by A. A. Milne
A few days later Mr. Blank wrote to say that, curiously enough, he had never read “Je Comprends Tout.” It didn’t seem to me very curious, because I had never read it either, but I thought it rather odd of him to confess as much to a stranger. The only book of Vaurelle’s which I had read was “Consolatrice,” in an English translation. However, one doesn’t say these things in a review.
Now I have a French friend, Henri, one of those annoying Frenchmen who talk English much better than I do, and Henri, for some extraordinary reason, had seen my review. He has to live in London now, but his heart is in Paris; and I imagine that every word of his beloved language which appears, however casually, in an English paper mysteriously catches his eye and brings the scent and sounds of the boulevards to him across the coffee-cups. So, the next time I met him, he shook me warmly by the hand, and told me how glad he was that I was an admirer of Antoine Vaurelle’s novels.
“Who isn’t?” I said with a shrug, and, to get the conversation on to safer ground, I added hastily that in some ways I almost liked “Consolatrice” best.
He shook my hand again. So did he. A great book.
“But of course,” he said, “one must read it in the original French. It is the book of all others which loses by translation.”
“Of course,” I agreed. Really, I don’t see what else I could have done.
“Do you remember that wonderful phrase—” and he rattled it off. “Magnificent, is it not?”
“Magnificent,” I said, remembering an appointment instead. “Well, I must be getting on. Good-bye.” And, as I walked off, I patted my forehead with my handkerchief and wondered why the day had grown so warm suddenly.
However the next day was even warmer. Henri came to see me with a book under his arm. We all have one special book of our own which we recommend to our acquaintances, regarding the love of it as perhaps the best passport to our friendship. This was Henri’s. He was about to test me. I had read and admired his favourite Vaurelle—in the original French. Would I love his darling Laforgue? My reputation as a man, as a writer, as a critic, depended on it. He handed me the book—in French.
“It is all there,” he said reverently, as he gave it to me. “All your English masters, they all come from him. Perhaps, most of all, your—But you shall tell me when you have read it. You shall tell me whom most you seem to see there. Your Meredith? Your Shaw? Your—But you shall tell me.”
“I will tell you,” I said faintly.
And I’ve got to tell him.
Don’t think that I shall have any difficulty in reading the book. Glancing through it just now I came across this:—
“‘Kate, avez-vous soup avant le spectacle?’
‘Non, je n’avais gu re le coeur mang er.’”
Well, that’s easy enough. But I doubt if it is one of the most characteristic passages. It doesn’t give you a clue to Laforgue’s manner, any more than “’Must I sit here, mother?’ ‘Yes, without a doubt you must,’” tells you all that you want to know about Meredith. There’s more in it than that.
And I’ve got to tell him.
But fancy holding forth on an author’s style after reading him laboriously with a dictionary!
However, I must do my best; and in my more hopeful moments I see the conversation going like this:—
“Well?”
“Oh, wonderful.” (With emotion) “Really wonderful.”
“You see them all there?”
“Yes, yes. It’s really—wonderful. Meredith—I mean—well, it’s simply—(after a pause) wonderful.”
“You see Meredith there most?”
“Y-yes. Sometimes. And then (with truth) sometimes I—I don’t. It’s difficult to say. Sometimes I—er—Shaw—er—well, it’s—” (with a gesture somewhat Gallic) “How can I put it?”
“Not Thackeray at all?” he says, watching me eagerly.
I decide to risk it.
“Oh, but of course! I mean—Thackeray! When I said Meredith I was thinking of the others. But Thackeray—I mean Thackeray is—er—” (I’ve forgotten the author’s name for the moment and go on hastily) “I mean—er—Thackeray, obviously.”
He shakes me by the hand. I am his friend.
But this conversation only takes place in my more hopeful moments. In my less hopeful ones I see myself going into the country for quite a long time.
Summer Days
The Competition Spirit
About six weeks ago a Canadian gentleman named Smith arrived in the Old Country (England). He knew a man who knew a man who knew a man…and so on for a bit…who knew a man who knew a man who knew me. Letters passed; negotiations ensued; and about a week after he had first set foot in the Mother City (London), Smith and I met at my Club for lunch.
I may confess now that I was nervous. I think I expected a man in a brown shirt and leggings, who would ask me to put it “right there,” and tell me I was “some Englishman.” However, he turned out to be exactly like anybody else in London. Whether he found me exactly like anybody else in Canada I don’t know. Anyway, we had a very pleasant lunch, and arranged to play golf together on the next day.
Whatever else is true of Canada there can be no doubt that it turns out delightful golfers. Smith proved to be just the best golfer I had ever met, being, when at the top of his form, almost exactly as good as I was. Hole after hole we halved in a mechanical eight. If by means of a raking drive and four perfect brassies at the sixth he managed to get one up for a moment, then at the short seventh a screaming iron and three consummate approaches would make me square again. Occasionally he would, by superhuman play, do a hole in bogey; but only to crack at the next, and leave me, at the edge of the green, to play “one off eleven.” It was, in fact, a ding-dong struggle all the way; and for his one-hole victory in the morning I had my revenge with a one-hole victory in the afternoon.
