Chapter Thirty-Nine

VIEWS DIFFER AND FOG RISES

As Mr Tinkler's voice died away in a tremulo, the last accents drowned in his glass of water and a murmur of applause in which the dominant note related less to the passion of Deirdre than the pleasantness of tea, Mrs Burns sprang to her feet and essayed to check the stampeding guests. Against the dissonance of their chatter and the mellow note of Mr O'Toole chanting 'Pass along there, pass along there! Downstairs to the boofay!' she pitched her appeal: 'Do let us have a little discussion about the play.

Let us tell each other and the great author what we think it means. . . . And then perhaps he in his turn will be so good as to tell us what he thinks it means if he isn't too tired.'

'I am rather exhausted,' murmured Mr Tinkler, mopping his brow, 'and I think I have explained as much as was necessary. . . . I never was very good at explaining, I find it wearisome.'

'Well, then,' Mrs Burns insisted, 'if you're too tired I'll ask Mr Macarthy to explain the meaning of the play.'

'What is there to explain?' Mr Macarthy rose from his seat to ask. 'I am under the impression that the thesis of Mr Tinkler's play lies in a man, called Conchobar, thinking another man, called Naisi, to be on more familiar terms with his wife, called Deirdre, than suits his convenience. So he makes an end of one, if not both of them, in a way I did not quite understand, and then seeks a change of occupation in

a more business-like manner than one might expect from his conversation.' He sat down again.

But Mrs Burns urged him once more to rise. 'Do go on with your exposition of the play,' she cried, 'I never dreamt of Conchobar being at all a business man. I thought him just kingly, I might almost say majestic if the word were not so hackneyed. We're all learning something. No one more than Mr Tinkler himself, I'm sure. Anyhow, do go on talking about something that somebody else can say something about when you stop. It doesn't really matter what you discuss so long as you discuss it. I mean, of course, in a manner that leads to further discussion. Say anything that comes into your head, and when everybody else who would like to speak has said all they can about what you or anybody else says, I'll ask Mr Tinkler to reply. .. Did I or did I not forget by the way to say how much we all enjoyed his reading of the play?'

Mr Pim said in a tone that was not entirely serious: 'I really forget whether you forgot to say it or not.' 'Well, anyhow,' said Mrs Burns, 'whether I said it or not, of course Mr Tinkler will understand. The great thing now is to hear Mr Macarthy tell us what he has got to say.'

To Adam's surprise Mr Macarthy rose again: 'Very well, then,' said Mr Macarthy, 'if I must say something I beg humbly to submit that I am quite prepared to accept the play Mr Tinkler has read to us, as his masterpiece. I am prepared to believe that he will never achieve anything better than this. And it is impossible for a man's friends not to be interested in what they believe to be his best work. I have not the vanity to claim to be one of Mr Tinkler's friends, but it is easy for me to understand what they must be feeling at this moment. So I need not enlarge on Mr Tinkler's merits as a dramatist, particularly as I have no reason to suppose that he would attach the

smallest weight to my opinion. It is not to people such as I that he will look for an audience. I confess myself constitutionally incapable of writing a play of this kind, if only for the reason that it is many years since I have been able to affect an interest in illicit passion, or for the matter of that, passion of any sort. So far as my superficial studies allow me to form an opinion, passion is as Mr Pitt shocked Madame de Stael by describing Glory-"all my eye and Betty Martin" or as I would say: Conceit. It appears to me that the only possible excuse for a man kissing a woman is as a direct intimation that he thinks her fit to bear children by him. . . .'

Mr Leaper-Carahar exploded: 'Tut tut, tut tut, tut tut,' in a manner that reminded Adam of Dr Ahern's motor - car when throttled. A few among the audience seemed annoyed by this interruption : but not so Mr Marcarthy, who said: 'I am glad that our host agrees with me.'

Up jumped Mr Leaper-Carahar: 'Not at all,' he cried, on the contrary.'

Adam saw a grin of delight flash over his guardian's face and disappear as he said gravely: 'At all events we shall all be glad to have from our host an authoritative statement on this subject, of which I am aware that I know practically nothing.' And he sat down, leaving Mr Leaper-Carahar, very flustered, standing alone and wiping his forehead.

