Part 7

_My dear Stephen, loyal and true, ~he writes on 3.10.20~; A thousand thanks for Lady Lilith, with its charming dedication, and for your letter.... I cannot well lend you the Repington volumes. I have them from the Times Book Club, which is all that my poor wife has to supply her with books. But seriously I advise you to buy them. They are as admirable as they are beastly. They form a perfect record of the war as you and I saw it; you will refer to them often in years to come; they mention every one that I know (except yourself) and a host more, every one that you know and a few more; and there is a very full index to them...._

_No, do not send me the Tree book: it will arrive in the next parcel from the Times Book Club...._

There follows an account of a characteristic dialogue between Teixeira and his dentist:

_New (enumerating every action, like a comic-conjurer): “Spray!”_

_Tex: “Oremus!”..._

_I wish, ~he writes on 6.10.20~, that I had no correspondent but you: what good stuff I could write to you! But 19 letters in one day: think of it!..._

_My age is a melancholy one. The man of 50 or 60 sees all his acquaintances and friends dying off in ones and twos: Heinemann and Williamson to-day; who will it be to-morrow? When he’s 70, he begins to be a sole survivor, with no friends left to lose._

_You will find the Tree book amusing as you go on with it. Four-fifths of it represent the life of a dead fairy told by living fairies, one wittier and more whimsical than the others. I confess to tittering over Viola’s “screwing their screws to the sticking-point” and “peacocks held in the leash.” And that’s a glorious portrait of Julius, though, when I knew him, he was more mature and more majestic...._

On 11.10.20 he breaks into verse:

_My very dear Stephen McKenna,_ _I’m reading your Lilith again,_ _With much intellectual pleasure_ _And some little physical pain._ _This jingle shaped itself within my head_ _As I stepped to my table from my bed._

_It’s that physical pain I’m after for the present. The book hurts my eyes...._

_I’ve had a little petty cash from the Couperus books. It’s been amusing to see that ~Small Souls~ in a given six months produces 15 times as much in America as in this benighted country...._

Though he commonly kept his religion and politics to himself, Teixeira’s sympathy with the Irish moved him to write, 27.10.20:

_I’m angrily unhappy at the death of McSwiney. To kill a man with a face like that! Compare the faces of those who killed him!..._

_It’s a brute of a world that the sun is shining on so brightly...._

I had contemplated spending the winter in a voyage up the Amazon, but abandoned it in favour of one down the east coast of South America. Teixeira comments, 29.10.20:

_Your new voyage is the more sensible and interesting by far. What’s Amazon to you or you to Amazon? I pictured you and trembled for you, steaming slowly up that mighty river between alligators taking pot-shots at you with poisoned pea-shooters from one bank and hummingbirds yapping split infinitives at you from the other. You will be much better off on board your goodish coasting tramp...._

_... It interested me, ~he adds, 30.10.20~, to read in this morning’s ~Times~ that Brazilian stock has risen a couple of points at the news of your contemplated visit. I hope that Argentine rails will follow suit...._

_~[A lady]~ when returning Shane Leslie’s book, which I had lent to her and she enjoyed ... had the asinine effrontery to write to me ... of “McSwiney’s farcical death.” Isn’t it dreadful to think that the world has given birth to women who can write like that?_

_Can death ever be farcical? We know that the epithet is wholly inapposite in the present instance. But can death ever be farcical? I told you, I think, of Major Johnson, who, throwing hot coppers from the balcony of the Grand Hôtel in Paris at the crowd cheering Kruger, overbalanced himself, fell to the pavement and was killed. That is the nearest approach to a farcical death that I can think of. But I should call it ironical. A farcical death. Alas!..._

On 31.10.20 he writes:

_I fear you will have a hell of a windy time at Deal or Dover or wherever Walmer Castle has its being (Walmer perhaps, as an afterthought)? It is blowing half a gale here. The Dutch say “to lie like a horse-thief.” The English ought to say “to lie like a guide-book.” One lies before me at this moment:_

_“In fact, Ventnor is a sun-box; and the east and north winds would have to confess that they have not even a visiting acquaintance with her.”_