By the end of a month we must have played a dozen rounds of this nature. I always had a feeling that I was really a better golfer than he, and this made me friendly towards his game. I would concede him short putts which I should have had no difficulty in missing myself; if he lost his ball I would beg him to drop another and go on with the hole; if he got into a bad place in a bunker I would assure him it was ground under repair. He was just as friendly in refusing to take these advantages, just as pleasant in offering similar indulgences to me. I thought at first it was part of his sporting way, but it turned out that (absurdly enough) he also was convinced that he was really the better golfer of the two, and could afford these amenities.
One day he announced that he was going back to Canada.
“We must have a last game,” he said, “and this one must be decisive.”
“For the championship of the Empire,” I agreed. “Let’s buy a little cup and play for it. I’ve never won anything at golf yet, and I should love to see a little cup on the dinner-table every night.”
“You can’t come to dinner in Canada every night,” he pointed out. “It would be so expensive for you.”
Well, the cup was bought, engraved “The Empire Challenge Cup,” and played for last Monday.
“This,” said Smith, “is a serious game, and we must play all out. No giving away anything, no waiving the rules. The Empire is at stake. The effeteness of the Mother Country is about to be put to the proof.
Proceed.”
It wasn’t the most pleasant of our games. The spirit of the cup hung over it and depressed us. At the third hole I had an eighteen-inch putt for a half. “That’s all right,” said Smith forgetfully; and then added, “Perhaps you’d better put it in, though.” Of course I missed. On the fifth green he was about to brush away a leaf. “That’s illegal,” I said sharply, “you must pick it up; you mayn’t brush it away,” and after a fierce argument on the point he putted hastily—and badly. At the eighteenth tee we were all square and hardly on speaking terms. The fate of the Mother Country depended upon the result of this hole.
I drove a long one, the longest of the day, s
lightly hooked.
“Good shot,” said Smith with an effort. He pressed and foozled badly. I tried not to look pleased.
We found his ball in a thick clump of heather. With a grim look on his face, he took out his niblick…
I stayed by him and helped him count up to eight.
“Where’s your ball?” he growled.
“A long way on,” I said reproachfully. “I wish you’d hurry up. The poor thing will be getting cold.”
He got to work again. We had another count together up to fifteen. Sometimes there would be a gleam of white at the top of the heather for a moment and then it would fade away.
“How many?” I asked some minutes later.
“About thirty. But I don’t care, I’m going to get the little beast into the hole if it takes me all night.” He went on hacking.
I had lost interest in the performance, for the cup was mine, but I did admire his Colonial grit.
“Got it,” he cried suddenly, and the ball sailed out on to the pretty. Another shot put him level with me.
“Thirty-two?” I asked.
“About,” he said coldly.
I began to look for my ball. It had got tired of waiting and had hidden itself. Smith joined gloomily in the search.
“This is absurd,” I said, after three or four minutes.
“By jove!” said Smith, suddenly brightening up. “If your ball’s lost I win after all.”
“Nonsense; you’ve given the hole up,” I protested. “You don’t know how many you’ve played. According to the rules, if I ask you how many, and you give wrong information—”
“It’s thirty-five,” he said promptly.
“I don’t believe you counted.”
“Call it forty-five then. There’s nothing to prevent my calling it more than it really is. If it was really only forty, then I’m counting five occasions when the ball rolled over as I was addressing it. That’s very generous of me. Actually I’m doubtful if the ball did roll over five times, but I say it did in order to be on the safe side.” He looked at his watch. “And if you don’t find your ball in thirty seconds, you lose the hole.”
It was ingenious, but the Mother Country can be ingenious too.
“How many have you played exactly?” I asked. “Be careful.”
“Forty-five,” he said. “Exactly.”
“Right.” I took my niblick and swung at the heather. “Bother,” I said. “Missed it. Two.”
“Hallo! Have you found it?”
“I have. It’s somewhere in this field. There’s no rule which insists that you shall hit the ball, or even that you shall hit near the ball, or even that you shall see the ball when you hit at it. Lots of old gentlemen shut their eyes and miss the sphere. I’ve missed. In five minutes I shall miss again.”
“But what’s the point?”
“The point, dear friend,” I smiled, “is that after each stroke one is allowed five minutes in which to find the ball. I have forty-three strokes in hand; that gives me three hours and thirty-five minutes in which to look for it. At regular intervals of five minutes I shall swing my club and probably miss. It’s four-thirty now; at eight o’clock, unless I find my ball before, I shall be playing the like. And if you are a sportsman,” I added, “you will bring me out some tea in half an hour.”
At six-thirty I was still looking—and swinging. Smith then came to terms and agreed to share the cup with me for the first year. He goes back to Canada to-morrow, and will spread the good news there that the Old Country can still hold its own in resource, determination and staying power. But next year we are going to play friendly golf again.
