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100 pages

English

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pubOne.info present you this new edition. There are good things which we want to share with the world and good things which we want to keep to ourselves. The secret of our favourite restaurant, to take a case, is guarded jealously from all but a few intimates; the secret, to take a contrary case, of our infallible remedy for seasickness is thrust upon every traveller we meet, even if he be no more than a casual acquaintance about to cross the Serpentine. So with our books. There are dearly loved books of which we babble to a neighbour at dinner, insisting that she shall share our delight in them; and there are books, equally dear to us, of which we say nothing, fearing lest the praise of others should cheapen the glory of our discovery. The books of "Saki" were, for me at least, in the second class.

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Short story

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Publié par	Pub One Info
Date de parution	06 novembre 2010
Nombre de lectures	0
EAN13	9782819949930
Langue	English

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INTRODUCTION
There are good things which we want to share withthe world and good things which we want to keep to ourselves. Thesecret of our favourite restaurant, to take a case, is guardedjealously from all but a few intimates; the secret, to take acontrary case, of our infallible remedy for seasickness is thrustupon every traveller we meet, even if he be no more than a casualacquaintance about to cross the Serpentine. So with our books.There are dearly loved books of which we babble to a neighbour atdinner, insisting that she shall share our delight in them; andthere are books, equally dear to us, of which we say nothing,fearing lest the praise of others should cheapen the glory of ourdiscovery. The books of “Saki” were, for me at least, in the secondclass.
It was in the WESTMINSTER GAZETTE that I discoveredhim (I like to remember now) almost as soon as he was discoverable.Let us spare a moment, and a tear, for those golden days in theearly nineteen hundreds, when there were five leisurely papers ofan evening in which the free-lance might graduate, and he couldspeak of his Alma Mater, whether the GLOBE or the PALL MALL, withas much pride as, he never doubted, the GLOBE or the PALL MALLwould speak one day of him. Myself but lately down from ST. JAMES',I was not too proud to take some slight but pitying interest in menof other colleges. The unusual name of a freshman up at WESTMINSTERattracted my attention; I read what he had to say; and it was onlyby reciting rapidly with closed eyes the names of our own famousalumni, beginning confidently with Barrie and ending, now verydoubtfully, with myself, that I was able to preserve my equanimity.Later one heard that this undergraduate from overseas had gone upat an age more advanced than customary; and just as Cambridge menhave been known to complain of the maturity of Oxford Rhodesscholars, so one felt that this WESTMINSTER free-lance in thethirties was no fit competitor for the youth of other colleges.Indeed, it could not compete.
Well, I discovered him, but only to the few, thefavoured, did I speak of him. It may have been my uncertainty(which still persists) whether he called himself Sayki, Sahki orSakki which made me thus ungenerous of his name, or it may havebeen the feeling that the others were not worthy of him; but howrefreshing it was when some intellectually blown-up stranger said“Do you ever read Saki? ” to reply, with the same pronunciation andeven greater condescension: “Saki! He has been my favourite authorfor years! ”
A strange exotic creature, this Saki, to us manyothers who were trying to do it too. For we were so domestic, he soterrifyingly cosmopolitan. While we were being funny, as planned,with collar-studs and hot-water bottles, he was being much funnierwith werwolves and tigers. Our little dialogues were between Johnand Mary; his, and how much better, between Bertie van Tahn and theBaroness. Even the most casual intruder into one of his sketches,as it might be our Tomkins, had to be called Belturbet or de Ropp,and for his hero, weary man-of-the-world at seventeen, nothing lessthrilling than Clovis Sangrail would do. In our envy we may havewondered sometimes if it were not much easier to be funny withtigers than with collar-studs; if Saki's careless cruelty, thatstrange boyish insensitiveness of his, did not give him an unfairstart in the pursuit of laughter. It may have been so; but,fortunately, our efforts to be funny in the Saki manner have notsurvived to prove it.
What is Saki's manner, what his magic talisman? Likeevery artist worth consideration, he had no recipe. If his exoticchoice of subject was often his strength, it was often hisweakness; if his insensitiveness carried him through, at times, tovictory, it brought him, at times, to defeat. I do not think thathe has that “mastery of the CONTE”— in this book at least— whichsome have claimed for him. Such mastery infers a passion fortidiness which was not in the boyish Saki's equipment. He leavesloose ends everywhere. Nor in his dialogue, delightful as it oftenis, funny as it nearly always is, is he the supreme master; toomuch does it become monologue judiciously fed, one character givingand the other taking. But in comment, in reference, in description,in every development of his story, he has a choice of words, a “wayof putting things” which is as inevitably his own vintage as, oncetasted, it becomes the private vintage of the connoisseur.
