I'm Dying Laughing: The Humourist

by Christina Stead

  Monsieur Jean-Claude said, ‘Even if that were possible and I don’t see that it is, there are the other things; ancient history, the commentaries and things that can’t be learned by heart, the writing of original poetry, themes, unexpected pieces of translation, unexpected constructions. You know he must make a speech in Latin.’

  Emily cried, ‘How stupid, how old-fashioned! There must be some way of getting past, for boys who can’t make speeches.’

  ‘No more than you can pass a swimming examination without swimming.’

  ‘Oh, pouah! I know someone who hired a boy to do his swimming for him; and we can hire someone here. There must be a way and we will find it. You see, Jean-Claude and Monsieur Laroche, this is enormously important to us, to his father, to me. We will explain the situation. We love this boy dearly, we have studied him from the very hour we got him. We understand his genius. We know the kind of patient and loving care he needs. He was taken from an unworthy mother—’

  ‘Emily!’ said Stephen.

  ‘It is so. A woman who raised her son in licentious scenes, sex and liquor, and the boy was given to us by a court. But the boy will be a multimillionaire and there is still obscene wrangling going on in spite of the court order. A woman who left her husband—’

  ‘No, no, cut it out,’ said Stephen.

  ‘Now his grandmother wants to take the boy from you, Monsieur Laroche and Jean-Claude, and from us and send him to his cold, frigid, unkind relatives in England, who are backward and eat out of trenchers, sardines and rice pudding all in one trencher, or send him to Switzerland which is out of this world, no place for a modern youth to grow up. My husband agrees with me, don’t you, Stephen?’

  Stephen said, ‘God help any foreign boy raised there. They may as well live in Mars. They live in constant terror of being at war, avoiding war and yet with the one idea of profiting by war. Now I infinitely prefer my adopted son to live in France, have French sympathies, not only because I admire the French, a great, passionate and learned people, but because later on he can easily get a job in the State Department; and God knows, I want Christy to have a job, not like me. He has radical views like mine—’

  ‘Well, he is only a child, but we want him to be that kind of man, like his father,’ said Emily.

  ‘His views are mine exactly, only he has no theory and what worries me more than anything else is that if Christy goes to a fashionable school either in England or Switzerland they will knock all that out of him like Giles and you know the boy’s a goddamn fool—’

  ‘He is not, Stephen. He’s brilliant.’

  ‘I don’t fool myself, Monsieur Jean-Claude, I know you don’t. The boy has no political brains. You know better than I whether he has any other sort. Let’s hope so. Otherwise, it’s a dull outlook for us all. He has one argument for him I beg you to bear in mind, and that is the American system of education, their laxity, hatred of the brain and belief in rambling ignorance, their belief that genuine learning distorts the personality.’

  Monsieur Laroche said, ‘I do bear that in mind. I understood that at once. But now I have been with him for over a year and it is not only his mathematics which are non-existent—’

  ‘Oh, Monsieur Laroche, he is quick and intuitive in mathematics; it is really astonishing how he sees things better than I do,’ said Emily.

  ‘No, Madame, giving him all the credit possible, he cares about nothing but politics; that is the only thing that arouses interest in him and in which he shows a normally good heart, the passions of a boy. But I do not think he has any mind of his own. He can reason quite well for a sentence or two on this subject, he has some experience; and then in the fourth sentence he can reverse his position completely, once more parroting members of the other part of the family. He has an extraordinary, admirable respect and admiration for all members of his family, though particularly for Madame and Monsieur Howard and his brother and sister here, in a manner of speaking. He has not a wonderful memory, Madame, but a fragmentary, superficial, transient memory. He can remember next day, perhaps for a week, not longer, what he has learned by heart. He will eventually perhaps get through some course or other at the Sorbonne, if he has tutors always with him. I don’t know why he must go to the Sorbonne. All this money is in a way wasted. There are many worthy lads of talent, even of more than talent, who need to go to the Sorbonne, boys sick and hungry, who are refused at their examinations in spite of their talent or genius because they have not even the money to buy books and there are not enough books in the library to serve all the needy students. I would gladly undertake the tutoring of any one of these boys if I could. If your idea was to help an unfortunate deserving student, I should be delighted, the work itself would be a pleasure—’

  Emily looked at him furiously. She rang the bell. Marie-Jo, the maid, appeared and she called out, ‘Bring in some wine, Marie-Jo, we’re dry! And some sherry and port. And some sandwiches!’

