My Mistress's Sparrow Is Dead: Great Love Stories, From Chekhov to Munro

by Jeffrey Eugenides

—She ’s sending in the younger ones first as soon as this waltz is over so that we ’ll have the table to ourselves.

  —Were you dancing? asked Gabriel.

  —Of course I was. Didn’t you see me? What words had you with

  Molly Ivors?

  —No words. Why! Did she say so?

  —Something like that. I’m trying to get that Mr D’Arcy to sing.

  He ’s full of conceit, I think.

  —There were no words, said Gabriel moodily, only she wanted me

  to go for a trip to the west of Ireland and I said I wouldn’t.

  His wife clasped her hands excitedly and gave a little jump.

  —O, do go, Gabriel, she cried. I’d love to see Galway again.

  —You can go if you like, said Gabriel coldly.

  She looked at him for a moment, then turned to Mrs Malins and

  said:

  —There ’s a nice husband for you, Mrs Malins.

  While she was threading her way back across the room Mrs Malins,

  without adverting to the interruption, went on to tell Gabriel what beau-

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  tiful places there were in Scotland and beautiful scenery. Her son-in-law brought them every year to the lakes and they used to go fishing. Her son-in-law was a splendid fisher. One day he caught a fish, a beautiful big big fish: and the man in the hotel boiled it for their dinner.

  Gabriel hardly heard what she said. Now that supper was coming

  near he began to think again about his speech and about the quotation.

  When he saw Freddy Malins coming across the room to visit his mother Gabriel left the chair free for him and retired into the embrasure of the window. The room had already cleared and from the back room came

  the clatter of plates and knives. Those who still remained in the drawingroom seemed tired of dancing and were conversing quietly in little groups. Gabriel’s warm trembling fingers tapped the cold pane of the window. How cool it must be outside! How pleasant it would be to walk out alone, first along by the river and then through the park! The snow would be lying on the branches of the trees and forming a bright cap on the top of the Wellington monument. How much more pleasant it would be there than at the supper table!

  He ran over the headings of his speech: Irish hospitality, sad memories, the Three Graces, Paris, the quotation from Browning. He repeated to himself a phrase he had written in his review: One feels that one is listening to a thoughttormented music. Miss Ivors had praised the review.

  Was she sincere? Had she really any life of her own behind all her propagandism? There had never been any ill feeling between them until that night. It unnerved him to think that she would be at the supper table, looking up at him while he spoke with her critical quizzing eyes. Perhaps she would not be sorry to see him fail in his speech. An idea came into his mind and gave him courage. He would say, alluding to aunt Kate and aunt Julia: Ladies and gentlemen, the generation which is now on the wane among us may have had its faults but for my part I think it had certain qualities of hospitality, of humour, of humanity, which the new and very serious and hypereducated generation that is growing up around us seems to me to lack. Very good: that was one for Miss Ivors. What did he care that his aunts were only two ignorant old women?

  A murmur in the room attracted his attention. Mr Browne was

  advancing from the door, gallantly escorting aunt Julia who leaned

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  upon his arm, smiling and hanging her head. An irregular musketry of applause escorted her also as far as the piano and then, as Mary Jane seated herself on the stool and aunt Julia, no longer smiling, half turned so as to pitch her voice fairly into the room, gradually ceased. Gabriel recognised the prelude. It was that of an old song of aunt Julia’s, Arrayed for the Bridal. Her voice strong and clear in tone attacked with great spirit the runs which embellish the air and, though she sang very rapidly, she did not miss even the smallest of the grace notes. To follow the voice, without looking at the singer’s face, was to feel and share the excitement of swift and secure flight. Gabriel applauded loudly with all the others at the close of the song and loud applause was borne in from the invisible supper table. It sounded so genuine that a little colour struggled into aunt Julia’s face as she bent to replace in the music stand the old leatherbound songbook that had her initials on the cover. Freddy Malins, who had listened with his head perched sideways to hear the better, was still applauding when everyone else had ceased and talking animatedly to his mother who nodded her head gravely and slowly in acquiescence. At last, when he could clap no more, he stood up suddenly and hurried across the room to aunt Julia, whose hand he seized and held in both his hands, shaking it when words failed him or the catch in his voice proved too much for him.

