[ilds] unexpectedly quoting cavafy

[James Gifford]

Bill,

I wonder if you or anyone else cares to comment on Justine's performance 
from memory (dramatized even) of Cavafy's "In the Evening"?  Sadly, I 
must admit that I hadn't actually looked it up before, but since you're 
reference to Melissa's dog sent me to p. 18, and I used the Folio 
edition, I found this lovely scene instead. (p. 29 of the Omnibus edition).

Darley, on first describing Justine, and notably after the famous "5 
images" passage as she sits before the mirrors, describes her reciting a 
poem and acting it out.  This gets left out of the Naxos audio book 
version too, if I recall, though the section does appear in it abridged.

"And with what feeling she reached the passage where the old man throws 
aside the ancient love-letter which had so moved him and exclaims: 'I go 
sadly on to the balcony; anything to change this train of thought, even 
if only to see some little movement in the city I love, in its streets 
and shops!'  Herself pushing open the shutters to stand on the dark 
balcony above a city of coloured lights: feeling the evening wind stir 
from the confined of Asia: her body for an instant forgotten."

I'm really rather struck by this passage, now that I read it with new 
eyes.  The narrator, poured over his papers and letters, tells of a 
recitation of a poem all about letters and the agonies of remembrance. 
Justine, so struck by this, becomes what she beholds.  To my mind, 
that's a high order for art!  She must enact the art she recites, 
putting herself in Cavafy's position, which seems to suggest Durrell has 
high expectations of his own readers as well.  Somehow, as well, this 
surrender to the city frees her from the confines of her body, which I'd 
like to think gives us one more tip about how they are lived by the city...

But, the oddity I now find is that the absent trace, the first portion 
of the poem, gives us what Darley ought really to be saying:

-------------------------
"In the Evening"
--Cavafy

It wouldn't have lasted long anyway --
the experience of years makes that clear.
Even so, Fate did put an end to it a bit abruptly.
It was soon over, that wonderful life.
Yet how strong the scents were,
what a magnificent bed we lay in,
what pleasure we gave our bodies.

An echo from my days given to sensuality,
an echo from those days came back to me,
something of the fire of the young life we shared:
I picked up a letter again,
and I read it over and over till the light faded away.

Then, sad, I went out on to the balcony,
went out to change my thoughts at least by seeing
something of this city I love,
a little movement in the street and the shops.
    (Trans. Keeley & Sherrard)
-------------------------

Is Darley really in the position to say "It wouldn't have lasted long 
anyway -- the experience of years makes that clear"?  He's had years, 
but I doubt the experience.  The Freud and Sade quotations at the outset 
strike me as saying "Yes," our narrator is aware.  Yet, Cavafy's 
narrator is still giving up "the experience of years" in an instant for 
"and echo" of the impermanent.  Darley, I think by proxy, is caught 
between "talk" of the analysand and "something of the fire" of his "days 
given to sensuality."  Darley purports to believe in the 'talking cure,' 
but the most important part of the talk is still censored from the text 
he translates from Cavafy...  He's still in Sade's noose rather than on 
Freud's couch.

Moreover, like Cavafy and like Justine in the scene, from the distance 
of years, Darley reenters the city as well.

Anthony Hirst covers this scene very well in his "'The Old Poet of the 
City'" in /Deus Loci/, but I hadn't followed his footsteps up till 
now...  Well worth the time.

Thanks for the tip, Bill.  I've enjoyed going through my new copy!

Cheers,
Jamie