  Then she turned and said imperiously, ‘Monsieur Laroche, I am interested in Christy. I don’t give two cents for those sick students! Let them die! I care about nothing that is not mine and that I don’t see and hear and touch and love! I hate those sick students. What’s it to me if they don’t get into the Sorbonne? To hell with them. I don’t want to hear about them. They don’t exist for me.’

  Monsieur Laroche looked angry. ‘Very well. However, I ventured to say that because last week Madame was talking about the students’ misery. The bitter misery, the struggle you said. And frankly, Monsieur Christy is not worth my time and trouble.’

  She exclaimed, ‘How can you say that about a child? You know it will ruin his life if he doesn’t go to the Sorbonne. His grandmother will say we have wasted his time, allowed him to waste his money and spoiled him for life in the USA. He must go to the Sorbonne. He must. He will have nothing to live for: he is so eager, so anxious, he dreams of being a student there.’

  ‘To me he seems quite apathetic about it. What he talks about is politics and young company and I think he loves the communist party because there he has young company and the only friends he ever had.’

  ‘Monsieur Laroche, you are not fit to teach children. You don’t understand them.’

  Stephen said, ‘Emily! Monsieur Laroche, excuse my wife; she is very concerned about Christy. My wife has a very warm heart. I had better be plainer. In the first place I do understand Christy because he is like I was. I did not develop until I was about twenty-six, mentally I went through college in a fog with the aid of tutors and hard study just like Christy; nothing stuck to me. About twenty-six I woke up and I have been awake ever since, though I’m no bright star. My father naturally thought I was a goddamn idiot and washed his hands of me; and my mother always hated me, she saw I was some kind of sport. Now my mother does not see that Christy is just like me, she sees him through a granny’s rose-coloured spectacles. We want Christy to stay here because we think our affection and understanding will help him to wake up sooner. We want you to help us, not to yield to your disappointment and boredom with Christy, but to help us to keep him. Tell his grandmother all the truth, but make it palatable to a doting grandmother. I want Christy by me because I want him to be a son to me later on. I’m going to need friends. We had hard luck coming here and settling in this country, but things look brighter now and I hope soon to get settled in a paying business—’

  Emily looked at him in astonishment and smiled slightly.

  ‘—which will enable me to help him. His real mother has complained about his large expenses and I am inclined to agree with her. His grandmother cannot do anything without consulting two prime parties; Christy himself, since he is in control of some of his money now, and ourselves, his legal guardians. Now, if you will help us, we will retain complete control of Christy until he has gone through the Sorbonne. You see that this will considerably lengthen his stay with us, especially if he is abnormally slow. That is what we require. For Christy is legally of age at twenty-one, but he does not come into the bulk of
his estate until he is twenty-five. That is our aim: to keep him under our protection until then. You see, he has a prolonged youth: he has all the time necessary. If you will only be patient with an exceptional case, I shall be very grateful to you.’

  Monsieur Laroche said, ‘I understand quite well. You know it has helped me to have this pupil and I don’t want to lose him either. But how can I avoid telling his grandmother the truth? It’s a question of professional delicacy and self-respect.’

  ‘And what do you think, Jean-Claude?’ asked Emily suddenly of the Latin tutor.

  ‘I think Christy will pick up and eventually make normal progress. He has promise,’ said Monsieur Jean-Claude. He was a blond man with mobile lips and a sunny smile round the centre of his face. He admired Emily sincerely, for her books, her establishment, her energy. He had once said, ‘I wish only that I had you to teach, instead of the boy. And if I were not a teacher, I should like to spend my life at your feet, listening and drinking in your rollicking genius.’

  Emily now wore an air of triumph. ‘I drink to you Jean-Claude,’ she said, throwing back her head and drinking off a full glass of sherry.

  Monsieur Laroche sipped his sherry. He shrugged slightly, looking at Suzanne, ‘I need the money of course; and I am here to work. But it’s the weariness of it, the hopeless toil.’

  ‘Christy has a good ear, he is making progress in French,’ said Suzanne.

