gender hopping (academia is equal
opportunity land, but not that equal!) and the pressure, too frequent
to be coincidental, from Amaryllis's thigh, made me wonder if this
happy night might not be brought in every sense to a fitting climax.
Perhaps fortunately, the
opportunity didn't arise. After the dinner Albacore invited some few
of us (the most distinguished plus myself) back to the Dean's
Lodging, all men save for Amaryllis, and she soon retired as the
cigars came out and the atmosphere thickened with aromatic fumes. It
was deliriously old fashioned, and I loved it.
Albacore was by now treating me
like a younger brother, and when Dwight requested a tour of the
Lodging, he put his arm round my shoulder and the two of us led the
way.
The D's Lodging was a sort of
early eighteenth-century annexe to the original college building and
must have stuck out like a new nose on an old star's face for a time.
But Cambridge of all places has the magic gift of taking unto itself
all things new and wearing their newness off them with loving care
till in the end they too are part of the timeless whole. It was a
fine old building with that feel I so much love of a lived-in church,
infinitely more splendid than the Q's suite of rooms (what must the
Master's Habitation, a small mansion situated on a grassy knoll in
the college grounds overlooking the river, be like?) and full of what
should have been a stylistic hodge-podge of furniture, statuary and
paintings had they not also succumbed to the unifying aura of that
magical world.
I lusted for it all, and I think
Justin sensed my yearning, and felt how much closer it bound me to
his desires, and grappled me to him ever more lightly as the tour
proceeded.
The study was for me the sanctus
sanctorum, lit with a dim religious light, its book-lined walls
emanating that glorious odour of old leather and paper which I think
of as the incense of scholarship. At its centre stood a fine old
desk, ornately carved and with a tooled leather top large enough for
a pair of pygmies to play tennis on.
Dwight, miffed perhaps to find
himself behind me in the Dean's pecking order, said, 'How the hell do
you work in this gloom? And where do you hide your computer?'
'My what?' cried Alabacore
indignantly. 'Compute me no computers! When my publisher suggested
that in the interest of speed it would be useful if he could have my
Beddoes book on disk, I replied, "Certainly, if you can provide
me with a large enough disc of Carrara marble and a monumental mason
capable of transcribing my words!" Press keys and produce
letters on a screen and what have you got? Nothing! An electronic
tremor which an interruption of the electrical supply can destroy.
Show me one great work which has been produced by word-processing.
When I write with my pen, I am writing on my heart and what is
inscribed there will take the rubber of God to erase.'
I sensed that Dwight, who
probably had a computerized khazi, was drunk enough to tell his host
he was talking crap, so, not wanting this atmosphere I was so much
enjoying to be soured by dissent, I essayed a light-hearted
diversion.
'God uses rubbers, does he?' I
said. 'Must have burst when he was into Mary.'
Such blasphemous vulgarity is
evidently much enjoyed at High Tables. Like kids saying bum, says
Charley Penn, they're excited by their own outrageousness. Certainly
it worked here, everyone responding with their own kind of amusement,
the well-born Brits with that head-nodding chortle which passes for
laughter in their class, the plebs with loud guffaws, and Dwight and
a couple of fellow Americans with a kind of whooping bray.
After that Dwight asked in a
conciliatory tone how then did Justin work, and Albacore, apologizing
now for being a silly old Luddite, showed him his complex but clearly
highly efficient card-index system and opened drawers to reveal reams
of foolscap (no vulgar A4 for our Justinian!) closely covered with
his elegant scrawl.
'And this is your new book?'
opportunity land, but not that equal!) and the pressure, too frequent
to be coincidental, from Amaryllis's thigh, made me wonder if this
happy night might not be brought in every sense to a fitting climax.
Perhaps fortunately, the
opportunity didn't arise. After the dinner Albacore invited some few
of us (the most distinguished plus myself) back to the Dean's
Lodging, all men save for Amaryllis, and she soon retired as the
cigars came out and the atmosphere thickened with aromatic fumes. It
was deliriously old fashioned, and I loved it.
Albacore was by now treating me
like a younger brother, and when Dwight requested a tour of the
Lodging, he put his arm round my shoulder and the two of us led the
way.
The D's Lodging was a sort of
early eighteenth-century annexe to the original college building and
must have stuck out like a new nose on an old star's face for a time.
But Cambridge of all places has the magic gift of taking unto itself
all things new and wearing their newness off them with loving care
till in the end they too are part of the timeless whole. It was a
fine old building with that feel I so much love of a lived-in church,
infinitely more splendid than the Q's suite of rooms (what must the
Master's Habitation, a small mansion situated on a grassy knoll in
the college grounds overlooking the river, be like?) and full of what
should have been a stylistic hodge-podge of furniture, statuary and
paintings had they not also succumbed to the unifying aura of that
magical world.
I lusted for it all, and I think
Justin sensed my yearning, and felt how much closer it bound me to
his desires, and grappled me to him ever more lightly as the tour
proceeded.
The study was for me the sanctus
sanctorum, lit with a dim religious light, its book-lined walls
emanating that glorious odour of old leather and paper which I think
of as the incense of scholarship. At its centre stood a fine old
desk, ornately carved and with a tooled leather top large enough for
a pair of pygmies to play tennis on.
Dwight, miffed perhaps to find
himself behind me in the Dean's pecking order, said, 'How the hell do
you work in this gloom? And where do you hide your computer?'
'My what?' cried Alabacore
indignantly. 'Compute me no computers! When my publisher suggested
that in the interest of speed it would be useful if he could have my
Beddoes book on disk, I replied, "Certainly, if you can provide
me with a large enough disc of Carrara marble and a monumental mason
capable of transcribing my words!" Press keys and produce
letters on a screen and what have you got? Nothing! An electronic
tremor which an interruption of the electrical supply can destroy.
Show me one great work which has been produced by word-processing.
When I write with my pen, I am writing on my heart and what is
inscribed there will take the rubber of God to erase.'
I sensed that Dwight, who
probably had a computerized khazi, was drunk enough to tell his host
he was talking crap, so, not wanting this atmosphere I was so much
enjoying to be soured by dissent, I essayed a light-hearted
diversion.
'God uses rubbers, does he?' I
said. 'Must have burst when he was into Mary.'
Such blasphemous vulgarity is
evidently much enjoyed at High Tables. Like kids saying bum, says
Charley Penn, they're excited by their own outrageousness. Certainly
it worked here, everyone responding with their own kind of amusement,
the well-born Brits with that head-nodding chortle which passes for
laughter in their class, the plebs with loud guffaws, and Dwight and
a couple of fellow Americans with a kind of whooping bray.
After that Dwight asked in a
conciliatory tone how then did Justin work, and Albacore, apologizing
now for being a silly old Luddite, showed him his complex but clearly
highly efficient card-index system and opened drawers to reveal reams
of foolscap (no vulgar A4 for our Justinian!) closely covered with
his elegant scrawl.
'And this is your new book?'
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