Anthony Powell - The Acceptance World

‘Mr. Guggenbühl is the latest, is he?’

Ethel laughed, with the easy good manners of a trusted servant whose tact is infinite. She made no attempt to indicate the identity of Mr. Guggenbühl.

‘What’s he like?’ Umfraville asked, wheedling in his manner.

‘He’s a German gentleman, sir.’

‘Old, young? Rich, poor?’

‘He’s quite young, sir. Shouldn’t say he was specially wealthy.’

‘One of that kind, is he?’ said Umfraville. ‘Everybody seems to have a German boy these days. I feel quite out of fashion not to have one in tow myself. Does he live here?’

‘Stays sometimes.’

‘Well, we won’t remain long,’ said Umfraville. ‘I absolutely understand.’

We followed him through a door, opened by Ethel, which led into a luxurious rather than comfortable room. There was an impression of heavy damask curtains and fringed chair-covers. Furniture and decoration had evidently been designed in one piece, little or nothing having been added to the original scheme by the present owner. A few books and magazines lying on a low table in Chinese Chippendale seemed strangely out of place; even more so, a model theatre, like a child’s, which stood on a Louis XVI commode.

Mrs. Andriadis herself was lying in an armchair, her legs resting on a pouf. Her features had not changed at all from the time when I had last seen her. Her powder-grey hair remained beautifully trim; her dark eyebrows still arched over very bright brown eyes. She looked as pretty as before, and as full of energy. She wore no jewellery except a huge square cut diamond on one finger.

Her clothes, on the other hand, had undergone a strange alteration. Her small body was now enveloped in a black cloak, its velvet collar clipped together at the neck by a short chain of metal links. The garment suggested an Italian officer’s uniform cloak, which it probably was. Beneath this military outer covering was a suit of grey flannel pyjamas, mean in design and much too big for her: in fact obviously intended for a man. One trouser leg was rucked up, showing her slim calf and ankle. She did not rise, but made a movement with her hand to show that she desired us all to find a place to sit.

‘Well, Dicky,’ she said, ‘why the hell do you want to bring a crowd of people to see me at this time of night?’

She spoke dryly, though without bad temper, in that distinctly cockney drawl that I remembered.

‘Milly, darling, they are all the most charming people imaginable. Let me tell you who they are.’

Mrs. Andriadis laughed.

‘I know him,’ she said, nodding in the direction of Barnby.

‘Lady Anne Stepney,’ said Umfraville. ‘Do you remember when we went in her father’s party to the St. Leger?’

‘You’d better not say anything about that,’ said Mrs. Andriadis. ‘Eddie Bridgnorth has become a pillar of respectability. How is your sister, Anne? I’m not surprised she had to leave Charles Stringham. Such a charmer, but no woman could stay married to him for long.’

Anne Stepney looked rather taken aback at this peremptory approach.

‘And Mrs. Duport,’ said Umfraville.

‘Was it your house I took in Hill Street?’

‘Yes,’ said Jean, ‘it was.’

I wondered whether there would be an explosion at this disclosure. The trouble at the house had involved some question of a broken looking-glass and a burnt-out boiler. Perhaps there had been other items too. Certainly there had been a great deal of unpleasantness. However, in the unexpected manner of persons who live their lives at a furious rate, Mrs. Andriadis merely said in a subdued voice:

‘You know, my dear, I want to apologise for all that happened in that wretched house. If I told you the whole story, you would agree that I was not altogether to blame. But it is all much too boring to go into now. At least you got your money. I hope it really paid for the damage.’

‘We’ve got rid of the house now,’ Jean said, laughing. ‘I didn’t ever like it much anyway.’

‘And Mr. Jenkins,’ Umfraville said. ‘A friend of Charles’s—’

She gave me a keen look.

‘I believe I’ve seen you before, too,’ she said.

I hoped she was not going to recall the scene Mr. Deacon had made at her party. However, she carried the matter no further.

‘Ethel,’ she shouted, ‘bring some glasses. There is beer for those who can’t drink whisky.’

She turned towards Umfraville.

