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NOT THE LIFE AND ADVENTURES OF SIR ROGER BLOXAM
A Novelissima
By Aleister Crowley
Warning: This text is rather pornographic
(although not untasteful) and may be un-
suitable for some readers.
This file has been edited, the N1.R1 code below marks an orignal
division of chapters made in the multiple file form that the
novel was originally downloaded. The present format is designed
to facilitate reading and printout. To recover its original form,
separate the document at each of these codes "Nx.Rx". There were
also foreign characters (mostly "e's" with accent marks that were
removed). The work is as yet unpublished, and apparently the Ordo
Templi Orientis in California holds the rights to the work,
although they have allowed its free circulation on their BBS,
THELEMANET, Berkley CA.
N1.R1
CHAPTER suppose we say FORTY FOUR
KNOBSWORTHY BOTTOMS.
Aha! so that excites your curiosity. Oho! O no! this book is not
for women, I swear it by the sacred tibia of Emmeline Pankhurst
so I will tell you all, for I love you as you must love me for
having spared you those first forty-three chapters. To it! then!
To it!
Knobsworthy Bottoms is a delightful village in Derbyshire, where
the Necks come from. Nonsense; it is in Devonshire, whre the
cream comes from. and what has it to do with our story? Nothing.
Our story? Yes, yours and mine -- yours and mine -- yours and
mine. Pause.
Another pause a little longer.
A short snappy pause.
A pause of languorous libido.
A pause of crescendo irritation.
A plain pause.
Five bars more.
Yes! that is settled. But I will not tell you what our story is
about. I need not, because it is Just Our Story. Moreover I would
a word with you: this. I will conceal our story; even when you
have read it all through you will not know that I have written
it. I will not have Sordello make mouths at my speech, any more
than Catullus. But I will play Puck to you, my beauties; I will
lead you through fire and water, air and earth, on a mad chase
after a bauble. I will play the Comedy of Pan upon you, lovely
listeners; and I will begin by deluding you into the belief that
Our Story concerns NOT
THE LIFE AND ADVENTURES
of
SIR ROGER BLOXAM.
N2.R1
CHAPTER ONE
THE LOVE OF A PURE GIRL; THE QUARREL; AND THE MYSTERY.
So you thought you were free of the City of Our First Forty-Three
Chapters, eh? I am not so simple. I am a match for you, you may
believe, by the Black Stone of the Kaabah. What can you do to
argue with me? Ma Dia, but you are helpless in my hands as
Colonel Gormley when he went to the woman without a whip. Also
when he went with one. You can but throw Our Story in the fire;
and you are already too interested to do that. For, as you know,
it is not a true, succinct, elaborate, discursive, epigrammatic,
apopthegmic, pleonastic, tautological, and altogether ridiculous
account of the Life and Adventures of Sir Roger Bloxam. Here you
will find zeugma and hendiadys and paraprosdokian and
aposeiopesis and all of them in a synoptical epitome of utter
sweetness of the old-fashioned molasses candy which I was sucking
in the movies before I came in not to write this Life and
Adventures of Sir Roger Bloxam. But have no fear; 'tis but a
passing spasm; the Titan is unvanquished still; on the faith of
St. Vitus, I will write this book on headier beverages than
molasses. Apsinthion shall be be my drink, sin my true love's
forsaken me; for snuff I'll sniff the snowflakes of the
coca-leaf; for smoke ``Roll me the rapture of amber again!'' I
musn't put these things clearly, because of the Harrison law,
which Harrison is not Benjamin or Austin or Alexander but a
bigger fool than all the three, and God forgive me if I have said
too much, as it suddenly strikes me I have, thinking a second
time of Austin.
Well, for perfume, I'll to the scent of ether and dream
delightful decadent delices of San Francisco and Myriam Deroxe,
the fairest and the finest and the -- here's to her in the Key of
F major! and B! Oh the scherzo in A -- rondo; oh the finale in C!
But if imagination fail me, then will I swallow hashish, in the
name of the Compassionate and Merciful God. and if my reader will
to whirl in colour and form, let him quaff mescal to the glory of
Quetzlcoatl, and it shall not fail him. Anon.
Hullo! is this capitulum too long, too short, too fat, too thin?
'Tis but our number One; a lad, nay, a babe of chapters, unsalted
and unswaddled: he'll do, girls; he'll grow; carry him to his
mother.
But are you sure that you have properly introduced, in Antient
and Primitive form, our hero? Is this book not the Life and
Adventures of Sir Roger Bloxam? Nay, little sister; bear with me
yet awhile. Imprimis: this book is not what you say: I told you
before, but you would not believe me. And, in the neck and
shoulders of our argument, Sir Roger Bloxam is certainly not our
hero. No, Lilian, tease me not; for at this time I will not tell
you. An adjuration? Verily, by the Pig's Knuckle and Sauerkraut
at the Kaiserhof at Broadway and Thirty-ninth Street New York
City, N.Y. U.S.A. Mariana, you trust not such an oath? Good; then
to the proof; continue to the end of the chapter, and see for
yourself whether I betray the secret.
N3.R1
CHAPTER THREE
IN WHICH THE READER IS INTRODUCED TO THE HERO.
Yes, that was a shabby trick to stop the chapter there. And
Mariana is crying. That has nothing to do with it. She is crying
because of what I told her in Chapter Two -- and with good
reason. And what was in Chapter Two? Wouldn't you like to know?
Saucy!
N4.R1
CHAPTER FOUR
THE SHADOW OF TRAGEDY.
Rabbi Ischak ben Loria is so dreadfully serious about the number
Four, by Gematria, Notariqon, Temurah, Aiq Bekar, and in every
other mode of Exegesis that it is time for us to straighten our
ties and try to look like a respectable novelist and his most
charming reader on a sunny but not too sunny day towards the end
of April. The autumn leaves were almost fallen; all nature seemed
to sympathize with the great sadness of -- Please do not
interrupt. Lola! I am not making a fool of myself. The scene of
Our Story is laid in the Southern Hemisphere. That girl has put
me completely off. We will begin again; one wintry day the good
folk of New Orleans were being hurled at the rate of a thousand
miles an hour and more into the shadow of the planet Terra, and
--
Too scientific? I think so myself; besides, the whole business
bores me. And, on another count, Not the Life and Adventures of
Sir Roger Bloxam should begin at the beginning. Lucky this ain't
them! A further advantage of this course is that I shall have
opportunity to expose rose prose, Ambrose, in my most mystic
manner. I'll be Chrysostom of the Church of Fiction; you shall
have asphodel and nectar to your chota hazri. Begin then,
daughters of the sacred well that from beneath the seat of Jove
doth spring; a perfect pianissimo like Ratan Devi's is
appropriate to the first part of what is not the Life and
Adventures of Sir Roger Bloxam.
N5.R1
CHAPTER SEVEN
BEFORE THE BEGINNING OF YEARS.
