Ronald Firbank

“ For days after she hung between life and death, and then, when she at last got well again, she always seemed to be thinking of him, always seemed to be living in the past. Sometimes she would sit for hours in the garden staring in front of her, and smiling and talking to herself so that I used to feel afraid. Then, a few years later, when the father and mother of the little Odette were drowned on their way back from India, Madame seemed to wake up from her long dream, as it were, and went to Paris to fetch Mademoiselle Odette from the convent of the Holy Dove. ”

“ Sixsmith and the New Juliet, gay from a certain grill, audaciously advanced, their playful screams rendered inaudible by the sounds of a tricksome waltz wafted down to them from the piano-organ above.
Items of linen nestling close to a line overhead showed palely against the night like roosting doves.
“Help.... Oh! she’s falling,” Mrs. Sixsmith screamed. “Are you there, Mr. Nice?”
“Give me your hand,” Miss Sinquier begged. ”

“ Every time she used her whip the powder rose in clouds. Wending her way through the throng the duchess recognised the rose-harnessed horses of Countess Medusa Rappa—the Countess bolt upright, her head carried stiffly staring with a pathetic expression of dead joie-de-vie between her coachman’s and footman’s waists. But the intention of calling at the Café Cleopatra caused the duchess to hasten. The possibility of learning something beneficial to herself was a lure not to be resisted. ”

“ It was on the palm-grown Messalina, an avenue that comprised a solid portion of the Ruiz estate, that he had installed her, in a many-storied building, let out in offices and flats.
Little gold, blue, lazy and romantic Cuna, what chastened mood broods over thy life to-day?
“Have you your crucifix? Won’t you buy a cross?” persuasive, feminine voices rose up from the pavement below. Active again with the waning sun, “workers,” with replenished wares, were emerging forth from their respective depots nursing small lugubrious baskets. ”

“ Hear me and forgive me and be offended not if what I ask is vain ... soften all hostile hearts and let them love me—adore me!—oh Heaven, help me to please. Vouchsafe at each finale countless curtains; and in the ‘Potion Scene,’ oh Lord, pull me through....”
Unwilling to genuflect in the presence of her maid, who would interpret any unwontedness of gesture for first-night symptoms of fear, Miss Sinquier lifted her face towards the bluish light of day that filtered obliquely through the long glass-plating above. ”

“ Countess Medusa Rappa cocked her sunshade; “Whose boat is that,” she asked, “with the azure oars?”
“It looks nothing but a pea-pod!” the Countess of Tolga declared.
“It belongs to a darling, with delicious lips and eyes like brown chestnuts,” Mademoiselle de Lambèse informed.
“Ah!... Ah!... Ah!... Ah!...” her colleagues crooned.
“A sailor?”
The Queen’s maid nodded: “There’s a partner, though,” she added, “A blue-eyed, gashed-cheeked angel....”
Mademoiselle de Nazianzi looked away.
“I love the lake with the white wandering ships,” she sentimentally stated, descrying in the distance the prince. ”

“ But the story that Odette found the most wonderful of all, was the account of the child Bernadette beholding the Holy Virgin in the mountains. This, for her, was the most perfect story in the world, and with her quick, imaginative mind she would picture the little peasant girl Bernadette returning to her parents’ distant dwelling, when suddenly in a ray of glorious light, the Holy Mary herself appeared on the lonely mountain path, like a beautiful dream. ”

“ The Villa Alba, half-buried in spreading awnings, and surrounded by many noble trees, stood but a short distance off the main road, its pleasaunces enclosed by flower-enshrouded walls, all a-zig-zag, like the folds of a screen. Beloved of lizards, and velvet-backed humming-birds, the shaded gardens led on one side to the sea.
“To make such a noise at dis hour,” the negress murmured, going grumblingly at [Pg 49] length to the gate, disclosing, upon opening, a gentleman in middle-life, with a toothbrush moustache and a sapphire ring.
“De mist’ess still in bed, sah.” ”

“ Mademoiselle de Nazianzi tittered.
“Why not let it go?” she asked, turning her eyes towards the window-panes of the palace, that glanced like rows of beaten-gold in the evening sun.
“A hawk might peck it!” the Countess returned, looking up as if for one, into a sky as imaginative, and as dazzling as Shelley poetry.
“Even the Court,” Father Nostradamus ejaculated wryly, “will peck at times.” ”

“ And Odette in her baby voice whispered back, “The Holy Virgin has sent me, in order to make you well!”
Presently the woman calmed herself, and sat staring at the shining river, as though she had quite forgotten that Odette was beside her.
“Tell me what is the matter,” Odette said at length, “and I will try to help you.”
The woman looked at her kindly: “How should you understand what is the matter?” she said, “You, who have lived always with good people, far away from the temptations of the world, what have you to do with the likes of us?” ”

