I'm Dying Laughing: The Humourist

by Christina Stead

  ‘Think of it—this past that is Lethe, this deep, soundless, overwhelming of individuality, this dream-past rushed on us, over us, and spoke silently to us, rushed over us without seeing us perhaps, in its tranquillity. To have lived like that, in this magnificent happy past, and to be gone now, but to have this for your life-dream. Ah, me. We are sad creatures. What are our lives compared with theirs?’

  Dale, excited by her talk, was talking to her. She listened abstractedly, saying sometimes, ‘What wonderful details! Oh, your memory, Dale, for all that’s tender and true in the dear past!’

  But she said suddenly, ‘And yet, Dale, it seems to me a frozen, graven image like an old cathedral on a winter day, full of tenderness, an essentially hollow idiot, yet deeply comforting, at least for me who have lived through this rich afternoon. I taste death and total loss and I like the taste; it is sweet to the taste.

  ‘You know, I am writing about Marie-Antoinette. It is meant to be good. I have the memory of all these Marie-Antoinettes of all degrees, all doomed; and the sadness of their stately doom, behind the unspeakably rich and voluptuous and happy life a horrid sound, coming out of the gorgeousness pushing through into the forefront, the slow-paced tumbrils, the towering guillotines, the last moment, the awful axe. And it is this most awful of scenes, itself wickedly vulgar which saves this park from vulgarity.’

  Dale explained, ‘Louis-Quatorze was the decadence of his own age. All the great men came to flower and withered before he came to the throne, little overdressed, big-wigged monkey. William Blake said, “A man is big if his wig is big.”’

  She said, ‘To me, suddenly, it is terrible, dead, ossified, and what is not living is vulgar. What is this but an arid man-made, slave-made landscape, thirsty and starving and loveless?’

  ‘That is because you do not and cannot belong to the past, Emily.’

  ‘Dale, Dale! I am decadent, too. You don’t know. Oh, Dale, you are the one to save me. Your great understanding, your wisdom—you would see what is wrong with me and bring me back to life. You would cut away all the decadence and I would be what I once was, a girl so full of life and joy and hope, you can’t imagine it! No one knows what I was like. I didn’t know myself. It is only now when all is lost—all is lost, Dale, I am lost!’

  ‘You are not lost, you are tired; and if ever you were lost you would go down like they did, nobly and vigorously, to leave a legend, too.’

  She threw herself into his arms. He was surprised, but he held her. They were behind the others; and the others, because of their lively conversation were paying no attention to them.

  ‘Dale, I love you. How is it that you know what words to say? What a heart you must have! What a tender, good mind. I need you. Won’t you come to live with us and give me life again? Oh, I have been through such torments as no one knows; and I can’t talk about them. I don’t want to. I only want someone near me, just in the same house, to whom I can go sometimes and say just these words, “Help me, console me; and don’t ask what I am suffering.”’

  Dale set her on her feet, linked his arm in hers and made her begin to walk again. He said, ‘The revolutionary general, the knight of the revolution, Lazare Hoche, came from Versailles. They were not all faded and outmoded. It was this desert, as you call it, which produced revolutionary genius. The blood is there in the stones. Yes, if they had simply withered downhill into death and dusty oblivion, more and more faded, out of date, childish, figged out and silly as they seem now in the museums, they would not attract us at all, and not a woman of genius like you. Our attitude to them would be the attitude of the wild Kentuckians towards the British. What was their code? “No institution of theirs, no law, nothing to recall that wild and wicked land.” But the French with their good sense and their love of all that was theirs, arranged it so that the whole monument they left behind, this most extraordinary of French gravestones, is not merely not repulsive, not merely the broken pediment of Ozymandias. We can look there and think, they lived and they had the good fortune to yield to their betters, the vulgar proles. And both sides had the splendid good taste to obliterate all of that life on the grand tragic scale.’ Emily said, ‘Ah, yes, the tumbrils are absolutely necessary to Versailles.’

  ‘How bloodthirsty you are! Memories of the Indian frontier, I suppose.’