(Chapters Four, Five, and Six -- except Four -- have proved too
pianissimo to print.)
The Universe slept, and shiny dreams confused it; its purity
clouded over like Chalcedony. It was an absinthe dream --
Yea! let me fall off the water wagon; let me hie me to the Old
Absinthe House, and pledge mine host in a bumper of green poison!
--
for behold! in that clear diamond without flaw there gathered
nebulae like a great mist of light.
And there was some perception of distinction, and thereby came
hurt.
Close up, please, camera!
Now, Miss Eissiz, register despair!
Thank you. Now close up in the scene! Right.
In one nebula there was an insignificant body who is, (let me
whisper, Helen) in one way the hero of Our Story. Closer up,
there; ten yards' title, Helios. Closer up again -- so here we
are back to earth after all, ready to begin a new chapter of
what, please the pigs, shall not be the Life and Adventures of
Sir Roger Bloxam.
N6.R1
CHAPTER EIGHT
THE DAWN OF A BRIGHTER DAY
It has appeared from the foregoing, Muriel and Laylah, when you
have quite finished, thank you -- presently! -- that even that
which was most real about Sir Roger Bloxam was no more than the
fucked out fag-end of a bad dream of the universe; and whether
even the universe is real is of course a moot point. I like that
word `moot'. But, as we shall see later, Sir Roger himself was
not of prime importance, even to himself; for he was not himself.
Hush! I'll explain it all later. I must begin like this if I'm to
be properly mysterious, which, as I am Custos of the Illuminati,
the Devil and Adam Weishaupt know I ought to be. (If you had only
eighty cents to spare, would you buy ether or candy? 'Tis doubts
like this that cloud the mind, and interrupt Our Story. Oh Lord!
send me two thousand dollars and let me finish the damned thing
in peace! I promise not to use a stenographer -- ``An easy
promise!'' sneers the Lord. ``Abuse is your trade.'' Vell, then,
I won't abuse her; and why should I want to butt in? Get on! Get
on! Not even a preliminary Off.) I am glad that misunderstanding
is over; but I have lost the golden thread, Medea; we shall never
reach the heart of the labyrinth. Come, kiss me, Clio, let us
start afresh; water thy horse with mine at the Circean spring;
then let us mount the eager slopes of heaven, and, gazing upon
earth, see in all due proportion that most fascinating shape,
that soul Circean, that siren sun of a gun, Sir Roger Bloxam. For
it is his Life and Adventures that are not to form the subject of
Our Story.
N7.R1
CHAPTER NINE
ALAS! POOR YORICK!
(This chapter may be omitted with advantage.)
So ho! my hearties! then I have you at the point desired. You
think I mean to trick you with infinite digression -- a Sterne
chase of the Absolute. So ho! the will I e'en slip in a page of
concise important facts, the basis of our whole work, even as a
nymph surprised slips into her well, or as a physician slips his
thermometer under your tongue. (We'll hope so.) And so we go
about on the other tack, and gain a furlong on you all, unready
skippers that you are, foolish virgins indeed, for that you will
never come to the love interest. This is a bracing story, the
yarn of a lone wolf, the best of Easter gifts for a Boy Scout;
there is no sex in it. This is a brave book, a chaste book, the
Book Valiant, the Book of a Loyal Knight, the Bible of a
Parzival. C.W. Leadbeater shall not read Our Story; it shall not
be filmed in Pathe or serialized in the Woman's Monthly. No,
brother Sir Knights, gadzooks, gramercy on us! This Book be your
Romaunt, the pillow of your slumbers, the candle of your vigils;
and you shall salute me Guardian of the Graal, because I stood
with Shakespeare and Aristophanes and Apuleius and Cervantes and
Rabelais and Balzac and Sir Richard Burton who liked life whole
and wholesome, hardy to the four winds, not mewling, puking,
piffling, twaddling, bellelettrizing, Dameauxcameliarizing,
Murgerizing, Lukizing, Omarizing, Wertherizing, Littlenellizing,
sentimentalizing, squalling, squawking, weeping, deploring, and
all the other participles in the language and outside it that may
be quintessentialized as finding favour with the burgess. For you
are cowardly dogs, you grocers, peddlers, Germans and Angles, and
I'll none of you in Our Story. For us is the lusty Don, the
fierce Egyptian, the black Irishman, the hot little devil of a
Frenchman; but deuce a fat ox-man that sits down and counts the
money he has stolen, and lets life and adventures pass him by.
Sir Roger Bloxam was of an Irish father, and a Cornish mother --
putting aside all that business about the nebula, where, of
course, he originally began. He was born in rebel Cork, and his
first cry was interpreted by his father as ``To hell with the
bloody English!'' It's a durthy lie; he was born in the very
centre of England, just over the way from Stratford, at a Spa on
the Leam. His mother was a Bishop, which is a corruption of
Episkopos, for she traced her ancestry to a Greek, who had come
to Cornwall with the Phoenicians to get tin; and that Greek was
of Egyptian stock. I think Pythagoras had a thumb in the pie
somewhere, for Episkopos is a corruption of Hapi-Sebek, so that
there was honest crocodile blood and Nile water in the family.
And the Nile is the daughter of the Mountains by the Moon; and
both these are Chinese, for their names are given by Fohi in his
trigrams; so that was where Sir Roger got his Mongolian
appearance. The mother blood was very strong in that race; the
boy looked just as much a girl as any colleen, and had the
fascinating ways of a wench from his cradle.
As to the Bloxam side of the family, it was Greek also. Bloxam is
plainly Floxam from Phlogs, a flame; whence, oh my lissome ones,
we know that his great ancestor was the Sun. I have no time to
tell you about fulgur, and flagellum; for I must whisper just one
word of woe: Bloxam was not his name at all. Not his name, at
all, at all, at all. No, sir! It is only the echo of the name of
his name. His real name is a terrible secret, gay, porcine,
choral, charitable, stiff, brilliant, dancing, horrific, ghrshu,
ghrshoi (as Rabindranath Tagore would say) a brush name, a name
like a hedgehog, a bristling name, a starry name, the secret
title of the Master of all the Druids, a name so stupendous,
tremendous, venerable and reverend, so unspeakable, unutterable,
ineffable, incommunicable, indicible and aphasic that I have
written it all over this book in characters so large that I hope
it may escape observation. By the hand of Fatma, what a chapter!
But genealogies are always the devil; even Saint Paul found it
made trouble for the early Christians. However, be done with it!
On to the Characteristic Incidents of Infancy. I can't do these;
for one thing, I can't remember. But I'll steal all the Dionysus
and Hercules thunder, and that of any other Famous Infants; and
I'll fake the chapter somehow to look respectable enough.
Mothers, be prepared to shed warm tears of exquisite
whatever-it-is; race-suicides, thank God, you're out of it!