“ S. Elizabeth and S. Sebastian in Flower Street seemed in high dispute, while across the sunset water S. Ann-on-the-Hill did nothing but complain. Near by S. Nicaise, half-paralysed, and impotent, scarcely shook. Then triumphant, in a hurricane of sound S. Irene hushed the lot.
Mrs. Sixsmith fetched a long, calm breath.
It was already the hour he had said.
“And my experience tells me,” she murmured, as she took her way towards the Deanery, “that with opportunity and time he may hope to succeed to Sir Oliver.” ”

“ Beneath a changing tide of deepening shadow, the lifeless valleys were mirroring to the lake the sombreness of dusk. Across the blue forlornness of the water, a swan, here and there, appeared quite violet, while coiffed in swift clinging, golden clouds, the loftiest hills alone retained the sun.
A faint nocturnal breeze, arising simultaneously with the Angelus-bell, seemed likely to relieve, at the moon’s advent, the trials to her patience of the Countess Yvorra: “who must be cursing,” the Count reflected, turning the telescope about with a sigh, to suit her sail. ”

“ Although the Sun-god was scarcely risen, already the radiant street teemed with life.
Veiled dames, flirting fans, bent on church or market, were issuing everywhere [Pg 57] from their doors, and the air was vibrant with the sweet voice of bells.
To rejoin his parents promptly at their hotel was a promise he was tempted to forget.
Along streets all fresh and blue in the shade of falling awnings, it was fine, indeed, to loiter. Beneath the portico of a church, a running fountain drew his steps aside. ”

“ Miss Sinquier clasped her hands.
“One has heard of them often, of course.”
“Mr. and Mrs. Mary have won repute throughout the realm,” Mrs. Sixsmith impressively said, wondering (as middlewoman) what commission she should ask.
“Mrs. Mary, I dare say, is no longer what she was!”
“Mrs. Mary, aujourd’hui, is a trifle, perhaps, full-blown, but she’s most magnetic still. And a warmer, quicker heart never beat in any breast.”
“In her heyday, Sir Oliver—but you wouldn’t have seen her, of course.” ”

“ Yousef’s lips had seldom conveyed to hers the spell of Ursula’s; and once indeed lately, when he had kissed her, there had been an unsavoury aroma of tobacco and charcuterie, which, to deal with, had required both tact and courage.... Ah dear Hood! What harmony life had held within. Unscrupulous and deceiving men might lurk around its doors (they often did) coveting the chaste, but Old Jane, the porteress, would open to no man beyond the merest crack. And how right they were the nuns in their mistrust of man! Sister Ursula one day had declared, in uplifted mood, that “marriage was obscene.” ”

“ One evening, when little Odette lay awake in her deep four-posted bed, watching the firelight dance upon the strange tapestry figures that covered the walls, she heard Fortune, her old nurse, talking to one of the servants. She caught her aunt’s name, then her own, and without realizing that she was doing wrong, she listened to what Fortune said. ”

“ Past the Presidency and the public park, the Theatres Maxine Bush, Eden-Garden, and Apollo, along the Avenida, and the Jazz Halls by the wharf, past little suburban shops, and old, deserted churchyards where bloom geraniums, through streets of squalid houses, and onward skirting pleasure lawns and orchards, bibbitty-bobbitty, beneath the sovereign brightness of the sky, the Farananka tram crawled along.
Surveying the landscape listlessly through the sticks of her fan, Miss Edna Mouth grew slightly bored—alas, poor child ”

“ The mellay of vehicles had considerably increased, and the Duchess paused a moment to consider which she should borrow, when recollecting she wished to question one of the royal gardeners on a little matter of mixing manure, she decided to return through the castle grounds instead. Taking a path that descended between rhododendrons and grim old cannons towards the town, she was comparing the capriciousness of certain bulbs to that of certain people, when she heard her name called from behind, and glancing round perceived the charming silhouette of the Countess of Tolga. ”

“ Lady Mary showed distress.
“For goodness sake, my dear,” she addressed Miss Sinquier, “do leave yourself alone. I want the glass.”
But Miss Sinquier seemed engrossed.
At her elbow a slip of a “Joy-baby” was holding forth with animation to Mrs. Sixsmith and Mrs. Smee.
“That was one of my dreams,” she was saying, “and last night again I had another—in spite of a night-light, too! It began by a ring formed of crags and boulders enclosing a troop of deer—oh, such a herd of them—delicate, distinguished animals with little pom-pom horns, and some had poodles’ tails. ”

