The Alexandria Quartet: Justine, Balthazar, Mountolive, Clea

On reading a long review of God is a Humorist: ‘Good God! At last they are beginning to take me seriously. This imposes a terrible burden on me. I must redouble my laughter.’ (q)

‘Why do I always choose an epigraph from Sade? Because he demonstrates pure rationalism — the ages of sweet reason we have lived through in Europe since Descartes. He is the final flower of reason, and the typic of European behaviour. I hope to live to see him translated into Chinese. His books would bring the house down and would read as pure humour. But his spirit has already brought the house down around our ears.’ (r)

‘Europe: a Logical Positivist trying to prove to himself by logical deduction that he exists.’ (s)

‘My objects in the novels? To interrogate human values through an honest representation of the human passions. A desirable end, perhaps a hopeless objective.’ (t)

‘My unkindest critics maintain that I am making lampshades out of human skin. This puzzles me. Perhaps at the bottom of the Anglo-Saxon soul there is a still small voice forever whispering: “Is this Quaite Naice?” and my books never seem to pass the test.’

SCOBIE’S COMMON USAGE

Expressions noted from Scobie’s quaint conversation, his use of certain words, as:

Vivid, meaning ‘angry’, ex.: ‘Don’t be so vivid, old man.’

Mauve, meaning ‘silly’, ex.: ‘He was just plain mauve when it came to, etc.’

Spoof, meaning ‘trick’, ex.: ‘Don’t spoof me, old boy.’

Ritual, meaning ‘habit, form’, ex.: ‘We all wear them. It’s ritual for the police.’

Squalid, meaning ‘very elated’, ex.: ‘Toby was squalid with joy when the news came.’

Septic, meaning ‘unspeakable’, ex.: ‘What septic weather today!’

Saffron Walden, meaning ‘male brothel’, ex.: ‘He was caught in a Saffron Walden, old man, covered in jam.’

Cloud Cuckoo, meaning ‘male prostitute’, ex.: ‘Budgie says there’s not a cloud cuckoo in the whole of Horsham. He’s advertised.’

WORKPOINTS 

‘How many lovers since Pygmalion have been able to build their beloved’s face out of flesh, as Amaril has?’ asked Clea. The great folio of noses so lovingly copied for him to choose from — Nefertiti to Cleopatra. The readings in a darkened room.

* * *

Narouz always held in the back of his consciousness the memory of the moonlit room; his father sitting in the wheel-chair at the mirror, repeating the one phrase over and over again as he pointed the pistol at the looking- glass.

* * *

Mountolive was swayed by the dangerous illusion that now at last he was free to conceive and act — the one misjudgement which decides the fate of a diplomat.

* * *

Nessim said sadly: ‘All motive is mixed. You see, from the moment I married her, a Jewess, all their reservations disappeared and they ceased to suspect me. I do not say it was the only reason. Love is a wonderfully luxuriant plant, but unclassifiable really, fading as it does into mysticism on the one side and naked cupidity on the other.’

* * *

This now explained something to me which had hitherto puzzled me; namely that after his death Da Capo’s huge library was moved over to Smyrna, book by book. Balthazar did the packing and posting.

NOTE IN THE TEXT

* Page 298

From Eugene Marais’s The Soul of The White Ant.

MOUNTOLIVE

A

CLAUDE

NOTE

All the characters and situations described in this book (a sibling to Justine and Balthazar and the third volume of a quartet) are purely imaginary. I have exercised a novelist’s right in taking a few necessary liberties with modern Middle Eastern history and the staff-structure of the Diplomatic Service.

The dream dissipated, were one to recover one’s commonsense mood, the thing would be of but mediocre import — ’tis the story of mental wrongdoing. Everyone knows very well and it offends no one. But alas! one sometimes carries the thing a little further. What, one dares wonder, what would not be the idea’s realization if its mere abstract shape thus exalted has just so profoundly moved one? The accursed reverie is vivified and its existence is a crime.