  —I was just telling my mother, he said, I never heard you sing so well, never. No, I never heard your voice so good as it is tonight. Now!

  Would you believe that now? That’s the truth. Upon my word and honour that’s the truth. I never heard your voice sound so fresh and so . . .

  so clear and fresh, never.

  Aunt Julia smiled broadly and murmured something about compli-

  ments as she released her hand from his grasp. Mr Browne extended his open hand towards her and said to those who were near him in the manner of a showman introducing a prodigy to an audience:

  —Miss Julia Morkan, my latest discovery!

  He was laughing very heartily at this himself when Freddy Malins turned to him and said:

  —Well, Browne, if you’re serious you might make a worse discov-

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  ery. All I can say is I never heard her sing half so well as long as I am coming here. And that ’s the honest truth.

  —Neither did I, said Mr Browne. I think her voice has greatly

  improved.

  Aunt Julia shrugged her shoulders and said with meek pride:

  —Thirty years ago I hadn’t a bad voice as voices go.

  —I often told Julia, said aunt Kate emphatically, that she was simply thrown away in that choir. But she never would be said by me.

  She turned as if to appeal to the good sense of the others against a refractory child while aunt Julia gazed in front of her, a vague smile of reminiscence playing on her face.

  —No, continued aunt Kate, she wouldn’t be said or led by anyone,

  slaving there in that choir night and day, night and day. Six o’clock on Christmas morning! And all for what?

  —Well, isn’t it for the honour of God, aunt Kate? asked Mary Jane twisting round on the piano stool and smiling.

  Aunt Kate turned fiercely on her niece and said:

  —I know all about the honour of God, Mary Jane, but I think it ’s not at all honourable for the pope to turn out the women out of the choirs that have slaved there all their lives and put little whippersnappers of boys over their heads. I suppose it is for the good of the church if the pope does it. But it ’s not just, Mary Jane, and it ’s not right.

  She had worked herself into a passion and would have continued in defence of her sister for it was a sore subject with her but Mary Jane, seeing that all the dancers had come back, intervened pacifically:

  —Now, aunt Kate, you’re giving scandal to Mr Browne who is of the other persuasion.

  Aunt Kate turned to Mr Browne, who was grinning at this allusion to his religion, and said hastily:

  —O, I don’t question the pope ’s being right. I’m only a stupid old woman and I wouldn’t presume to do such a thing. But there ’s such a thing as common everyday politeness and gratitude. And if I were in Julia’s place I’d tell that Father Healy straight up to his face . . .

  —And besides, aunt Kate, said Mary Jane, we really are all hungry and when we are hungry we are all very quarrelsome.

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  —And whe
n we are thirsty we are also quarrelsome, added Mr

  Browne.

  —So that we had better go to supper, said Mary Jane, and finish the discussion afterwards.

  On the landing outside the drawingroom Gabriel found his wife and Mary Jane trying to persuade Miss Ivors to stay for supper. But Miss Ivors, who had put on her hat and was buttoning her cloak, would not stay. She did not feel in the least hungry and she had already overstayed her time.

  —But only for ten minutes, Molly, said Mrs Conroy. That won’t

  delay you.

  —To take a pick itself, said Mary Jane, after all your dancing.

  —I really couldn’t, said Miss Ivors.

  —I am afraid you didn’t enjoy yourself at all, said Mary Jane hopelessly.

  —Ever so much, I assure you, said Miss Ivors, but you really must let me run off now.

  —But how can you get home? asked Mrs Conroy.

  —O, it ’s only two steps up the quay.

  Gabriel hesitated a moment and said:

  —If you will allow me, Miss Ivors, I’ll see you home if you really are obliged to go.

  But Miss Ivors broke away from them.

  —I won’t hear of it, she cried. For goodness’ sake go in to your suppers and don’t mind me. I’m quite well able to take care of myself.