_At the same moment, these self-same winds are “a-sharting in my ear”:_

_“We don’t confess to nothink of the sort!_ _Ho, leave us in yer will before yer die!”_

_’Tis well to be you, looking forward to sailing the Spanish Main...._

Of Philip Guedalla’s _Supers and Supermen_, Teixeira writes, 7.11.20:

_I have got it out of the Times Book Club because of a kindly notice. There are two or three delicious plums in it...._

_Among the happy phrases is one—“nudging us with his inimitably knowing inverted commas”—to which I would in my mean, Parthian way call your attention, as bearing upon one of our recent controversies...._

_What is B.N.C., a Noxford college mentioned in Galsworthy’s book?[18] ~he asks, 10.11.20~. Bras(?z)enos? How I hate these initials!..._

On St. Stanislaus’ Day, he writes:

_Many thanks for your letter of yesterday (which was the eve of St. Stanislaus) ... I have no ... bright social news for you._

_Yet stay._

_A card was left upon me, a few days ago, by Captain Cave-Brown-Cave, R.N., with a verbal message:_

_“Would Mr. Teixeira-de-Mattos-Teixeira care for a rubber of bridge one afternoon?”_

_Yesterday I accepted the soft invitation and took 14/- off Captain Cave-Brown-Cave and his fellow troglodytes. This would have been £7 at my normal points._

_These are our island adventures._

_Here is your ~Inevitable~._

_Make me a list (will you?) of people who to your knowledge have entreated me hospitably during the past twelve-month, so that I may send them copies of this or some other book when Christmas cometh round._

_With their addresses, please, of which I remembreth not one single one...._

I had been recommended to go from Buenos Aires across the Andes to Valparaiso and to come home by Chile, Peru and the Panama Canal rather than to sail twice over the same course between Buenos Aires and Southampton.

Teixeira comments on this change of plans in his letter of 16.11.20:

_They have had a cyclone, I see, at “Baires,” as the wireless used to have it at the W.T.I.D; but, as we had a gale y’day at Ventnor, there’s not much in that. On the other hand, how do you propose to travel from Baires to Paradise Valley? I ask in all ignorance: is there a railway? I know there are Argentine Rails; but are the Andes tunnelled? If not, what about it? You can travel from London to Ventnor ~via~ Cowes but also ~via~ Ryde; in my days, the route from Baires to Valparaiso knew but one method: to Ride, if you like, but to Ride ~via~ Llamas. Let me warn you, a llama would spit in your eye as soon as look at you. And you not knowing a word of the language! How’s it to be done, Stephen, how’s it to be done? There are bits of the Andes where you cross a crevasse, llama and all, in a basket slung on a rope which stretches from precipice to precipice. Of all the cinematographic stunts! Well, there! Have you a nice revolver?..._

_... Tell me what you think that you are going to eat between Baires and Valparaiso, ~he adds next day~. They grow comparatively few fish on the slopes or even on the crests of the Andes...._

_As a matter of curiosity, write to me to-morrow what your weather was like now at 9.15 a.m. to-day. I am sitting at a wide-open window actually perspiring (saving your presence) with heat._

I reassured him as best I could (17.11.20):

_... Those who know tell me that there is a perfectly good railway from Buenos Aires to Valparaiso with a permanent way, rolling stock, points and signals, tunnels to taste and all the paraphernalia that one might buy on a small scale at Hamley’s toy-shop. The Andes ought, of course, to be crossed on mule-back, but this takes long and I do not know any mules. Nor, from your exposition of their habits, am I desirous of meeting any llamas...._

_My faithful Stephen, many thanks for your three letters, ~he writes, 21.11.20~. I’ve been feeling rather out of sorts these last few days and have not written to you since Thursday, I believe; not that I have much to tell you ... except that, were I weller and stronger, I should write and offer my sword to that maligned monarch, Constantine I. of the Hellenes. I am growing heartily sick of seeing countries meddling in other countries’ business...._

_It were the baldest side on my part, ~he confesses on 23.11.20~ to pretend that the weather here has not turned cold. The winds are what is known as bitter. But the sun is shining like blazes. And there you have what I was leading up to: once bitter, twice shining._

