David Lodge - Small World by Author's Note Read Free Book Online

ritual, just like any other group of workers in the realm of discourse—lawyers, politicians, journalists. And as it looks as if we have done our duty for today, shall we all adjourn for a drink?”
    “Tea, I’m afraid it will have to be,” said Rupert Sutcliffe, clutching with relief this invitation to bring the proceedings to a speedy close. “Thank you very much for a most, er, stimulating and, ah, suggestive lecture.”
    ” ‘Suggestive and stimulating’—the old fellow hit the nail on the head,” said Persse to Angelica as they filed out of the lecture room. “Does your mother know you’re away out listening to that sort of language?”
    “I thought it was interesting,” said Angelica. “Of course, it all goes back to Peirce.”
    “Me?”
    “Peirce. Another variant spelling of your name. He was an American philosopher. He wrote somewhere about the impossibility of stripping the veils of representation from meaning. And that was before the First World War.”
    “Was it, indeed? You’re a remarkably well-read young woman, Angelica, do you know that? Where were you educated at all?”
    “Oh, various places,” she said vaguely. “Mainly England and America.”
    They passed Rupert Sutcliffe and Philip Swallow in the corridor, in urgent consultation with Bob Busby, apparently about theatre tickets.
    “Are you going to the Repertory Theatre tonight?” said Angelica.
    “I didn’t put down to go. It didn’t say on the form what the play was.”
    “I believe it’s Lear .”
    “Are you going, then?” Persse asked anxiously. “What about my poem?”
    “Your poem? Oh dear, I forgot. Ten o’clock on the top floor, wasn’t it? I’ll try and get back promptly. Professor Dempsey is taking me in his ear, so that will save time.”
    “Dempsey? You want to be careful of that fellow, you know. He preys on young women like yourself. He told me so.”
    Angelica laughed. “I can take care of myself.”
    They found Morris Zapp drinking tea alone in the common room, the other conferees having left a kind of cordon sanitaire around him. Angelica went boldly up to the American.
    “Professor Zapp, I did so enjoy your lecture,” she said, with a greater degree of enthusiasm than Persse had expected or could, indeed, bring himself to approve.
    “Well, thank you, Al,” said Morris Zapp. “I certainly enjoyed giving it. I seem to have offended the natives, though.”
    “I’m working on the subject of romance for my doctorate,” said Angelica, “and it seemed to me that a lot of what you were saying applied very well to romance.”
    “Naturally,” said Morris Zapp. “It applies to everything.”
    “I mean, the idea of romance as narrative striptease, the endless leading on of the reader, a repeated postponement of an ultimate revelation which never comes—or, when it does, terminates the Measure of the text…”
    “Exactly,” said Morris Zapp.
    “And there’s even a good deal of actual striptease in the romances.”
    “There is?” said Morris Zapp. “Yes, I guess there is.”
    “Ariosto’s heroines for instance, are always losing their clothes and being gloated over by the heroes who rescue them.”
    “It’s a long time since I read Ariosto,” said Morris Zapp.
    “And of course, The Faerie Queene —the two girls in the fountain in the Bower of Blisse…”
    “I must look at that again,” said Morris Zapp.
    “Then there’s Madeline undressing under the gaze of Porphyro in `St Agnes’ Eve’.”
    “Right, ‘St Agnes’ Eve’.”
    “Geraldine in `Christabel’.”
    “—Christabel—”
    At this point Philip Swallow came bustling up. “Morris, I hope you didn’t mind my having a go at you just now—”
    “Of course not, Philip. Vive le sport .”
    “Only nobody else seemed inclined to speak, and I am very concerned about these matters, I really think the subject is in a state of crisis—” He broke off, as Angelica politely backed away. “Oh, I’m sorry, have I interrupted