Maidens, be warned; old maids, regret! Observe, nobody is
altogether happy; we want to put our money on all the horses in
the race, and win every bet. No, Ada; no, Evangeline; no, Mimi;
no, Gellia, Chloe, Lalage, Daphne, Chrysis, Sappho, Doris, Gerda,
Jeanne, Rita, Lea, Mabel; no, all of you; to be or not to be,
that is the question; to be both or neither at the same time is
to be a Buddhist, and a Bhikkhu or a Phoongye or a Sayadaw or a
Mahathera at that, probably an Arhan and certainly a Srotapatti
-- which is going too far, even for sick girls as you, my
satellites, my comets, my meteors, my planets that you are. Keep
to your orbits; let who will be good, be clever!
Now you've mixed me all up, and we must broach a fresh hogshead
of absinthe.
N8.R1
CHAPTER TEN
THE MURDER IN GREENCROFT GARDENS
(This is the last but one of those chapter-headings which have
been designed merely to attract the favourable notice of the
reading public; in future they will have some connection with the
text, possible even a discoverable one, in certain cases of great
gravity.)
How jolly it would be, and how easy to wander on for ever,
canoeing, as it were, down a broad stream of absinthe to the
Great Lakes of Dementia. But it may not be! Our hero -- even our
echo-hero, Sir Roger Bloxam -- must be made sympathetic,
interesting, vital. And he does not even exist so far; at least
I've never let the reader get a glimpse of him. Yet it is he that
makes me merry; and God help the men and women that cross the
path of Astarte Lulu Panthea Crowley, beginning in about 1935,
Era Vulgari. The truth is this; it is a very serious matter to
get your hero on to the stage; for you have to do that for him;
once there he'll start like a fighting-cock, if he's of the right
stuff; but who'll break the champagne over the bows of my
battleship? There's the D'Artagnan way of coming on, me father's
sword, letter to the Captain of the Guard, no money; then a
thwacking of a duel or two, and it's perfectly natural to be
saving the queen's honour, and never riding at less than thirty
miles an hour with sixteen bullets to the cubic inch of you.
And there's the Hamlet way of preparing the scene, and then
flipping him on; and that way, which is Shakespeare's invariable
way, makes the man natural from the beginning. Ibsen does the
same; it is clearly right; one must not make one's man incredible
from the moment of his appearance.
But what of the fantastics? Maitre Alcofribas Nasier cares
for none of these things. Nor Aristophanes, huge of laughter,
eater of conventions. The fact is that I had rather conceived Sir
Roger Bloxam -- and the hero, of whom you hear some day, if you
will -- in this Punch and Judy spirit. This novel was not to be
the tale of an Ego in a Cosmos, but the whirl of a Cosmos round
an Ego. The scenery was to be stage properties; and now I
hesitate whether I should not play in the wild woodland. Why not
tell the truth? Because I do not know the truth; if I did, I were
a greater philosopher than even myself.
Penrhyn Stanlaws told me that he liked a novel to begin
``Bang! A rifle shot rang through the woods'' because you want to
know at once ``who shot at whom, or what, and why, and did he hit
or miss?'' I tried this idea with the title of Chapter 44; but
then -- {?} -- alas! no need to tell what then! If Gwendolen
Otter were here, she would tell me how to begin; if Anna Wright
were here, she would shew me how to begin; if Berthe Leroux or
Marie Maddingley or Peggy Marchmont were here, I would already
have begun! I would I were afoot in the Sahara desert, with my
untrusty chela, Lampada Tradam, his hair chopped to look like the
devil, so that the Arabs may take me for a great sorcerer to have
tamed him, and with Mohammed bin Rahman and el Arabi and that
prince of fools, the camel-man. To camp at Wain t'Aissha for a
month, and let the peace of the desert seduce the soul. Then
could Sir Roger Bloxam prance it untrammelled, horsed and armed,
a very scorpion of the sand.
Nay, the Old Absinthe House must serve my turn; I will take
wings and follow the Mississippi to the sacred Delta; thence I
will take passage in the Gulf Stream with those two spirits that
loved the Albatross, and with them, by'r Lady, I'll put a girdle
round the earth in forty chapters! But be prepared for all;
you'll not know whether I'm a realist or a phantastic till you
have finished Our Story and are ready to turn back to read it
over again!
N9.R1
CHAPTER SIX HUNDRED AND SEVENTY-EIGHT
KISSED AT LAST.
(This chapter has been suppressed by the Censor.)
N10.R1
CHAPTER ELEVEN
OF PUBLISHERS: WITH AN AFRICAN FABLE.
I am but a green fellow, Mr. Putnam, Scribner, Macmillan,
Houghton Mifflin, Mr. Podder and Spouton, Mr. Lousebrain? I am no
novelist, I, Mr. Poop the Publisher? I do not know how to tell a
story, ye dewlapped sow-bellied munchers of milk-toast, ye
gross-butted itchy-palmed exploiters of Arnold Bennett and Marie
Corelli and Elinor Glyn and Mrs. Humphrey Ward and Victoria Cross
and Hall Caine? Why do not I take advice? I am young yet; I might
learn, perchance? Learn your trade, ye snuffling, toads, ye
gorbellied live stenches that poison the wells of the King's
English before the Hanoverian turnips with their German brute
gutterals and grunts. Oh! nothing right in England since we lost
Plantagenet and Tudor. Take advice? Hear the tale of the Love of
the Hippopotamus und the Tsetse fly. You see the difficulty. So
did they. Thus they took counsel of the Puff-adder. Paint me the
river-horse, tears streaming from his eyes, his fat soul melting
in him from hoggish love, like a middle-class Englishman, a
tradesman of the Petty Cury! Ha! quoth the wise Puff-adder,
cocksbody, here's a knavish coil. Zounds; little sister Tsetse,
dear, deadly little sister, eternal flit and fatal sting, more
sinister than all thy kind because so silent, surely thou art
True Woman. (True Womanhood, the Glory of the Nation. Insert in
American edition.) But his thy raw Romeo, thy lard-Lothario, thy
Georgie-Porgie, hath no scent of aught but grossness. Purge him
with Krafft-Ebing, for diaphoretic let him swill Schrenk-Notzing,
a barrel a does, flush well his kidneys with the works of
Havelock Ellis. Then crown the labour with a gift of price --
Venus in Furs of Sacher-Masoch. So then, gramercy, an thou sting
him, sister, it shall be Luv. Most willing, most assiduous, the
hippopotamus applied his pinbrain to the work. Last of all,
rapture filled his eyes -- now sting, cried he, that I may enjoy
Luv!
Alas! Alack! Woe! Misery! Wretched Me! Ai! Ai! Mierda! Ay di
mi! Hilas! Govno! Sister Tsetse, that had stung horse, ass, mule,
Englishman, and many another beast, could not get through the
hide of her belovid. For know, the Hippopotamus comes of chapel
folk, and hath been 'prenticed to the Northcliffes, the St. Doe
Stracheys, and the Austin Harrisons, from whom that shell which
pierceth three feet of Harveyized nickel steel battleship armour
should rebound all merrily, methinks.
