Dubliners
Ségouin. They were not much more than acquaintances as yet but Jimmy
found great pleasure in the society of one who had seen so much of the
world and was reputed to own some of the biggest hotels in France. Such
a person (as his father agreed) was well worth knowing, even if he had
not been the charming companion he was. Villona was entertaining also—a
brilliant pianist—but, unfortunately, very poor.
The car ran on merrily with its cargo of hilarious youth. The two
cousins sat on the front seat; Jimmy and his Hungarian friend sat
behind. Decidedly Villona was in excellent spirits; he kept up a deep
bass hum of melody for miles of the road. The Frenchmen flung their
laughter and light words over their shoulders and often Jimmy had to
strain forward to catch the quick phrase. This was not altogether
pleasant for him, as he had nearly always to make a deft guess at the
meaning and shout back a suitable answer in the face of a high wind.
Besides Villona’s humming would confuse anybody; the noise of the car,
too.
Rapid motion through space elates one; so does notoriety; so does the
possession of money. These were three good reasons for Jimmy’s
excitement. He had been seen by many of his friends that day in the
company of these Continentals. At the control Ségouin had presented him
to one of the French competitors and, in answer to his confused murmur
of compliment, the swarthy face of the driver had disclosed a line of
shining white teeth. It was pleasant after that honour to return to the
profane world of spectators amid nudges and significant looks. Then as
to money—he really had a great sum under his control. Ségouin, perhaps,
would not think it a great sum but Jimmy who, in spite of temporary
errors, was at heart the inheritor of solid instincts knew well with
what difficulty it had been got together. This knowledge had previously
kept his bills within the limits of reasonable recklessness and, if he
had been so conscious of the labour latent in money when there had been
question merely of some freak of the higher intelligence, how much more
so now when he was about to stake the greater part of his substance! It
was a serious thing for him.
Of course, the investment was a good one and Ségouin had managed to
give the impression that it was by a favour of friendship the mite of
Irish money was to be included in the capital of the concern. Jimmy had
a respect for his father’s shrewdness in business matters and in this
case it had been his father who had first suggested the investment;
money to be made in the motor business, pots of money. Moreover Ségouin
had the unmistakable air of wealth. Jimmy set out to translate into
days’ work that lordly car in which he sat. How smoothly it ran. In
what style they had come careering along the country roads! The journey
laid a magical finger on the genuine pulse of life and gallantly the
machinery of human nerves strove to answer the bounding courses of the
swift blue animal.
They drove down Dame Street. The street was busy with unusual traffic,
loud with the horns of motorists and the gongs of impatient
tram-drivers. Near the Bank Ségouin drew up and Jimmy and his friend
alighted. A little knot of people collected on the footpath to pay
homage to the snorting motor. The party was to dine together that
evening in Ségouin’s hotel and, meanwhile, Jimmy and his friend, who
was staying with him, were to go home to dress. The car steered out
slowly for Grafton Street while the two young men pushed their way
through the knot of gazers. They walked northward with a curious
feeling of disappointment in the exercise, while the city hung its pale
globes of light above them in a haze of summer evening.
In Jimmy’s house this dinner had been pronounced an occasion. A certain
pride mingled with his parents’ trepidation, a certain eagerness, also,
to play fast and loose for the names of great foreign cities have at
least this virtue. Jimmy, too, looked very well when he was dressed
and, as he stood in the hall giving a last equation to the bows of his
dress tie, his father may have felt even commercially satisfied at
having secured for his son qualities often unpurchaseable. His father,
therefore, was unusually friendly with Villona and his manner expressed
a real respect for foreign accomplishments; but this subtlety of his
host was probably lost upon the Hungarian, who was beginning to have a
sharp desire for his dinner.
The dinner was excellent, exquisite. Ségouin, Jimmy decided, had a very
refined taste. The party was increased by a young Englishman named
Routh whom Jimmy had seen with Ségouin at Cambridge. The young men
supped in a snug room lit by electric candle-lamps. They talked volubly
and with little reserve. Jimmy, whose imagination was kindling,
conceived the lively youth of the Frenchmen twined elegantly upon the
firm framework of the Englishman’s manner. A graceful image of his, he
thought, and a just one. He admired the dexterity with which their host
directed the conversation. The five young men had various tastes and
their tongues had been loosened. Villona, with immense respect, began
to discover to the mildly surprised Englishman the beauties of the
English madrigal, deploring the loss of old instruments. Rivière, not
wholly ingenuously, undertook to explain to Jimmy the triumph of the
French mechanicians. The resonant voice of the Hungarian was about to
prevail in ridicule of the spurious lutes of the romantic painters when
Ségouin shepherded his party into politics. Here was congenial ground
for all. Jimmy, under generous influences, felt the buried zeal of his
father wake to life within him: he aroused the torpid Routh at last.
The room grew doubly hot and Ségouin’s task grew harder each moment:
there was even danger of personal spite. The alert host at an
opportunity lifted his glass to Humanity and, when the toast had been
drunk, he threw open a window significantly.
