32

He unfolded his plan to the boy who leaned, with bowed head, against the jamb of the chimney-­piece. And when he had finished, the boy raised a white, startled face to him, opened his mouth to say something, make some comment perhaps on what his tutor had said, but fell silent instead, his face flushing with emotion.

The mysteries of sex could only be revealed by practice, a personal demonstration in which the novice, the learner, is the demonstrator. (One of two.) Live and learn; love and learn. The only way to learn about love is by loving.

“That, in a nutshell, is what I suggest,” said Pellerin, moving one leg from under the other. He was lying stretched out on the bed.

“But where,” asked Herbert in a febrile tone of voice, “is the . . . the . . . the woman?”

“Fortunately,” replied Pellerin with a smile, “that presents no difficulty in a place like Lisbon.” And with a gesture towards the window of the hotel bedroom, he added, “For here brothels abound.”

“Oh,” said Herbert. “Oh.” And fell silent.

It occurred to Pellerin that Herbert might not know the meaning of the word brothel. What, as a matter of interest, was its etymology? He thought it came from an Old French word meaning ruined. Yes, ruined. Was he ruined? He didn’t feel exactly ruined. Perhaps that was because he’d only been to three. And what a good thing he’d been to those three, for other­wise he could hardly recommend them to Herbert—as an educational institution, that is.

He decided from Herbert’s thoughtful and almost embarrassed silence that he had grasped the meaning of the word.

“I must confess, dear master,” said Herbert at last, “that what you propose fills me with dread.”

“Dread?” said Pellerin, sitting upright with surprise. “Well, if you are filled with dread, let’s scrap the whole idea. You’re obviously not ready for this kind of thing.”

“Oh, please don’t misunderstand me,” said Herbert. “I am filled with dread at the thought of it, but that, I think, is only right; for how else should one approach such a place?”

Pellerin jumped off the bed. He’d understood. “How right you are! Dread was the frame of mind in which the worshippers entered the great temple of Eleusis. Dread and hope, for the mysteries were about to be revealed.” Embarrassed by the strength of his feelings, Pellerin turned his back on Herbert, and stared ruefully down into the street—at a woman in colourful rags who carried a basket of exotic fish on her head, her face hidden from his angle of vision.

He turned back to his pupil. “Can you go through with it?” he asked.

Herbert did not reply immediately. He looked up at Pellerin, an expression of frankness and sorrow in his large china blue eyes.

“Yes, I think so.” His voice was so low that Pellerin only just caught the words.

Pellerin took from his pocket a packet of French cigarettes, and extracted one. He was relaxed about the whole matter. “Do you want to?” he asked. It wasn’t for him to force his pupil, even for strictly scholastic purposes, into a house of ruin. There were limits to education. One could drag a donkey to a well, but getting it to drink was another matter.

At that moment Herbert looked as if he found it hard to breathe. Was it, wondered Pellerin, that he did not wish to reveal his hidden desire, thinking that his moral stature would thereby be reduced in his tutor’s eyes? If he is thinking along those lines, Pellerin said to himself, he is mistaken. I haven’t set foot on the continent of Europe with any such preconceived notions.

But Herbert was not thinking along those lines; he was thinking along other lines, lines of imagination and grandeur.

“Dear master,” he said, “may I beg a favour of you?”

“Yes, Herbert,” said Pellerin cautiously; he felt slightly apprehensive.

Again Herbert fell silent. Then, with difficulty, he began to speak.

A startled look appeared on Pellerin’s face, and he riveted Herbert with his gaze. Herbert had asked him, in a voice of tender supplication, that when they arrived at the place, at the house of ill-­fame, of ruined hopes and fortune, that he should introduce him as an English lord. Just that.

“What on earth for?” said Pellerin.

Herbert bowed his head in confusion.

“The question,” said Pellerin, “is super­fluous, I suppose. I don’t mind.” And he dismissed the subject from his mind. But a moment later, he asked, “Lord who?”

“What name would you suggest?” asked Herbert, his poise regained, relieved that his master had seen the point, and more or less agreed with it. He tried to think of a suitable name.

“Lord of the Isles?” suggested Pellerin.

Herbert smiled and shook his head in swift short motion.

“Lord Shakeshaft?”

No: Herbert did not like that either.

“The only difference it will make is that they’ll shove up the price,” said Pellerin sombrely.

A look of pain passed across Herbert’s face.

“What’s the matter?” asked Pellerin.

“I can’t bear to think that money is involved.”

Pellerin did not reply to this. He retired instead to the bed and stretched himself out again. He still held a cigarette in his hand. He put it in his mouth and lit it. He blew out a cloud of smoke. “Anyhow,” he said at last, “I’ll settle up. You can forget that side of it, but I do suggest you give the woman something—a tip.”

“How much?”

“If she pleases you, be generous.” A look of indecision on his pupil’s face made him add, “But don’t overdo it. Give her a hundred escudos.”

“I wish I had a gold sovereign or two,” said Herbert wistfully.

“Don’t be so old-­fashioned,” replied Pellerin.

It was three o’clock in the afternoon when they started out from their hotel. Pellerin had found out from the clerk at the reception desk the address of a high-­class establishment. It was not far away.

