J. Donleavy - The Beastly Beatitudes of Balthazar B

"I know I shouldn't but I feel so silly not to. Use your Christian name, may I. It's Balthazar."

"Yes."

"Funny isn't it, if one keeps very much to oneself and lets others think as they may, one can seem so mysterious and strange. I never would have thought you were lonely and didn't lead the gayest of lives. You dance beautifully too. And now I can't say your name. But I will. Yes. Balthazar. Beefy says you're from France."

"That was many years ago."

"Do you like Ireland."

"Yes except when they suddenly step out on the street and direct traffic."

"I'm not surprised. When you come along in your motor.

But you do like it here."

"Miss Fitzdare I think it would really be better for me to admit right now to you that I am utterly and absolutely bewildered by this land. From the moment I stepped off the boat till now. I'm dazed. I'm frozen out of my wits in my rooms. And forgive me. I have been constipated for weeks. I haven't an idea what's being said by the professor in zoology.

When I see all of you just cutting open your dogfishes the way you do, and somehow I cut into mine, and in my dogfish it simply didn't have a ninth and fifth nerve. I looked all over.

I'm absolutely positive."

"You are funny."

"Miss Fitzdare, I am, really I am, utterly bewildered."

"Odear."

"I can't learn. I keep thinking what good is it to know ontogeny repeats phylogeny. I am sometimes most discouraged." "So you do know something."

"Only because those two words rhyme. I really do swear to that. It was the ogeny that made me remember the phylo and onto."

"You are not quite what I expected. Mr. B. I don't know whether to believe you or not. Or whether you're having me on."

"I swear I'm not having you on."

"You mustn't swear. I hope you don't think I am just a little innocent girl and you pity me. In some things I am innocent. God now you've got me all blushing. This is awful."

"I am sorry. I didn't mean to embarrass you. Do you play the harpsicord, Miss Fitzdare."

"How did you know that."

"I knew. I don't know how. I can hardly meet anyone in Dublin who doesn't."

"O God what a thing to say."

"I don't mean it in its crudest sense. I in fact mean it from the heart. You see I often sit and wonder if my way of life is a true one. That I shall take my place in some sort of society. Not high or low. Not too low. Make comments on the wine. Tell my host or hostess that the ceiling plaster is divine."

"Mr. B. Hmmmn. Yes you are rather more than one bargained for. We don't seem to be dancing. Shall we go back to the mantelpiece. Where we first met."

"You're not meaning to leave me."

"No. Good gracious no."

"I'm in need of another sherry.' "And HI get it for you."

"Miss Fitzdare. The way you cross your legs now on the chair."

"Chair. What chair.' "Sorry stool, at lecture. And you wear those blue woolly looking stockings. You know I have looked at you many times. From behind. I even thought of asking you to accompany me to the gramophone society. And then I thought, no I was just sure you wouldn't come.' "You should have asked."

"If I did. Would you have come."

"I would have adored to."

"Now that's what I mean Miss Fitzdare. You say you would adore to come. And the word adore. That troubles me. I almost feel that how can one really, deep down in one's heart, adore to go to the gramophone society. My first night was awful. I had paid my shilling, and four pence for tea. And on a cold black night five to eight on what I thought was a Friday evening I walked across the playing field. At the other side all was darkness. I nearly stopped and went back to my rooms. But I couldn't face just sitting there. And I went on. For the first time I knew what it was like for those chaps at the pole. And how it was only their will to forge on. Ever on. And that's what I felt when I stopped mid way across the playing field. I thought. No. Courage. You must go on. Even though one sees no light. Somehow remembering as it said about the society, anyone who is interested in music should get in touch. And I had straight off paid my five shillings membership. You mustn't laugh, Miss Fitzdare. I was quite really a very desperate man."

"I'm sorry. I just somehow don't know just how seriously to take you. I've not quite heard anyone talk like you before."

"Well you may not know it. But I burst into tears in the middle of, I think it's the rugby pitch as a matter of fact. Like a scimitar had struck a bag of water on my head. Tears came tumbling down all round me."

Miss Fitzdare looking slightly away. And suddenly reaching for the decanter she poured Balthazar's glass over full and sherry dripped from his wrist and went coolly along under his sleeve.

"O dear Fm most awfully sorry I did that. Here let me wipe your glass. And your hand. I mean, I must say, I think because you must be alarming me. But do say. Did you get there. To the gramophone society."

"Yes. I did. I got there. Feeling every inch of the way that they would not want me when I did. And it was all far worse than I imagined. I saw a light on. And I went close and looked in the window. In the room that has all the plants.

There was a man sprinkling something on top of a fish tank. I knocked at the window and he was paralytic with terror. And I nearly fell over when a toad jumped up my trouser leg. I guess my waving arms out in the dark were disconcerting. He became awfully angry because I had given him such a fright. Kept trembling and shaking and asking who my tutor was. He said the gramophone society was in the Physics Building. And not the Botany Building. And when I got round there. It was all locked up. It wasa Thursday night.'

"O dear I am sorry. You seem to have had awfully bad luck.

But why don't you join the Christian Student Movement.

Fm on the council. Annual subscription only five shillings.

You seem to me, I don't know, perhaps Fm prying a little, but you seem as if you hadn't found out where you want to go in life."

"Have you Miss Fitzdare."

"Yes I think I have."

"And where are you going."

"Well I feel that one should devote part of one's life for the benefit of others."

"And do you."

"Yes. I do. In a small way. I know it sounds rather self proud to say a thing like that. Not everyone feels as I do. I don't really mind. Callous and cynical views have never changed mine. There's an awful lot of suffering in Dublin. In a room like this, with people like us, I don't suppose it appears that such a thing could be. I guess it's awfully un-modern but I have tried to take a Christian attitude to questions which confront man in his daily life."

Miss Fitzdare moved her sparkling bracelet lightly to and fro on her wrist. Balthazar B wavering slightly.To straighten and come to attention for Miss Fitzdare. Her sudden cool dark elegance. Strange silence in her eyes. All those hours of her back facing me. As I pondered, amid erotic images, the early stages of a mammal. All utter Gaelic to me. Then to look up and see Miss Fitzdare's legs refold themselves. I thought she was so aloof to life. With appointments up and down Grafton Street and all over Merrion and Fitzwilliam Squares. Where briefly she would appear and disappear beyond the bright lacquered doors, paying respects to dowagers. And here in all this twinkling splendour of candle light. She talks. And I can almost hear. Her fearless handling of a horse. Nibbling and nuzzling her. As her own nostrils flair. Fluttering out at the end of the narrow bridge of bone so delicately straight. And the question which confronts me much in my daily life. To sow, please, one's desperate bag of wild oats in this country. Somewhere there must be a fissure in this granite ground.

"Miss Fitzdare what do you feel one should do with one's problems."