Casanova's Chinese Restaurant by Anthony Powell Read Free Book Online

your medium, but that is obviously the painter’s own affair. If I have a passion for anyone, I prefer an academic, even pedestrian, naturalism of portraiture. It is a limitation I share with Edgar Deacon. Nothing I’d care for less than to have my girl painted by Lhote or Gleizes, however much I may admire those painters – literally – in the abstract.’
    All the same, although he put a good face on it, Moreland looked a little cast down. No more was said on the subject until the time came to make our individual contributions to the bill. The waitress appeared again. She explained that she had omitted at an earlier stage of the meal to collect some of the money due for what we had drunk. She now presented her final account. At this point Barnby took the opportunity to allow himself certain pleasantries – these a trifle on the ponderous side, as he himself admitted later – to the effect that she was demanding money under false pretences. The waitress received these comments in good part, unbending so far as to hint that she had not levied the charge before, because, having taken one look at Barnby, she had been sure he would give a further order for drink; she had accordingly decided to wait until the account was complete. Barnby listened to this explanation gravely, making no attempt to answer in the breezy manner he had employed a few seconds earlier this imputation of possessing a bibulous appearance. Just as the girl was about to withdraw, he spoke.
    ‘Look here,’ he said, ‘I’m an artist – I paint people’s pictures.’
    She did not look at him, or answer, but she stopped giggling, while at the same time making no attempt to move away from the table.
    ‘I’d like to paint you.’
    She still did not speak. Her expression changed in a very slight degree, registering what might have been embarrassment or cunning.
    ‘Could you come and be painted by me some time?’
    Barnby put the question in a quiet, almost exaggeratedly gentle voice; one I had never before heard him use.
    ‘Don’t know that I have time,’ she said, very coolly.
    ‘What about one week-end?’
    ‘Can’t come Sunday. Have to be here.’
    ‘Saturday, then?’
    ‘Saturday isn’t any good either.’
    ‘You can’t have to work all the week.’
    ‘Might manage a Thursday.’
    ‘All right, let’s make it a Thursday then.’
    There was a pause. Maclintick, unable to bear the sight and sound of these negotiations, had taken a notebook from his pocket and begun a deep examination of his own affairs; making plans for the future; writing down great thoughts; perhaps even composing music. Moreland, unable to conceal his discomfort at what was taking place, started a conversation with me designed to carry further his Time-Space theories.
    ‘What about next Thursday?’ asked Barnby, in his most wheedling tone.
    ‘I don’t know.’
    ‘Say you will.’
    ‘I don’t know.’
    ‘Come on.’
    ‘I suppose so, then.’
    Barnby reached forward and took Maclintick’s pencil from his hand – not without protest on Maclintick’s part – and wrote something on the back of an envelope. I suppose it was just the address of his studio, but painters form the individual letters of their handwriting so carefully, so separately, that he seemed to be drawing a picture specially for her.
    ‘It’s above a shop,’ Barnby said.
    Then, suddenly, he crumpled the envelope.
    ‘On second thoughts,’ he said, ‘I will come and pick you up here, if that is all right.’
    ‘As you like.’
    She spoke indifferently, as if all had been decided long before and they had been going out together for years.
    ‘What time?’
    She told him; the two of them made some mutual arrangement. Then they smiled at each other, again without any sense of surprise or excitement, as if long on familiar terms, and the waitress retired from the table. Barnby handed the stump of pencil back to Maclintick. We vacated the restaurant.
    ‘Like Glendower, Barnby,’ said