Russian Hide and Seek by Kingsley Amis

Author:Kingsley Amis [Amis, Kingsley]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: General, Fiction, Literary, Science Fiction, comedy, Fiction in English
ISBN: 9780091420505
Google: AEMiAAAAMAAJ
Amazon: 0736613633
Publisher: Penguin
Published: 1980-12-14T18:30:00+00:00

12

‘You know, Brevda, when you come to think about it, life is hell.’

‘It notoriously has its negative aspects, sir.’

‘There seems no rest from having to decide what one ought to do in a given situation.’

‘The necessity of moral choice can be most onerous, sir.’

‘Self-interest just isn’t a sufficient guide to behaviour, is it?’

‘Sadly deficient in many respects, sir.’

‘After all, there is such a thing as right and wrong.’

‘Bravely spoken, sir.’

Having paced the length of the gallery a couple of times engaged in this style of talk, master and man halted at the east window of the house. It was Friday evening about six-thirty. In the afternoon there had been a heaviness of the air that had seemed to threaten thunder, but this had passed and the sun sparkled brightly on the dark waters of the pond below them. Alexander’s mind was blank; he could not now remember why he had started this conversation, nor had he any idea what to say next. In an effort to shake off inertia he turned abruptly on Brevda, saying almost at random,

‘Have you got me some fresh cigarettes?’

‘No, sir, I—’

‘Why not?’

‘Well, I have to go in tomorrow, sir, and you still have about ten, and you never smoke more than about two or three in a—’

‘Tonight might be just the night I want twenty. Simply because you lead such a wretchedly repetitive mean little life you needn’t suppose others do the same. In future see I have a full packet at all times. I’m sick of the sight of you — be off and draw my bath.’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘Brevda.’

‘Sir?’

Alexander stared at his valet for a long time, blinking and slowly opening and shutting his mouth. Then he said, ‘Sorry. It’s … the heat,’ this in such a way as to leave no doubt that, whatever it was, it was not that. ‘Well, am I forgiven?’

‘Of course, your honour.’

Half an hour later Alexander was in his bedroom putting on his mess-dress. By now he seemed in the best of spirits; he was whistling a song of the regiment, fresh in his mind after hearing the band practising it in preparation for the next morning’s ceremonial parade. The vodka-bottle still stood on the writing table, but its level had not changed for over a week. In the same kind of way he had given notice of his intention to turn up this evening and had spent the last half-hour quietly reading when he could have been lying face down on his bed. These improvements originated not in any self-reformatory efforts but in the completeness with which his energies were now absorbed: any time left over from work and sex was used up by the revolution and there was none to spare for drink, plaguing the household or behaving like someone in a nineteenth-century Russian novel. As a result he was nearer to being contented, even happy, than he had been for years; it was true that his second visit to the rehearsals of the English play, paid

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