her ‘Floreat Azania’…
“Envoy, if you laugh so much we’ll have to stop playing.”
“Upon my soul, though, that’s funny.”
“Mum, do you think that young man with the Connollys is the one who called?”
“I daresay. We must ask him to something sometime. Perhaps hell be here for the Christmas luncheon… but he seems to have plenty of friends already.”
“Mum, don’t be snobbish—particularly now Connolly’s a Duke. Do let’s have him to everything al-ways…”
Basil said, “I’ve been trying to catch the Emperor’s eye. I don’t believe he remembers me.”
“The old boy’s on rather a high horse now the war’s over. He’ll come down a peg when the bills start coming in. They’ve brought us a better bottle of fizz this time. Like Fyodor’s impudence trying to palm off that other stuff on us.”
“I wonder if it would be possible to arrange an audience.”
“Look here, old boy, have you come here to enjoy yourself or have you not? I’ve been in camp with that Emperor off and on for the last six months and I want to forget him. Give Black Bitch some bubbly and help yourself and for the love of Mike talk smut.”
“Monsieur Jean, something terrible has come to my knowledge,” said the French second secretary.
“Tell me,” said the first secretary.
“I can scarcely bring myself to do so. It affects the honour of the Minister’s wife.”
‘Incredible. Tell me at once. It is your duty to France.’
“For France, then… when affected by wine she made an assignation with the Duke of Ukaka. He loves her.”
“Who would have thought it possible? Where?”
“In the toilette at the Palace.”
“But there is no toilette at the Palace.”
“Sir Samson Courteney has written evidence to that effect. The paper has been folded into a nar-row strip. No doubt it was conveyed to him by one of his spies. Perhaps in a roll of bread.”
“Extraordinary. We will keep this from the Minister. We will watch, ourselves. It is a secret between us. No good can come of it. Alas, poor Monsieur Ballon. He trusted her. We must prevent this thing.”
“For France.”
“For France and Monsieur Ballon.”
“… I have never observed Madame Ballon the worse for drink…”
Paper caps were resumed; bonnets of liberty, conical dunces’ hats, jockey caps, Napoleonic cas-ques, hats for pierrots and harlequins, postmen, highlanders, old Mothers Hubbard and little Misses Muffet over faces of every complexion, brown as boots, chalk white, dun and the fresh boiled pink of Northern Europe. False noses again; brilliant sheaths of pigmented cardboard attached to noses of every anthropological type, the high arch of the Semite, freckled Nordic snouts, broad black nostrils from swamp villages of the mainland, the pulpy in-flamed flesh of the alcoholic, and unlovely syphilitic voids. Ribbons of coloured paper tangled and snapped about the dancers’ feet; coloured balls volleyed from table to table. One, erratically thrown by Madame Fifi, bounced close to the royal box; the Minister of the Interior facetiously applauded her aim. Prince Fyodor glanced anxiously about him. His patrons were beginning to enjoy themselves. If only the Emperor would soon leave; an incident might occur at any moment.
But Seth sat alone among the palms and garlands, apparently deep in thought; his fingers fidgeted with the stem of his wine glass; sometimes, without raising his head, he half furtively surveyed the room. The equerries behind his chair despaired of per-mission to dance. If only His Majesty would go home, then they could slip back before the fun was all over…
“Old boy, your pal the Great Panjandrum is something of a damper on this happy throng. Why can’t the silly mutt go off home and leave us to have a jolly up.”
“Can’t conceive why young Seth doesn’t move. Can’t be enjoying himself,”
But the Emperor sat tight. This was the celebration of his Victory. This was the society of Debra-Dowa. There was the British Minister happy as a parent at a children’s party. There was the Minister of the Interior, behaving hideously. There was the Commander-in-Chief of the Azanian army. And with him was Basil Seal. Seth recognised him in his first grave survey of the restaurant and suddenly, on this triumphal night in his own capital, he was over- come by shyness. It was nearly three years since they last met, and Seth recalled the light drizzle of rain in the Oxford quadrangle, a scout carrying a tray of dirty plates, a group of undergraduates in tweeds lounging about among bicycles in the porch. He had been an undergraduate of no account in his College, amiably classed among Bengali babus, Siamese and grammar school scholars as one of the remote and praiseworthy people who had come a long way to the University. Basil had enjoyed a reputation of peculiar brilliance among his contemporaries. On the rare occasions when evangelically-minded undergraduates asked Seth to tea or coffee, his name occurred in the conversation with awed disapproval. He played poker for high stakes. His luncheon parties lasted until dusk, his dinner parties dispersed in riot. Lovely young women visited him from London in high-powered cars. He went away for week-ends without leave and climbed into College over the tiles at night. He had travelled all over Europe, spoke six languages, called dons by their Christian names and discussed their books with them.
Seth had met him at breakfast with the Master of the College. Basil had talked to him about Azanian topography, the Nestorian Church, Sakuyu dialects, the idosyncrasies of the chief diplomats in Debra-Dowa. Two days later he invited him to luncheon. There had been two peers present and the President of the Union, the editor of a new undergraduate paper and a young don. Seth had sat silent and entranced throughout the afternoon. Later after long consultation with his scout, he had returned the invitation. Basil accepted and at the last moment made his excuses for not coming. There the acquaintance had ended. Three years had intervened during which Seth had become Emperor, but Basil still stood for him as the personification of all that glittering, intangible Western culture to which he aspired. And there he was, unaccountably, at the Connollys’ table. What must he be thinking? If only the Minister for the Interior were more sober…