  ‘Ah, boys, will be boys. He means well,’ said Jean-Claude.

  Suzanne looked at the two tutors and said, ‘I think we all understand about Christy. But Christy is really happy here. I am sure French influence is going to form him for the better. It would be a shame to see him torn from his two adoptive parents here, who love him dearly and make him feel at home in the world. Besides Monsieur Laroche, what difference does it make? We must not be prejudiced against the rich. One child is as good as another, even a rich boy has rights. Must Christy be neglected, cast off just because of his money? So many people will reproach him with it in later life. It will always be cast up at him. Let’s be fair to him now. For he will suffer for it later on. His political views are a great comfort for him, a shield. A boy as tender-minded as this would otherwise feel that he was hated and despised; an unhealthy state of mind. It is not his fault, but it will always be held to be his fault. Let’s help the boy.’

  ‘That’s right! Soften him up, so that some day he’ll be some use to someone,’ said Stephen, smiling.

  Emily said, ‘None of us here loves the rich, but Christy is a human being, think of what that means, a loving, suffering human being! He needs care, he needs understanding. Our whole generation is busy thinking about the poor, every damned writer in the proletarian novel period, which is now passing, thank God, spent his time jumping on the rich, muckraking, scandalmongering, showing them as monsters and spiders and vampires, forgetting that there can be rich boys hungry for love and understanding whose career can be ruined too if they don’t make the grade. To be rich, and thought of as stupid, in our epoch especially! Think of it, Monsieur Laroche.’

  Monsieur Laroche could not help smiling, ‘Well, that is true. Christy is a charming boy, affectionate, anxious to work and I have no fault to find with his character. My English is poor. I should not like people to think me backward because of that; but in England they might.’

  He gave Emily a melting smile. He was a dark, thin-faced man, seemed the pedant, but had very lively expressions.

  Emily pressed forward, ‘Surely, Monsieur Laroche, a backward boy is as interesting as a tubercular boy? Both have a failing. Why should the picturesque one, the melodramatic one, interest you more than the fate of an honest, hard-working, unloved lad who had a miserable childhood? It isn’t reasonable. It’s romantic rubbish. I’m impatient with the view that sees the rich as ogres, rogues, instead of realizing that most of them are good fathers, mothers, children and grandmothers, devoted to each other and leading decent lives. And if they are hated for being rich, it is their misfortune more than—my God, who among us does not like to succeed? Can you blame those who were born to success? Born with another twist, Monsieur Laroche, you could have been a rich man, a very rich man—you’re top of your particular line! Why blame the others? I’m a well-known writer, some call me famous—my husband’s a famous journalist—are we all criminals, rogues, to be hated and guillotined, when a guillotine stands in the place de la Concorde? Are we rascals and vampires? Or do we love each other and help each other? I don’t understand your old-fashioned prejudices, it sounds like the beginning of the century and the long-dead muckraking epoch to me. The century was young, hah! We must leave a boy ignorant and lonely, jump on him with both feet and say, “Let’s educate some boy in rags. This boy isn’t worth my honourable and self-respecting attention because he’s rich!” But you are at the top of your profession, Monsieur Laroche, and that means it is only the rich you can serve.’

  Monsieur Laroche looked pained, but Jean-Claude kept laughing, ‘Oh, it’s so amusing; you are really wonderful!’

  Emily seemed to dilate. She smiled, her eyes shone, she flushed and for at least three-quarters of an hour she continued to exhort the harassed, gloomy, restless, nauseated and, at length, depressed and exhausted Monsieur Laroche.

  Stephen, with his feet crossed on the sofa, listened with varying expressions, but did not intervene.

  At last, ‘Emily! You’ve said enough! I see Monsieur Laroche’s position very well. To hell with Stephen Howard and Christy Howard and all the Howards on the primrose path. I feel ashamed of course of seeing all this money spent on one boy. Monsieur Laroche, I promise that if Grandmother leaves the boy here—that is to say, she has not the actual authority but she can use pressure I would rather not see—if that happens I will help at least one of your needy students, out of compassion. I do sympathize and I feel as you do. I wish I could help a thousand. I hope the day will come when I can, or Christy can. This is another thing to think of. Christy is the kind of clay that can be pressed into shape. Perhaps if Christy works side by side with a brilliant needy student, he will remember it all his life, become his friend and remain a radical forever. Do you know how I became a radical? One of my tutors at college was a boy in my own class, who was a needy student but very brilliant—he was ahead of the professors in my opinion—a Jew of course. I wish I were a Jew, sometimes. It would be useful to have a brain that worked.’

