Don Fernando wrote in the same way, wearing his inscrutable smile. A critic had written that he flogged his characters with nettles and tickled them to insanity. There truly was a sadistic side to his writing: he invented people to torture them. But the torture was by no means cruel or painful. On the contrary, the characters laughed and rejoiced, but they laughed like madmen and were bathed in the cold sweat of dismay, as if the author were flogging them into merriment.
“No, I’m really not smiling,” said Don Fernando almost angrily, feeling the reproachful glances of the entire company on his person. “What have you gone silent for? Please proceed, Maestro.”
“Oh no, no way,” grumbled Maestro in a hurt voice, “I can’t do this in front of Europe. The scornful face of the most exquisite taste is standing over my piggish talent and smirking. The talent may be piggish, but the pride is not, Monsieur le GoÛt!” He gave Don Fernando a sharp, almost menacing look.
“No, Maestro,” interceded Melkior, in a placating tone, “he really is not smiling. It’s just his face.”
Don Fernando lashed Melkior with a quick scornful glance, but, as if afraid of being caught out, he immediately diluted it with the saintly mercy that he had gushed tonight from his bright eyes all over the Give’nTake.
The Give’nTake did not very often have the honor of being caressed by Don Fernando’s eyes. It was a house of drink-sodden madcap living, of devil-may-care and mindless time-wasting, whereas he was a serious and responsible man. He worked, he wrote, he thought. No, by no means did he belong here, and it was a mystery why he came at all. It was where the Parampions performed their lunatic “shows,” while he, sensible and sober like a gracious Sun, would spare a ray of attention to throw some light on the silly muddle, and then put its lights out again and, in full blackout, sail away into unreachability.
Don Fernando was simply impregnable. How hard had Ugo tried to disarm the man and subject him to the power of his “eloquence,” to topple him from the throne of indifferent and silent derision, to bring him into line and make him one of “the boys”! Don Fernando would immediately surrender, lay down his arms, put his hands up, even insist that there was nothing special about him, nothing unusual, he was an ordinary man, perhaps even … well, an inferior man; all the same he remained alien and aloof which was after all what he wanted to be and seemed to relish.
The silence had become oppressive, as though everyone were waiting for something to happen. Even Ugo was wordless. Or was he purposely letting seriousness kill the fun, rob the jollity, so that he might come on in “grand style” to save the day.
He was a past master at handling such situations.
Melkior felt the worst. Whence the guilty feeling? It seemed to him that all eyes were trained on him in a kind of expectation as if he could come up with a solution. What had he gone and tampered with Don Fernando’s ineffable divinity for? It had soared frighteningly high above his pedestrian powers, and he had long been cultivating the patient policy of the believer who envies the omnipotence of his God. But into the envy crept some insidious antipathy that he unconsciously sought to disperse with a strange readiness to sacrifice himself. And every time he caught himself preparing for the sacrifice, even as the inferior feeling of fulsome humility was hatching, there also emerged anger and disgust along the way, with himself along with everything else. Whence the slimy feeling of crawling mendacity which clung faithfully to the superior and hated person? Step forward, any who are immune to that particular brand of perfidy! Oh, human nature! sighed Melkior “from deep down inside,” cleverly impersonating his conscience, as if he had deftly used “human nature” to plug a stench-spewing bottle.
“I suggest,” Chicory Hasdrubalson spoke up mournfully, mid-silence, “that the entire Parampionic Fraternity humbly ask the great Don Fernando to adopt a sad mask suitable for a pompe funèbres director, following which we should equally humbly ask the immortal Maestro to carry the remains of the dear departed out of the house of sorrow so that we might fittingly mourn it as one.”
They interrupted him with a chorus of laughter (which included Maestro’s angry grunts). Ugo amply rewarded Chicory with kisses on behalf of the entire fraternity … and things got going nicely again after the standstill. But silence descended suddenly again like darkness and choked the barely revived merriment.
Something was happening on Don Fernando’s face and it instantly affected everyone, as if sunspots had appeared and brought about an abrupt climate change. Indeed, dark spots had appeared on both Don Fernando’s ruddy cheeks and a grim cloud of anger flew across his eyes. True, he whisked the cloud right away so that no lightning flashed in his eyes, but the spots spread on his cheeks, covering them to the ears.
There was a solar eclipse. A devout silence fell upon the party at the table and mystic anxiety swept through the entire Give’nTake. Doomsday was expected. But in the midst of expectation Maestro finished his glass while Ugo grinned derisively at the darkened sun — Don Fernando’s face — intrepidly displaying his black fillings.
Was it the fillings themselves or the heretic defiance of the two chief Parampions that upset the exalted balance of Don Fernando’s divine serenity? He snatched his glass greedily as if about to drain it, held it tightly gripped in his hand for a moment (he was trying against all odds to resist temptation), and then with an easy swing, but producing an extremely telling effect, dashed the wine across the table smack into Ugo’s teeth. He then stood up without looking at anyone and strode unhurriedly out of the Give’nTake.
Freddie was triumphant, of course. Such unexpected revenge at another’s hand! Hurrah! Bravo! He applauded, shouted, chortled with glee, loudly, too loudly. Even she tried to tame him, stroking his hand, pleading with him to restrain himself. She saw nothing funny in the excess, her sympathy was apparently with Ugo. (Oh how Melkior was grateful!) At length she let go of Freddie’s hand, stood up and approached Ugo with tender concern.
“Did he get you in the eyes?” she asked, pulling Ugo’s hands away from his eyes.
Melkior felt a sweet, unmanly ache of tenderness clutch his throat. How kind she is. How dear.
Ugo was rubbing his eyes to gain time (Don Fernando had caught him by surprise), whereas she thought he was …
“Did it get into your eyes?”
“No, love,” he said in a seductively tender voice, suddenly embracing her and kissing her on the mouth.
What a cad! Melkior thought jealously, while the other end of his thought rejoiced. Desecration of compassion, rape of the angel! he added derisively and watched her eyes filling with tears of surprise. She covered her face with her hands and blindly staggered back to Freddie. He took hold of her protectively and sat her down in a chair. He then made toward Ugo, rolling his hips as he had seen in the cinema: here comes the terrible avenger. But he adjusted his tie in passing and halted at a reasonable distance.
“Listen here, you ape! Come outside if you are the man you pretend to be.”
“No I won’t come out, fair knight!” Ugo bowed like Sganarel. “You would joust like an errant knight for your lady’s honor, but I’d rather not fight you just now. For some reason or other I’m not in the mood really — I had a bad dream last night … as I said, seven o’clock tomorrow at the upper Maksimir lake. This is still on. Tomorrow I shall spear you with a silver fork as stated, with all the honors due to your exceptional person. And now please leave alone the man whom Destiny has chosen to be splashed with the Dionysian drink by the hand of her great son. A moment ago I entered the biography of a great man! Future Ph.D.s will be quoting me in their doctoral theses, students will be flunking their exams because of me, learned thinkers will be referring to me in footnotes. Thanks to Don Fernando’s sublime gesture you now stand before a historical person, you miserable wretch!”