  —Well, you’re the comical girl, Molly, said Mrs Conroy frankly.

  — Beannacht libh, cried Miss Ivors with a laugh as she ran down the staircase.

  Mary Jane gazed after her, a moody puzzled expression on her face, while Mrs Conroy leaned over the banisters to listen for the halldoor.

  Gabriel asked himself was he the cause of her abrupt departure. But she did not seem to be in ill humour: she had gone away laughing. He stared blankly down the staircase.

  At that moment aunt Kate came toddling out of the supper room,

  almost wringing her hands in despair.

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  —Where is Gabriel? she cried. Where on earth is Gabriel? There ’s everyone waiting in there, stage to let, and nobody to carve the goose!

  —Here I am, aunt Kate! cried Gabriel with sudden animation, ready to carve a flock of geese, if necessary.

  A fat brown goose lay at one end of the table and at the other end, on a bed of creased paper strewn with sprigs of parsley, lay a great ham, stripped of its outer skin and peppered over with crust crumbs, a neat paper frill round its shin, and beside this was a round of spiced beef.

  Between these rival ends ran parallel lines of side dishes: two little min-sters of jelly, red and yellow, a shallow dish full of blocks of blancmange and red jam, a large green leafshaped dish with a stalkshaped handle on which lay bunches of purple raisins and peeled almonds, a companion dish on which lay a solid rectangle of Smyrna figs, a dish of custard topped with grated nutmeg, a small bowl full of chocolates and sweets wrapped in gold and silver papers and a glass vase in which stood some tall celery stalks. In the centre of the table there stood, as sentries to a fruit stand which upheld a pyramid of oranges and American apples, two squat oldfashioned decanters of cut glass, one containing port and the other dark sherry. On the closed square piano a pudding in a huge yellow dish lay in waiting and behind it were three squads of bottles of stout and ale and minerals drawn up according to the colours of their uniforms, the first two black with brown and red labels, the third and smallest squad white, with transverse green sashes.

  Gabriel took his seat boldly at the head of the table and, having looked to the edge of the carver, plunged his fork firmly into the goose.

  He felt quite at ease now for he was an expert carver and liked nothing better than to find himself at the head of a well laden table.

  —Miss Furlong, what shall I send you? he asked. A wing or a slice of the breast?

  —Just a small slice of the breast.

  —Miss Higgins, what for you?

  —O, anything at all, Mr Conroy.

  While Gabriel and Miss Daly exchanged plates of goose and plates of ham and spiced beef Lily went from guest to guest with a dish of hot floury potatoes wrapped in a white napkin. This was Mary Jane ’s

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  idea and she had also suggested apple sauce for the goose but aunt Kate had said that plain roast goose without any apple sauce had always been good enough for her and she hoped she might never eat worse. Mary Jane waited on her pupils and saw that they got the best slices and aunt Kate and aunt Julia opened and carried across from the piano bottles of stout and ale for the gentlemen and bottles of minerals for the ladies.

  There was a great deal of confusion and laughter and noise, the noise of orders and counterorders, of knives and forks, of corks and glass stop-pers. Gabriel began to carve second helpings as soon as he had finished the first round without serving himself. Everyone protested loudly so that he compromised by taking a long draught of stout for he had found the carving hot work. Mary Jane settled down quietly to her supper but aunt Kate and aunt Julia were still toddling round the table, walking on each other’s heels, getting in each other’s way and giving each other unheeded orders. Mr Browne begged of them to sit down and eat their supper and so did Gabriel but they said they were time enough so that, at last, Freddy Malins stood up and, capturing aunt Kate, plumped her down on her chair amid general laughter.

  When everyone had been well served Gabriel said smiling:

  —Now if anyone wants a little more of what vulgar people call

  stuffing let him or her speak.

  A chorus of voices invited him to begin his own supper and Lily

  came forward with three potatoes which she had reserved for him.

  —Very well, said Gabriel amiably as he took another preparatory

  draught, kindly forget my existence, ladies and gentlemen, for a few minutes.

