Free The Lives and Times of Bernardo Brown by Geoffrey Household

the first and second heirs are Baptists or Buddhists or something. So one can see that Rome might take a fatherly interest in the matter of the succession.’
    ‘I wonder they didn’t choose you for the delicate mission.’
    ‘So do I sometimes. But Magda and I know each other too well. However artistic my performance, she would at once have detected the lack of spontaneity.’
    ‘You dirty old bugger!’
    ‘That, dear boy, is exactly what I was trying—with rather less coarseness—to express. No better than that stuff out of a bottle when you come to think of it.’
    Such intolerable geniality! One might as well try to be angry with the devil.
    ‘What stuff out of a bottle?’ Bernardo asked wearily.
    ‘Latest thing in Vienna. Artificial insemination they call it. Chap gives his offering to nurse. Nurse pops it over the screen. Doctor delicately intervenes. Could have done the job himself without all the fuss, I always say. Magda wouldn’thear of it—said it was disgusting and boring and ran to Daddy.’
    ‘I am told he may be good enough to set me up in a small business.’
    ‘God, you must have stung her on the raw! You didn’t bring up the question of her socialism, did you? A small business indeed! A big one or complete repudiation of you—that’s Istvan!’
    ‘How are things in Spain?’
    ‘Sticky. But I’m not quite up to date. All I know is that Zita has been writing to the Pope. You haven’t bumped off a cardinal by mistake, have you, or anything else that will take a bit of fixing?’
    ‘I haven’t bumped off anyone, Mr. Pozharski.’
    ‘You need practice. That’s what it is. Pity the partridge season isn’t open yet.’
    He never knew how to take Pozharski. This descendant of imperial bastards did not seem to care whether a chap was innocent or guilty, as if the question were of no importance compared to good manners and the ability to accept with casual unconcern whatever life sent up from the basement. It was a civilised attitude for which there was a good deal to be said, provided one had friends, position and especially money.
    Bernardo was without any of them and could get no useful advice out of Pozharski who pointed out—as Nepamuk had—that the Kalmodys seldom carried cash and that he had only to ask for whatever he required. Quite true and on the face of it reasonable. Yet the real motive for keeping him penniless was obviously that he should not be able to escape. Bernardo had the tact not to say it and so make matters worse by showing that he had escape in mind.
    Pozharski, though more than double his age, was at least an amiable companion, staving off his melancholy by trivialities and a remarkable standard of what a meal should bein content and conversation. But when Pozharski had gone back to the clubs and chandeliers, there was nothing left except the memory of Magda. The cure had not worked and—considering his desolation—could not work. He was more in love with her than ever, persuading himself that in spite of her original motive she too would be unable to put him out of her mind and that some time, somewhere unspecified, both would try to meet again.
    ‘I suppose we would all like our youth back if we could have it,’ old Mr. Brown said. ‘Yet the suffering was far worse and enjoyment not that much keener. They say these young lost souls take to drugs because they have too much imagination. Quite wrong! It’s because they haven’t any. I could kid myself that she would take me back if she had to pick me out of a Budapest gutter. Unbelievable!’
    But even that romantic gutter was impossible to reach without money, an identity and a passport to prove it. He was shut up with his emotions and no way out. A very likely definition of hell. And he could well have landed down there in good earnest via the estate graveyard if it had not been for Nepamuk.
    On his daily visit to the stables he was greeted with unusual eagerness by Kovacs and Perico. A policeman had