Adam saw that Mr Leaper-Carahar had been placed by Mr Macarthy in a position from which he could not easily escape, for all in the room had their eyes turned on him with an interest which he had not so far aroused. 'I was only going to say,' said he, 'that I am a conservative. . I mean, of course, in the best sense of that word. . . . Naturally, as an official I have no politics. I am liberal wherever it is But, ladies and gentlemen,

possible to be liberal. I will say this, that so far as the relation of real ladies

and true gentlemen are concerned . . . And I am not thinking of anyone here . . . I believe in Romance. And, ladies and gentlemen' he said vigorously, 'I know for a fact, so does Mrs Leaper-Carahar.'

He was sitting down amidst a hum of approval over which Mr Macarthy's voice rang out challengingly clear: 'I should like to hear the lady say that for herself.'

The eyes of the audience swept from Mr LeaperCarahar to Barbara, but she only said angrily: 'Oh, I don't believe in anything.' It sounded to Adam as if she really meant it and his soul, which had been vaguely stirred by the play, fell sick as his eye travelled from the flushed face of her to whom he had made the most passionate speech of his life, to the form of the egregious man who possessed her body and perhaps also claimed to possess her mind.

Mrs Burns rose again. 'We all know that Mr Macarthy thinks differently from everyone else,' she said, shining with even greater brilliancy in that dark moment. 'And that is why I asked him to speak first. Now, I will call upon someone . . .' Mr LeaperCarahar rose, but his mother-in-law, ignoring him, went on: 'I will call upon someone who, more than anyone, made Mr Tinkler's masterpiece, as even Mr Macarthy himself called it, a success before he altered it, and, I must confess, from what I heard, it seems to me, a little disimproved it. I won't say everywhere, but in some of the parts I liked, but a masterpiece it remains. . . . Everyone knows that I mean the Marchesa della Venasalvatica, so it is quite unnecessary for me to name her, but I will, I mean I have . Marchesa, will you perhaps be so kind, the Marchesa della Venasalvatica?'

The Marchesa bounced to her feet. She was wearing what appeared to Adam to be the cast-off suit of a gamekeeper, with blue goggles, and her manner did nor portend kindness. 'Either I am very deaf, or Mr

... I forget his name, cannot read his own typewriting. . . . So I'm afraid I can't say anything about the revised version of his masterpiece, as my friend Stephen Macarthy called it in one of his fits of mockery, from which the Lord deliver all artists. Not that I mean that Mr What's-His-Name's an artist. Our hostess, I mean, of course, Mrs Burns, for I need hardly say that I am not here as the guest of a Sassenach official, who probably has a warrant for my arrest in his breeches pocket, or wherever he keeps official documents, at the present moment. Our hostess has been kind enough to mention my success in the part of Deirdre. If I was a success in that part, that was no thanks to the author of the play. It was the spirit of that greatest of Irishwomen, Deirdre herself, that inspired me. I remember now that the author's name is Tinkler. I suppose, from Tinkler's name, that he is an Englishman, or else a German. We have a great many Germans over here just now. And, I'm sure, whatever we think of them, we all love them for hating their first cousins, the English. When thieves fall out, you know what happens, only, unfortunately, it doesn't. . . . I forget what we were talking about. . . . Oh, Oh, my Deirdre. I hope Mr

Tinkler, for his own sake, is a German. But, whatever he is, I resent his insolence as a foreigner in writing about an Irish subject: the most beautiful of all Irish subjects. The love of Deirdre for the man who was not, and would not under any circumstances have been, her husband. That is what I mean by beauty. But you do not get beauty in Fitzwilliam Square. Some of you besides Mr Tinkler may understand what I mean. I repeat, you do not get it in Fitzwilliam Square. You get it in the country. I was brought up in the country, and I love it. Willy Yeats was brought up in the country too...

'Bedford Park,' said Mr Marcus Pim.

'Excuse me,' said the Marchesa, 'Bedford Park is