_Ever yours, Alexander Crawshay._

Not content with emulating Mrs. Robert Crawshay’s wit and appropriating her name, Teixeira laid his witticism before her and challenged her to say that it was not of the true brand. There is a reference to this in a later letter; his next communication was a picture-postcard of Ventnor, annotated by himself:

_A. ~[A bathchair man]~ This is not me._

_B. ~[A child with a hoop]~ Nor is this, really._

_C. ~[An indistinguishable figure]~ This might be._

_D. ~[A picture of the hotel]~ But probably I am here, lurking in the Royal Hotel, where I can sea the sea but the sea can’t see me._

_I think little of your latest joke, ~I wrote, 24.11.20~, and have myself made several of late that put yours into the shade. Thus, on learning that a woman of my acquaintance had left her rich husband and run away with a penniless lover, I added the conclusion that they were now living in silver-gilty splendour. I can assure you that that is far more in the true Crawshay tradition...._

My effort met with less than no approval:

_My poor Stephen!, ~Teixeira wrote 25.11.20~. The worst of your jokes, when you attempt to play upon words, is that they have all been made before. It must be 36 (thirty-six) years (I said, years) since I saw at the old Strand Theatre a play called ~Silver Guilt~ parodying ~The Silver King~._

_I am glad or sorry, whichever I should be, that your arm[19] has taken (~arma virumque cano~: beat that if you can! ~Virus~ poison, acc. (I hope and trust) ~virum~)...._

_My conscience smites me, ~he writes, 26.11.20~, for having omitted in either of my last two letters to express the sympathy which I feel with Seymour Leslie—and you—in this serious illness of his. What is it exactly? Whatever it may be, I hope that he will get the better of it...._

_His aunt Crawshay has been good enough to pass “once bitter, twice shining.” She says that it “is a really worthy phrase and will be of use to us all!”..._

_I have been reading a lot of French lately, in those very cheap, double-columned, illustrated editions. It is perfectly marvellous to see how happily the French draughtsmen succeed in catching their authors’ ideas, whereas one may safely say that “our” British illustrators do not catch them once in ten times. Why is this? I am not sure that a certain rough, unwashed Bohemianism is not at the bottom of it, achieving results which are beyond that prim, priggish mode of life which nowadays governs the artists on this side. I may be wrong: I certainly couldn’t elaborate my theory; on the other hand, I may be perfectly right...._

In an earlier letter I had asked why he sought a refuge where he could see the sea but where the sea could not see him. The answer is given in a postscript:

_I might turn giddy if the ~sea saw~ me; but it would look very ugly if ~I saw~ it._

By way of revenge I reminded Teixeira that the gender of _virus_ was neuter:

_Alas!, ~he replies, 27.11.20~._

_I suspected it at the time; and now my uprooted hairs are beglooming the pink geraniums below my window. I have taken my oath; and now you and I are pledged: no French, you; no Greek or Latin, I. It may be all for the best._

_And ~arma virusqus cano~ would have sounded so much better!..._

Returning to the subject of French Illustration, he adds, 28.11.20:

_It’s the knock-about, rough-and-tumble, café life in Paris I expect, that accounts for the greater success of the French illustrators. They all of them meet all the authors in the great ~Bourse à poignées de main~ that are the Paris coffee-houses. The subjects are discussed over a thousand books; and the draughtsman is not overpaid.... What I’m “after” is this, that the British illustrators, sitting at home in their neatly-swept fiats or studios, decorated mainly with Japanese fans, furnished with wives instead of mistresses, that these smug dogs, with their pappy brains, ~cannot~ turn out such good work or enter so well into the spirit of things, as the Frenchman. And, if all this sounds damned immoral, I can’t help it._

The shadow of Christmas fell across Teixeira’s mind so early as the first day of December:

_I ask myself, ~he writes~:_

_“What shall I give this Stephen? A book?... But he’s got a book!... Ah, but has he a three-volume novel? No, bedad!... And, as I live, I don’t believe that ~Violet Moses~ is included in his collected edition of the works of that mighty writer, Leonard Merrick.”_

_So here’s a first edition for you, with my blessing. ~[Your secretary]~ should try to remove the labels with that nastiest of utensils, a wet, hot sponge...._