  ‘No, I am afraid. When I think what they could do. See that vast cobblestoned courtyard, the lifeless palace—it would be dull and vulgar if not for the terrifying memory of the furies, clawing at the cobblestones, their feet gaping with festering wounds, dirt ground in and scarred everywhere, filling the air with their rotten breath, spoiling the gilt with their fierce dirty paws; and think of the broken, yellow, torn nails, the knotted joints, overturning, tearing, breaking with hate, pocketing, shouting, jeering, lusting, and bad, bad, as conquerors are always bad, jealous, mean, and justified eventually by history. What a terrible picture! It makes me hang my head. I can’t even cry. My eyes are empty. I am empty. If that can happen, why live?’

  Dale laughed, ‘Take Louis XIV. I have no sympathy with the talentless old monster. Louis XIV came to the throne with twenty-three million Frenchmen and ended with fourteen million. The soleil ceased to shine for nine million. A record. Anyone could have done the same mischief with less damage to the people.’

  ‘Ah, no. The image of Versailles is not Louis Exe-Eye-Vee, Louis the Fish-eye, strutting like a toad on red heels, over a crowd of half-human cowed courtiers. For me there is only one spectacle, the frightened, beautiful queen who began her days innocent and soft as Fairfield, gentle and full of a girl’s senseless, impossible hopes. There she comes now to a hideous reality, the reality of monsters and ruffians. Why monsters? Nature never made monsters like human beings. She shows herself, bravely to the wild, wild, heartless, vicious mob; for jealousy, envy, murderous hate are vicious and heartless. All the green and lovely places of France are haunted, all the great places are crowded with terror; the Terror, and others. The sound of the tumbrils is heard through the land and every spring, every dread summer, every year of drought and every year of grain—we wonder, we fear! Oh, why are we here? A land of blood.’

  Dale looked at her sideways. ‘My eye, how you take on. I always thought you found Europe so tame. Dear old Europe, the tame, trodden pasture etc.’

  ‘With Versailles it’s all said. No phrases unturned. And it all meant nothing. The beautiful and doomed. Oh, I adore it. And I get a fierce sense of triumph from gaping at it and thinking, They’re gone! Just a vulgar Arkansas maid. But alive and so triumphant. Ha-ha. Yes, thinking it over, Dale, I really do adore it and triumph over it. We have defeated you in the end, my dear friends, architects of all this noisy, silent elegance. If I could knit I would have come and spent a happy afternoon looking up at the façade and thinking a few names for future reference: De Gasperi, purl one, knit one, drop one, Paul-Henri Spaak, purl one, knit one, drop one, Governor Dewey, drop one, Sumner Welles, drop one, General Marshall and his plan in his pocket, knit one, drop one. I believe there is a strong streak of both Lady Macbeth and Madame Lafarge in my soul. I know Christy would tell me there were no knitters, no Madame Lafarges, but I would make them if they didn’t exist. I’m like that myself. There must have been!’

  Dale laughed, ‘Ah, Emily, come on, come to England and cheer us up. Let’s have some fun. Come along. You don’t really like the French at all. No one really does; but they don’t know what to do about it. It’s a sin against culture to say you don’t like the French. And your view of the French Revolution—all derived from Dickens. You yourself are a Dickens or maybe a George Sand—you haven’t realized yourself yet. Come to England and I’ll make you work the right way. I’ll make you!’

  Emily drew back, ‘Jehosaphat! Your family is certainly one for making other people work. The true aristocratic touch, eh? Even in the woodlot in spring! Say do I look like that, I guess so; a workhorse, eh?’

  They joined the others, found their cars and drove back to Paris, and that eveni
ng dined at another fine restaurant, Laserre in the Champs-Elysées. All this time they knew nothing of shortages, milk, bread, wine, meat nor sauce, nor gas nor clothing, nor money nor time. Yet secretly Emily and Stephen were gnawed by fear; their work unsold and big debts behind them and before them. With the family and in this state of mind, they visited museums, shows, shops, gardens.

  Some days before the end, going back to Anna’s hotel, Emily sauntered with her mother-in-law, who was to leave in two days for America, with Fairfield and Olivia. Christy was to go over to them in the summer. Anna spoke of this.

  ‘He must always be American. I don’t want to see him one of these unfortunate children who no longer feel at home in America and think of French sauces and embarrass people by speaking with a correct French accent. They are very poor company and have become exiles. They’re not happy in their own country. Now Christy is not like that. He is a healthy, nice boy.’