“ Madame Ruiz remarked, raising the rosy dome of her sunshade a degree higher above her head.
They were pacing a walk radiant with trees and flowers as some magician’s garden, that commanded a sweeping prospect of long, livid sands, against a white green sea.
“There would seem to be several new yachts, darling,” Madame Ruiz observed.
“The Duke of Wellclose with his duchess (on their wedding-tour) arrived with the tide.”
“Poor man; I’m told that he only drove to the church after thirty brandies!” ”

“ Half-way down the row, on the Knightsbridge side, you caught a glimpse of it set well back in its strip of garden with a curtain of rustling aspen-trees before the door.
Erected towards the close of the eighteenth century as a retreat for a fallen minister, it had, on his demise, become the residence of a minor member of the reigning Royal House, from whose executors, it had, in due course, passed into the hands of the first histrionic couple in the land. ”

“ The plangent cry of a peacock, rose disquietingly from the garden.
“I’m nothing but nerves, doctor,” her Dreaminess lamented, fidgeting with the crucifix that dangled at her neck upon a chain. Ultra feminine, she disliked that another—even in extremis—should absorb all the limelight.
“A change of scene, ma’am, would be probably beneficial,” Dr Cuncliffe Babcock replied, eyeing askance the Countess of Tolga who unobtrusively entered:
“The couturiers attend your pleasure, ma’am,” in impassive undertones she said: “to fit your mourning.” ”

“ Sauntering by the dusty benches by the pavement-side, where white-robed negresses sat communing in twos and threes, he attained the Avenue Messalina with its spreading palms, whose fronds hung nerveless in the windless air.
Tinkling mandolines from restaurant gardens, light laughter, and shifting lights.
Passing before the Café de Cuna, and a people’s “Dancing,” he roamed leisurely along. Incipient Cyprians, led by vigilant, blanched-faced queens, youths of a certain life, known as bwam-wam bwam-wams, [Pg 83] gaunt pariah dogs with questing eyes, all equally were on the prowl. ”

“ Nighties, as evening fell, would go off into proud Praxiteles—torsos of Nymphs or Muses: pants and ready-mades, at a hint of air would pirouette and execute a phantom ballet from Don John.
Beyond the clothes lines was a Pagoda, set up in an extravagant mood, containing a gilded Buddha—a thorn and a symbol of unrighteousness to a convent of Ursulines whose recreation yard was underneath. ”

“ Already the blue revolving lights of the Café Cleopatra were growing paler with the dawn, and the moon had veered a little towards the Convent of the Flaming-Hood. 49 Ah ... how often as a lay boarder there had she gazed up towards the palace wondering half-shrinkingly what life “in the world” was like; for there had been a period indeed, when the impulse to take the veil had been strong with her—more, perhaps, to be near one of the nuns whom she had idolised than from any more immediate vocation. ”

“ Unhappy, nostalgic, disdainful, selfish, ever about to abandon Cuna-Cuna to return to it no more, yet never budging, adoring her fairy villa far too well, Madame Ruiz while craving for the International-world, consoled herself by watching from afar European Society going speedily to the dogs. Art loving, and considerably musical (many a dizzy venture at the Opera-house had owed its audition to her) , she had, despite [Pg 48] the self-centeredness of her nature, done not a little to render more brilliant the charming city it amused her with such vehemence to abuse. ”

“ Pazza per amore,” she warbled, leaping lightly over the footlights into the stalls.
The auditorium, steeped in darkness, felt extinguished, chill.
Making a circuit of the boxes, she found her way up a stairway into the promenade.
Busts of players, busts of poets, busts of peris, interspersed by tall mirrors in gilt-bordered mouldings, smiled on her good-day.
Sinking to a low, sprucely-cushioned seat, she breathed a sigh of content.
Rid of the perpetual frictions of the inevitable 105personnel, she could possess the theatre, for a little while, in quietude to herself. ”

“ Court life is not uplifting,” the Countess said again, contemplating her muff of self-made lace, with a half-vexed forehead. What that muff contained was a constant problem for conjecture; but it was believed by more than one of the maids-in-waiting to harbour “goody” books and martyrs’ bones.
“By generous deeds and Brotherly love,” Father Nostradamus exclaimed, “we should endeavour to rise above it!” 140
With the deftness of a virtuoso, the Countess seized, and crushed with her muff, a pale-winged passing gnat. ”

“ Subsiding bashfully to a bench, Charlie gazed around.
So many sparkling fans. One, a delicate [Pg 58] light mauve one: “Shucks! If only you wa’ butterflies!” he breathed, contemplating with avidity the nonchalant throng; then perceiving a richer specimen splashed with silver of the same amative tint: “Oh you lil beauty!” And, clutching his itching net to his heart, he regretfully withdrew.
Sauntering leisurely through the cool, Mimosa-shaded streets, he approached, as he guessed, the Presidency. A score of shoeblacks, lolled at cards, or gossip, before its gilded pales. ”

