The Table Talk of Samuel Marchbanks (13 page)

On my last day in New York, I paid a farewell visit to Luchow’s famous and admirable German restaurant, and ordered one of the special dishes of the house—
Sauerbraten mit lumpftigen dumpfligen im Dischwasser
. As the temperature was about 95 F. this was not what my physician would have ordered (for me— he would certainly have wanted it for himself) but I ate it with appetite, and topped off with
Apfelstrudel
, coffee and a fitting quantity of excellent beer. Then I trundled
myself through the heat to a movie house where a French film,
The Well Digger’s Daughter
, was showing; it was the last film to be made by that splendid actor Raimu, and I went as much to pay my respects to a great memory as for anything else.… When I emerged a mighty thunderstorm broke, and I saw the towers of Manhattan against the lightnings and green luminosities of an El Greco sky, while rain fell like steel rods. It was a noble and awesome climax to a thoroughly congenial holiday.

H
OW OFTEN
and how bitterly I regret the fact that my work makes me read so many books. Reading is one of my great delights, but I like to read books by men of letters; I loathe reading books by soldiers, sailors, airmen, engineers, explorers, politicians, economists and other imperfectly literate persons who write like amateurs. The world was better off when there was a recognized clerkly caste, by whom all reading and writing was done.

I
ACCOMPANIED MY
Uncle Fortunatus to church this morning. It was an exquisite spring day and the sexton, or janitor, or beadle, or whatever he is called, had done his work with a will, so that the temple was very hot—about 80° F; I should judge—and the smell of hot hymnals hung in drowsy benediction over the worshipping throng. In the middle of the service three babies became Continuing Presbyterians, though from the expressions on their faces, I doubt if they understood the full significance of what they were doing. During the sermon my attention wandered to a question which has engaged my attention, from time to time, for
many years: why are Bibles and hymnbooks bound in such poor leather? What is wrong with that black, pebbly-grained morocco, that it should decay so quickly? I have two-hundred-years-old books in my library which are still in excellent condition, but a Bible which is twenty years old is already shabby.

I
HAD A FRANK
talk with my laundry man about starch today. “This degraded eccentric,” said I, kowtowing, “has a contemptible desire to appear well-groomed in the eyes of the world, concealing his manifold deficiencies of mind and heart under a stiffened shirt; your known charity toward the feeble-minded, O venerable one, might possibly bring you to indulge him in this folly?” The laundry man kowtowed and rejoined: “It is scarcely in the realm of likelihood, O celestial Marchbanks, that this abject wretch should dare to add a jot of stiffening to a character so notoriously upright and unbending as your own; if you insist upon such an impiety, it must be committed by other hands than these.” The upshot of this polite exchange is that my shirts will be as limp and rag-like in future as they have been in the past. Steam laundries abhor starch; they say it is unethical. Hand laundries won’t hear of starch; they say it is a nuisance. But I—unreconstructed moss-back that I am—like starch, even in my handkerchiefs. I want to crackle and pop like a plate of breakfast food, but unless I take to doing my own laundry, I shall never gain my desire, which is to be as stiff and white as a wedding cake, all day and every day.… Just feel this thing I have on. Well, madam, what if your husband is looking?
Honi soit qui mal y pense
is what I always say.… No, my dear lady, I said nothing about
pants
—don’t you understand French?

I
READ AN UNUSUALLY
good novel this afternoon, called
Herself Surprised
, by Joyce Carey; I was particularly struck by the skill with which the principal character was given life; I shall remember her for years. When I laid the book down I reflected for a time on the rarity of such novels; how few of the books which are pushed at us by modern authors contain any really interesting or memorable people. Yet there are books, not of the first quality, which give us such experiences. Consider
Lorna Doone
, the darling of our grandfathers; how real Lorna seems, and how potent her charm is, compared with the heroines of most modern novels, about whom we are told so much more! We do not know how Lorna looked in bed, or the state of her digestion, or what parts of her tingled when John Ridd kissed her, but we love her still. Magic, not psychology, is the stuff of which great stories are made.

T
O BE QUITE
frank with you, Madam, I am never quite sure why a little of each new bottle of wine is poured into our host’s glass first, but I think it is to see if there is any cork in it. If there is, it gives him a chance to pretend that it is not so. If a guest found cork in his wine, the host would have to order the whole bottle to be removed, and with wine the price it is that would be a great hardship to him. It is thus that economic pressure alters our social customs. Who can afford to be fussy about a piece of cork or a trifle of sediment nowadays?

I
RARELY
play cards, but I was taken to the cleaners this evening by a couple of young women in a spirited
game of “Authors.” I reflected as I played upon the appearance of authors, as a class. They are a mangy lot. Shakespeare appears to have been a dapper fellow, but look at James Fenimore Cooper, who kept turning up again and again in the hands I was dealt. And look at Ralph Connor and Sir Gilbert Parker, the two Canadians included in the game. Scarecrows, all of them. Authors should be read, but not seen. Their work unfits them for human society.