Then went this loutish lover, mewling and puling more
hideously than before, until he seemed like an American
clergyman, so sweating and so maudlin was he, back to the wise
Puff-adder. O call up on Sir Crocodile, the good chiruggeon, says
Puff-adder briskly, when the state of the case is made known; he
shall perform epidermotomy, neurocalypsis; thou shalt have a
tender part whereon thy love may sting thee.
But Sir Congo Crocodile F.R.C.S., M.C., was modern, the last
word in surgeons, phallectomy his specialty; Monsieur Coupetout
was his father in anatomy; he had deceived pedants when he
studied at Bart's, for they confused his operations with the
Massacre of Saint Bartholomew -- ho! one, two, three, nurse! give
me the sponge; four, five, damn it, there's the jugular vein
gone; six, tie that artery, you fool; seven, eight, calm, my
friends, I've but perforated one lung; nine, bang goes the aorta,
stitch him up, somebody; ten, he's dead, blast him, bring me
another.
So Sir Crocodile made Mr. Hippopotamus as holy as Origen, as
lorn as Abelard, alas! he made him not so lyrical as Atys. For he
squeaked out, the British pig, the greedy, grocery,
cottonseed-oily, dissenting- parsonious, Tennyson-reading,
blubberly, Wiltshire, Dossetshire, chaw-bacon, covenanting, cow?
mooing, creature, none of God's! --
Ah! (he pronounced it like the Arabic Gha'in) I shall write
to the Times about it. Speaking as a masochist, I am irrevocably
wedded to good Sir Crocodile; speaking as an ex-hippopotamus, war
is hell! And sister Tsetse laid a loving kiss on Brother
Puff-adder's nose, and away! Who said I didn't raise my boy to be
a soldier?
Now -- conceive if I in like case would take advice! Nay, I
am sister Tsetse; but though I sting the world, I give the
Sleeping sickness only to horse, ass, mule, or Englishman, oh
cattle! cattle! cattle! Now I'll not stop to print the many words
of my story, the story of my tale, how 'tis against the vice of
pandering, against the folly of love out of one's sphere, and the
rest; I'll flit on, to the tune of Tipperary, beauties o' mine,
God bless you, dart on with the newest, the sweetest, the
deeviest, most charming, most exciting, cocaineish, cantharidian,
Peggy O'Neilish installment of -- Not the Life and Opinions (or
was it Adventures?) of Sir Roger Bloxam.
N11.R1
CHAPTER TWELVE
HORRIFIC AND GROTESQUE COROLLARY OF THE FOREGOING ARGUMENT,
PRESENTED AS AN EPICENE PARADOX.
Last night I dreamed that I was back in the Old Absinthe
House, where stand the marble fountains worn by the nonagenarian
drip of the water. I was that Apsinthion, the bitter spirit, oily
with divine ghostliness, and fragrant with many an holy herb,
dittany, marjoran, fennel, subtile and mocking, all inspiration.
But none can drink me pure, nay, say not so, my brave disciples!
Ye must add syrup of style -- add not too much, my danger's in my
Technik! -- and stir with drop by drop of water that fountain
that never faileth. So did I dream myself intelligible -- when
Betty stirred, and cried ``A little higher!'' Woman! always you
bid us soar -- often you make us soar! I knew a wife that told
her husband that she wished he were dead. He raised his lazy
head, and asked her Why, in sooth? She said ``I want to be
relict.'' And, indeed, Djuna, this is the end of the chapter.
(Why support a lout like Courteney Lemon?)
N12.R1
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
OF THE QUALITY OF THE ANCESTRY OF SIR ROGER BLOXAM; HIS
FOREBEARS, OF THEIR CHASTITY, DECENCY, FIDELITY, SOBRIETY, AND
MANY OTHER VIRTUES.
A certain lady -- (lady -- lady -- lady -- ) daughter of a
New England lumberman, seeking social distinction, espoused an
ancient house agent (or Gott wot what) named Foster, a tripester,
a chewed spaghetto, a cold Welsh rarebit. Now lively was the
wench and high-coloured, with a mole between her buttocks, and
her shoulder-blade fair and great as a wild strawberry. And she
lived in Eighth Avenue New York, in an apartment house. Time made
her bold, and she was gay and gracious, so that it pleased her
perversion to wager with herself that she should enjoy a lover
even in the bed with her goodman. Which device she prepared,
bidding Sir Paramour enter softly through the unlatched door of
the flat. But even as the other disciple did outrun Peter, so a
citizen took the honor of that laggard lover. And this man was
well bedrunken. A German? American was he, and well bedrunken,
verily. So this one came upon the bed; the girl stirred not for
caution, save to slip the sheet from off her body, and he knew
not of her. ``Nay!'' quoth he to himself, ``all men are equal; I
will prove it heartily, and ease my nature.'' So with a blast and
fanfare of great trumpets, he stated clearly, and proved with
mighty measure, and great weight, the proposition of democracy.
Then Jeanne, that wanton wife and wise in Havelockellisry the
gentle sport, divined her lover for a fantastic, and lay still.
But ere he fled he seized what to him seemed a lever appropriate
to that throne whereon he squatted touchwise and pulled thereon
repeatedly, so that the lumpish cuckoldly lubberly lout of a
husband, waking, bethought him of that word of James the apostle
``Husbands, love your wives and be not bitter against them'' and
put his hand upon her knee. ``Shut up! old satyr'' she cried
loud, ``I never shall understand sex. Oh mother, save me! Stop!
you rascal, what do you mean by trying to lead me away from
Pewrity, the uplift, the Inner Life, the supra-sexual
sexuality!'' Whereat he laughed, the toothless old dog! Then she
``You disgust me -- you, with one foot in the grave!'' Then he
grabbed desperately -- alas! -- fell back, and murmured
mournfully ``I have at least one hand interred.''
No one of these three people could ever have been connected,
however remotely, with any of the forebears of Sir Roger Bloxam.
N13.R1
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
HOW SIR ROGER GOT HIS NICK-NAME.
Oh wonder! let us on, gay carls; I would tell you of the
goodness and innocence of Sir Roger, Sir Roger, oh! my God! Sir
Roger Bloxam, how it shewed even in his youth, and that moreover
in suspicion, as the sun shines brightest when the darkest
thunders break. D'ye remember: i' the Cloister and th' Hearth how
the neighbours set a spy on the monk and his wife, and track them
to a wood -- but they are only discussing how to do good to the
people of the town? Ay? They were foul dogs that thought ill of
them, is't not so? For even thus, or not unlike, came adventure
to Sir Roger when 'e was yet a stripling. 'T was a day holy and
idle, the sun gold on the primroses of the woodland, and Sir
Roger, being of age twelve years, and a lively boy, his thoughts
divided between heaven and humanity, how he might help either,
was strolling with another lad, one Charlie Preston, God bless
him or God rest him, I know not which, and the devil take him
too, for I care not.
