Summaries of Saki stories Author: Doctor Terence Rajivan Edward Draft version: version 2 (9th April, last 2 stories added, interesting - v.1 7 April, a licence plate in Rusholme said "Saki"; will probably add more later; my remarks in square brackets) Reginald. Reginald has been persuaded to attend the McKillops' garden party by the narrator. The conversation in which he was persuaded is depicted. (We are told Reginald has a magnificent scorn for details, apart from sartorial - to do with clothes!) In the conversation, Reginald protests, "There will be the exhaustingly up-to-date young women who will ask me if I have seen _San Toy_; a less progressive grade who will yearn to hear about the Diamond Jubilee--the historic event, not the horse. With a little encouragement, they will inquire if I saw the Allies march into Paris. Why are women so fond of raking up the past? They're as bad as tailors, who invariably remember what you owe them for a suit long after you've ceased to wear it." Does the narrator say Reginald is persuaded on the grounds of searching for a wife, though? Reginald is peaceful on the drive there, which the narrator strangely puts partly down to shoes one size too small. [See also Dali 1966: 19.] At the party, we are told, "I became aware that old Colonel Mendoza was essaying to tell his classic story of how he introduced golf into India, and that Reginald was in dangerous proximity. There are occasions when Reginald is caviare to the Colonel." (Reginald, we are told, even at his most truthful never admits to being more than 22.) Mrs McKillop "spoke in the dry, staccato tone of one who repeats a French exercise." Everyone but Reginald is talking of the war in South Africa. Reginald opens a joke: "What did the Caspian see?" The narrator takes him from the party, seemingly appalled by Reginald's lack of etiquette. Reginald on House Parties. This is like an essay, but it is from the point of view of the Reginald character. He tells us that guests do not ever really know the host or hostess. "One gets to know their fox-terriers and their chrysanthemums, and whether the story about the go-cart can be turned loose in the drawing-room… but one's host and hostess are a sort of human hinterland that one never has the time to explore." He gives an example: "There was a fellow I stayed with once in Warwickshire who farmed his own land, but was otherwise quite steady. Should never have suspected him of having a soul, yet not very long afterwards he eloped with a lion-tamer's widow and set up as a golf-instructor somewhere on the Persian Gulf; dreadfully immoral, of course, because he was only an indifferent player, but still, it showed imagination. His wife was really to be pitied, because he had been the only person in the house who understood how to manage the cook's temper…" Reginald says that he supposes the same thing happens with hosts - they have only a superficial acquaintance with guests [suggesting he does not host, or else he lacks parallel evidence]. He gives an example from his posh world, which is difficult to follow: "they had asked me down to shoot, and I'm not particularly immense at that sort of thing. There's such a deadly sameness about partridges; when you've missed one, you've missed the lot--at least, that's been my experience. And they tried to rag me in the smoking-room about not being able to hit a bird at five yards, a sort of bovine ragging…" We are told some hostesses will forgive anything as long as one is nice-looking and sufficiently unusual. [Um, er, um…] Concluding that we may make mistakes sometimes, from insufficient evidence, he says, "But then one's mistakes sometimes turn out assets in the long-run: if we had never bungled away our American colonies we might never have had the boy from the States to teach us how to wear our hair and cut our clothes, and we must get our ideas from somewhere, I suppose. Even the Hooligan was probably invented in China centuries before we thought of him." The woman who told the truth. The story opens beautifully. "There was once (said Reginald) a woman who told the truth. Not all at once, of course, but the habit grew upon her gradually, like lichen on an apparently healthy tree. She had no children--otherwise it might have been different. It began with little things, for no particular reason except that her life was a rather empty one, and it is so easy to slip into the habit of telling the truth in little matters. And then it became difficult to draw the line at more important things, until at last she took to telling the truth about her age; she said she was forty-two and five months--by that time, you see, she was veracious even to months." But it seems to lose its way, or it is a faux pas to "go fully fairytale." Some remaining highlights. Regarding her truthfulness (veracity!), we are told "It may have been pleasing to the angels, but her elder sister was not gratified… The revenge of an elder sister may be long in coming, but, like a South-Eastern express, it arrives in its own good time." And "The friends of the Woman tried to dissuade her from over-indulgence in the practice, but she said she was wedded to the truth; whereupon it was remarked that it was scarcely logical to be so much together in public." We are told, "It was unfortunate, everyone agreed, that she had no family; with a child or two in the house, there is an unconscious check upon too free an indulgence in the truth. Children are given us to discourage our better emotions." Then "Little by little she felt she was becoming a slave to what had once been merely an idle propensity; and one day she knew. Every woman tells ninety per cent. of the truth to her dressmaker; the other ten per cent is the irreducible minimum of deception beyond which no self-respecting client trespasses." A dispute occurs with the dressmaker. Then "And at last the dreadful thing came, as the Woman had foreseen all along that it must; it was one of those paltry little truths with which she harried her waking hours. On a raw Wednesday morning, in a few ill-chosen words, she told the cook that she drank." The cook leaves. The story ends with: "Women and elephants never forget an injury." [The mixture of fairytale style and bits of unusual wisdom, or apparent wisdom, reminds me of Laura Riding's Progress of Stories.] Reginald in Russia. He is conversing with a Russian princess. We are told,"he classified the Princess with that distinct type of woman that looks as if it habitually went out to feed hens in the rain." And "It is not necessary to be called Olga if you are a Russian Princess… but the fox-terrier and the Socialism are essential." The Princess asks Reginald whether in England it is more chic - fashionable, stylish?