The Table Talk of Samuel Marchbanks by Robertson Davies
OF HIS HOLIDAY •
(A Boring Account)
I visited many antique shops by the wayside—not to buy, but to study the pathology of the antique business. I was interested to observe the emergence of the old coal-oil lamp as an antique. Hideous brass contraptions with scrofulous shades were being offered at prices ranging upward from $10. I was staggered also to see that a particularly disagreeable type of lampshade, made apparently from vitrified mucous, which used to be seen hanging over the dining tables of misguided people, had acquired antique status. I nearly bought a marble statue about five feet tall of a girl clothed in the underwear of the ‘nineties (all painstakingly wrought in marble) for the garden at Marchbanks Towers, but did not do so, reflecting that it might inflame the passions of my neighbours, and that they might hurt their fingers attempting to pinch her marble prominences. I could, of course, keep her veiled in sacking except when my guests were those in whom the fires of passion had sunk to a mere clinker; they alone could view her unmoved.
As I left my hotel in Tarry town a boy carried my luggage to my car, making three journeys and puffing and blowing painfully. But when I handed him a tip he shrank back saying, “Oh no, I don’t want anything.” When I recovered my senses I grasped his hand, crying, “My boy, accept this $10 bill from S. Marchbanks, for you are a boy in a million; when you want to go to college, boy, or when you have to have an operation for hernia (which you soon will, if I am any judge) feel free to call upon me for any sum. Farewell, Great and Noble Boy!”… . I bought a paper, paying five coppers for it; two of them were Canadian (which I had not noticed) and the Pilgrim Father at the paper stand rebuked me in a strong Neapolitan accent. “Gimme real-a mon’,” he said; “I do’ want none o’ this.” His complaint was probably just, but his manner nettled me; I earn my living in the coinage he aspersed, and it bore my sovereign’s head upon it. So I snatched my coppers, and gave him back his paper with a remark which was, I fear, too ironical for his blunted intellect to appreciate.… An international coinage might be a good scheme.
The heat was extreme, though no worse than in Canada, and I was happy to be suffering in a city which provided so many pleasant distractions. But in one restaurant where I dined an elderly lady had hauled her skirts to an unseemly elevation above her knees, apparently thinking that no one could see under her table. She was wrong; it was impossible to avoid seeing all. Time had not been kind to her underpinning and, like the confirmed moralist that I am, I reflected sadly that the human leg—so puissant an attraction in youth —can decline so lamentably in later years.
Like melted candle
Sagged to lump and dreg,
So is the horror
Of an aged leg,
I reflected, adapting Joseph Campbell’s poem The Old Woman to my need.
There is no problem about spending Sunday agreeably in New York; hundreds of entertainments and pleasure domes are open—everything offers itself, in fact, which is described in Ontario as “the continental Sabbath.” On Sunday evening, I resorted to Nick’s the famous jazz temple in Greenwich Village, where the “Dixieland Style” is authoritatively exhibited by those Titans of the ’Twenties—Muggsy Spanier and Miff Mole. (Pee Wee Russell, who used to be with them, has gone to an opposition jazz joint.) The place was filled with hepcats, solemnly adoring the great men as they played. No cat was ever less hep than I, but I enjoyed myself, and as he left the hall at interval time Muggsy adressed me personally! (He said, “Hello, there,” if you must know.) This gave me prestige with the rest of the audience, who took me for a foreign jazz expert (I hope). Yay, Muggsy! Yow, Miff!
As I walked along the street to buy some theatre tickets, two ladies of severe countenance commented on my appearance in loud and hostile voices. “Look at the great big Jew!” said one. “Yep, straight from Jew-roosalem,” agreed her companion. Now as I am a Brythonic Celt, and as anthropologists have assured me that this is obvious in every plane and angle of my head, I laughed very heartily at their stupidity, but it occurred to me that if I had really been a Jew, I should have been distressed and hurt by the nasty tone in which they spoke. Later in the day, on the East Side, I heard a young Jew haranguing a crowd through a microphone, asking for money which was to be used to pop off guns at just such Brythonic, Goidelic, Saxon, and Norman British Islanders as myself in Palestine. Thus in a single day I felt two kinds of bitter hatred directed against me, and it has given me a new notion of what a vile and ignoble thing racial hatred is.
