"Ивлин Во. Экскурсия в жизнь (engl) " - читать интересную книгу автора

name in spite of all subsequent intimacies) worked together in complete
harmony. His life was redirected and transfigured. No longer did he lie in
bed, glumly preparing himself for the coming day; no longer did he say every
morning 'I must get down to the country and finish that book' and every
evening find himself slinking back to the same urban flat; no longer did he
sit over supper tables with Sylvia, idly bickering; no more listless
explanations over the telephone. Instead he pursued a routine of
incalculable variety, summoned by telephone at all hours to conferences
which rarely assembled; sometimes to Hampstead, sometimes to the studios,
once to Brighton. He spent long periods of work pacing up and down his
sitting-room, with Miss Grits
pacing backwards and forwards along the other wall and Miss Dawkins
obediently perched between them, as the two dictated, corrected and
redrafted their scenario. There were meals at improbable times and vivid,
unsentimental passages of love with Miss Grits. He ate irregular and
improbable meals, bowling through the suburbs in Sir James's car, pacing the
carpet dictating to Miss Dawkins, perched in deserted lots upon scenery
which seemed made to survive the collapse of civilization. He lapsed, like
Miss Grits, into brief spells of death-like unconsciousness, often
awakening, startled, to find that a street or desert or factory had come
into being about him while he slept.


* * *


The film meanwhile grew rapidly, daily putting out new shoots and
changing under their eyes in a hundred unexpected ways. Each conference
produced some radical change in the story. Miss Grits in her precise,
invariable voice would read out the fruits of their work. Sir James would
sit with his head in his hand, rocking slightly from side to side and giving
vent to occasional low moans and whimpers; round him sat the
experts-production, direction, casting, continuity, cutting and costing
managers, bright eyes, eager to attract the great man's attention with some
apt intrusion.
'Well,' Sir James would say, 'I think we can O.K. that. Any
suggestions, gentlemen?'
There would be a pause, until one by one the experts began to deliver
their contributions ... 'I've been thinking, sir, that it won't do to have
the scene laid in Denmark. * The public won't stand for travel stuff. How
about setting it in Scotland-then we could have some kilts and clan
gathering scenes?'
'Yes, that's a very sensible suggestion. Make a note of that, Lent...'
'I was thinking we'd better drop this character of the Queen. She'd
much better be dead before the action starts. She hangs up the action. The
public won't stand for him abusing his mother.'
'Yes, make a note of that, Lent.'
'How would it be, sir, to make the ghost the Queen instead of the
King...'
'Yes, make a note of that, Lent...'