—such attitudes, my dear, like Madame Récamier; once I passed them and I caught the eye of the Fogliere gondolier, whom, of course, I knew, and, my dear, he gave me such a wink. She came to all the parties in a sort of cocoon of gossamer, my dear, as though she were part of some Celtic play or a heroine from Maeterlinck; and she would go to church. Well, as you know, Venice is the one town in Italy where no one ever has gone to church. Anyway, she was rather a figure of fun that year, and then who, should turn up, in the Maltons' yacht, but poor Lord Marchmain. He'd taken a little palace there, but was he allowed in? Lord Malton put him and his valet into a dinghy, my dear, and transhipped him there and then into the steamer for Trieste. He hadn't even his mistress with him. It was her yearly holiday. No one ever knew how they heard Lady Marchmain was there. And, do you know, for a week Lord Malton slunk about as if he was in disgrace? And he was in disgrace. The Principessa Fogliere gave a ball and Lord Malton was not asked nor anyone from his yacht—even the de Pañoses. How does Lady Marchmain do it? She has convinced the world that Lord Marchmain is a monster. And what is the truth? They were married for fifteen years or so and then Lord Marchmain went to the war; he never came back but formed a connection with a highly talented dancer. There are a thousand such cases. She refuses to divorce him because she is so pious. Well, there have been cases of that before. Usually, it arouses sympathy for the adulterer; not for Lord Marchmain though. You would think that the old reprobate had tortured her, stolen her patrimony, flung her out of doors, roasted, stuffed, and eaten his children, and gone frolicking about wreathed in all the flowers of Sodom and Gomorrah; instead of what? Begetting four splendid children by her, handing over to her Brideshead and Marchmain House in St James's and all the money she can possibly want to spend, while he sits with a snowy shirt front at Larue's with a personable, middle-aged lady of the theatre, in most conventional Edwardian style. And she meanwhile keeps a small gang of enslaved and emaciated prisoners for her exclusive enjoyment. She sucks their blood. You can see the tooth marks all Adrian Porson's shoulders when he is bathing . And he, my dear, was the greatest, the only, poet of our time. He's bled dry; there's nothing left of him. There are five or is others of all ages and sexes, like wraiths following her around. They never escape once she's had her teeth into them. It is withcraft. There's no other explanation.
'So you see we mustn't blame Sebastian if at times he seems a little insipid—but then you don't blame him, do you, Charles? With that very murky background, what could he do except set up as being simple and charming, particularly as he isn't very well endowed in the Top Storey. We couldn't claim that for him, could we, much as we love him?
'Tell me candidly, have you ever heard Sebastian say anything you have remembered for five minutes? You know, when I hear him talk, I am reminded of that in some ways nauseating picture of "Bubbles". Conversation should be like juggling; up go the balls and the plates, up and over, in and out, good solid objects that glitter in the footlights 'and fall with a bang if you miss them. But when dear Sebastian speaks it is like a little sphere of soapsud drifting off the end of an old clay pipe, anywhere, full of rainbow light for a second and then phut! vanished, with nothing left at all, nothing.'
And then Anthony spoke of the proper experiences of an artist, of the appreciation and criticism and stimulus he should expect from his friends, of the hazards he should take in the pursuit of emotion, of one thing and another while I fell drowsy and let my mind wander a little. So we drove home, but his words, as we swung over Magdalen Bridge, recalled the central theme of our dinner. 'Well, my dear, I've no doubt that first thing tomorrow you'll trot round to Sebastian and tell him everything I've said about him. And, I will tell you two things; one, that it will not make the slightest difference to Sebastian's feeling for me and secondly, my dear