From my hotel window I could see a man working inside the iron-work spire of St. Patrick’s; he looked oddly like a bird in a cage.… I went to see Victor Herbert’s Sweethearts, a decrepit musical comedy of the Early Beaded Lampshade Period, which Bobby Clarke had flogged into new and glorious life; he must be one of the funniest men now on the stage, I should think. The whole audience laughed, but behind me sat a Catholic priest whose laugh was as the laughs of ten ordinary men fused into one mighty roar of mirth. His laugh was as the laugh of ten because his heart was pure, I presume. At one point in the proceedings several characters appeared upon the stage dressed as monks and sang a very funny song of an unclerical nature. Would the saintly man laugh, I wondered? Yes; he laughed like a train in a tunnel, or a department store Santa Claus. It did me good to hear such laughter. That man will go far, and will probably die an archbishop, if not a cardinal. The triple tiara, indeed, would not be disgraced by such a laugh.
One day I went to the Museum of Modern Art, and saw a number of interesting things, of which I liked an exhibition of children’s painting best. Then I visited the Museum’s cinema, in which it shows movies which have become the classics of their art; the film today was Mädchen in Uniform made in Germany in 1931. Technically it was terrible, but its story and acting were first-rate. I was particularly interested in the English captions which had been inserted to help those in the audience who knew no German. When the characters spoke quickly, or idiomatically, these aids were absent. But when a character said something crystal-clear, like “Ein Scandal!” a caption saying “A scandal!” was helpfully thrown in. Afterward I sat in the Museum garden, sipping iced tea and observing some of the most beautiful and smartly dressed women that I have ever seen. Why are women who know how to be ornamental so rare in Canada? Who can explain our national passion for dowdy utility?
I went to the Metropolitan Museum to see the Egyptian collection, which is beautifully displayed. But I arrived at four, and by half-past four the attendants were beginning to lock doors, shut gates, tap their feet, squeak their hollow teeth, and in other ways inform me that it was time to get out, although the Museum is open until five. This is the custom of museum attendants everywhere in the world.… I observed that in the Metropolitan the attendants carry large pistols, presumably to blow the head off anyone who tried to run off with the tomb of King Washtup III, or any other such trifle. Gunplay in a place so filled with fragile objects and glass cases would be very good fun, and if it ever happens I hope that I am there to see.
I attended five musical shows (excluding opera) while I was in New York, and each one of them contained a song about a girl who was too good natured to resist men. My Ontario conscience led me to ask, “Does this mark a trend?” But my common sense said, “No such luck.” … Yes, I saw Brigadoon: it was a pleasant fantasy in which all the American singers adopted Scots accents, with varying degrees of success. I was astonished to find that the plot was pinched from a hideously sentimental story called Germelshausen, by Friedrich Ger-stacker, which I struggled with in Junior Matriculation German class. But there was some good sword-dancing and I saw a trick done with bagpipes which ought to be widely copied. Usually, when these things have finished playing, the piper permits them to subside with a noise like the death-rattle of an old cow; but the Brigadoon pipers seized their pipes sharply by the nozzle and hurried off the stage—presumably to exhaust them in the alley outside the theatre. This was both humane and musically effective.
On my last day in New Y
• OF AMATEUR WRITERS •
HOW OFTEN and how bitterly I regret the fact that my work makes me read so many books. Reading is one of my great delights, but I like to read books by men of letters; I loathe reading books by soldiers, sailors, airmen, engineers, explorers, politicians, economists and other imperfectly literate persons who write like amateurs. The world was better off when there was a recognized clerkly caste, by whom all reading and writing was done.
• HE MUSES AT PUBLIC WORSHIP •
I ACCOMPANIED MY Uncle Fortunatus to church this morning. It was an exquisite spring day and the sexton, or janitor, or beadle, or whatever he is called, had done his work with a will, so that the temple was very hot—about 80° F; I should judge—and the smell of hot hymnals hung in drowsy benediction over the worshipping throng. In the middle of the service three babies became Continuing Presbyterians, though from the expressions on their faces, I doubt if they understood the full significance of what they were doing. During the sermon my attention wandered to a question which has engaged my attention, from time to time, for many years: why are Bibles and hymnbooks bound in such poor leather? What is wrong with that black, pebbly-grained morocco, that it should decay so quickly? I have two-hundred-years-old books in my library which are still in excellent condition, but a Bible which is twenty years old is already shabby.
• OF THE DECLINE OF THE LAUNDERER’S CRAFT •
I HAD A FRANK talk with my laundry man about starch today. “This degraded eccentric,” said I, kowtowing, “has a contemptible desire to appear well-groomed in the eyes of the world, concealing his manifold deficiencies of mind and heart under a stiffened shirt; your known charity toward the feeble-minded, O venerable one, might possibly bring you to indulge him in this folly?” The laundry man kowtowed and rejoined: “It is scarcely in the realm of likelihood, O celestial Marchbanks, that this abject wretch should dare to add a jot of stiffening to a character so notoriously upright and unbending as your own; if you insist upon such an impiety, it must be committed by other hands than these.” The upshot of this polite exchange is that my shirts will be as limp and rag-like in future as they have been in the past. Steam laundries abhor starch; they say it is unethical. Hand laundries won’t hear of starch; they say it is a nuisance. But I—unreconstructed moss-back that I am—like starch, even in my handkerchiefs. I want to crackle and pop like a plate of breakfast food, but unless I take to doing my own laundry, I shall never gain my desire, which is to be as stiff and white as a wedding cake, all day and every day.… Just feel this thing I have on. Well, madam, what if your husband is looking? Honi soit qui mal y pense is what I always say.… No, my dear lady, I said nothing about pants —don’t you understand French?