A Song for the Summer
Is it raining? Never mind—
Think how much the birdies love it! See them in their dozens drawn,
Dancing, to the croquet lawn—
Could our little friends have dined
If there’d been no worms above it?
Is it murky? What of that,
If the Owls are fairly perky?
Just imagine you were one—
Wouldn’t you detest the sun?
I’m pretending I’m a Bat,
And I know I like it murky.
Is it chilly? After all,
We must not forget the Poodle.
If the days were really hot,
Could he wear one woolly spot?
Could he even keep his shawl?
No, he’d shave the whole caboodle.
The Enchanted Castle
There are warm days in London when even a window-box fails to charm, and one longs for the more open spaces of the country. Besides, one wants to see how the other flowers are getting on. It is on these days that we travel to our Castle of Stopes; as the crow flies, fifteen miles away. Indeed, that is the way we get to it, for it is a castle in the air. And when we are come to it, Celia is always in a pink sunbonnet gathering roses lovingly, and I, not very far off, am speaking strongly to somebody or other about something I want done. By-and-by I shall go into the library and work…with an occasional glance through the open window at Celia.
To think that a month ago we were quite happy with a few pink geraniums! Sunday, a month ago, was hot. “Let’s take the train somewhere,” said Celia, “and have lunch under a hedge.”
“I know a lovely place for hedges,” I said.
“I know a lovely tin of potted grouse,” said Celia, and she went off to cut some sandwiches. By twelve o’clock we were getting out of the train.
The first thing we came to was a golf course, and Celia had to drag me past it. Then we came to a wood, and I had to drag her through it. Another mile along a lane, and then we both stopped together.
“Oh!” we said.
It was a cottage, the cottage of a dream. And by a cottage I mean, not four plain rooms and a kitchen, but one surprising room opening into another; rooms all on different levels and of different shapes, with delightful places to bump your head on; open fireplaces; a large square hall, oak-beamed, where your guests can hang about after breakfast, while deciding whether to play golf or sit in the garden. Yet all so cunningly disposed that from outside it looks only a cottage or, at most, two cottages persuaded into one.
And, of course, we only saw it from outside. The little drive, determined to get there as soon as possible, pushed its way straight through an old barn, and arrived at the door simultaneously with the flagged lavender walk for the humble who came on foot. The rhododendrons were ablaze beneath the south windows; a little orchard was running wild on the west; there was a hint at the back of a clean-cut lawn. Also, you remember, there was a golf course, less than two miles away.
“Oh,” said Celia with a deep sigh, “but we must live here.”
An Irish terrier ran out to inspect us. I bent down and patted it. “With a dog,” I added.
“Isn’t it all lovely? I wonder who it belongs to, and if—”
“If he’d like to give it to us.”
“Perhaps he would if he saw us and admired us very much,” said Celia hopefully.
“I don’t think Mr. Barlow is that sort of man,” I said. “An excellent fellow, but not one to take these sudden fancies.”
“Mr. Barlow? How do you know his name?”
“I have these surprising intuitions,” I said modestly. “The way the chimneys stand up—”
“I know,” cried Celia. “The dog’s collar.”
“Right, Watson. And the name of the house is Stopes.”
She repeated it to herself with a frown.
“What a disappointing name,” she said. “Just Stopes.
“Stopes,” I said. “Stopes, Stopes. If you keep on saying it, a certain old-world charm seems to gather round it. Stopes.”
“Stopes,” said Celia. “It is rather jolly.”
We said it ten more times each, and it seemed the only possible name for it. Stopes—of course.
“Well!” I asked.
“We must write to Mr. Barlow,” said Celia decisively. “‘Dear Mr. Barlo
w, er—Dear Mr. Barlow—we—’ Yes, it will be rather difficult. What do we want to say exactly?”
“‘Dear Mr. Barlow—May we have your house?’”
“Yes,” smiled Celia, “but I’m afraid we can hardly ask for it. But we might rent it when—when he doesn’t want it any more.”
“‘Dear Mr. Barlow,’” I amended, “‘have you any idea when you’re going to die?’ No, that wouldn’t do either. And there’s another thing—we don’t know his initials, or even if he’s a ‘Mr.’ Perhaps he’s a knight or a—a duke. Think how offended Duke Barlow would be if we put ‘——Barlow, Esq.’ on the envelope.”
“We could telegraph. ‘Barlow. After you with Stopes.’”
“Perhaps there’s a young Barlow, a Barlowette or two with expectations. It may have been in the family for years.”
“Then we—Oh, let’s have lunch.” She sat down and began to undo the sandwiches. “Dear o’ Stopes,” she said with her mouth full.
We lunched outside Stopes. Surely if Earl Barlow had seen us he would have asked us in. But no doubt his dining-room looked the other way; towards the east and north, as I pointed out to Celia, thus being pleasantly cool at lunch-time.
“Ha, Barlow,” I said dramatically, “a time will come when we shall be lunching in there, and you—bah!” And I tossed a potted-grouse sandwich to his dog.
However, that didn’t get us any nearer.
“Will you promise,” said Celia, “that we shall have lunch in there one day?”