‘I’m quite glad to see you all,’ she said; ‘but you mustn’t stay too long after Werner appears. He doesn’t approve of people like you.’

‘Your latest beau, Milly?’

‘Werner Guggenbühl. Such a charming German boy. He will be terribly tired when he arrives. He has been walking in a procession all day.’

‘To meet the Hunger-Marchers?’ I asked.

It had suddenly struck me that in the complicated pattern life forms, this visit to Mrs. Andriadis was all part of the same diagram as that in which St. John Clarke, Quiggin and Mona had played their part that afternoon.

‘I think so. Were you marching too?’

‘No — but I knew some people who were.’

‘What an extraordinary world we live in,’ said Umfraville. ‘All one’s friends marching about in the park.’

‘Rather sweet of Werner, don’t you agree?’ said Mrs. Andriadis. ‘Considering this isn’t his own country and all the awful things we did to Germany at the Versailles Treaty.’

Before she could say more about him, Guggenbühl himself arrived in the room. He was dark and not bad-looking in a very German style. His irritable expression recalled Quiggin’s. He bowed slightly from the waist when introduced, but took no notice of any individual, not even Mrs. Andriadis herself, merely glancing round the room and then glaring straight ahead of him. There could be no doubt that he was the owner of the grey pyjamas. He reminded me of a friend of Mr. Deacon’s called ‘Willi’: described by Mr. Deacon as having ‘borne much of the heat of the day over against Verdun when nation rose against nation’. Guggenbühl was a bit younger than Willi, but in character they might easily have a good deal in common.

‘What sort of a day did you have, Werner?’ asked Mrs. Andriadis.

She used a coaxing voice, quite unlike the manner in which she had spoken up to that moment. The tone made me think of Templer trying to appease Mona. It was equally unavailing, for Guggenbühl made an angry gesture with his fist.

‘What was it like, you ask,’ he said. ‘So it was like everything in this country. Social-Democratic antics. Of it let us not speak.’

He turned away in the direction of the model theatre. Taking no further notice of us, he began to manipulate the scenery, or play about in some other manner with the equipment at the back of the stage.

‘Werner is writing a play,’ explained Mrs. Andriadis, speaking now in a much more placatory manner. ‘We sometimes run through the First Act in the evening. How is it going, Werner?’

‘Oh, are you?’ said Anne Stepney. ‘I’m terribly interested in the Theatre. Do tell us what it is about.’

Guggenbühl turned his head at this.

‘I think it would not interest you,’ he said. ‘We have done with old theatre of bourgeoisie and capitalists. Here is Volksbühnen — for actor that is worker like industrial worker — actor that is machine of machines.’

‘Isn’t it too thrilling?’ said Mrs. Andriadis. ‘You know the October Revolution was the real turning point in the history of the Theatre.’

‘Oh, I’m sure it was,’ said Anne Stepney. ‘I’ve read a lot about the Moscow Art Theatre.’

Guggenbühl made a hissing sound with his lips, expressing considerable contempt.

‘Moscow Art Theatre is just to tolerate,’ he said, ‘but what of biomechanics, of Trümmer-Kunst, has it? Then Shakespeare’s Ein Sommernachtstraum or Toller’s Masse-Mensch will you take? The modern ethico-social play I think you do not like. Hauptmann, Kaiser, plays to Rosa Luxemburg and Karl Liebknecht, yes. The new corporate life. The socially conscious form. Drama as highest of arts we Germans know. No mere entertainment, please. Lebens-stimmung it is. But it is workers untouched by middle class that will make spontaneous. Of Moscow Art Theatre you speak. So there was founded at Revolution both Theatre and Art Soviet, millions, billions of roubles set aside by Moscow Soviet of Soldier Deputies. Hundreds, thousands of persons. Actors, singers, clowns, dancers, musicians, craftsmen, designers, mechanics, electricians, scene-shifters, all kinds of manual workers, all trained, yes, and supplying themselves to make. Two years to have one perfect single production — if needed so, three, four, five, ten years. At other time, fifty plays on fifty successive nights. It is not be getting money, no.’