• OF MAGIC OPPOSED TO REVELATION •
I READ AN UNUSUALLY good novel this afternoon, called Herself Surprised, by Joyce Carey; I was particularly struck by the skill with which the principal character was given life; I shall remember her for years. When I laid the book down I reflected for a time on the rarity of such novels; how few of the books which are pushed at us by modern authors contain any really interesting or memorable people. Yet there are books, not of the first quality, which give us such experiences. Consider Lorna Doone, the darling of our grandfathers; how real Lorna seems, and how potent her charm is, compared with the heroines of most modern novels, about whom we are told so much more! We do not know how Lorna looked in bed, or the state of her digestion, or what parts of her tingled when John Ridd kissed her, but we love her still. Magic, not psychology, is the stuff of which great stories are made.
• OF ECONOMIC PRESSURE OF SOCIETY •
TO BE QUITE frank with you, Madam, I am never quite sure why a little of each new bottle of wine is poured into our host’s glass first, but I think it is to see if there is any cork in it. If there is, it gives him a chance to pretend that it is not so. If a guest found cork in his wine, the host would have to order the whole bottle to be removed, and with wine the price it is that would be a great hardship to him. It is thus that economic pressure alters our social customs. Who can afford to be fussy about a piece of cork or a trifle of sediment nowadays?
• OF THE UNSIGHTLINESS OF AUTHORS •
I RARELYplay cards, but I was taken to the cleaners this evening by a couple of young women in a spirited game of “Authors.” I reflected as I played upon the appearance of authors, as a class. They are a mangy lot. Shakespeare appears to have been a dapper fellow, but look at James Fenimore Cooper, who kept turning up again and again in the hands I was dealt. And look at Ralph Connor and Sir Gilbert Parker, the two Canadians included in the game. Scarecrows, all of them. Authors should be read, but not seen. Their work unfits them for human society.
• OF A DRAMATIST’S QUARREL •
BEFORE DINNER that gentleman over there with the cubical head was expressing disappointment that so little attention was paid to the centenary of the birth of August Strindberg, the Swedish dramatist, which occurred on January 22. I have the centenary habit rather badly, but this one escaped my attention. The fact is, I have never been able to admire Strindberg since I made the acquaintance some years ago of a Swedish girl whose grandfather had been his near neighbour. She said that the neighbourhood was made intolerable by the noise of his quarrels with his three wives, and that his hatred of Ibsen bordered on the demoniacal. He invariably referred to Ibsen as “Gammal Snorlje,” meaning “Old Grouchy,” whereas Ibsen spoke of Strindberg, even in his public speeches, as “Gammal Nutsje,” meaning “Old Nutsy,” which was a sly reference to Strindberg’s frequent spells of violent insanity. Coldness between dramatists is not unknown, even in our day, but it seems to me that the affair between Strindberg and Ibsen had got out of hand, and as the younger man, it was Strindberg’s job to patch it up. The girl also told me that Strindberg’s genius defied translation, and I can well believe this.
• OF HYPOCHONDRIA •
I HAVE HAD a dreadful day. Frightful pain assailed me this morning while reading the paper. At this unfortunate moment a man came in to talk to me about insurance. “Useless,” I gasped; “I’d never pass the test. Unbearable pain at this very moment. Think it’s thrombosis.” He did not seem impressed. “What kind of a pain?” he asked. “Here, around the heart,” I wheezed; “a kind of stabbing, which creeps over to my left arm every now and then. Ouch! Tell them all I died game.” At this point I sank low in my chair, and closed my eyes. “Probably gas,” he said, callously. “Get up and walk around and it will pass off.” He may not have known it, but he killed a sale by his crass attitude.… Earlier this very evening a man showed me the “fireman’s hitch” and hoisted me off the floor with a great show of ease. Politeness then demanded that I do the same for him, and I did so, producing multiple hernia in twenty seconds. However, I learned years ago that there is nothing for hernia like a strong rum Collins, and as soon as I had one I felt much better.
• OF SCIENTIFIC REVELATIONS •
I SEE THATProfessor Kinsey has published the first volume of his study of sexual behaviour in the human male. This emboldens me to publish a study of a somewhat similar subject on which I have long been