  He set to his supper and took no part in the conversation with which the table covered Lily’s removal of the plates. The subject of talk was the opera company which was then at the Theatre Royal. Mr Bartell D’Arcy, the tenor, a dark-complexioned young man with a smart moustache, praised very highly the leading contralto of the company but Miss Furlong thought she had a rather vulgar style of production. Freddy Malins said there was a negro chieftain singing in the second part of the Gaiety pantomime who had one of the finest tenor voices he had ever heard.

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  —Have you heard him? he asked Mr Bartell D’Arcy across the

  table.

  —No, answered Mr Bartell D’Arcy carelessly.

  —Because, Freddy Malins explained, now I’d be curious to hear

  your opinion of him. I think he has a grand voice.

  —It takes Teddy to find out the really good things, said Mr Browne familiarly to the table.

  —And why couldn’t he have a voice too? asked Freddy Malins

  sharply. Is it because he ’s only a black?

  Nobody answered this question and Mary Jane led the table back to the legitimate opera. One of her pupils had given her a pass for Mignon.

  Of course, it was very fine, she said, but it made her think of poor Georgina Burns. Mr Browne could go back farther still to the old Italian companies that used to come to Dublin, Tietjens, Trebelli, Ilma de Murzka, Campanini, the great Giuglini, Ravelli, Aramburo. Those were the days, he said, when there was something like singing to be heard in Dublin. He told too of how the top gallery of the old Royal used to be packed night after night, of how one night an Italian tenor had sung five encores to Let Me Like a Soldier Fall, introducing a high C every time, and of how the gallery boys would sometimes in their enthusiasm unyoke the horses from the carriage of some great prima donna and pull her themselves through the streets to her hotel. Why did they never play the grand old operas now, he asked. Dinorah, Lucrezia Borgia? Because they could not get the voices to sing them: that was why.

  —O, well, said Mr Bartell D’Ar
cy, I presume there are as good singers today as there were then.

  —Where are they? asked Mr Browne defiantly.

  —In London, Paris, Milan, said Mr Bartell D’Arcy warmly. I sup-

  pose Caruso, for example, is quite as good, if not better than any of the men you have mentioned.

  —Maybe so, said Mr Browne. But I may tell you I doubt it strongly.

  —O, I’d give anything to hear Caruso sing, said Mary Jane.

  —For me, said aunt Kate, who had been picking a bone, there was

  only one tenor. To please me, I mean. But I suppose none of you ever heard of him.

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  —Who was he, Miss Morkan? asked Mr Bartell D’Arcy politely.

  —His name, said aunt Kate, was Parkinson. I heard him when he

  was in his prime and I think he had then the purest tenor voice that was ever put into a man’s throat.

  —Strange, said Mr Bartell D’Arcy. I never even heard of him.

  —Yes, yes, Miss Morkan is right, said Mr Browne. I remember hear-

  ing of old Parkinson but he ’s too far back for me.

  —A beautiful pure sweet mellow English tenor, said aunt Kate with enthusiasm.

  Gabriel having finished, the huge pudding was transferred to the

  table. The clatter of forks and spoons began again. Gabriel’s wife served out spoonfuls of the pudding and passed the plates down the table. Midway down they were held up by Mary Jane who replenished them with raspberry or orange jelly or with blancmange and jam. The pudding was of aunt Julia’s making and she received praises for it from all quarters.

  She herself said that it was not quite brown enough.

  —Well, I hope, Miss Morkan, said Mr Browne, that I’m brown

  enough for you because, you know, I’m all brown.

  All the gentlemen, except Gabriel, ate some of the pudding out of compliment to aunt Julia. As Gabriel never ate sweets the celery had been left for him. Freddy Malins also took a stalk of celery and ate it with his pudding. He had been told that celery was a capital thing for the blood and he was just then under doctor’s care. Mrs Malins, who had been silent all through the supper, said that her son was going down to Mount Melleray in a week or so. The table then spoke of Mount Melleray, how bracing the air was down there, how hospitable the monks were and how they never asked for a penny-piece from their guests.