Let us take a sample or two of “Saki, 1911. ”
“The earlier stages of the dinner had worn off. Thewine lists had been consulted, by some with the blank embarrassmentof a schoolboy suddenly called upon to locate a Minor Prophet inthe tangled hinterland of the Old Testament, by others with thesevere scrutiny which suggests that they have visited most of thehigher-priced wines in their own homes and probed their familyweaknesses. ”
“Locate” is the pleasant word here. Still moresatisfying, in the story of the man who was tattooed “fromcollar-bone to waist-line with a glowing representation of the Fallof Icarus, ” is the word “privilege”:
“The design when finally developed was a slightdisappointment to Monsieur Deplis, who had suspected Icarus ofbeing a fortress taken by Wallenstein in the Thirty Years' War, buthe was more than satisfied with the execution of the work, whichwas acclaimed by all who had the privilege of seeing it asPincini's masterpiece. ”
This story, THE BACKGROUND, and MRS PACKLETIDE'STIGER seem to me to be the masterpieces of this book. In both ofthem Clovis exercises, needlessly, his titular right of entry, buthe can be removed without damage, leaving Saki at his best and mostcharacteristic, save that he shows here, in addition to his ownshining qualities, a compactness and a finish which he did notalways achieve. With these I introduce you to him, confident thatten minutes of his conversation, more surely than any words ofmine, will have given him the freedom of your house.
A. A. MILNE.
ESMÉ
“All hunting stories are the same, ” said Clovis;“just as all Turf stories are the same, and all— ”
“My hunting story isn't a bit like any you've everheard, ” said the Baroness. “It happened quite a while ago, when Iwas about twenty-three. I wasn't living apart from my husband then;you see, neither of us could afford to make the other a separateallowance. In spite of everything that proverbs may say, povertykeeps together more homes than it breaks up. But we always huntedwith different packs. All this has nothing to do with the story.”
“We haven't arrived at the meet yet. I suppose therewas a meet, ” said Clovis.
“Of course there was a meet, ” said the Baroness;all the usual crowd were there, especially Constance Broddle.Constance is one of those strapping florid girls that go so wellwith autumn scenery or Christmas decorations in church. 'I feel apresentiment that something dreadful is going to happen, ' she saidto me; 'am I looking pale? '
"She was looking about as pale as a beetroot thathas suddenly heard bad news.
“'You're looking nicer than usual, ' I said, 'butthat's so easy for you. ' Before she had got the right bearings ofthis remark we had settled down to business; hounds had found a foxlying out in some gorse-bushes. ”
“I knew it, ” said Clovis, “in every fox-huntingstory that I've ever heard there's been a fox and somegorse-bushes. ”
“Constance and I were well mounted, ” continued theBaroness serenely, "and we had no difficulty in keeping ourselvesin the first flight, though it was a fairly stiff run. Towards thefinish, however, we must have held rather too independent a line,for we lost the hounds, and found ourselves plodding aimlesslyalong miles away from anywhere. It was fairly exasperating, and mytemper was beginning to let itself go by inches, when on pushingour way through an accommodating hedge we were gladdened by thesight of hounds in full cry in a hollow just beneath us.
"'There they go, ' cried Constance, and then addedin a gasp, 'In Heaven's name, what are they hunting? '
"It was certainly no mortal fox. It stood more thantwice as high, had a short, ugly head, and an enormous thickneck.
"'It's a hyaena, ' I cried; 'it must have escapedfrom Lord Pabham's Park. '
"At that moment the hunted beast turned and facedits pursuers, and the hounds (there were only about six couple ofthem) stood round in a half-circle and looked foolish. Evidentlythey had broken away from the rest of the pack on the trail of thisalien scent, and were not quite sure how to treat their quarry nowthey had got him.
"The hyaena hailed our approach with unmistakablerelief and demonstrations of friendliness. It had probably beenaccustomed to uniform kindness from humans, while its firstexperience of a pack of hounds had left a bad impression. Thehounds looked more than ever embarrassed as their quarry paradedits sudden intimacy with us, and the faint toot of a horn in thedistance was seized on as a welcome signal for unobtrusivedeparture. Constance and I and the hyaena were left alone in thegathering twilight.
"'What are we to do? ' asked Constance.
"'What a person you are for questions, ' I said.
"'Well, we can't stay here all night with a hyaena,' she retorted.
"'I don't know what your ideas of comfort are, ' Isaid; 'but I shouldn't think of staying here all night even withouta hyaena. My home may be an unhappy one, but at least it has hotand cold water laid on, and domestic service, and otherconveniences which we shouldn't find here. We had better make forthat ridge of trees to the right; I imagine the Crowley road isjust beyond. '
"We trotted off slowly along a faintly markedcart-track, with the beast following cheerfully at our heels.
"'What on earth are we to do with the hyaena? ' camethe inevitable question.
"'What does one generally do with hyaenas? ' I askedcrossly.
"'I've never had anything to do with one before, 'said Constance.
"'Well, neither have I. If we even knew its sex wemight