That night the city wore the mask of a capital. The five young men
strolled along Stephen’s Green in a faint cloud of aromatic smoke. They
talked loudly and gaily and their cloaks dangled from their shoulders.
The people made way for them. At the corner of Grafton Street a short
fat man was putting two handsome ladies on a car in charge of another
fat man. The car drove off and the short fat man caught sight of the
party.
“André.”
“It’s Farley!”
A torrent of talk followed. Farley was an American. No one knew very
well what the talk was about. Villona and Rivière were the noisiest,
but all the men were excited. They got up on a car, squeezing
themselves together amid much laughter. They drove by the crowd,
blended now into soft colours, to a music of merry bells. They took the
train at Westland Row and in a few seconds, as it seemed to Jimmy, they
were walking out of Kingstown Station. The ticket-collector saluted
Jimmy; he was an old man:
“Fine night, sir!”
It was a serene summer night; the harbour lay like a darkened mirror at
their feet. They proceeded towards it with linked arms, singing _Cadet
Roussel_ in chorus, stamping their feet at every:
_“Ho! Ho! Hohé, vraiment!”_
They got into a rowboat at the slip and made out for the American’s
yacht. There was to be supper, music, cards. Villona said with
conviction:
“It is delightful!”
There was a yacht piano in the cabin. Villona played a waltz for Farley
and Rivière, Farley acting as cavalier and Rivière as lady. Then an
impromptu square dance, the men devising original figures. What
merriment! Jimmy took his part with a will; this was seeing life, at
least. Then Farley got out of breath and cried _“Stop!”_ A man brought
in a light supper, and the young men sat down to it for form’s sake.
They drank, however: it was Bohemian. They drank Ireland, England,
France, Hungary, the United States of America. Jimmy made a speech, a
long speech, Villona saying: _“Hear! hear!”_ whenever there was a
pause. There was a great clapping of hands when he sat down. It must
have been a good speech. Farley clapped him on the back and laughed
loudly. What jovial fellows! What good company they were!
Cards! cards! The table was cleared. Villona returned quietly to his
piano and played voluntaries for them. The other men played game after
game, flinging themselves boldly into the adventure. They drank the
health of the Queen of Hearts and of the Queen of Diamonds. Jimmy felt
obscurely the lack of an audience: the wit was flashing. Play ran very
high and paper began to pass. Jimmy did not know exactly who was
winning but he knew that he was losing. But it was his own fault for he
frequently mistook his cards and the other men had to calculate his
I.O.U.‘s for him. They were devils of fellows but he wished they would
stop: it was getting late. Someone gave the toast of the yacht _The
Belle of Newport_ and then someone proposed one great game for a
finish.
The piano had stopped; Villona must have gone up on deck. It was a
terrible game. They stopped just before the end of it to drink for
luck. Jimmy understood that the game lay between Routh and Ségouin.
What excitement! Jimmy was excited too; he would lose, of course. How
much had he written away? The men rose to their feet to play the last
tricks, talking and gesticulating. Routh won. The cabin shook with the
young men’s cheering and the cards were bundled together. They began
then to gather in what they had won. Farley and Jimmy were the heaviest
losers.
He knew that he would regret in the morning but at present he was glad
of the rest, glad of the dark stupor that would cover up his folly. He
leaned his elbows on the table and rested his head between his hands,
counting the beats of his temples. The cabin door opened and he saw the
Hungarian standing in a shaft of grey light:
“Daybreak, gentlemen!”
TWO GALLANTS
The grey warm evening of August had descended upon the city and a mild
warm air, a memory of summer, circulated in the streets. The streets,
shuttered for the repose of Sunday, swarmed with a gaily coloured
crowd. Like illumined pearls the lamps shone from the summits of their
tall poles upon the living texture below which, changing shape and hue
unceasingly, sent up into the warm grey evening air an unchanging
unceasing murmur.
Two young men came down the hill of Rutland Square. One of them was
just bringing a long monologue to a close. The other, who walked on the
verge of the path and was at times obliged to step on to the road,
owing to his companion’s rudeness, wore an amused listening face. He
was squat and ruddy. A yachting cap was shoved far back from his
forehead and the narrative to which he listened made constant waves of
expression break forth over his face from the corners of his nose and
eyes and mouth. Little jets of wheezing laughter followed one another
out of his convulsed body. His eyes, twinkling with cunning enjoyment,
glanced at every moment towards his companion’s face. Once or twice he
rearranged the light waterproof which he had slung over one shoulder in
toreador fashion. His breeches, his white rubber shoes and his jauntily
slung waterproof expressed youth. But his figure fell into rotundity at
the waist, his hair was scant and grey and his face, when the waves of
expression had passed over it, had a ravaged look.
When he was quite sure that the narrative had ended he laughed
noiselessly for fully half a minute. Then he said:
“Well!... That takes the biscuit!”
His voice seemed winnowed of vigour; and to enforce his words he added
with humour:
“That takes the solitary, unique, and, if I may so call it, _recherché_
biscuit!”
He became serious and silent when he had said this. His tongue was
tired for he had been talking all the afternoon in a public-house in