The Table Talk of Samuel Marchbanks (5 page)

I
MET AN
ornithologist just before dinner and as the conversation lagged, I sought to beguile him by talking about his hobby. Dale Carnegie says that you should always talk to people about what interests them, whether it interests you or not, so I began thus: “I saw a funny-looking bird this morning; a blackish bird, or maybe it was a dirty brown; what would you say it was?” He pricked up his ears. “Had it a yellow spot about half a centimetre in diameter under each wing?” he asked. “I am not accustomed to peeping into the armpits of birds,” I replied, haughtily, “but it had two feet, instead of the usual four, if that gives you a clue.” “What size did you say?” he continued. “Roughly the size of a two-year-old child’s shoe,” I said after some thought, “but rather a different shape; it was shaped like an ocarina, or a sweet potato.” “Was its mate nearby?” he persisted. “I couldn’t say,” I parried, “but it was on the lawn of a church, and I don’t suppose it would go there with anybody else’s mate, do you?” “I think you must have seen a squirrel,” said he, in what I think was meant to be a satirical tone. And yet I am always nice to ornithologists when they talk about my subjects.

O
UR HOST
asked me before dinner if I play bridge. No, I don’t. An ancestor of mine was once a fair euchre player, but the talent for cards died out of the family when he passed. In my youth, when I still thought that by Herculean efforts I might turn myself into a social success, I tried to read a book about bridge, but it was worse than geometry. For the same reason I tried to learn to dance, and although I enjoyed it I found that I got on better without a partner than with one, and this was considered eccentric in the circle in which I moved. Still pursuing the fleeting goal of popularity, I attempted to become a raconteur, and memorized several funny stories and a number of witty rejoinders which I dragged painfully into any conversation in which I was engaged; this device failed me, also. It was quite a long time before I realized that I lacked the qualities which make a man the darling of a large and brilliant circle of friends, and resigned myself to being an outcast and a curmudgeon. Nowadays when I am asked to a party I sit in a corner and snarl at anyone who comes near me. This is called Being a Character, and although it is not very much fun for anyone, it is the best I can manage.

A
MAN BEWAILED
the increase of divorce today until I could bear it no longer. “My dear creature,” I cried, “you attack this problem from the wrong end. It is not the frequency of divorce which makes the times wicked; it is the wickedness of the times which increases divorce. We live in an age when man is expected to waste and wear out as much as he can. Do we not call the ordinary citizen a ‘consumer’? He buys ‘lifetime’ fabrics and soon wears them out. He buys a ‘lifetime’
pen and a ‘lifetime’ watch and in ten years he wants new ones. His books are not lifetime friends; they are the enthusiasm of a month. He is sneered at if he drives a perfectly good car which is ten years old. Is it any wonder, then, that he exhausts one ‘lifetime’ marriage and seeks another? Mind your economics, and your morals will take care of themselves.” This bit of Marxian sophistry shocked him, and he fled.… No madam, our hostess did not tell me that you were a divorcée. Tell me, are you a discard, or a discardee?

T
HE ENTERTAINMENT
tycoons don’t seem able to let musicians alone. I see that there is now a musical show in New York purporting to reveal “the romance of Tschaikowsky,” though it has long been an open secret that Tschaikowsky had a neurotic dislike of women, and that much of the tragedy of his life arose from this cause. A new movie is based on the love of Robert Schumann for Clara Wieck, attributing his greatness as a composer to this inspiration. Bunk! Pure bunk! And yet I suppose it flatters a section of the public to think that the biological urges which they share with the great somehow reduce the great to their level. The points of resemblance between great people and paltry people are infinitely more numerous than the points of difference: they all eat, sleep, fall in love, catch cold, and use handkerchiefs. It is good business to pretend that no real difference exists, and Hollywood has long known how to exploit it.… But I am powerfully reminded of Théophile Gautier’s division of men into two groups, The Flamboyant and The Drab; my sympathies and loyalties are always with The Flamboyant, of whom Churchill is one, though his followers are mostly Drabs. But this is very much the age of the
Drab—the apotheosis of The Squirt. The Squirts and Drabs are not worth much singly, but when they organize into gangs and parties they can impose Drabbery and Squirtdom on quite a large part of mankind.

P
SYCHOLOGISTS
, now maintain that human fat is a sign of misery, and that fat people are immature, frustrated and anxious for protection. I have known this for years. Indeed I am known to the medical profession as the first man to identify Tragic Flab, a lardlike substance which is secreted under the skins of unhappy people, and which may be observed as a characteristic of many great figures in literature. Was not Hamlet described by his mother as “fat and scant of breath”? I have long maintained that Charles Laughton is the ideal Hamlet. I have also suggested that Romeo and Juliet should both be shown getting fatter and fatter as the play grows more and more tragic, until they are barely able to shift their carcasses about the stage in the final act. King Lear, too, should obviously be an immensely fat old man, weighed down with Tragic Flab. I wish psychologists would stop coming out with my old notions as if they were new discoveries.

T
HE DARK SHADOW
of Disease hung over Marchbanks Towers this week. All members of my domestic circle wore a stricken look, and I feared the worst. I packed them off to bed, hoping that my fears were groundless. I have just escaped from the doctors myself, and dread to see my near and dear fall into their hands. But every last Marchbanks was abed next morning with
chickenpox or mumps, and one had both; I felt like some rugged old oak, left standing in a forest which has been levelled by the wind. I summoned a doctor, who arrived and prescribed for all and spread an air of calm which does more good than his medicine, I am sure. I looked with interest at the bag he carries, which is in good condition and about ten years old, I should judge. I always estimate the length of a doctor’s practice by the look of his bag. It has been suggested to me that doctors may sometimes buy new bags, but I know that this is untrue. They buy a bag when they get their degrees, and make it do till they die, just as the monks of certain orders are given one gown when they take their vows, and wear it to the grave. When the doctor left I was alone with my ailing community, and Marchbanks Towers was indistinguishable from a lazar-house. I flitted about (Florence Nightingale Marchbanks) saying a kind word here, bathing a fevered brow there, and ever and anon holding a cup of water to parched lips. I enjoyed this greatly, for it satisfied my urge for amateur quackery and gave me a fine picture of myself as a noble, self-sacrificing, devoted figure.

