The Rebel Angels

"There you are, my dear, and surely a man after your own heart. My great forebear Sir Thomas Urquhart, first and still unquestionably the best translator of Rabelais. Hello, Simon, do you know Maria Theotoky? Precious on two counts, because she is a great beauty and a female Rabelaisian. They used to say that no decent woman could read Rabelais. Are you decent, Maria? I hope not."

"I haven't read the Urquhart translation," said Maria. "I stick to the French."

"But what you are missing! A great monument of scholarship and seventeenth-century English! And what rich neologisms! Slabberdegullion druggels, lubbardly louts, blockish grutnols, doddipol joltheads, lobdotterels, codshead loobies, ninny-hammer flycatchers, and other suchlike defamatory epithets! How on earth do we get along without them? You must read it! You must allow me to give you a copy. And is it true, Maria dear, that the thighs of a gentlewoman are always cool? Rabelais says so, and I am sure you know why he says it is so, but is it true?"

"I doubt if Rabelais knew much about gentlewomen," said Maria.

"Probably not. But my ancestor did. He was a tremendous swell. Did you know that he is supposed to have died of ecstasy on hearing of the Restoration of his Sacred Majesty King Charles the Second?"

"I might give a guess about what kind of ecstasy it was," said Maria.

"Oho, touche – touche. And for that you deserve a drink and perhaps you will achieve a measure of ecstasy yourself."

Maria turned away to the bar without waiting for Urky to steer her there. A self-possessed young person, clearly, and not impressed by Urky's noisy, lickerish gallantry. I introduced her to Arthur Cornish, who was the stranger in this academic gathering, and he undertook to get her a drink. She asked for Campari. An unusual and rather expensive drink for a student. I took a more careful look at her clothes, although I don't know much about such things.

Professor Agnes Marley approached me. "You've heard about poor Ellerman? It won't be long now, I'm afraid."

"Really? I must go to see him. I'll go tomorrow."

"They won't let him see any visitors."

"I'm very sorry. There was something he said to me a few weeks ago – a suggestion. I'd like to tell him that I'm acting on it."

"Perhaps if you spoke to his wife –?"

"Of course. That's what I'll do. I think he'd like to know."

Arthur Cornish, and Maria with him, joined us.

"I see that Murray Brown has been taking a swipe at Uncle Frank," he said.

"On what grounds?"

"Having so much money, and leaving so much of it to the University."

"A million to Spook, I hear."

"Oh, yes. But several millions spread around over other colleges and some of the faculties."

"Well, what's wrong with that?"

"The things that are always wrong with Murray Brown. Why should some have so much when others have so little? Why should a man be allowed to choose where his money goes without regard for where money is needed? Why should the University get anything apart from what the government chooses to give it, when it throws its money around on filth and nonsense? You know Murray; the friend of the plain people."

"Murray Brown is what my great ancestor would have called a scurvy sneaksby, or perhaps simply a turdy-gut," said Urky, who had joined us.

"Better not say turdy-gut," said Arthur. "That's one of Murray's beefs; he's heard about some scientist in the University who works on human excrement, and he wants to know where the money is coming from to support such nastiness."

"How does he know it's nastiness?" said Hollier.

"He doesn't, but he can make other people think so. He has tied it in with vivisection, which is another of his themes: torture, and now messing about with dirty things. Is this where our money is being spent? You know his line."

"And where has he said all this?"

"At one of his political rallies; he's getting to work early in preparation for the next election."

"He must be talking about Ozy Froats," said Urky, with one of his sniggering laughs; "Ozy has been playing with other people's droppings for several years. A queer way for a once great footballer to spend his time. Or is it?"

"I thought science was what the demagogues liked," said Agnes Marley. "They think they can discern some practicality in it. It's usually the humanities they have their knives into."

"Oh, he hasn't neglected the humanities. He says some girl has been boasting that she is a virgin, and has been carrying water in a sieve to prove it. What the hell kind of university game is that, Murray asks, with what he would probably call justifiable heat."

"Oh God," said Maria; "he's talking about me."

"My dear Maria," said Urky, "what have you been up to?"