The sun was shining. There were glad expressions on the faces of the well-­dressed, respectable people in the narrow streets. He himself was not exactly feeling glad, due to the weight of his responsibility. He would much sooner have sat in a café and watched life go by, but he had his duty to perform. He reflected that the life of a tutor was irksome at times. Would he be expected by the patronne to take his fill of the fare? He wasn’t really in the mood. He sighed. Herbert, walking close to him, looked quite sombre. Perhaps he should have a word first in the girl’s ear? Fortunately he knew Portuguese, not too well, but enough to make himself understood. And afterwards he would speak to the girl again. Or was this superfluous? Mrs Shakeshaft wouldn’t ask him for any details. Really, he was like one of those swimming instructors who fling the pupil into the water with the command, “Now swim!” Moreover, if he were engaged in the same pursuit in an adjoining closet, he wouldn’t be available to instruct his pupil in anything.

“I think we’re here,” said Pellerin, looking round. They were in a courtyard with a fountain in the centre. Above was a line of windows hung with red curtains.

“Through here,” said Pellerin, entering an open doorway. They ignored a hunchback girl who was peeling an orange, and began to mount a dark, wooden staircase, that was shining and smelling of a recent polishing. They stopped before a tall oak door, studded with iron bosses.

As Pellerin tugged the ancient brass bell-­pull, a deep apprehension (or a look of gloom perhaps) appeared in Herbert’s eyes.

Nothing happened.

“The place seems very quiet,” observed Pellerin.

He pulled again on the handle.

“I only wanted to speak to her,” said Herbert. “I wouldn’t have annoyed her. I would have done everything in my power to please her,—run messages for her, bought her ice cream . . .”

He was talking about the little French girl he’d seen at Mentone two years ago.

“The girl with the horse-­tail hair,” said Pellerin, as he pulled the bell handle again—hard and long this time.

He thought he knew the kind of woman Herbert would like. A young, slim woman, hardly more than a girl, with her hair done up in horse-­tail fashion.

“It’s not the hair,” said Herbert wisely, “but who wears it.”

Suddenly a light appeared near the centre of the door: a small panel, at eye level, had opened, and a man’s voice, speaking in Portuguese, demanded to know what they wanted.

“To come in,” said Pellerin. He did not like the face he found staring at him, especially the flattened nose and the upper lip with its vicious scar. “My companion is Lord Bolingbroke.”

“We’re closed. You’re too late for today.”

“But Lord Bolingbroke . . .” began Pellerin, vexed.

“Lord Bolingbroke or no Lord Bolingbroke,” cut in this prize-­fighter, “we’re closed. Come tomorrow.” And with this, the light was suddenly cut off with a thud: he’d slammed the guichet.

“What did he say?” asked Herbert, not having understood a word—apart, perhaps, from “Bolingbroke” which the doorman repeated as if all his teeth had been loosened in the effort.

“We’ve come on the wrong afternoon,” said Pellerin, turned round and facing the dim stairs.

“Oh, bother!” exclaimed Herbert in a lively voice, a voice in which Pellerin detected relief—immense relief.

They went down the stairs. The hunchback girl moved out of the way for them as they reached the bottom. She had by now eaten her orange, and looked at them with an air of vacant surprise. Pellerin strode out into the sunny courtyard, with Herbert following a few paces behind.

Suddenly a woman’s voice shattered the peace:

“Toma lá, filhinho, e não bufes!”

And the contents of a chamber-­pot, aimed at Pellerin’s head, crashed down. Just in time Pellerin flattened himself against the wall.

“Filhos duma puta!”

The line of windows with red curtains were crowded with jeering, laughing women, women with bare bosoms who shook their fists in the air and hammered on the window panes.

They all shouted at once:

“Que raio de gajo é que ele julga que é, lorde de merda?”

“Ora o paneleiro do lorde!”

“E quem é o coiro do outro choninha?”

“Só se me fizesses um botão de rosa, filhinho!”

“Que vão para a puta que os pariu, os bifes, os lordes de merda!”

“Come on!” shouted Pellerin, flinging his arm in the direction of the exit, and glancing back at Herbert at the same time.

“Vá para o caralho!”

Herbert had wisely retreated into the shelter of the doorway, but at this command, he emerged and fled through the courtyard after his tutor while the contents of another chamber pot and a silk slipper rained down. The slipper caught him on the shoulder, which lucky shot brought an explosion of laughter from above.

Half way down the street, they slowed down to a walking pace. Herbert was out of breath.

“What on earth was the matter?” he gasped.

Pellerin was laughing.

“What were they shouting? Please tell me,” begged Herbert.

“Henry Bolingbroke, Duke of Hereford,” said Pellerin gravely, “I beg you to excuse me from translating such vile remarks.” He looked sorrowfully at his pupil. “Your title upset them. We have arrived too late. The eighteenth century is over. The English milord is no longer respected as he used to be. We live in degenerate and absurd times—not even Portugal has escaped the wind of change.”

“I thought it had something to do with my silly pretensions,” said Herbert humbly. “We can’t go there again. Even I can understand the lordes de merda! bit.”

“Thank God,” said Pellerin fervently, “you don’t know more Portuguese than that!”