Biffed

 After watching the rayther miserable teevee adaptation of it recently, the Mothe was inspired to re-read Evelyn Waugh’s Sword of Honor trilogy, which regular port-swillers will remember is one of Robbo’s very favorite works in all of literature.

I mentioned this to the Mothe over the weekend, to which she replied, “Oh, you like Guy Crouchback [the protagonist of the books] because you identify yourself with him.”

Well, yes.  Yes, I do.

You see, Guy, although he is a very good man, has always been an outsider.  In the first pages of Men At Arms, the first book of the trilogy, Waugh describes Guy’s status in the context of his leaving the family’s castello on the coast of Italy to return to England to fight in WWII:

He was not loved, Guy knew, either by his household or in the town.  He was accepted and respected but he was not simpatico.  Gräfin von Gluck, who spoke no word of Italian and lived in undisguised concubinage with her butler, was simpatico.  Mrs. Garry was simpatico, who distributed Protestant tracts, interfered with the fishermen’s methods of killing octopuses and filled her house with stray cats.

Guy’s uncle, Peregrine, a bore of international repute, whose dread presence could empty the room in any centre of civilization, – Uncle Peregrine was considered molto simpatico.  The Wilmots were gross vulgarians; they used Santa Dulcina purely as a pleasure resort, subscribed to no local funds, gave rowdy parties and wore indecent clothes, talked of “wops” and often left after the summer with their bills to the tradesmen unpaid; but they had four boisterous and ill-favored daughters whom the Santa-Dulchinesi had watched grow up.  Better than this, they had lost a son bathing here from the rocks.  The Santa-Dulchesi participated in these joys and sorrows.  They observed with relish their hasty and unobtrusive departures at the end of the holidays.  They were simpatici.  Even Musgrave who had the Castelletto before the Wilmots and bequeathed it his name, Musgrave who, it was said, could not go to England or America because of warrants for his arrest, “Musgrave the Monster”, as the Crouchbacks used to call him – he was simpatico.  Guy alone, whom they had known from infancy, who spoke their language and conformed to their religion, who was open-handed in all his dealings and scrupulously respectful of all their ways, whose grandfather built their school, whose mother had given a set of vestments embroidered by the Royal School of Needlework for the annual procession of St. Dulcina’s bones – Guy alone was a stranger among them.

Yes, I confess that I see much of myself in this.  Although my upbringing was – obviously – tremendously different, I, too, always have felt like an outsider, and have never, ever considered myself to be simpatico.  (Not that I would even want to be, given the state of things these days.) 

I note this not for sympathy or pity, but just as an observation.  Although in many respects my life has always been very lonely, I don’t generally spend much time dwelling on it. Indeed, I only mention it here because of the fact that I like the character of Guy Crouchback so much and because the Mothe happened to make such an astute observation as to the reasons why.     

 

Daddy Time

Friends, here’s where I earn the incredibly big bucks the lavish benefits package the undying gratitude of my country the completely unacknowledged St. Joseph award.

I came home this evening to find the eldest gel in a state of what I can only describe as fear of herself.  You see, on Tuesdays, Mrs. Robbo nips up to Baltimore to work on some grad studies at Johns-Hopkins.  The gels are taken care of by an older friend and fellow teacher of Mrs. R’s until I can make my way back to the Port-Swiller residence.   In general, the system works well enough, except that the eldest gel has never much liked the babysitter.  Late in the afternoon today, it seems the gel asked the sitter if she (the gel) could call me at the office, a habit into which we’ve gotten.  The sitter, apparently not knowing our routine, refused permission on the grounds that the gel shouldn’t be pestering me while I’m busy at work.  Match? Meet gasoline!

Anyhoo, once I’d got home and shooed off the sitter, the gel came sidling up and confessed the highlights of this episode to me.  Upon my assuring her that obviously the sitter had not known what was acceptable and that we would of course educate her prior to next week, the gel then suddenly proceeded to unburden herself of the fact that over the past couple of days she has been flying into rages and bursting into tears for, as far as she can see, no reason whatever.  It especially puzzled her because she had had such outbursts before but had thought that she learned to get them under control some time ago.

Well, what are Dads for, after all.  Very calmly and gently, I gave her lots of hugs and assurances that everything was just fine.  I then sat her down and gave her a brief talk on hormones and bodily changes and the inability of young brains to take in such seismic shifts all at once.   What was remarkable was that, contrary to her usual practice, the gel didn’t even bother to deny anything, but instead seemed to cling to my explanation, both figuratively and literally.  We ended by agreeing that what she really needed was a good night’s rest.  So she borrowed one of my CD’s of Bach oboe concerti and with something approaching a smile, slipped off to bed.

Dear Lord, as often as I want to strangle her I do love that child.