Temporary Kings - Anthony Powell [59]
To unAmerican eyes, probing the mysteries of American comportment and observance, this seemed the antithesis of Gwinnett. Much going on in Gwinnett was never likely to find outward expression. That was how it looked. No doubt a European unfamiliarity heightened, rather than diminished, the contrast; even caricatured its salient features. That did not remove all substance, the core seeming to be the ease with which Glober manipulated the American way; Gwinnett’s awkwardness in its employment. That was to put things crudely, possibly even wrongly, just consequence of meeting both in Europe. Glober, only recently sprung from the Continent, had about him something of the old fashioned Jamesian American, seeking new worlds to conquer. Gwinnett was not at all like that. With Gwinnett, everything was within himself. He had, so it seemed, come to Europe simply because he was passionately interested in Trapnel, obsessed by him, personally identified with him; again, one felt, inwardly, rather than outwardly.
Dr Brightman had called Gwinnett a ‘gothic’ American. What, in contrast, would she call Glober? She had invoked Classicism and Romanticism. Here again it was hard to apportion epithets. In one sense, Glober, the practical man, was also the ‘romantic’ – as often happens – Gwinnett, working on his own interior lines, the ‘classical’. Gwinnett wanted to see things without their illusory trimmings; Glober forced things into his own picturesque mould. In doing that, Glober retained some humour. Could the same be said of Gwinnett? Would Gwinnett, for example, be capable of taking pleasure in Tokenhouse as a medium for amusement? Was the analogy to be found in quite other terms of reference: Don Juan for Glober, Gwinnett in Faust?
The wine, passing round rather rapidly, may have played some part in these reflections. Tokenhouse was by now a little tight. Age, or abstinence, must have weakened his head. Perhaps solitude, sheer lack of opportunity to air his views, caused a few glasses to release the urgent need to hold forth again at a crowded table. He now proceeded to reproduce, in greatly extended form, the lecture he had given me earlier on the necessity for rejecting Formalism. In doing this, Tokenhouse passed all reasonable bounds of dialectical prosiness. Glober, showing American tolerance for persons outlining a favourite theme with searching thoroughness, did not interrupt him, but, when coffee came, Tokenhouse had gone too far in presuming on national forbearance in indicating to a compulsive talker that he has become a bore. By that time Tokenhouse had admitted he painted himself. Glober leant across the table.
‘Now see here, Mr Tokenhouse. We’re going to drink a glass of Strega, then we’re all coming back to your studio to admire your work.’
That took Tokenhouse so much by surprise that he scarcely demurred at the Strega, protesting only briefly, as a matter of form. It was hard for an amateur painter – he kept on making a point of this status – to be other than flattered. It was agreed the party should make their way to the flat after leaving the restaurant. When the bill arrived, Glober insisted on paying. He swept aside energetic, if rambling, efforts on the part of Tokenhouse to prevent this on grounds that I was his guest. They argued for a time, Tokenhouse producing a ten-thousand-lire note, Glober thrusting it aside. We set off at last, Tokenhouse still talking hard. He was not drunk in any derogatory sense, had merely taken a little more than accustomed, which had transformed a prickly detachment into discursiveness not to be checked. He hurried along, the old grey hat jammed down on his head, swinging his stick, Glober taking long strides to keep up. Ada and I followed a short way behind.
‘How on earth did you know the names of those painters, Ada? Are they Russian?’
Ada smiled, justifiably pleased with herself.
‘Len Pugsley’s at our Lido hotel. He’d brought the article with him, as basis of a speech he’s going to make at the Conference. Getting something published in Fission was his first real step in life.