“ In the corridor, being a general holiday, all was yet quite still. A sound, as of gentle snoring, came indeed from behind more than one closed door, and the new pensionnaire was preparing to beat a retreat, when she perceived, in the cloister, the dumpish form of Old Jane.
Seated in the sun by the convent well, the Porteress was sharing a scrap of breakfast with the birds.
“You’re soonish for Mass, love,” she broke out, her large archaic features surcharged with smiles. ”

“ The latest jazz, bewildering, glittering, exuberant as the soil, a jazz, throbbing, pulsating, with a zim, zim, zim, a jazz all abandon and verve that had drifted over the glowing savannah and the waving cane-fields [Pg 32] from Cuna-Cuna by the Violet Sea, invited, irresistibly, to motion every boy and girl.
“Prancing Nigger, hab a dance?” his wife, transported, shrilled: but Mr. Mouth was predicting a Banana slump to Mrs. Walker, the local midwife, and paid no heed. ”

“ It is disgraceful they have not got one already, poor creatures,” the Archduchess crooned accepting the proffered glass.
“Yes, yes, dear,” the Queen exclaimed rising and crossing to the window.
The bitter odour of the oleander flowers outside oppressed the breathless air and filled the room as with a faint funereal music. So still a day. Tending the drooping sun-saturated flowers, a gardener with long ivory arms alone seemed animate.
“Pull up your skirt, Marquise! Pull it up.... It’s dragging, a little, in the water.” ”

“ In a rocking chair, before the threshold of a palm-thatched cabin, a matron with broad, bland features, and a big untidy figure, surveyed the scene with a nonchalant eye.
Beneath some tall trees, bearing flowers like flaming bells, a few staid villagers sat enjoying the rosy dusk, while, strolling towards the sea, two young men passed by with fingers intermingled.
With a slight shrug, the lady plied her fan.
As the Mother of a pair of oncoming girls, the number of ineligible young men, [Pg 9] or confirmed bachelors around the neighbourhood was a constant source of irritation.... ”

“ Lady 37 Something replied, caressing a parure of false jewels, intended, indeed, to deceive no one, “to be a Queen of a sun-steeped country like yours.”
Queen Thleeanouhee fetched a sigh.
“Dateland—my dear, it’s a scorch!” she averred.
“I conclude, ma’am, it’s what we should call ‘conservatory’ scenery?” Lady Something murmured.
“It is the land of the jessamine-flower, the little amorous jessamine-flower,” the Queen gently cooed with a sidelong smiling glance, “that twines itself sometimes to the right-hand, at others to the left, just according to its caprices!” ”

“ Never mind. Everything’s so beautiful,” the young girl inconsequently exclaimed: “Look at that Thistle! and that Bee! O, you darling!”
“Ah, how one’s face unbends in gardens!” the Countess of Tolga said, regarding the scene before her, with a faraway pensive glance.
Along the lake’s shore, sheltered from the winds by a ring of wooded hills, shewed many a proud retreat, mirroring its marble terraces to the waveless waters of the lake. ”

“ A desire for air and solitude, led her towards the Recreation ground. After the hot refectory, sauntering in the silken shade of the old astounding cedars, was delightful quite. In the deserted alleys, the golden blossoms of the censia-trees, 217 unable to resist the sun, littered in perfumed piles the ground, overcoming her before long with a sensation akin to vertige. Anxious to find her friend, Laura turned towards her cell.
She found Sister Ursula leaning on her window-ledge all crouched up—like a Duchess on “a First Night.”
“My dear, my dear, the crowds!” ”

“ Through the bare, blindless windows, framing a sky so bluely luminous, came the swelling clamour of the assembling crowds, tinging the languid air as with some sultry fever. From the Chausée, music of an extraordinary intention—heated music, crude music, played with passionate élan to perfect time, conjured up, with vivid, heartrending prosaicness, the seething Boulevards beyond the high old creeper-covered walls.
“I forget now, Mother, which of the Queens it is that will wear a velvet train of a beautiful orchid shade: But one of them will!” ”

“ Fond of a compliment, when not too frankly racy,7 and knowing how susceptible the exile was to clothes, the Countess had arrayed herself in a winter gown of kingfisher-tinted silk turning to turquoise, and stencilled in purple at the arms and neck with a crisp Greek-key design; while a voluminous violet veil, depending behind her to a point, half-concealed a tricorne turquoise toque from which arose a shaded lilac aigrette branching several ways.
“I shall probably die with heat, and of course it’s most unsuitable; but poor old man, he likes to recall the Capital!” ”