  Emily burst out, ‘Stephen, how can we keep students? That’s nonsense. Who’s going to pay for these tramps? I’m not. Is Christy going to pay for him? Grandma would never allow it and I wouldn’t either. You—not unless you win the lottery again—’

  ‘I’ll find a way,’ said Stephen.

  ‘I hate it. It’s a stupid idea. What have we to do with ragged, sick tramps? These things are social. We help one student and five hundred die! You know charity cannot solve the social situation. I won’t have it. I want to help Christy, whom I love, and no one else. I’d hate to have that unwashed, dirty student around with lice in his hair and with a straggling beard and pale cheeks—then I’d have to feed him too, I couldn’t look at him starving, then I couldn’t stand his thin, dirty clothes, that means we’d have to give him Christy’s old clothes—oh, pouah! I couldn’t look at him. I know the sort. They saunter around the streets with a piece of bread stuffed in one cheek and you can smell them and their shoes are falling off their feet. And he’s to come here or go to Suzanne’s. Nothing doing.’

  Monsieur Jean-Claude said demurely, ‘Christy is a boy and not a social situation, I agree. However if we can help a student, let us do so; he is also one and not a social situation. But this will take some looking into.’

  Monsieur Laroche said sombrely, ‘I have one ready. But I don’t insist on that one.’

  Stephen said cheerfully, ‘We have agreed upon a troublesome thing like Christy’s reports; we will agree, all five of us, on the student, poor fellow—’

  ‘I hate it, I won’t have it. I want mine and only
mine,’ said Emily.

  They had some food and drinks, and when the tutors were going, Stephen said to them,

  ‘Well, you do think it is the best thing to tell my mother, who is just a silly old woman worried about her grandson, the usual thing: that her grandson is getting along as well as can be expected and you have hopes for him: that he works hard.’

  Monsieur Laroche promised. Emily said, ‘Oh, Grandma is really a lovable woman, she is gentle, timid, upright, so honourable, so anxious. You need not worry, she will believe every word you say.’

  Monsieur Laroche said, ‘I am really embarrassed. But I’ll do this—if one student is bad, the other student is very good; and I feel happy—because you help the student. Very well, I will work harder with Monsieur Christy because you help the student. Merci Madame.’ He took Emily’s hand and kissed it, and when he straightened up, she saw there were tears in his eyes.

  When they had gone, and they were left with Suzanne, Emily expressed her disgust at the idea of the indigent student. ‘I don’t want anyone else. I have enough with Christy and Giles. I hate the others. I could not see you, Suzanne, and Jean-Claude and Monsieur Laroche bustling about this homespun Yahoo. If their parents can’t take care of them, too bad. Why can’t they get scholarships? That’s a noble thought you had, Stephen. To stick us with this clodhopper genius. If he weren’t a servile, fawning toady, he wouldn’t accept. He must have been crying on the shoulder of Monsieur Laroche. How do you know it isn’t the boyfriend? Yeah, a fine note. When we’re broke already, not a cent after the Christmas set-up and when dear Anna leaves, and you make all kinds of crazy promises. I despise scholarship people and helped people and all sorts of hangers-on. Christy’s bad enough, now he’s got his own money, he doesn’t even get his shoes soled. You don’t suppose he’s going to pay for the student? My God! And this stinking, mendicant cap-in-hand with this surly domestic of ours, this vassal, Laroche, the two of them will set to it, you’ll see, to snatch from Christy and to give him ideas, the ideas of the ankle-nipping and foot-licking underdog. And maybe tuberculosis too. And get him into riots in the streets! What will Grandma think of that? And maybe also show him up—show Christy for what he really is, a fizzle, a booby, an idiot who can’t add two and two, just what we’ve been trying to keep from him—pouah! Why did you do it? I don’t care what you did when you were a mollycoddle at Princeton. Christy hasn’t your brains.’