FROM THE ARCHIVES:In this early
Cruiskeen Lawncolumn, Myles na gCopaleen skewered a contemporary intellectual discussing French writers Alfred de Musset and George Sand. –
JOE JOYCE
I WAS in luck the other evening. I went into a house and found the place bristling with all manner of intellectsects [sic]. Nobody sits on a chair on these occasions; you find some little nook on the floor, an arm against a stool, possibly a knee drawn up to rest the pensive chin.
On the hearth rug in a nest of hassocks reclined Mr. Peter ffoney, hands, hair and eyes in the middle of a disquisition on French literature.
A thin, pink-shaded reading-lamp tinted up the little savant against the velvety eye-glinting gloom, through which the soft foreign waste-pipe voice moved with the pale charm of gangrene.
“Ah! Musset!”
Short pause. The head goes on one side, the awful gull-grey eyes expanding concentrically, a half-smile playing around the corners of the prune-mouth.
“So young! No, no, you must admit the presence there of a poet! And such sensibility – such a tortured life!
“You remember when he went to Venice with that rascally Georges Sand, pour Musset so happy, and she . . .”
Ear now sits on shoulder, exquisite mouth a-droop, corrugation of brow, the high-browsy’s high-sign.
“. . . She fell ill, Musset called in the doctor and of course Georges, splendid, animal, high-spirited, can think of nothing but to make love to the doctor! Poor little Musset is quite broken, drifts back to Paris, loses interest, neglects his dress, becomes a bit of a savage, you know . . .”
Slight quickening of the pace.
“His family won’t speak to him, nor he to them. But the old mother . . .”
Here the head goes on one side again, a pink flush is seen playing upon the senile saggy sag-face, duck-web eye-lids pause in languor upon the orbs.
“ . . . the old mother, whimsical, a little domineering, perhaps, ah but what a heart! She commands him to her afternoon tea, makes the poor fellow talk, listens with such incredible sympathy.
“Afterwards – you know the story – she calls the family together – picture this rigid, worldly gathering of such cultured people! She talks roundly to them, tapping the floor with her stick . . .”
Here the recitalist, the eyes glazed with whimsy treacle, the upper lip quivering with pastry-cook passion, lets the pipe-voice travel up two and a quarter incredible tones.
“She scolds them; You ... simply . . . must . . . be . . . kinder . . . to . . . Alfrayd. I’ve talked to him . . . and he . . . has told me . . . everything.
“Now, you must not pity him, but I know what the poor boy has been through . . .”
(Aye and more than Alfrayd has been through it.)
“Take him back among you, soothe him, let him be a man again.”
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