Now then comes a young master following them, for he saw
that which made him ponder. 'Sdeath, but these Puritans have evil
minds, God rot their guts with their stale mess of barley water!
But when he came upon them privily, lo! then Sir Roger looked up
frank and smiling, his eyes trembling with great joy and
sweetness of child- holiness. Quoth 'a to the angry paedagogue:
Nay, sir, 'tis natural error, and I pardon thee with my whole
heart. For this my friend was stricken (by Heaven's will) with
sudden pain-cramp of a limb. I therefore, crying on Aesculapius,
did put my lips to it, sucking and soothing, lipping and licking,
rolling my tongue about, nibbling it gently with my teeth to
induce a proper flow of blood to the disordered place, all as my
instinct of Healer-of-Men did direct me. So presently by the
favour of God came relief by spasm and -- may it not have been
the bursting of some internal abscess? -- the ejaculation of some
humor -- salty, 'Od wot, and ostreosian, or methought so, and may
Nature grant it be nutritious. Now by the Virtue of the Father
and of the Son and the Holy Ghost, Three and One, to whom be
praise and worship eternally, is my friend rid of his cramp.
Amen!
But that young master, skilled in physick, knew in himself
that this was no true cure, but a cure by sympathy and
transference; for lo! himself was attaint of that same plague.
Which Sir Roger spying i' th' tail of his eye, the boy cries
quickly to him: Good sir, God save you; will you not rest the
inflamed limb between these cushion? Ay! warmth and softness,
there's the rub! Move, an' it ease you! Stay, let me massage the
swollen limb with that elastic, that electric Prometheus-reed
o'mine. Do you feel nothing better? The fever flushes face and
eyes; dear master, cry but upon God! Come, come, dear master, but
say a prayer, and it may be that God will bless my feeble
efforts. Feeble! cried he; preserve me from the strong, an' that
be so. Ye're to massage, lad, back 'er, not to break. A prayer! A
prayer! cried pious Roger; and at that the master sobbed ``Oh
Christ!'' and fell down utterly exhausted, but cured of cramps
and fever -- and suspicion. And when 'a woke, there behold the
boy with his innocent smile, his great open eyes turned piously
toward heaven, his hands laid as in benediction on the two limbs
that by God's grace he had restored to well-being. So he cried
out, that master, in these words ``Twelve years old! Jesus!''
Now, as it chanced, this malady of cramp is oft of the remittent
type, so that six times that afternoon the whole scene was
repeated with slight variations. Also, Sir Roger was so slender
and delicate and his feature so fine that -- in short, masters
and comrades called him alike by the name of `Duodecimo Jesus'.
N14.R1
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
OF THE LOGOS THAT SPAKE NEVER, AND OF HIS WITNESSES.
Now, by God wake up, if you have dozed! For here's the
minute, sure enough. I don't know when, nor where, nor how; But
'twas one day or night, heartiest beauties, the Devil bless you
all! I would I had Cervantes by my side, with his great quill
like a plumed lance; or Blake, that made earth shake when Thel
groaned. Ah! 'tis from Ossian, that trick; I've no such bravery
of magick; my pen's no Mahalingam. And so when I've most bitter
need of colour and size and light, I'm like a ghost i' the church
yard, a scraped turnip with a candle, and a flapping sheet upon a
pole.
Yet who should tell how gay Sir Roger met with God's vicar
but I? Alack -- I may not tell. But of his meeting with the
herald? Amen, that will I.
He was aware, Sir Roger Bloxam, of that pompous dwarf,
fighting mad, the bantam soul of him afire, craning, straining,
strutting stiff before him, the brave little fellow, a bare yard
high, game, cocky, impudent, mocking, with his monk's hood drawn
back from his bare poll, and -- since he was the Herald of God's
vicar -- saying Nothing. Only he leapt and preened himself, and
his followers swelled with pride. For he had attachis, this
goodly cardinal ambassador, Signor Coglio the Florentine and
brave Don Cojone of Logorno, stout and subtle they, secreting in
themselves continually the mysteries of the Creation. No fear o'
treachery there, by Zeus and his thunder! 'Twas their young
sister Porphyria Poppoea, that with wantonness proclaimed
herself, swinging her thurible whether ye would or no. Foul
wench! What words are these? Art not ashamed? What heard I then?
``Asquith.'' Fie then! Sir Roger, canst thou not silence her?
What's this mephitic borborygmus, this belch o' beastliness -- in
a woman's mouth too? No Englishman within 3000 miles of me needs
guess more than once what this word is -- God help him -- and me!
There -- all our stomachs turn as the stench strikes our noses. I
wish I could think of something utterly beastly, something worthy
to mop its haemorrhoids, after a typhoid purge, with that
pantomime flag, that barber's pole flag, that -- (``Of course,
dear poet'' quoth Anita, suave and obscure, the gilt-toothed
goddess from Japan, ``there's Woods'') (Hush! Hush! 'Tis true,
dear girl, but I'll not think of him, please God). Amen, and Amen
-- of Amen!
N15.R1
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
SILENCE -- TO TAKE THE SOUND OF THE LAST CAPITULUM OUT OF THE
EARS.
N16.R1
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
OF THE MONOLOGUE BETWEEN SIR ROGER AND THE MYSTERIOUS MONK
Anita, sweetheart, by the flush of your Mongol cheeks, and
the devilry in your long eyes, I swear I would that my words
could tremble with such joy as your body, or your body with such
anguish as my soul. For when Sir Roger saw that monk, in 's
cardinal hat and Tyrian frock, confound him, he was shaken like a
teak sampan in a typhoon, like a man in love with an Australian
woman, like a flapper at the first sight of a matinee hero, or
like an American grandmother introduced to a new Tango lizard. He
felt like a neuraesthenic who finds a Gila Monster in bed with
him. Yet there was something in him that was not shaken, after
all: Dai-Butsu was glad at heart when the earthquake tumbled the
ruins of his temple about him at Kamakura, though I hope no harm
came to the Iris gardens.
And so, cried Sir Roger, you are Cardinal Mentula di
Caracco? Was there no law of praemunire to abate your insolence?
You undercover before me, 'tis some grace in you, but your
carriage is proud as Lucifer's, Sir Prelate!
At this the churchman uttered no word, but smote Sir Roger
in the abdomen, like a goat butting.
Enough! I'll not endure it! The knight was but a boy, but 'a
was angered, 'Od wot. He loved not priests and their ogling,
intriguing, domineering, subtle, persistent, pushing, pulling,
alluring, menacing, ways -- now Attila, now Caesar, now
Machiavelli, now Cleopatra -- and all so deft that it needs a
sharp eye to see them. 'Sbodikins! do ye not know that your own
thoughts are his before ye think them?
