Stanley Elkin - Van Gogh's Room at Arles

“What’s an old poof like you know about beauty in women?” Larry said.

“Oh nothing, nothing at all. You’ve quite found me out, yes you have.”

“Have you seen my brothers and sisters?” Larry asked.

“What do you take me for?” said Macreed Dressel as if he’d been insulted.

“Have you?”

“No, of course not! Certainly not! I should say not! Not in ages!”

“You’re quite certain?”

“Quite certain! Absolutely! I’d take my oath on it! You have my word!”

(Oh, I should have been a queen, I really should. I have the temperament, I mean, certain passive instincts. I am, I mean, occasionally visited, as women are supposed to be, by great illuminating flashes of knowledge, received as Sinai conviction. Because I knew what this was all about. The Prince, who was no gambler, in exchange for Macreed’s promise never to admit his siblings into the casino — that fast crowd, those ne’er-do-wells, the fortunes they owed in gambling debts — had undertaken to come to Llanelli in their place, volunteering to dip into his own Royal-Duke- of-Wilshire-Heir-Apparent’s funds rather than have them, though more experienced in these matters than he, venture from their smaller reserves and diminished reputations one solitary pound. I asked myself, Louise, say what you will about him, is not this Lawrence the Steady one hell of an honorable man? Then thought to myself— Whoops, Louise, whoops there, what about Alec and Denise and company, aren’t they not only the fastest runners in that pack of ne’er-do-wells and compulsive gamblers, but Princes and Princesses of the Realm in their own right as much as Lawrence himself? What’s to prevent a three-star bully and photo hog like Prince Alec who doesn’t lack for the temerity to enter any low pub in the kingdom to demand of the locals that they stand him drinks, or to provoke dust-ups with no thought to his victims’ safety and well- being, no matter what he may have for his own, and then come away, barreling his Quantra at one hundred, one hundred twenty-five, and one hundred seventy mph with a souped-up, one thousand hp Rolls-Royce engine under its bonnet through the narrowest passageways in Bond Street, from going into any damn gambling den he thinks to take it in his head to go into and not only playing for , but actually determining what the table stakes will be? And, Sid, because it’s you I’m talking to in case you didn’t catch on, I knew the answer to that one, too. It was because, even though they were Princes and Princesses in their own right, they were never as much so as Lawrence. Who was Heir Apparent, practically as good as King already. By virtue of which, at least to pledged professionals like Mary and Robin and Alec and Denise, oathed to primogeniture, to the simple principles of fealty and liegeship and obligation, were servants to Order, to some pure, attainable ideal of Succession, wouldn’t their brother have loyalty and compliance, if not actual out-and-out faith, practically coming to him? An Heir Apparent who stood above those mere Heirs Presumptive as confidently as Alec, who not only felt at ease in those low pubs and on those only just civic lanes and roads and motorways, and who, the Heir Apparent, were he of a mind to, could have commanded of the younger brother that he stand him to the same stout that the younger brother had just expropriated from the day laborer in the low pub. So that all he ever had to say to any of them was, “Steer clear, no little romps at the gaming tables for you kids, but, whatever you do, stay the hell away from The Springfield!”)

“Will you be purchasing any chips this evening?” Macreed Dressel asked me after we’d freshened up.

“I’m not much of a gambler.”

“Oh,” said Macreed, “but it’s so boring to stand by watching someone else hazard. I don’t care how much in love two people are, it makes for a damned tedious evening. No, surely you ought to put yourself at some risk.”

“No, really, thank you, I’m fine. I’ll try to bring Larry some luck.”

“I can’t sell you a few chips? Two or three thousand pounds?”

“Louise?” said Larry, turning to me.

Well, I’m not much of a gambler, and Dressel was right, it is tedious to watch other people make bets. When I was in America, I noticed that every local television news program would run the winning lottery numbers across the screen. What could have been of interest to no one except the three or four people out of the several hundred thousand who’d purchased tickets seemed to take up an immense amount of time as the numbers went by. Then they’d put the numbers up a second time. (I have the same reaction watching the weather report or listening to the scores of games.) Actually, when the only thing at stake is money and depends on chance — oh, I know there’s a certain skill, and even bits and pieces of character involved in understanding house odds, in knowing when to risk and when to stand pat — I have trouble developing a rooting interest. I’d have to know all the gambler’s circumstances before I could get involved. The kick I got in those London clubs had more to do with watching how people behaved, what winning or losing meant to them and, well, quite frankly, the clichés about English character are quite accurate. We’re too stiff- upper-lip to give much away.

But this is what I meant before when I said that at these times — when the Prince and I were off on our own and, well, dating — I felt most returned to myself. Because the truth was, I hadn’t any money. Denise had taken me shopping. What I wore in Llanelli Denise had put on my back. Even my shoes and undergarments had been billed to the Princess’s wardrobe allowance. I took my meals at one palace or stately home or another, or dined in England’s finest restaurants and it hadn’t cost me a cent. (Indeed, I never even once saw a bill presented.) I slept each night in a spectacular room between gloriously smooth sheets on wonderfully stuffed pillows in beautifully embroidered pillow slips on a marvelous turned-down bed, and not only was everything free but I never even thought to bring my hosts a gift.

Only when Macreed Dressel had offered to sell me chips, and only when Larry had turned to me and spoken my name, “Louise?” did it occur to me that I had no money. That it’s all right to accept every hospitality — even the hospitality of the gift of the clothes on one’s back — except the hospitality of money. And, as I had no money, and would take none from Larry — even though it would have been disguised as Macreed Dressel’s chips — I did, I felt returned to myself.

“Let’s get on with it then, shall we?” Lawrence said, and Mr. Dressel opened an ordinary door and led us through it and into his graceless, charmless gambling parlor, which would, had not the common wall in the ordinary semidetached been knocked through, have been two quite ordinary lounges.

Lawrence is a steady and responsible man but not a stern one, and his tone, when he indicated it was time to begin the ordeal, was more pleasant than stoic or neutral. And though there was nothing inflated in his voice when he told his old friend he was ready to get on with it, no more blame or censure coming from him than if he’d been pulled up short by a kink in his muscle on a walk in the woods, just this perfectly agreeable signal that whatever it was that might happen to either of them on the rest of their ramble, for his money, rambles were a crapshoot anyway, no one was responsible, not him, not his old pal, all three of us knew where Macreed Dressel stood. These were the inflections of some accustomed, charming dominion, so maybe I wouldn’t have made such a hotshot Royal after all. I was too old to learn the language, I would speak it with an accent for the rest of my life.