Short Stories of Saki (H. H. Munro)
Short Stories of Saki (H. H. Munro) |
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The Unbearable BassingtonPublished: 1912 At the beginning of Monro's first novel, the reader assumes that what they are reading is going to be exactly like his Reginald stories, but on a larger scale. Comus Bassington is another of the upper class young men with a cynical outlook on life. The plot is basically that his mother keeps trying to arrange things for Comus - the opportunity for a job as a secretary, or an advantageous marriage, for the Bassington fmaily is not so well off as they appear - only for Comus to spoil things by selfishness or an unwillingness to be guided by another. The first thing which makes The Unbearable Bassington different is that Comus is not the sardonic observer that Reginald is. There is plenty of dissection of the foolishness of high society, but Comus is not the dissector. He is not sufficiently interested in the world outside himself to comment on it. What makes The Unbearable Bassington more than social satire is the quite extraordinary power of the ending, which is extremely effective. Saki is famous for his satire; he has a marvellous if sometimes nasty imagination; but here he shows a literary merit quite different from those normally associated with him. The Unbearable Bassington is one of the peaks of his writing. THE UNBEARABLE BASSINGTON CHAPTER 01Francesca Bassington sat in the drawing-room of her house in Blue
Street, W., regaling herself and her estimable brother Henry with
China tea and small cress sandwiches.
THE UNBEARABLE BASSINGTON CHAPTER 02Lancelot Chetrof stood at the end of a long bare passage,
restlessly consulting his watch and fervently wishing himself half
an hour older with a certain painful experience already registered
in the past; unfortunately it still belonged to the future, and
what was still more horrible, to the immediate future.
THE UNBEARABLE BASSINGTON CHAPTER 03On the evening of a certain November day, two years after the
events heretofore chronicled, Francesca Bassington steered her way
through the crowd that filled the rooms of her friend Serena
Golackly, bestowing nods of vague recognition as she went, but with
eyes that were obviously intent on focussing one particular figure.
Parliament had pulled its energies together for an Autumn Session,
and both political Parties were fairly well represented in the
throng.
THE UNBEARABLE BASSINGTON CHAPTER 04Francesca prided herself on being able to see things from other
people's points of view, which meant, as it usually does, that she
could see her own point of view from various aspects.
THE UNBEARABLE BASSINGTON CHAPTER 05On a conveniently secluded bench facing the Northern Pheasantry in
the Zoological Society's Gardens, Regent's Park, Courtenay Youghal
sat immersed in mature flirtation with a lady, who, though
certainly young in fact and appearance, was some four or five years
his senior.
THE UNBEARABLE BASSINGTON CHAPTER 06Elaine de Frey sat at ease--at bodily ease--at any rate--in a low
wicker chair placed under the shade of a group of cedars in the
heart of a stately spacious garden that had almost made up its mind
to be a park.
THE UNBEARABLE BASSINGTON CHAPTER 07Towards four o'clock on a hot afternoon Francesca stepped out from
a shop entrance near the Piccadilly end of Bond Street and ran
almost into the arms of Merla Blathlington.
THE UNBEARABLE BASSINGTON CHAPTER 08It was a fresh rain-repentant afternoon, following a morning that
had been sultry and torrentially wet by turns; the sort of
afternoon that impels people to talk graciously of the rain as
having done a lot of good, its chief merit in their eyes probably
having been its recognition of the art of moderation.
THE UNBEARABLE BASSINGTON CHAPTER 09In the warmth of a late June morning the long shaded stretch of
raked earth, gravel-walk and rhododendron bush that is known
affectionately as the Row was alive with the monotonous movement
and alert stagnation appropriate to the time and place.
THE UNBEARABLE BASSINGTON CHAPTER 10The Rutland Galleries were crowded, especially in the neighbourhood
of the tea-buffet, by a fashionable throng of art-patrons which had
gathered to inspect Mervyn Quentock's collection of Society
portraits.
THE UNBEARABLE BASSINGTON CHAPTER 11After the momentous lunch at the Corridor Restaurant Elaine had
returned to Manchester Square (where she was staying with one of
her numerous aunts) in a frame of mind that embraced a tangle of
competing emotions.
THE UNBEARABLE BASSINGTON CHAPTER 12A door closed and Francesca Bassington sat alone in her well-
beloved drawing-room. The visitor who had been enjoying the
hospitality of her afternoon-tea table had just taken his
departure.
THE UNBEARABLE BASSINGTON CHAPTER 13Comus found his way to his seat in the stalls of the Straw Exchange
Theatre and turned to watch the stream of distinguished and
distinguishable people who made their appearance as a matter of
course at a First Night in the height of the Season.
THE UNBEARABLE BASSINGTON CHAPTER 14The farewell dinner which Francesca had hurriedly organised in
honour of her son's departure threatened from the outset to be a
doubtfully successful function.
THE UNBEARABLE BASSINGTON CHAPTER 15Elaine Youghal sat at lunch in the Speise Saal of one of Vienna's
costlier hotels. The double-headed eagle, with its "K.u.K."
legend, everywhere met the eye and announced the imperial favour in
which the establishment basked.
THE UNBEARABLE BASSINGTON CHAPTER 16It was late afternoon by the banks of a swiftly rushing river, a
river that gave back a haze of heat from its waters as though it
were some stagnant steaming lagoon, and yet seemed to be whirling
onward with the determination of a living thing, perpetually eager
and remorseless, leaping savagely at any obstacle that attempted to
stay its course; an unfriendly river, to whose waters you committed
yourself at your peril.
THE UNBEARABLE BASSINGTON CHAPTER 17The bleak rawness of a grey December day held sway over St. James's
Park, that sanctuary of lawn and tree and pool, into which the
bourgeois innovator has rushed ambitiously time and again, to find
that he must take the patent leather from off his feet, for the
ground on which he stands is hallowed ground.
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Map started on Nov. 5, 2009