B
EFORE DINNER
that gentleman over there with the cubical head was expressing disappointment that so little attention was paid to the centenary of the birth of August Strindberg, the Swedish dramatist, which occurred on January 22. I have the centenary habit rather badly, but this one escaped my attention. The fact is, I have never been able to admire Strindberg since I made the acquaintance some years ago of a Swedish girl whose grandfather had been his near neighbour. She said that the neighbourhood was made intolerable by the noise of his quarrels with his three wives, and that his hatred of Ibsen bordered on the demoniacal. He invariably referred to Ibsen as “Gammal Snorlje,” meaning “Old Grouchy,” whereas Ibsen spoke of Strindberg, even in his public speeches, as “Gammal Nutsje,” meaning “Old Nutsy,” which was a sly reference to Strindberg’s frequent spells of violent insanity. Coldness between dramatists is not unknown, even in our day, but it seems to me that the affair between Strindberg and Ibsen had got out of hand, and as the younger man, it was Strindberg’s job to patch it up. The girl also told me that Strindberg’s genius defied translation, and I can well believe this.

I
HAVE HAD
a dreadful day. Frightful pain assailed me this morning while reading the paper. At this unfortunate moment a man came in to talk to me about insurance. “Useless,” I gasped; “I’d never pass the test. Unbearable pain at this very moment. Think it’s thrombosis.” He did not seem impressed. “What kind of a pain?” he asked. “Here, around the heart,” I wheezed; “a kind of stabbing, which creeps over to my left arm every now and then. Ouch! Tell them all I died game.” At this point I sank low in my chair, and closed my
eyes. “Probably gas,” he said, callously. “Get up and walk around and it will pass off.” He may not have known it, but he killed a sale by his crass attitude.… Earlier this very evening a man showed me the “fireman’s hitch” and hoisted me off the floor with a great show of ease. Politeness then demanded that I do the same for him, and I did so, producing multiple hernia in twenty seconds. However, I learned years ago that there is nothing for hernia like a strong rum Collins, and as soon as I had one I felt much better.

I
SEE THAT
Professor Kinsey has published the first volume of his study of sexual behaviour in the human male. This emboldens me to publish a study of a somewhat similar subject on which I have long been engaged, to wit: how many men wear only the tops or bottoms of their pyjamas? Of course, speaking to you on a social occasion like this I cannot be completely frank; children, or young girls tottering upon the threshold of womanhood, might accidentally overhear me and be brutally awakened to an aspect of life hitherto undreamed of by them. Therefore I shall only say that my investigations reveal that 47.3 per cent. of adult males wear only the t-ps of their p-j-m-s, and 32.9 per cent. (usually thin, muscular men) wear only the b-tt-ms thereof. And in summer 83 per cent. of adult males (excluding only university professors, clergymen, chartered accountants and people who habitually sleep in their underwear) wear no p-j-m-s at all; they describe this custom by a revolting expresson, to wit, “Sl–ping r-w.” I hesitate to tell you this, but science knows no bounds, and the spotlessness of my own private life is well attested.

The lady on my left, to whom I whispered my comment
on the Kinsey Report, and on my own researches regarding the wearing of the t-ps and b-tt-ms of p-j-m-s replied to me thus: “A curious use of the p-j-m- is illustrated by a married couple of my acquaintance; Mrs A. wears the p-j-m- t-p and Mr. A. wears the b-tt-m and thus they make one pair do. Do you think that this sort of thing is widely prevalent in Ontario?” Frankly, my investigations lead me to believe that anything can happen behind the pressed brick, lace curtains, and phoney leaded glass of an Ontario home. I even know of a case of a poor undergraduate at Toronto University who wore orange silk bloomers belonging to his fiancée’s aunt; they were lent to him by his beloved to dull the pinch of his poverty; the aunt never knew. But it just shows you what you can expect to find underneath the drab protective covering of Ontario.

E
VERY NOW AND THEN
I am seized with the notion that my life would be transformed if I had a new hobby, and I passed an hour this morning considering the possible consequences of my learning to play the guitar. Nobody plays it much nowadays except radio cowboys, and they use it only to accompany themselves while they sing miserable songs about their mothers’ graves or their own imminent (but too long deferred) deaths. The guitar has slipped sadly in the social scale. During the nineteenth century it was a favourite instrument of the nobility and gentry, and no picnic was complete without at least one girl who could play the thing. Of course, that was the Spanish guitar, an instrument of some artistic respectability. The present guitar is likely to be the Hawaiian model. The Spanish plunks, the Hawaiian yowls. Tunes can be played on the Spanish guitar if you have long, strong fingers and immense
concentration; the Hawaiian guitar will yield nothing but shuddering wails. The mandolin (which did not so much plunk as plink) has also fallen into disrepute, though Mozart and Schubert thought well of it.

I
WENT TO THE
movies last night and saw a short about wild life which made me angry, for it made fools of a lot of handsome wild creatures. A moose appeared, whom the commentator felt impelled to call “Elmer the Moose”; the moose’s mate was called “his mooing momma.” A fawn was referred to throughout this tiresome piece as “Junior,” and when the fawn was being suckled by its dam there was a lot of facetiousness about cafeterias. A fine owl was seen blinking in the sun, and the commentator shouted wittily: “Hey, I gotta get my sleep!” The whole thing was on the lowest level of taste and vulgarity, and the commentator had a voice which would have seemed needlessly uncultivated in a baseball umpire. God knows I have little interest in animals, but I do not like to see them insulted. I used to feel the same thing in the days when I was a frequent visitor at the London Zoo; in the lion house there were always ninnies who mocked the captive lions. I often wished that the bars would turn to butter, and that the great, noble beasts would practise their particular form of wit upon the little, ignoble men.