- to have a bulldog rather than a terrier? He recalls 10 years of canine fashions and answers evasively. The Princess asks Reginald what he thinks of her friend Countess Lomshen's looks. He thinks and says her complexion suggested an exclusive diet of macaroons and pale sherry. Some disagreement appears to occur, causing Reginald to withdraw his claim. Of the Princess, we are told, "With her, as with a great many of her sex, charity began at homeliness and did not generally progress much farther." Their conversation continues, with Reginald saying, "Only the old and the clergy of Established churches know how to be flippant gracefully." And his recalling the preaching of a junior chaplain, who asks, "The tears of the afflicted, to what shall I liken them--to diamonds?" There are some amusing further events recollected [which vaguely makes me think of Pushkin and Saki's stories themselves]. The Princess says, "You English are always so frivolous. In Russia we have too many troubles to permit of our being light-hearted." We are told: "Reginald gives a delicate shiver, such as an Italian greyhound might give in contemplating the approach of an ice age of which he personally disapproved, and resigned himself to the inevitable political discussion." Princess: nothing you hear about us in England is true. Reginald: I always refused to learn Russian geometry at school; I was certain some of the names must be wrong. Princess: Everything is wrong with our system of government. The Bureaucrats think only of their pockets, and the people are exploited and plundered in every direction, and everything is mismanaged. Reginald: With us, a Cabinet usually gets the credit of being depraved and worthless beyond the bounds of human conception by the time it has been in office about four years. Princess: But if it is a bad Government you can turn it out at the elections. Reginald: As far as I remember, we generally do. [This next piece of conversation is interesting. She will not let him lighten the conversation, it seems.] Princess: But here it is dreadful, every one goes to such extremes. In England you never go to extremes. Reginald: We go to the Albert Hall. Princess: There is always a see-saw with us between repression and violence… Conversation continues, with further hints not taken, until Princess says: "I think you must be very self-indulgent and live only for amusement. Life of pleasure-seeking and card-playing and dissipation brings only dissatisfaction. You will find that out some day." She invites him to her country again. The story ends with: "Reginald felt that there is some privacy which should be sacred from intrusion." [This seems to me typical of a "Russian" upper class and English middle class, or slightly below, interacting! What is he supposed to say: "Um, you know, whether a life of amusement is good or bad, I am not keen on a frank political discussion with you. Um, did you not notice that?" Interaction between this class and that is as if between strong man and coy woman! Greta Thunberg in UK?] A young Turkish catastrophe, in two scenes. I only focus on the first scene. The Minister of Fine Arts, which has added a subsection Electoral Engineering, pays a business visit to the Grand Vizier. "According to Eastern etiquette they discoursed for a while on indifferent subjects." Suddenly the object of the visit is raised: "Under the new Constitution are women to have votes?" says or asks the fine arts minister. The Grand Vizier responds: "Women have no souls and no intelligence; why on earth should they have votes?" The Minister of Fine Arts says the idea is being seriously considered in the West. The Grand Vizier says he finds it difficult not to smile. He says that "our womenfolk" don't know how to read or write, and asks, how they are they going to vote? The Minister proposes showing the names of candidates and they can make a cross, or crescent. We are told this would be to the liking of the Young Turkish Party. The Grand Vizier says that if we are going to do this, let's go the whole hog - unclean animal for them though - the complete camel: he will issue instructions that women are to be given the vote. [Story is interesting because the vote is given without any acceptance of women meriting the vote. Also Saki was presumably contemplating whether this is what the Russian princess of his opening story deserves to interact with, or is adapted for interacting with: people with these attitudes towards women, not liberal Englishmen of the not-upper-class!!! Exit discussion.] References Dali, Salvador. 1966. Diary of a Genius. London: Hutchison. Edward, Terence Rajivan. 2022. Salvador Dali versus Specialization II: Writing Shoes. Available at PhilPapers: https://philpapers.org/archive/EDWSDV.pdf Riding, Laura. 1935. Progress of Stories. Deya, Majorca: Seizin Press. Available for borrow at: https://archive.org/details/progressofstorie0000ridi Saki. 1904. Reginald. London: Methuen. Available at: https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/2830/pg2830.txt Saki. 1910. Reginald in Russia, and other sketches. Available at: https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/1870/pg1870.txt