For the first time in many months Teixeira was driven back on _The Wrong Box_ to find an adequate comparison with the informative newcomer who now disturbed the noiseless tenour of his way:

_Joseph Finsbury has arrived, ~he writes, 2.12.20~. Overhearing me tell my wife that Bucharest is the capital of Roumania, he leant forward and asked me if I had been to Bucharest._

_Tex: No._

_Joseph: Oh, I thought I heard you mention Bucharest._

_Tex: I sometimes mention places which I have never visited._

_Joseph: Bucharest is a second Paris._

_Tex: Grrrrrrrrmph!_

_Joseph: Though I daresay it has been destroyed by now._

_Tex: (to his wife).... Have you done with ~Femina~? If so, I’ll give it to those Dutch ladies._

(_Stalks off to Mrs. and Miss van L._)

_Joseph: (to an Irish widow) I have been to all the capitals of Europe ... (and holds the wretched Mrs. N. enthralled, so I am told, for two mortal hours)...._

_Later. Joseph (to ~[my wife]~): How clever of your husband to speak Dutch to those ladies!_

_~[My wife]~: Not at all! He’s a Dutchman._

_Joseph: I know Holland very well. I have been to Rotterdam. I have been to Java. The finest botanical gardens in the world are at Buitenzorg near Batavia._

_~[My wife]~: Re-e-ally!_

_Can you ~Teixeira asks, 2.12.20~, lend me that book by James Joyce (~Portrait of the Artist~), which you once wrote to me about? I see Barbellion praises it enthusiastically in the new diary._

_Would you like me to lend you ~A Last Diary~ or have you bought it?_

_Your Uncle Joseph was in disgrace yesterday. We have a girl trio of musicians here, who play at tea-time and eke after dinner. The pianist reports that he said to her:_

_“I have been to Japan. I was very ill there and I found myself in the arms of a Japanese woman.”_

_To-day he stopped me in the road and said:_

_“I wish I could speak Dutch, sir, as well as you speak English. I once learnt a continental language, but I mustn’t speak it now. What it was” (throwing out his arms) “you can guess....”_

I had read Barbellion’s two books without sharing Teixeira’s admiration for them, in part because I thought that a book of self-revelation so unreserved should only have been published posthumously, in part because it was incongruous—to use no stronger word—to find a man, who had aroused wide-spread compassion by what was taken to be the account of his last hours, reading with relish the sympathetic press notices which it brought him.

To this criticism Teixeira replies, 5.12.20:

_Thank you for your two letters and the loan of James Joyce.... Barbellion I like and almost love—I should love him entirely but for a common strain in him that makes itself heard occasionally—but then I was taught very early in life to make every allowance for men of any genius, whereas you look for the public-school attitude towards all and sundry. Apart from this, B. seems to me to have borne almost unparalleled suffering with remarkable courage and to have shown a good deal of pluck besides in laying bare his soul in the midst of it all._

_You see, if one cared to take the pains, one could make you detest pretty well everybody you know and like. For everybody has a mean, petty, shabby, cowardly side to him; and one has only to tell you of what the man in question chooses to keep concealed. B. chose to reveal it; that’s all about it...._

_My wife bids you be sure to say good-bye, when you go on your travels, to the woman, whoever she may be, in whom you are most interested. Her reason is that she dreamt two nights ago that you were prevented from doing so. This does not imply that you will not return alive. It means only that something prevented you from saying good-bye to that person and that it would be fun to stultify the dream...._

On 7.12.20 Teixeira writes:

_... I am reading James Joyce, skippily. The fellow has a great deal of talent, but much of it is misdirected. I should not be surprised if one day he began to write books that he and his country will be proud of...._

_Incidentally I admire his ruthless suppression of capitals and am interested in his ditto ditto of hyphens...._

On Christmas Eve, he writes:

_Forgive us our Christmases as we forgive them that Christmas against us._

_What I want to know by your next letter and what you have not told me, though you may think that you have, is how you propose to travel home from the west coast of South America...._

And on 27.12.20:

_I was asked to “recite” yesterday! I refused. I was asked to take part in a hypnotic experiment: would I rather be the professor or the subject?_