So good Sir Roger, boiling with wrath, tried courtesy.
``Pray rest awhile, good sir, kind sir, reverend sir, most
venerable sir! Be at ease, sir, I pray you! Bid your followers
loosen their coats, i' God's name, and for the love o' Christian
charity, for 'tis plaguy hot,'' quoth he.
But to all this the cardinal answered not a word. For he had
The Word, and would speak none other, and the moment was not come
to send it forth. Ah! would ye had that Word, my darlings -- all
that live -- for it is Silence, and a Seed that, falling into the
Earth, is presently clothed about with leaf and flower and fruit.
But Sir Roger was devilish annoyed at the dwarf's impudence.
N17.R1
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
OF A LADYE MINE, AND OF THE DREAM SHE HAD.
'Twas at Torquay in Devon, land of stream and cream, 'o
scaur and tor, o' moor gorse-golden, merry maids and proper men,
tall fellows and bold, o' dells and coombes, and of cider
stronger and sweeter than your Norman can make for all his
cunning; and this girl was a play-actress, rosy as the apples,
and white as the cream, and soft as the air, and high-spirited as
the folk, of that enchanted dukedom. I know her name was
langourous and lovely; but only the devil her master knows what
it was; I shall probably remember it if I live to be eighty; but
whether it's worth while to go through another forty years or so
of European war in order to recall this detail is a matter rather
for my readers than myself. The deuce take politics!
Whatever her name was, she was out walking. She was as
pretty as a picture of Spring, for 'twas that which had got into
her blood -- the good Sun grant it gets into mine this night, and
stays there! So she was restless, so she walked up and down by
the Sea, feeling the Sea's mood hers. I think she walked till
moonset, but I'm not writing by the calendar, thank the Lord! We
call it moonset; we declare moonset trumps. Good. Then she
wandered on the face of the cliff for a while, and sought to tire
her limbs. At last she came to a meadow; and there she called
upon the Earth, lying upon the cool grass, and plucking out great
handfuls. The daisies stared at her with great golden eyes, like
Balzac's `Fille'. And so she dreamed that she was Earth itself,
and a daughter of Earth, Titan, a giantess in the prime o' the
planet. She lay like a great range of mountains athwart the
plains, snow domes upon green alps. May the Lady of Dreams be
ever near us, awake or asleep, with her hands full of loveliness.
Carry your apron full, Our Lady, with cherry dreams, peach
dreams, plum dreams, pear dreams, strawberry dreams, apple
dreams, dreams that are clusters of the heaviest grapes! And fly
also South and East upon occasion for we need tropical dreams,
like mangoes, dates, pomegranates, lychees and mangostems!
N18.R1
CHAPTER NINETEEN
OF THE COMBAT BETWEEN SIR ROGER BLOXAM AND CARDINAL MENTULA.
I told you the lad was devilish annoyed. But it did not stop
there; oh no, by the bones of Saint Bacchus, and the virginity of
the Eleven Thousand Virgins, and the Holy Island of Iona! To be
butted in the belly by a damned dwarf! The Bloxam blood boiled.
Sir Roger was bored; he was fed up; he was peeved; he lost his
shirt; he could not keep his hair on; he was wroth.
So he chased the poor Cardinal all round the town, as you
never saw the Lion chase the Unicorn. Presently the dwarf spies a
valley, and runs up it. There's a forest at the top, just where
the great hill rises; so he tries to hide there. Lucky for him,
there's a cleft in the mountain- side, so small that Sir Roger
cannot follow him. (God knows he strove like a brave lad and good
knight as he was!). But you cannot put a quart into a pint pot,
or a bull into a calf skin. 'Tis one story how the Seventy-Two
Jinn came from the bottle; another how King Solomon put them back
again. Nulla vestigia retrorsum, by the shade of the lady that
invented Caesarean section! Let's get on with the story! He
pushed, he pulled, he wriggled, he heaved, he thrust, he lunged,
he writhed, he twisted -- oh the Devil in the Belfry! he rocked,
he charged, he did everything he could, God bless him! but the
Cardinal was safely housed; 'twas a tight squeeze even for him.
So presently the lad stopped struggling; he was too exhausted to
be angry any more. Whew! what a hunt it had been! I sweat to
think of it. So now the Cardinal comes forth; and he abated in
his pride by the humiliation of having been forced to hide.
Confound all writing, and most of all the writing of novels.
I never finished the story about the girl; better do it now,
while I remember. She woke up. (There may be more than that, but
by Buddha and Harpocrates and by their lotus-flowers, I know not
of it.)
These chapters are infernally drawn-out; the style is
laboured, the matter dull. Well, damn everything, I'm tired.
Can't you let a man alone? I wish to Saint Genevieve I were in
Paris on the Terrace of the Closerie des Lilas -- if there be
absinthe available -- with Ida Nelidoff. No, I would rather be in
Montigny (Saint Hubert hear me!) with my One Love, ruining the
morals of the ducks at the Vanne Rouge with mustard, or lying on
the top of the Long Rocher teaching the girl arithmetic -- three
times twenty-one is sixty-three, three times twenty-two is --
Oh but what happened to brave Coglio and gay Cojone? They
could not follow their master; they came nigh to be crushed
between the ridges of the mountains. Says one ``I am more an
ancient Roman than a Dane: there's yet some liquor left''; and
the other ``Fill, fill the cup; what boots it to repeat?'' So Don
Cojone damns him for a coward. Twas fortunate Porphyria Poppoea
brake out laughing wildly, a fanfare of folly. So Sir Roger
Bloxam took his tablets, wishing to write a poem to her beauty;
for she was a dusk rose of glory, no fault but this perversity of
speech -- oh no more o' that, pray! And he wrote:
Her cheeks are pinks; what dastard pinked her?
Her soul's a Sphinx; God mend her ....
He could never get any further, for he could not find a
rime. No poet, Sir Roger Bloxam, I'm afraid.
Suppose we get on to the pageant of the skating in Sweden.
That is the real beginning of the story of Porphyria Poppoea; I
simply invented the `incident of boyhood' because all the other
fool novelists do; and one must be conventional, mustn't one?
I think I'll have a last pipe of Lattakiah, the kind that
Novotny sells -- four dollars a pound, worse luck! in the cubical
packets of lead paper, with the pale grey-blue labels -- oh their
arabic inscriptions! I wish that some Afrit would bear me on the
horse of brass to a city in the desert, that I might recite `The
Great Word to become mad and go about naked' until I did.
Well, a pipe's the next best thing.
(No, Nan!)
N19.R1
CHAPTER TWENTY
OF THE HOUSEHOLD CAVALRY OF THE KING OF SWEDEN AND NORWAY, WHAT
CAME TO ITS BEST REGIMENT.