  Emily agreed enthusiastically with all of this and told Anna she could depend upon it, their views coincided.

  ‘And dear Anna, how happy you have made us all, with your perfect sense of fitness, guiding us, your organization and genius for making a real family feeling! If you knew my feelings: the delicious guilt and terrific pleasure.’

  ‘Why guilt?’ said Anna inimically.

  ‘I should be working.’

  Anna was silent and Emily regretted her remarks. She laughed, ‘Perhaps I meant g-i-l-t. I love it. Oh, if only we didn’t have to worry about the future of the world and of my dear husband and babies. If only it were the nineteenth or the eighteenth century. All the time passed and the world didn’t come to an end. We sit on the Champs-Elysées and lift our glasses with lovely wine and toast and love each other, dear Anna, and talk about painters and writers we all like—’

  Stephen had approached, inquisitively.

  ‘—because we came of aesthetic age with them, like Cézanne and James Joyce and Eliot and Hemingway and we love them because we’re of their age. Yet perhaps they’re already hurtling, rushing towards the Dark Ages which haven’t been had yet. They’ll be unknown along with us—’

  Stephen said, ‘Why that? I won’t have that for you, Emily. Is Michelangelo hurtling towards the Dark Ages in any way?’

  ‘Oh—no—I mean, now the party is over, we are separating, I want to boohoo and cry, Up the Family and Here’s to Absent Friends who aren’t even yet absent and it’s even more painful to look at them now. My goodness, I think the moment of parting is much lonelier than afterwards.’

  She hugged the flaccid, satin arm of Anna, who walked along without response.

  Dale had come up. He said cheerfully, ‘Perhaps in their day, every one was bored with and tired of Michelangelo and talked small talk about him. People like us never knew Cézanne and we wouldn’t have: he was considered mad. And you can bet your boots the Cézanne of today is off starving to death somewhere at this minute. Well, everyone knows it. If you’re so mad as to be an artist—you know beforehand your fate.’

  It was beginning to rain. Emily held out her hand and said, ‘The holiday is ended! How perfect! The sky has tears!’

  Stephen laughed, ‘For the Howard-Tanner clan? That would surprise me.’

  ‘Ah, it’s been noble, dreamy, poetic, all our dear ones and when will it happen again? Such a sense of warmth, love, security, of belonging together and of confidence in the future. And tomorrow—we’re on our own again. Ah, me. Life! Such as we live it.’

  Anna questioned her about her writing and Emily replied enthusiastically that she felt she and Stephen were working much better in Paris, because writers were more respected and appreciated there.

  ‘Do you want to be respected and appreciated? I thought you wanted to make money,’ said Anna, with some contempt.

  ‘Oh, I like both. But you’ve inspired me, Anna. I’ve actually worked since you’ve been here. I can often work when I get home after a fine dinner, noble wines, pumping the joy of living into me. Well—it doesn’t come out quite that way. But I’ve nearly finished a foul serial that I am sure will sell and that will keep us going. And as for this book I’m on, I’m sure I can sell it for $10,000 advance. We had a note about that today. It’s not sure—but you may have noticed our radiant expressions.’

  But Anna said their expenses were much more than that.

  When they parted, she warned them again and asked them to meet some friends of the family who were coming to Paris next week. Stephen bit his lips, but said they would give them a party and a dinner or two.

  ‘But we must work, Mother!’

  ‘Your cousin Cherry has the very best Washington connections. I don’t want you to get out of touch. You met a lot of good people while you were over this time. I know your illness prevented you from meeting all you might have met. You may need Cherry’s help, with this political fever over there. I want you to get back lost ground. I’ll do my best to help you, if you do your part. Cherry has always liked you, Stephen; and she’ll pull strings for you, when you need them. I know you did the right thing when you went to Washington. I have been told.’

  When they went to the plane, Emily wept and clung to her mother-in-law and Olivia, kissed Fairfield, weeping, blessed and embraced and flattered them all and, as they began to leave for the plane, she kept crying out, ‘Love, my darlings. A bientôt! Oh, dear, it’s so long till next time. Goodby-ye.’

