Sinister Street by Compton Mackenzie (great books to read TXT) 📕

“And I’m taking you very seriously,” said Michael. “That’s why I won’t write a line. Are you going to have illustrations?”

“We might have one drawing. I’m not quite sure how much it costs to reproduce a drawing. But it would be fun to publish some rather advanced stuff.”

“Well, as long as you don’t publish drawings that look as if the compositor had suddenly got angry with the page and thrown asterisks at it, and as long as⁠—”

“Oh, shut up,” interrupted the dreaming editor, “and don’t fall into that tiresome undergraduate cynicism. It’s so young.”

“But I am young,” Michael pointed out with careful gravity. “So are you. And, Maurice, really you know for me my own ambitions are best. I’ve got a great sense of responsibility, and if I were to start going through life trying to do things, I should worry myself all the time. The only chance for me is to find a sort of negative attitude to life like Prescott. You’ll do lots of things. I think you’re capable of them. But I’d rather watch. At least in my present mood I would. I’d give anything to feel I was a leader of men or whatever it is you are. But I’m not. I’ve got a sister whom you ought to meet. She’s got all the positive energy in our family. I can’t explain, Maurice, just exactly what I’m feeling about existence at this moment, unless I tell you more about myself than I possibly can⁠—anyway yet a while. I don’t want to do any harm, and I don’t think I could ever feel I was in a position to do any good. Look here, don’t let’s talk any more. I meant to dream myself into an attitude tonight, and you’ve made me talk like an earnest young convert.”

“I think I’ll go round and consult Wedderburn about this paper,” said Avery excitedly.

“He thinks you’re patronizing,” Michael warned him.

Avery pulled up, suddenly hurt:

“Does he? I wonder why.”

“But he won’t, if you ask his advice about reproducing advanced drawings.”

“Doesn’t he like me?” persisted Avery. “I’d better not go round to his rooms.”

“Don’t be foolish, Maurice. Your sensitiveness is really all spoiled vanity.”

When Avery had hesitatingly embarked upon his expedition to Wedderburn, Michael thought rather regretfully of his presence and wished he had been more sympathetic in his reception of the great scheme. Yet perhaps that was the best way to have begun his own scheme for not being disturbed by life. Michael thought how easily he might have had to reproach himself over Lily Haden. He had escaped once. There should be no more active exposure to frets and fevers. Looking back on his life, Michael came to the conclusion that henceforth books should give him his adventures. Actually he almost made up his mind to retire even from the observation of reality, so much had he felt, all this Christmas vacation, the dominance of Stella and so deeply had he been impressed by Prescott’s attitude of inscrutable commentary.

Michael was greatly amused when two or three evenings later he strolled round to Wedderburn’s rooms to find him and Maurice Avery sitting in contemplation of about twenty specimen covers of The Oxford Looking-Glass that were pinned against the wall on a piece of old lemon-colored silk. He was greatly amused to find that the reconciling touch of the Muses had united Avery and Wedderburn in a firm friendship⁠—so much amused indeed that he allowed himself to be nominated to serve on the obstetrical committee that was to effect the birth of this undergraduate bantling.

“Though what exactly you want me to do,” protested Michael, “I don’t quite know.”

“We want money, anyway,” Avery frankly admitted. “Oh, and by the way, Michael, I’ve asked Goldney, the Treasurer of the O.U.D.S. to put you up.”

“What on earth for?” gasped Michael.

“Oh, they’ll want supers. They’re doing The Merchant of Venice. Great sport. Wedders is going to join. I want him to play the Prince of Morocco.”

“But are you running the O.U.D.S. as well as The Oxford Looking-Glass?” Michael inquired gently.

In the end, however, he was persuaded by Avery to become a member, and not only to join himself but to persuade other St. Mary’s freshmen, including Lonsdale, to join. The preliminary readings and the rehearsals certainly passed away the Lent term very well, for though Michael was not cast for a speaking part, he had the satisfaction of seeing Wedderburn and Avery play respectively the Princes of Morocco and Arragon, and of helping Lonsdale to entertain the professional actresses who came up from London to take part in the production.

“I think I ought to have played Lorenzo,” said Lonsdale seriously to Michael, just before the first night. “I think Miss Delacourt would have preferred to play Jessica to my Lorenzo. As it is I’m only a gondolier, an attendant, and a soldier.”

Michael was quite relieved when this final lament burst forth. It seemed to set Lonsdale once more securely in the ranks of the amateurs. There had been a dangerous fluency of professional terminology in “my Lorenzo.”

“I’m only a gondolier, an attendant, and a mute judge,” Michael observed.

“And I don’t think that ass from Oriel knows how to play Lorenzo,” Lonsdale went on. “He doesn’t appreciate acting with Miss Delacourt. I wonder if my governor would be very sick if I chucked the Foreign Office and went on the stage. Do you think I could act, if I had a chance? I’m perfectly sure I could act with Miss Delacourt. Don’t forget you’re lunching with me tomorrow. I don’t mind telling you she threw over a lunch with that ass from Oriel who’s playing Lorenzo. I never heard such an idiotic voice in my life.”

Such conversations coupled with requests from Wedderburn and Maurice Avery to hear them their two long speeches seemed to Michael to occupy all his leisure that term. At the same time he enjoyed the rehearsals in the lecture rooms at Christ Church, and he enjoyed escaping sometimes