Fannys First Play | Page 3

would not even feed her worms
if I could help it."
SAVOYARD. Did Byron say that?
THE COUNT. He did, sir.
SAVOYARD. It dont sound like him. I saw a good deal of him at one
time.

THE COUNT. You! But how is that possible? You are too young.
SAVOYARD. I was quite a lad, of course. But I had a job in the
original production of Our Boys.
THE COUNT. My dear sir, not that Byron. Lord Byron, the poet.
SAVOYARD. Oh, I beg your pardon. I thought you were talking of the
Byron. So you prefer living abroad?
THE COUNT. I find England ugly and Philistine. Well, I dont live in it.
I find modern houses ugly. I dont live in them: I have a palace on the
grand canal. I find modern clothes prosaic. I dont wear them, except, of
course, in the street. My ears are offended by the Cockney twang: I
keep out of hearing of it and speak and listen to Italian. I find
Beethoven's music coarse and restless, and Wagner's senseless and
detestable. I do not listen to them. I listen to Cimarosa, to Pergolesi, to
Gluck and Mozart. Nothing simpler, sir.
SAVOYARD. It's all right when you can afford it.
THE COUNT. Afford it! My dear Mr Savoyard, if you are a man with
a sense of beauty you can make an earthly paradise for yourself in
Venice on 1500 pounds a year, whilst our wretched vulgar industrial
millionaires are spending twenty thousand on the amusements of
billiard markers. I assure you I am a poor man according to modern
ideas. But I have never had anything less than the very best that life has
produced. It is my good fortune to have a beautiful and lovable
daughter; and that girl, sir, has never seen an ugly sight or heard an
ugly sound that I could spare her; and she has certainly never worn an
ugly dress or tasted coarse food or bad wine in her life. She has lived in
a palace; and her perambulator was a gondola. Now you know the sort
of people we are, Mr Savoyard. You can imagine how we feel here.
SAVOYARD. Rather out of it, eh?
THE COUNT. Out of it, sir! Out of what?

SAVOYARD. Well, out of everything.
THE COUNT. Out of soot and fog and mud and east wind; out of
vulgarity and ugliness, hypocrisy and greed, superstition and stupidity.
Out of all this, and in the sunshine, in the enchanted region of which
great artists alone have had the secret, in the sacred footsteps of Byron,
of Shelley, of the Brownings, of Turner and Ruskin. Dont you envy me,
Mr Savoyard?
SAVOYARD. Some of us must live in England, you know, just to keep
the place going. Besides--though, mind you, I dont say it isnt all right
from the high art point of view and all that--three weeks of it would
drive me melancholy mad. However, I'm glad you told me, because it
explains why it is you dont seem to know your way about much in
England. I hope, by the way, that everything has given satisfaction to
your daughter.
THE COUNT. She seems quite satisfied. She tells me that the actors
you sent down are perfectly suited to their parts, and very nice people
to work with. I understand she had some difficulties at the first
rehearsals with the gentleman you call the producer, because he hadnt
read the play; but the moment he found out what it was all about
everything went smoothly.
SAVOYARD. Havnt you seen the rehearsals?
THE COUNT. Oh no. I havnt been allowed even to meet any of the
company. All I can tell you is that the hero is a Frenchman [Savoyard is
rather scandalized]: I asked her not to have an English hero. That is all I
know. [Ruefully] I havnt been consulted even about the costumes,
though there, I think, I could have been some use.
SAVOYARD. [puzzled] But there arnt any costumes.
THE COUNT. [seriously shocked] What! No costumes! Do you mean
to say it is a modern play?
SAVOYARD. I dont know: I didnt read it. I handed it to Billy

Burjoyce--the producer, you know--and left it to him to select the
company and so on. But I should have had to order the costumes if
there had been any. There wernt.
THE COUNT. [smiling as he recovers from his alarm] I understand.
She has taken the costumes into her own hands. She is an expert in
beautiful costumes. I venture to promise you, Mr Savoyard, that what
you are about to see will be like a Louis Quatorze ballet painted by
Watteau. The heroine will be an exquisite Columbine, her lover a
dainty Harlequin, her father a picturesque Pantaloon, and the