_“The subject,” I replied. “But I would even rather be dead.”_

And on 29.12.20:

_... This is the last letter but one or two which I shall be writing to you before you sail or puff down the Solent.... Needless to add that I feel sad at the thought of your imminent departure and glad at the thought that you appear to feel a trifle sad too._

_The ~Almanzora~! Well, God speed her across the Atlantic! But she’s got a plaguy hairdressing name. On my dressing-table stand two bottles and two only. One contains Anzora cream; the other Pandora brilliantine. Both are meant to preserve and beautify my already well-preserved and beautiful hair. I must try to “become” some Almanzora to keep them company...._

XIII

The diary which Teixeira kept for me during my absence in South America was, so far as I am aware, his first venture in this kind of literature. Approaching it with trepidation, he abandoned it with loathing. The mystery of a double cash-column quickly palled; and he was not long intrigued even by printed reminders of the moon’s phases and of the days on which dividends and insurance-policy renewals became due.

30 December 1920.

As a large number of these Diaries circulate abroad it may be well to point out that the Astronomical Data, such as phases of the moon etc. are given in Greenwich time.

_Perhaps it may be as well, ~Teixeira concurs, 30.12.20~._

31 December 1920.

_I did not see the old year out. I played 1/- bridge in the afternoon at Captain Cave-Brown-Cave’s, with him, Captain B. and Dr. F. and won_

_£—18.0._

_which at normal points would have been_

_9.5.0._

_(I presume that is what the right-hand column is for. But the left-hand column? Ah, that left-hand column!...)_

_The last that I saw of the old year was a 68-7-0, grey-haired parson in pumps and a prince-consort moustache and whiskers waltzing a polka, or polkering a waltz—in short, dancing something exceedingly modern—with a 15-7-0 flapper. Then we went to bed, wondering how Stephen was spending his New Year’s Eve, on board the ~Almanzora~, in a south-westerly gale._

Saturday, 1 January.

_When at 5.30 I switched on my light and rose, I saw a leprechaun standing on my writing-table, looking like a little sandwich-man. Fearlessly I approached; and he changed into a bottle of ~eau-de-Cologne~ with an envelope slung round his neck, inscribed, “To my Best Beloved.” Mark ~[my wife’s]~ bold capitals. And show me another couple whose united ages amount to 117 years or more and who still do this sort of thing. O olden times and olden manners!..._

Monday, 3 January.

_Bridge at Cave’s with Captain B. and Dr. C._

_~[My wife]~: “What did you talk about at tea?”_

_Tex: “Jam.”_

_This question and answer never vary, after my return from a visit to the C.-B.-C’s...._

_I foresee that this compilation is going to rival the ~Diary of a Nobody~. And I am pledged to keep it up until the 7th of March. Kismet! Or, as the dying Nelson said, “Kismet, Hardy.”_

Wednesday, 5 January.

Dividends due

_What dividends?_

Sunday, 9 January.

_Thank goodness that I have only space to thank goodness that I have only space wherein ... ~ad infinitum~...._

Thursday, 13 January.

_Received from Stephen’s mother his letter to his mother...._

_Received from Lady D. Stephen’s letter to ~[her]~ and wrote to her in appropriate terms, expressing doubts upon Stephen’s dietary while crossing the South-American continent, where there are neither fish nor eggs, save the eggs of condors and hummingbirds...._

Friday, 14 January.

_... My bank-balance is overdrawn, but I make 19/6 at bridge._

_... Mr. and Mrs. Hugh Martin arrive. I do not know if this is the ~Daily News’~ Irish correspondent whom the Black and Tans wanted to murder._

Tuesday, 18 January.

_Begin Couperus’ ~Iskander: The novel of Alexander the Great~; two enormous volumes, which I may hardly live to translate. It is a great joy to see this artist building up his story with firm and elegant perfection from the very first page, with conviction and a fine self-confidence, no grouping, no floundering, no hesitation...._

Saturday, 23 January.

_Need something happen every day at Ventnor? Danged if there need!_

Monday, 24 January.

_... The new rich arrive, Rolls-Royce and all._

Tuesday, 25 January.