad you’ve come.’

‘Why, darling?’

‘I felt so sad just now. I had a bath — and suddenly I felt so lonely — lonely — lonely — as if I were all alone in the world.’ She blinked. ‘I have only you to talk to.’

A kiss.

‘O — o—o!’

‘What?’

‘A sore on my lip.’