J. Donleavy - Wrong Information is Being Given Out at Princeton

“Ah. And question two. And I must warn you, I am incurably and insatiably curious. And I must ask. When last here, whatever were you doing in the loo, if I may use the British slang. Gilbert thought there had been a burglary, or at least a pipe leaking.”

“I did wonder when you might venture to ask me that. I suppose it was a damn silly business. But I was conjuring up to compose a march of pipes and drums.”

“Dear me, in the loo. How interesting, although I do hate and despise the word interesting and all those who use it throughout these our United States. But I do so love your pedantic speak.”

“Well as a matter of true fact, it comes from a slight impediment I have in the use of English, not that I speak French and Italian that well. However in the loo I had rather an insufferable situation. An accident. Or rather, discovered I had mistakenly put my shorts on back to front.”

“Oh my God. Forgive me. I can’t help finding that just a little bit droll. No wonder my dear fellow, that you had to pee. And your march you were conjuring up, pipe and drums. Did you compose it.”

“As a matter of fact, in my panic, I didn’t. But being also enamored by the lute and harp I instead put together a little bridal hymn.”

“Oh, did you. How sweet.”

“Well I’m afraid it’s not exactly sweet. Despite my classical tendencies, I do synchronize on the downbeat.”

“Oh, do you.”

“Yes. For hepcats. But I guess on the occasion in your powder room, I would have been better occupied composing something a little more akin to a dirge with muffled drums.”

“Oh, you mustn’t say that.”

“Well except for tonight in your wonderful presence, I’ve only met thus far dissent, opposition, and rejection in my efforts to enter the public forum, and to be recognized for my work. I eschew the barren and trite minds consumed with their pose of cultural omnipotence and pretense at original creativity, who by their very existence make the dedicated composer’s life such a misery.”

“You know, I have a solution. You must come out to Montana. I have a little ranch out there. Mostly wilderness. A grizzly bear or two. Buffalo, moose. And I suppose it might have more than a few rattlesnakes. But I’ve never seen one. Otherwise completely possessed of solitude. No one but me, a ranch hand or two, and the caretaker need know you were even there. I could have a Steinway for you. And I know you could work quietly in peace. Why do you not answer.”

“Well, I’m trying to remember all the languages that I can say yes in. Oui, sí, da. Igen .”

“And a’iwa, I believe, is Arabic.”

“And ja, I believe, is Lettish.”

“You have such exquisite hands, Stephen. I’ll bet you were lionized by the girls when growing up.”

“Well again, as a matter of true fact, I wasn’t. As a relatively poor boy of a very large family I could never ask anyone out on a date, even to the movies. With hardly much change left out of a dollar and ice cream sodas gone up to fifteen cents in the sweet shop where once they were only ten cents. And where some of the kids hung out who could afford it.”

“Oh, how sad for you.”

“Well, there was a little kid we could bribe for a nickel who cleaned up the candy wrappers and Popsickle sticks inside the movie theatre. Who would open up a side emergency fire exit to let us in, but I thought it an inappropriate entrance for an invited young lady.”

“Oh dear, I would have thought that so sweet and exciting.”

“Well I’m afraid young girls in the neighborhood were a little too conscious of what kind of an impression they were making. Their dignity and esteem and their reputations to uphold I’m afraid took precedence over the carefree.”

“Oh dear. When I was that age, before the war living as we did in Paris, where on Avenue Foch there were no neighborhood cinemas, no ice cream parlors, I remember I was always dying for something carefree and American like a pineapple soda and a jukebox crooning out something like ‘I’ll Never Smile Again.’”

“Pineapple’s my favorite too. Well I hope you weren’t, had there been sodas then in Paris, short of an extra franc or two.”

“Well as a matter of fact, I was. Very short indeed. I’m afraid my frugal parents did not believe in children’s allowances. The only entertainment to be found for me as a young girl was a nearby street named Rue Rude, which I always laughed at, thinking that if you walked there, someone would be discourteous to you. Although I suppose, for all my parents’ parsimony, one might say one lived in rather ornate if shabbily genteel circumstances amid treasures. And as the saying goes, the beauty of which give their owners so much joy. But to a juvenile girl just wanting desperately to find someone to love her, giltwood consoles, rock-crystal chandeliers taken from the imperial palaces of Saint Petersburg, even a few pieces of silver furniture belonging to Louis the Fourteenth which he hadn’t melted down to finance his wars, were of very little consequence. And frankly, I always thought we were always very poor. To the degree sometimes that I shudder having to give someone a dollar.”

“Well Dru, I’d be glad to lend or give you a dollar anytime you feel nervous like that. And if I may gently say so, it’s not half-bad the way you’re living here.”

“Well, perhaps I exaggerate a little. Owning divine things is how people cling to life, I suppose. And especially at the time the end of their own lives inexorably approaches. Ah, but how morose one is. Time to fill our glasses. Do have a cookie. We are still alive. But I did, before my own unpredictable demise may come, delayed as it may hopefully be, simply have an overwhelming urge to hear you play. And I would so like you to stay and play some more but I have to go meet Jonathan due soon at Penn Station off the train. He hates flying. He’s been duck shooting out west. He does rather have a fixation on his shooting, claret, and cigars. And he hates not having someone meet him. But I shall see you soon again, shan’t I.”

“Yes, for absolute sure.”

“You know I often watch along with the numerous seagulls, faithful pigeons fly together past and below the window here, their wings almost touching and it sends a wrench through me. And I do think I can talk about anything under the sun with you and circumstances permitting, think I might want to know you better. I am, after all, I do believe, still your mother-in-law.”

“Yes, ma’am. Sorry, that keeps slipping out.”

“Well, I’ll keep forgiving you. And I know that it may rather seem I’ve propositioned you, but you will think of Montana, won’t you. You have, you know, helped to set my mind at rest. After a totally unsettling experience just before you came. Gilbert was otherwise occupied and I thought I heard a noise outside the service door at the larder end of the kitchen. Opened it, and there was the grocery boy with a delivery but with his trousers open, pulling upon himself and at the crucial moment insisting I watch, and I thought he might have a gun. It made one flush with rage. Then he, pale with fright, poor boy, burst into tears. And said he was so ashamed. An altar boy at his church. I felt sorry for him. Then had to let him get the groceries in, two enormously heavy boxes. And before sending him on his way, he was in such a state and so shaking, I gave him some whisky and strictly advised him not ever to come back. Do you think I did the right thing in not calling the police. I can of course, be such a sentimental old fusspot.”

“Dru, I know this may sound like pedantic speak but allow me to say that there should be inaugurated as soon as possible in this town a devout society dedicated against the total indifference to the erosion of the human spirit. Enormous amounts of which are clearly present in your own heart.”