Friday, July 8th
– I went down to Montparnasse for dinner last night. There was also present
young P., a youth of 23 or so, rosy, healthy, reserved, mannered, with the
University twang; tremendously English; a little shy and nervous but underneath
that a happy and proud conviction that Cambridge stood for all that was highest
in human civilisation; he had just been made a fellow of his college. At about
11 p.m. I went with P. and B. to the Red Bullier. The Bal and the garden were
crowded on this hot summer night and the whole scene was beautiful, charming
and entirely wonderful. P. thought the general effect was ‘pretty’. But on the
whole neither he nor B. saw much to admire. The spirit of the place, the
singular ‘Latin’ charm, escaped them. They looked on it as a haunt of ‘vice’,
and dull at that. I told them what I thought of it. I said that when they grew
older they might possible admire what they did not admire now. They admitted
the possibility, and deplored it. ‘You mustn’t think,’ I sad, ‘that I despise
your ideas.’ ‘Oh, don’t trouble about that,’ said P., with that cruel
affectation of humility which youth outs on; ‘I’m quite used to having my ideas
deplored.’ I could see he was incapable of imaginatively realizing that at the
present moment he might be blind to certain forms and aspects of beauty which
later would reveal themselves to him. They both thought all the women ugly and
graceless. We had a drink in the garden. ‘How do the men arrange for women at
Oxford and Cambridge?’ I asked P. bluntly. I meant to startle him. He was
startled. However, I got him to talk after a bit. He said that up to 60 years
ago (he thought) colleges had their special stews. But these were now done away
with. There were cocottes at both
places for undergraduates &c. But men found it pleasanter to run up to town.
I said, ‘I’m not talking about undergraduates; I’m taking about dons, fellows,
etc. – the mature men who are not married.’ He assured me that the vast
majority were chaste, and that unmarried public opinion – the opinion of
smoking-parties and late evenings – was honestly and sincerely against
irregular intercourse. I said that I was astounded. I said I had never heard
tell of such a class of men before. They were surprised that I was astounded –
P. and B. were. I could see that they regarded me with mild, impartial and dignified curiosity as a
strange sort of person with ill-regulated ideas. P. thought that human nature
was becoming more ‘moral’ – that there was ‘a change for the better’ in the last
century. He talked neatly, and I think sincerely. He believed in greater
freedom for sexual unions of a permanent kind – he knew two couples who were
not married and who were nevertheless received everywhere. But (he continued)
this increased freedom could only go ‘hand in hand with’ a decrease in
prostitution. I listened. I respected him. He could not help being slightly priggish.
I did not express my views, but I kept recurring to my amazement at the
existence of a body of unmarried men, not priests, in whom chastity was the
rule. And they thought more and more what a naïve creature I was. But of course
I must have inspired them with doubt as to their own position. ‘Don’t you think
women are the most interesting thing in the world?’ I asked. P. considered
judicially. ‘One of the most interesting!’ he said. I gathered that both of
these men were virgin. Ad I am sure that they looked on the ‘initiation’ as a
mere formality to be gone through. They neither of them thought, honestly that
they had anything to learn. They were tolerant, from their heights, towards the
pathetic spectacle of humanity. Always B was the least priggish and convinced.
But I liked them both. Essentially, they were rather girlish, . As I drove home,
I thought the whole episode was rather funny. I don’t suppose that P. is likely
to change much. He is too deeply impregnated, by heredity and tradition and upbringing,
with ‘English culture’ – he is incapable of seeing the ‘Latin’ side of things
in general. He is the sort of man who has ;made England what it is.’ He stands
for all that is best, and all that is worst and most exasperating, in the
English character.
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