My only assistant in the Crisis at the Towers is kindly and willing but speaks no language known to me except German, and I can only be said to speak German in a Pickwickian sense. I tried to explain about mumps and chickenpox in German, with the curious result that I forgot all the German I ever knew, but developed surprising fluency in French. Chickenpox is “la petite vérole volante”; mumps stumps me in both languages. I fell back on saying “Kinderdizeezen” with a gutteral accent, though I know this is nonsense. Nor could I think of the German word for “nurse,” though the allied word for “bedpan” rose from the depths of my
memory, to my astonishment. My assistant regarded all this as highly comic, and so did some of the patients, who laughed so much that they felt better and ate hugely of a pie and a jelly which kind friends sent in. After a very full day I retired to bed, but started out of a sound sleep at 2 a.m. crying “die Krankenpflieger!” which I believe to be the word for nurse which eluded me all day, though I may be wrong. But I wish I didn’t remember my scraps of French when I want German, and a few tatters of Welsh when I am confronted by a Frenchman.

More kind friends who knew what I was Going Through sent food, and some sent flowers. This was a great help, for although I pride myself on my cooking it is aimed at healthy appetites, and invalids tend to gag and muffle their faces with the blankets when I offer it to them. They were all very glad to get tapioca pudding, which looks not unlike chickenpox—is there a subtle psychological connection here?—and jelly and such delicate fare, but they lacked stomach for my lampreys stewed in wine, devilled seagull, minced moose, and similar substantial dishes.… All through this siege of illness, I behaved wonderfully, rushing upstairs with trays, doing household tasks ill-suited to my masculine dignity, amusing sick children with displays of sleight-of-hand, and whatnot. My German-speaking assistant was lost in admiration of my energy and high spirits. “Was fur ein Avatismus!” she murmured. After a bout with a dictionary I discovered that she meant that I am a Hindoo god returned to earth. Probably one of those gods with eight arms, two pair of legs, and a grin of fixed benevolence.

I escaped from the lazar-house last evening, having tucked all the lazars (great and small) into their beds
and arranged bountiful supplies of paper handkerchiefs, water, reading matter, zinc ointment, and aspirin within their reach. I went to a concert at which a handsome young man and a beautiful young woman played with great accomplishment on two pianos. But the labours of nursing the sick have dulled my critical faculty, and instead of listening to the music I kept wondering if the young woman wore a powerful corset, and if not, how did she manage to sit up so straight? I reflected also that what I wrote about this concert would be unfairly affected by the good looks of the players; I am incapable of resisting the charms of beauty, and readily attribute every virtue to its possessors, in spite of many disillusionments. I admire beautiful people, and I am strongly attracted by distinguished ugliness. It is the blank faces, empty of charm, distinction, beauty or meaning of any kind, which arouse my dislike.

Yes, thank you, things are looking up at Marchbanks Towers. All of the lazars are able to get up for a few hours, and creep painfully from room to room, clutching their rags, blankets, mufflers and bandages about them. I realize that my brief period of supremacy is over, and that as soon as the news of their recovery gets about the golden stream of food and flowers will dry up, and life will be as it was before. Saddened by this reflection I went outside this afternoon and shoveled the first snow of winter, reflecting that many people drop dead while thus employed every year.

I
LUNCHED EARLIER
today with several men, one of whom was of generous proportions; a former athlete, the passing of years had softened his contours, while adding to his physical magnificence. I watched him with an
eagle eye, and he ate consideringly, without haste or greed; calory for calory, he probably ate a little less than the others. Yet they tormented him unmercifully all through the meal about his weight, and about his entirely imaginary voracity. Gaunt, lank men who stoked themselves like furnaces, paused only in their intensive fuelling to gird at him for his bulk. This is one of the great injustices of the world. A big man is always accused of gluttony, whereas a wizened or osseous man can eat like a refugee at every meal, and no one ever notices his greed. I have seen runts who never weighed more than 96 pounds when soaking wet, outeat 200 pounders, and poke fun at the fat man even as they licked their plates and sucked the starch out of their napkins. No wonder fat men are philosophers; they are forced to it.

T
HIS IS THE TIME
of year when newspaper offices are embarrassed by gifts of deformed turnips, arthritic beets, spastic pumpkins and glandular potatoes. Whenever a farmer digs up something which should at once be returned to the merciful and all-covering earth, he rushes with it to his local paper, requesting that his shameful trophy be displayed in the window. I know what he wants; he wants people to laugh at that poor afflicted vegetable. Now it is several centuries since deformed people were regarded as objects of mirth. Even deformed animals are not the big attraction at the country fairs that they once were. Surely it is time that our pity was extended to include the Mongoloid, the moronic and the cretinous specimens of the root world? Has the Royal Society of Vegetarians and Nut Fooders nothing to say against this cruel practice?

S
OMEHOW OR OTHER
the rumour has spread among some children I know that I am a conjuror, and they are always teasing me to do magic. My skill is not great, but their standards are very low, and usually I manage to satisfy them. This afternoon a little girl demanded that I should do something miraculous, so I swallowed a fork and after feigning indigestion very laughably, I produced it from the sole of my boot. She was impressed, but not completely satisfied. “There’s no blood on it,” said she.… Children have disgustingly literal minds, and hearts of stone.