Saturday commute xxvi: the cuff
Not intended as a residence, the eating club nevertheless had some rooms where an undergraduate might reside, as well as its section of guest rooms for ladies, before the era of co-education. (Is that still going on?) A was a Canadian student of theatre, and much admired. He resided at the club in order to position his wardrobe at one of the alternating centers of his experience (we never knew what the other one was). It was here, he explained, that he could don his reading trousers, and not distract any of us in his walking trousers. Yet his creative work did fall between these stools, with merry detachment from their scruples.
I think we all sensed that A would not be tak-ing his degree with us; his thesis on 'response and anti-response in Shakespeare' was pretty advanced for our place back then. But we will never forget hearing him propound it to us by the fire in the club library, in his dressing gown.
"He and I were both Catholics, so we used to go to mass together. He used to spend such a time in the confessional, I used to wonder what he had to say, because he never did anything wrong; never quite; at least, he never got punished. Perhaps he was just being charming through the grille." - Brideshead Revisited
ReplyDeleteI thought for a moment that you were Charles, speaking of Sebastian. Never has such a short blog posting caused me to revisit such a long film.
There was an enormous amount of little Flyte in A, whom of course he did know well. But I honestly did think for a very long moment that you created this comment for the posting for Sunday, the 15th, which struck me as almost too percipient for publication. You may bring your learning here, JA, but be merciful in your mind. :)
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