'Tis true, 'tis no pity, that the folk of bard or tale
spinner should rise ever in revolt against him; for that's the
sign of life in them. But where Porphyria Poppoea (of all people)
deliberately interrupts my scandalous stories of her -- 'tis but
natural, though in another sense devilish unnatural, by the word
of some. But I respect them not; Nature's mantle is wide and blue
as the sky herself; and she enfoldeth all. However, this is what
Porphyria Poppoea did: she woke me just as I was ready to dream
this chapter, and bade me wait while she conversed with her
friend Edward. 'Tis a brave boy and a belov'd; he will not deal
in aught but sacred merchandise. Robes for the priests, albs,
amices, dalmatics, chasubles, rochets, copes, birettas, all
things canonical and lovely these doth he buy and sell, and his
whole soul is ornamented by his love for the figurative mystery
of these holy vestments. For it seemeth (as I dream) that the
priest is to the Most High God as is a woman to her lover, that
his raiment and apparel are even as the silks and fine linens and
laces of a courtesan, which she adorns herself withal, that she
may make her lover mad with love. And the incense? Oh a surety it
is so. Then he, being made God by the passion of God that
floodeth him, transmitteth God to bread and wine, transmuteth
them again to God. Then eateth and drinketh he that God, even
(again) as a woman receiveth of the lover the fluid and solid
substance of his being; and thus being made God once more, ex
infero, he transmitteth upward that godhead by the transmutation
of those received Elements into strength of body and spirit that
exulting poureth out its new divinity in praise and thanksgiving
to the All-Father. I would also that ye take not how bread and
wine be adorned for the priest, in golden paten and chased
chalice. Behold then how complete and perfect is this -- true
image of true Life! And is not our Father, the Sun, the giver of
all Life, adorned with glory of rays? Now, brethren, let me
counsel ye not to take this mystery away, unseemly twining blue
ribbons in your crisp fine short bushy hair. Fie, lads! Never
think of such a thing; there's glory and beauty to spare so long
as the damned thing stands to attention at the word of command,
obeys the ``Ready -- present -- fire'' -- {?} -- {?} -- and never
lets fly before the proper moment. ``Reserve your fire until you
can see the whites of the enemy's eyes'' is a good a rule in love
as in war. Talking of love, you know the difference between a
lady and a diplomat? If a diplomat says `perhaps', he means `no';
if he says `no', he's no diplomat. If a lady says `perhaps' she
means `yes'; if she says `yes', she's no lady. (Not mine, the
gibe, by Mercury the thief; but by Mercury the scribe, I gave it
for posterity, damn 'em!)
Now Sir Roger Bloxam was destined to serve his country by
this intellectual thimble-rigging; so of course he must make the
Grand Tour, tra-la-la, and off he goes in his first Christmas
vacation from -- no less than the Only Place I ever saw worth
living in, the Only Place I ever loved, in That Particular Way.
France I love, and Africa, and Asia, and may it please Allah
el-Latifu that I may live and die between Djelfa and Nefta on the
South, and between Auteuil and Belleville on the North; but these
are loves of my conscious being. The Only Place is in my blood;
I've three --- four centuries of atavism that curl round its
ivied stones; I hate everything in its traditions from Henry the
Eighth to Alfred Teeenyson with the whole of my conscious mind;
and I love it with my soul, and the soul of my soul, as I love No
Place Else. It's a royal residence; none of your vulgar
Buckingham Palace, the stuck-up stuccoed Hanoverian hausfrauhaus;
none of your flaunting Windsor, your suburban Osborne, your
tourist Balmoral; but a Cloister, a college, a sanctuary, sacred
and central, the garden of youth, the meadow of wit, the midden
of learning, the South Wall of Poesy. I hereby vow a sovereign to
the Head Porter -- its Patron Saint -- next time I see the
fountain in the Great Court. And I hereby give warning that I
shall roll on the grass for sheer delight, and probably jump into
the river with my clothes on. Now will somebody tell me why in
the name of all that's inappropriate they built a thieves'
kitchen, a beggar's boozing-ken, a cads' cradle, a dumping-ground
for all the lousy, spavined, ring- wormed, scrofulous, soapless,
paper-collared, dicky-wearing, frayed- trousered, dusty-bowlered,
tooth brushless, frowsty, fuggy, onanizing, cheesy,
onion-smelling, lantern-jawed, pi-inclined, lecture-keeping,
hockey-playing, tub-pushing, beer-squiffy, syphilophobic,
landlady's- daughter cuddling, pseudo-blood, Union-haunting,
Ciccu-jawing, mongrel breeding, Math-Trip-mugging, oak-sporting,
penny-nap- playing, Fabian, don-frequenting, stinks-stewing,
proggings-fearing, touts next door? The educated reader will not
hesitate to conclude that I refer to St. John's College,
Cambridge, for the Hall is a dear little neighbour, and the Only
Place I ever loved in the ancestral matter already described is
of course the College of the Holy Trinity, where Sir Roger Bloxam
spent the happy years of adolescence.
What a long time it has taken to get him away from it, even
on that Christmas Vacation! It's not my fault, `honest to God it
isn't'; it's this affair of Porphyria Poppoea and Edward. My idea
was to give a succinct account of the facts; but she made such a
fuss of her religious-furniture-fellow that I got quite
ecclesiastical, and that drove out of my mind the desire to
describe her early exploits with the `millingtery'. This was to
have been a staccato chapter, a martinet chapter, a Halt-who
goes-there -- friend -- advance-friend-and-give-the-countersign
chapter; and instead we have had a polite, learned, spiritual,
academic chapter. However, it ought to go splendidly with the
Cloth and the Gown -- the Blue Gown u;"ber alles -- so lets leave
it at that, -- and draw a thick line.
Damn everything! all this time I've been far away in the
clouds -- wondering when Edward will come back for another
evening with Porphyria Poppoea! Is that a proper frame of mind
for a popular novelist? By the impediment in the speech of
William Somerset Maugham, by the Street-Arab accent of H. G.
Wells, by the Black-Country-Twang that jerks from the Ruined
Graveyard of Arnold Bennett, by the obese snobbishness of Marie
Corelli, by the blue toe-nails of Victoria Cross, I deem it is
not so. But what is a proper frame of mind? I had as lief have a
cucumber-frame as a mind like any o' these; for cucumber is
pretty good with salmon, and your popular novelist is good only
with calomel, for those who react but with difficulty to twenty
grains or so of that mild medicine.
So let's call it a day; we'll start off, very stiff and
sturdy and new-manual-of-infantry-drill, with Sir Roger Bloxam
already in Sweden.
N19.R1
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
CONTAINS WHAT I MEANT TO WRITE IN CHAPTER TWENTY. OR NEARLY.
My friend St. Louis (alias Spiritus Sanctus) tells me that
the Snow of Heaven only makes his nose cold, like a healthy
dog's. He does not complain; he merely records the observation.
