Man and Maid. Glyn Elinor
said to me last night—"are the only pleasure in life—men and hunting bring content and happiness, work brings satisfaction, but women and their ways are the only pleasure."
"Even when you know it is all for some personal gain?"
"Even so, once you have realized that, it does not matter, you take the joy from another point of view, you have to eliminate vanity out of the affair, your personal vanity is hurt, my dear boy, when you feel it is your possessions, not yourself, they crave, but if you analyse that, it does not take away from the pleasure their beauty gives you—the tangible things are there just as if they loved you—I am now altogether indifferent as to their feelings for me, as long as their table manners are good, and they make a semblance of adoring me. If one had to depend upon their real disinterested love for their kindness to one, then it would be a different matter, and very distressing, but since they can always be caught by a bauble—you and I are fortunately placed, Nicholas."
We laughed our vile laughs together.—It is true—I hate to hear my own laugh. I agree with Chesterfield, who said that no gentleman should make that noise!
As I said before, all sorts of people come to see me, but I seem to be stripping them of externals all the time. What is the good in them? What is the truth in them? Strip me—if I were not rich what would anyone bother with me for? Is anyone worth while underneath?
One or other of the fluffies come almost daily to play bridge with me, and any fellow who is on leave, and the neutrals who have no anxieties, what a crew! It amuses me to "strip" them. The married one, Coralie, has absolutely nothing to charm with if one removes the ambience of success, the entourage of beautiful things, the manicurist and the complexion specialist, the Reboux hats, and the Chanel clothes. She would be a plain little creature, with not too fine ankles—but that self-confidence which material possessions bring, casts a spell over people.—Coralie is attractive. Odette, the widow, is beautiful. She has the brain of a turkey, but she, too, is exquisitely dressed and surrounded with everything to enhance her loveliness, and the serenity of success has given her magnetism. She announces platitudes as discoveries, she sparkles, and is so ravishing that one finds her trash wit. She thinks she is witty, and you begin to believe it!
Odette can be best stripped, people could like her just for her looks. Alice, the divorcée, appeals to one.—She is gentle and feminine and clinging—she is the cruelest and most merciless of the three, Maurice tells me, and the most difficult to analyse: But most of one's friends would find it hard to stand the test of denuding them of their worldly possessions and outside allurements, it is not only the fluffies, who would come out of not much value!
Oh! the long, long days—and the ugly nights!
One does not sleep very well now, the noise of "Bertha" from six A.M. and the raids at night!—but I believe I grow to like the raids—and last night we had a marvelous experience. I had been persuaded by Maurice to have quite a large dinner party. Madame de Clerté, who is really an amusing personality, courageous and agreeable, and Daisy Ryven, and the fluffies, and four or five men. We were sitting smoking afterwards, listening to de Volé playing, he is a great musician. People's fears are lulled, they have returned to Paris. Numbers of men are being killed—"The English in heaps—but what will you!" the fluffies said, "they had no business to make that break with the Fifth Army! Oh! No! and, after all, the country is too dull—and we have all our hidden store of petrol. If we must fly at the last moment, why on earth not go to the theatre and try to pass the time!"
de Volé was playing "Madame Butterfly"—when the sirens went for a raid—and almost immediately the guns began—and bombs crashed. One very seldom sees any fear on people's faces now, they are accustomed to the noise. Without asking any of us, de Volé commenced Chopin's Funeral March. It was a very wonderful moment, the explosions and the guns mingling with the splendid chords. We sat breathless—a spell seemed to be upon us all—We listened feverishly. de Volé's face was transfigured. What did he see in the dim light?—He played and played. And the whole tragedy of war—and the futility of earthly interests—the glory, the splendour and the agony seemed to be brought home to us. From this, as the noise without became less loud, he glided into Schubert, and so at last ceased when the "all clear" commenced to rend the air. No one had spoken a word, and then Daisy Ryven laughed—a queer little awed laugh. She was the only Englishwoman there.
"We are keyed up," she said.
And when they had all gone I opened my window wide and breathed in the black dark night. Oh! God—what a rotter I am.
Friday—Maurice has a new suggestion—he says I should write a book—he knows I am becoming insupportable, and he thinks if he flatters me enough I'll swallow the bait, and so be kept quiet and not try him so much.—A novel?—A study of the causes of altruism? What?—I feel—yes, I feel a spark of interest. If it could take me out of myself—I shall consult the Duchesse—I will tell Burton to telephone and find out if I can see her this afternoon. She sometimes takes half an hour off between four and five to attend to her family.
Yes—Burton says she will see me and will send me one of her Red Cross cars to fetch me, then I can keep my leg up.
I rather incline to a treatise upon altruism and the philosophical subjects. I fear if I wrote a novel it would be saturated by my ugly spirit, and I should hate people to read it. I must get that part of me off in my journal, but a book about—Altruism?
I must have a stenographer of course, a short-hand typist, if I do begin this thing. There are some English ones here no doubt. I do not wish to write in French—Maurice must find me a suitable one.—I won't have anything young and attractive. In my idiotic state she might get the better of me! The idea of some steady employment quite bucks me up.
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I felt rather jarred when I arrived at the Hotel Courville—the paving across the river is bad; but I found my way to the Duchesse's own sitting room on the first floor—the only room apparently left not a ward—and somehow the smell of carbolic had not penetrated here. It was too hot, and only a little window was open.
How wonderfully beautiful these eighteenth century rooms are! What grace and charm in the panelling—what dignity in the proportions! This one, like all rooms of women of the Duchesse's age, is too full—crammed almost, with gems of art, and then among them, here and there, a shocking black satin stuffed and buttoned armchair, with a bit of woolwork down its centre, and some fringe! And her writing table!—the famous one given by Louis XV to the ancestress, who refused his favours—A mass of letters and papers, and reports, a bottle of creosote and a feather! A servant in black, verging upon ninety, brought in the tea, and said Madame la Duchesse would be there immediately—and she came.
Her twinkling eyes kindly as ever "Good day Nicholas," she said and kissed me on both cheeks, "Thou art thy mother's child—Va!—And I thank thee for the fifty thousand francs for my blessés—I say no more—Va!—."
Her scissors got caught in her pocket, not the purple jersey this time, and she played with them for a minute.
"Thou art come for something—out with it!"
"Shall I write a book?, that's it. Maurice thinks it might divert me—What do you think?"
"One must consider," and she began pouring out the tea, "paper is scarce—I doubt, my son, if what you would inscribe upon it would justify the waste—but still—as a soulagement—an asperine so to speak—perhaps—yes. On what subject?"
"That is what I want your advice about, a novel?—or a study upon Altruism, or—or—something like that?"
She chuckled and handed me my tea, thin tea and a tiny slice of black bread, and a scrape of butter. There is no cheating of the regulations here, but the Sevres cup gave me satisfaction.
"You have brought me your