We squabbled like children. After much debate, we finally decided on a restaurant called Gary Danko, which the guide we'd bought listed as number one in the local area.
Lovely place, all polished wood floors gleaming like gold, dimmed lights over cozy white tables, wood-slatted windows casting striped shadows from the setting sun across the silverware and linen. The fragrance of roses and of wine hung in the air. I suppose it was a small restaurant, compared with some, but to me it looked enormous.
They never starved us at the Academy, and they had staff to wait on us at meals, which I suppose is unusual, so you would think we'd be used to dining. But the difference here was that we got to choose our own food.
What food it was! It was served on little white dishes, looking almost too beautiful to eat. (I recommend the guinea hen breast and rillettes, though the lobster salad-I ate some off Vanity's plate-was quite tasty, too.) They served twenty types of cheeses from a cart, each one better than the last.
Imagine being able to eat as much as you'd like, without Mrs. Wren or Dr. Fell telling you no.
Freedom cannot be good for the figure. Are Americans fatter than Cubans because they're free?
I remember making some comment along these lines to the group.
Quentin looked glum and shook his head. "Unleashing the appetites is not freedom, but another type of slavery. Freedom in the absence of virtue will destroy a country as quickly as any tyranny."
Victor said, "Virtue imposed from without is not virtue at all, but merely prudence. A man who avoids lying merely because a law tells him to tell the truth will avoid telling the truth as soon as the law tells him to lie."
Quentin said, "The whole universe is built on a hierarchic principle, spirits being made of finer substances than gross matter, quintessence being finer than aether. A democracy flattens differences between men, and too soon they lose the distinction between better and worse, noble and base, good and evil. Have you seen what they call art here, compared to what we studied in school? These people need a queen. To bow to a crowned sovereign would teach them respect for great and ancient things, so that when, after death, they met things greater and more ancient than mere man, they would be ready."
Victor, who cared nothing one way or the other for art, said, "I believe in the principle of atomism: let each individual stand or fall on his own. The ancient things we are running from have done nothing to convince me the Americans, or anyone else, should bow to them."
I said, "Speaking of gross matter, what do you think, Colin?"
He raised his wineglass. "When Ireland gets the atom bomb, we'll see how well Q-man's
'hierarchic principle of the universe' holds out! Down with crowned head, on Earth, in Heaven, or in Hell!"
Vanity said, "You're not really Irish, you know."
Colin said, "So what? I like 'em. Oscar Wilde, W. B. Yeats."
"Do you know anything about Yeats?"
Colin looked pompous and offended. He jarred the wineglass down on the table. "Do I indeed, the colleen, she asks? And me a true son of the Old Sod? Faith! Hear this: When you are old and gray and full of sleep, And nodding by the fire, take down this book, And slowly read, and dream of the soft look Your eyes had once, and of their shadows deep; How many loved your moments of glad grace, And loved your beauty with love false or true; But one man loved the pilgrim soul in you, And loved the sorrows of your changing face.
And bending down beside the glowing bars Murmur, a little sadly, how Love fled And paced upon the mountains overhead And hid his face amid a crowd of stars.
Vanity was taken aback. "That's a beautiful poem." "To be sure, and it is!" declared Colin, lifting his wineglass again to his lips with relish. "I don't know what the first two stanzas are on about, but I've always wanted a crown of stars like the one Love hides his face in on the mountain. I assume he meant Cupid atop Olympos. Wonder how he knew Cupid was crowned King after Terminus fell? Quentin, can you summon up his ghost to ask him?"
Quentin nodded, and mentioned some of the disgusting things he'd have to get or to do to perform the necromancy. Victor said, "The poem said 'crowd,' not 'crown.'" Colin shrugged. "Miss Daw told me once that you can interpret a poem how you like, so I interpret that Yeats's pen slipped when he wrote that last line. I'm sure he meant to say 'crown.'" I said, "And what do you think of America?" Colin nodded at me. "I am suspicious of anything you like, Amelia, just on principle; but on the other hand, everyone says California girls are hot, young, wet, and eager, so the place cannot be all bad."
Vanity commented: "Ah! The echoes from the shallow well! Colin, I would call you a boor, except I know some boors who are quite nicer than you. She was asking what you thought of their system of government."
Colin spread his hands. "What? I've walked into a bank and ate in a restaurant. I haven't seen a race riot or a public hanging since I've been here, so I guess their system of government is holding up for this afternoon. What kind of question is that, anyway? That's all theory. Democracy or tyranny or communism or capitalism. It's all something someone made up in his head. It's not real.
The reality is that people will do whatever they want to do, and make up some excuse later why they did. Political economics is a list of excuses to use."
I said, "Well, God bless America, I say. These people are the freest on Earth."
Colin picked up his fork and jabbed it in my direction. "Which means they are the freest pigs in the sty. And the Olympians are the swineherds. It does not matter what these people do or do not do. The bloody gods and goddesses are running the show here. The freedom you see around you is a facade, a false face. If you care about freedom for Americans or Englishmen or Irishmen (the finest race on Earth, let me just say), then you have to declare war against Heaven and Hell, against wind and wave and fire, and every other place the old gods dwell."
Victor said calmly, "I do not disagree with what you say, Colin, but let us see to securing our own freedom first."