But I'll bet him that his nose was not so cold as good Sir Roger
Bloxam's, that third night after Christmas '95. For the boy was
tired o' skating. He knew nobody in Stockholm but the stuffy old
British minister, and his cappy shawly spouse; and he couldn't
speak a word of Swedish, and he didn't like Punch. So as you all
know, after about three hours trying the Inside Back Loop and
Rocker for the love of the thing, you wish you had never seen a
skate in your life. Sir Roger Bloxam was tired and cold and
hungry. Cardinal Mentula and his little suite were with him, to
be sure, but to all intents and purposes they had retired to
their apartments. It's a hell of a life, isn't it, sometimes?
Enthusiasm somehow flops When neither love nor dream outcrops
From white or crimson poppy-tops. Hooray! I'm a poet. Well, he
stood there, and dolefully executed a very inferior Outside Back
Q, L forward Inside Counter, R forward Inside Loop, L Outside
Back Bracket, missed the turn and set down with a fine British
Damn. Forthwith on all sides to his aid was run By skaters many
and strong; but the first to arrive, reminding me of Outram
(wasn't it? my father was a great pal of the old boy's) at
Lucknow, was James L. Dickson. L. stood for something Scottish,
Laurie, or Leslie, or Levy, I think. Anyhow, 'twas a compatriot
of sorts that rescued him; and that same British Damn, declaring
Sir Roger Bloxam to be a colliguary of Chaucer and John
Galsworthy (Oh God!) he said to him ``God save thee, lad! Zoops!
hast harmed thee? Nay, th'art a gay lad and a gallant, 'ods fish,
'ods bodikins, 'ods teeth and whiskers; and may I be eternally
damned if I'm not glad to hear me honest English speech in this
country of Tandstickors and Smorgasbord!'' You'd have been glad
in his place, too, wouldn't you? And Sir Roger was comely and
graceful, lissome as an ounce, playful as a kitten. And he was
drest in his skating suit (knee breeches and tunic with an
Astrakhan roll collar, dbld silk, extr. pockt, 44 gs -- or so
Nash of Savile Row was always telling him) with the most darling
coquettish cap to match, like a Badenoch with out the knob and
ribbons; and he wore it perched on one side of his head; oh yet!
if you've guts in you, reader, which you must have, since you've
come thus far in Our Story, you'd have beaten James L. Dickson by
a short head on the post, with a little luck at the fall of the
flag. So the new friends talked of England, home and beauty; for
their paradox was to delight in the association of incompatible
ideas. And Sir Roger Bloxam (the innocent) never guessed that
James was clairvoyant. But he was. He could not see her, but he
divined that Porphyria Poppoea was not far away -- and he
determined to obtain an introduction. Well, why not? James L.
Dickson was an exceedingly nice man.
That night he dined with Sir Roger; the next night Sir Roger
dined with him; on New Year's Eve he dined with Sir Roger again,
and almost on the very stroke of the bell of St. Somebody's
Cathedral that rang the Old Year out -- I don't remember my
Swedish Saints -- he obtained the desired introduction to
Porphyria Poppoea.
No, it doesn't sound very exciting; but there's nothing else
to tell; why should I embroider to please you? Devil take you!
James L. Dickson was satisfied; so would you have been -- that at
least I swear by the faith of the Universal Testimony of all
those who have been similarly favoured. Shut up!
N19.R1
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
CONTAINS WHAT I MEANT TO WRITE IN CHAPTER TWENTY. OR NEARLY.
My friend St. Louis (alias Spiritus Sanctus) tells me
that the Snow of Heaven only makes his nose cold, like a healthy
dog's. He does not complain; he merely records the observation.
But I'll bet him that his nose was not so cold as good Sir Roger
Bloxam's, that third night after Christmas '95. For the boy was
tired o' skating. He knew nobody in Stockholm but the stuffy old
British minister, and his cappy shawly spouse; and he couldn't
speak a word of Swedish, and he didn't like Punch. So as
you all know, after about three hours trying the Inside Back
Loop and Rocker for the love of the thing, you wish you had
never seen a skate in your life. Sir Roger Bloxam was tired and
cold and hungry. Cardinal Mentula and his little suite were with
him, to be sure, but to all intents and purposes they had
retired to their apartments. It's a hell of a life, isn't it,
sometimes? Enthusiasm somehow flops When neither love nor dream
outcrops From white or crimson poppy-tops. Hooray! I'm a poet.
Well, he stood there, and dolefully executed a very inferior
Outside Back Q, L forward Inside Counter, R forward Inside Loop,
L Outside Back Bracket, missed the turn and set down with a fine
British Damn. Forthwith on all sides to his aid was run By
skaters many and strong; but the first to arrive, reminding me
of Outram (wasn't it? my father was a great pal of the old
boy's) at Lucknow, was James L. Dickson. L. stood for something
Scottish, Laurie, or Leslie, or Levy, I think. Anyhow, 'twas a
compatriot of sorts that rescued him; and that same British
Damn, declaring Sir Roger Bloxam to be a colliguary of Chaucer
and John Galsworthy (Oh God!) he said to him ``God save thee,
lad! Zoops! hast harmed thee? Nay, th'art a gay lad and a
gallant, 'ods fish, 'ods bodikins, 'ods teeth and whiskers; and
may I be eternally damned if I'm not glad to hear me honest
English speech in this country of Tandstickors and
Smorgasbord!'' You'd have been glad in his place, too, wouldn't
you? And Sir Roger was comely and graceful, lissome as an ounce,
playful as a kitten. And he was drest in his skating suit (knee
breeches and tunic with an Astrakhan roll collar, dbld silk,
extr. pockt, 44 gs -- or so Nash of Savile Row was always
telling him) with the most darling coquettish cap to match, like
a Badenoch with out the knob and ribbons; and he wore it
perched on one side of his head; oh yet! if you've guts in you,
reader, which you must have, since you've come thus far in Our
Story, you'd have beaten James L. Dickson by a short head on the
post, with a little luck at the fall of the flag. So the new
friends talked of England, home and beauty; for their paradox
was to delight in the association of incompatible ideas. And Sir
Roger Bloxam (the innocent) never guessed that James was
clairvoyant. But he was. He could not see her, but he divined
that Porphyria Poppoea was not far away -- and he determined to
obtain an introduction. Well, why not? James L. Dickson was an
exceedingly nice man.
That night he dined with Sir Roger; the next night Sir
Roger dined with him; on New Year's Eve he dined with Sir Roger
again, and almost on the very stroke of the bell of St.
Somebody's Cathedral that rang the Old Year out -- I don't
remember my Swedish Saints -- he obtained the desired
introduction to Porphyria Poppoea.
No, it doesn't sound very exciting; but there's nothing
else to tell; why should I embroider to please you? Devil take
you! James L. Dickson was satisfied; so would you have been --
that at least I swear by the faith of the Universal Testimony of
all those who have been similarly favoured. Shut up!