  She turned to Stephen, dried her eyes and said, ‘Well, now—thank God that’s over. To market, to market to feed a fat pig. No more chasing, nor more dreary philistine tourist fun! Oy-oy! As the Greeks used to say. Oh, fooey on all families! Let’s have a celebration on our very own, Stephen, with Dale perhaps before he leaves, to take the taste out of my mouth and then I really must work. Like a dog. Our lives depend on it.’

  They were very happy this evening. They left the servants and the children to take care of themselves. They were going to walk where they pleased, see what they liked. Stephen had a surprise in store for Emily; it would soon be her birthday. They were going to wash the family out of their system and not talk about anything of that sort—not about whether Christy was going to England next autumn, nor whether they themselves should take the family counsel and go to England too; and otherwise move to a small apartment; not worry about the Gaudeamus Press, not think about Emily’s commitments. They walked, they felt they could not get enough, the city was once more becoming their own, getting into their legs and eyes. They walked with arms embraced, they kissed just like other French couples.

  ‘How happy we are when t’other dear charmers are loin,’ said Emily.

  Said Stephen, ‘It is for us and all; yes, my favourite city, except Vienna, Florence, New York, Rome and London, God help me. I wish I could live in Florence. It’s shabby and Paris is shabby. The women aren’t well dressed and the whole city spiritually is in the dumps. I know it’s just the neighbourhood of May Day, the Mur des Fédérés and the approach of July 14 and the strike spirit and the realization that they are not so crazy about American bathroom culture as we dreamed. Oh, well—let’s go to the Ritz or the Tour d’Argent. I am not going to cry for bedraggled Paris today. It would just stick in my throat.’

  ‘I feel free too, liberated. It’s awful the way for a family you must put on an act; and you can’t get out of it. I feel like a liar, a goddamn lickspittle and a spy, for I don’t agree with a word they say—except Dale of course. He’s the typical, educated, crafty Englishman. You pin him down and he’s over the hills and far away. And when it comes to that Fairfield, by golly, she sticks in my throat, a sharp-tongued, vain little enamelled puppet. I’m obliged to be nice to her, she doesn’t know any better, she’s your kin, she’s slated to marry Christy—oh, horrors, horreur! He’s none too bright, he’s backward, in fact, though who can say why? But to be tied for life to that bunch of paper frills—these picayune, dry, knowall babies we turn out—why, she won’t even let him touch her, I guess, and you can see cheap, prim flirtations in the turn of her n
ose; prim and dirty.’

  ‘Forget Christy and Fairfield and everyone. We said we would.’

  They had a drink in a fashionable hotel. The cafes, now that they looked at them, were worn, dirty, spiritless, there was hardly any electricity, no cleaning, few customers, and those customers shabby. Some cafes were already shut up at the dinner hour. This Paris was not for them.

  ‘And yet all this is irrelevant, isn’t it?’ said Emily.

  ‘How?’

  ‘There’s Paris behind the scenes, marching embattled, tired, hungry, resentful and with a long, long memory. They’ve eaten crow and they won’t forgive it. The proud French! I love them. They don’t squeal, but they remember. I wouldn’t like to be on the dark tablets of their memory. Paris the wonderful, the Venus, the Astarte.’

  But neither of them could walk as they had used to. Stephen still had a cane and had little strength. Emily, still roly-poly, was not strong either. Perhaps she had not eaten enough, or she had worked too hard.

  ‘I’m getting hungry, and we’re near Les Halles. Dale told us about a splendid little restaurant.’ They walked by the law courts, the gendarmerie, the flower markets, the Chatelet and the Hotel de Ville.

  ‘Here Blanqui stood that day, here people’s heads rolled in the gutter, people smothered in their own blood. You can’t live in Paris and be like we are and not be a red, can you?’

  Stephen said, ‘No, lots of people have tried to go back on their life history, their perceptions and their dedication; and you can’t do it, tragedy or annihilation follows. They were scarred for life, there was a burning mark on their foreheads. You can’t go back. You passed the signpost and there’s no turning back.’

  ‘You frighten me. What do you mean? How cool it’s getting.’

  ‘We were dedicated,’ he said. He showed her a little plaque surrounded by humble bouquets, and some field flowers in a homemade bouquet on which was a handwritten card which said: Iciest tombé pour la Patrie et pour le Liberation de Paris—