Eldon Pike Quotes in Indian Ink
The Shepperton garden is now visible. Here, MRS SWAN and PIKE are having tea while occupied with a shoebox of Flora’s letters.
FLORA And it’s called a duck bungalow …”
MRS SWAN Dak bungalow.
FLORA “… although there is not a duck to be seen.”
She disappears into the bathroom with her suitcase.
MRS SWAN Dak was the post; they were post-houses, when letters went by runner.
IKE Ah …
PIKE “Perhaps my soul will stay behind as a smudge of paint on paper, as if I’d always been here, like … Radha?”
MRS SWAN Radha.
PIKE “—the most beautiful of the herdswomen, undressed—”
MRS SWAN (Interrupting, briskly) Well, the portrait, as it happens, is on canvas and Flora is wearing her cornflower dress.
ANISH Oh … yes. Yes, I am a painter like my father. Though not at all like my father, of course.
MRS SWAN Your father was an Indian painter, you mean?
ANISH An Indian painter? Well, I’m as Indian as he was. But yes. I suppose I am not a particularly Indian painter … not an Indian painter particularly, or rather …
MRS SWAN Not particularly an Indian painter.
ANISH Yes. But then, nor was he. Apart from being Indian.
MRS SWAN As you are.
ANISH Yes.
The case was dismissed on a technicality, and the policemen were awfully sweet, they got me away through the crowd in a van. My sister was asked to leave school. But that was mostly my own fault—the magistrate asked me why all the poems seemed to be about sex, and I said. “Write what you know”—just showing off. I was practically a virgin, but it got me so thoroughly into the newspapers my name rings a bell even with the wife of a bloody jute planter or something in the middle of Rajputana, damn, damn, damn, no, let’s go inside.
PIKE Do you think he had a relationship with Flora Crewe?
DILIP But of course—a portrait is a relationship.
PIKE No, a relationship.
DILIP I don’t understand you.
PIKE He painted her nude.
DILIP I don’t think so.
PIKE Somebody did.
DILIP In 1930, an Englishwoman, an Indian painter … it is out of the question.
PIKE Not if they had a relationship.
DILIP Oh … a relationship? Is that what you say? (Amused) A relationship!
PIKE This is serious.
DILIP (Laughing) Oh, it’s very serious. What do you say for—well, for “relationship?”
PIKE Buddies. (Dilip almost falls off his chair with merriment.) Please, Dilip …
Codswallop! Your “house within a house,” as anyone can see, is a mosquito net. And the book is Emily Eden, it was in her suitcase. Green with a brown spine. You should read the footnotes!
It’s no go the records of the Theosophical Society, it’s no go the newspaper files partitioned to ashes … All we want is the facts and to tell the truth in our fashion … Her knickers were made of crêpe-de-Chine, her poems were up in Bow Street, her list of friends laid end to end … weren’t in it for the poetry. But it’s no go the watercolour, it’s no go the Modigliani … The glass is falling hour by hour, and we’re back in the mulligatawny … But we will leave no Das unturned. He had a son.
Quite possibly. Or with Captain Durance. Or His Highness the Rajah of Jummapur. Or someone else entirely. It hardly matters, looking back. Men were not really important to Flora. If they had been, they would have been fewer. She used them like batteries. When things went flat, she’d put in a new one … I’ll come to the gate with you. If you decide to tell Mr Pike about the watercolour, I’m sure Flora wouldn’t mind.
“Darling, that’s all from Jummapur, because how I’m packed, portrait and all, and Mr Coomaraswami is coming to take me to the station. I’ll post this in Jaipur as soon as I get there. I’m not going to post it here because I’m not. I feel fit as two lops this morning, and happy, too, because something good happened here which made me feel halfway better about Modi and getting back to Paris too late. That was a sin I’ll carry to my grave, but perhaps my soul will stay behind as a smudge of paint on paper, as if I’d always been here, like Radha who was the most beautiful of the herdswomen, undressed for love in an empty house.”
Eldon Pike Quotes in Indian Ink
The Shepperton garden is now visible. Here, MRS SWAN and PIKE are having tea while occupied with a shoebox of Flora’s letters.
FLORA And it’s called a duck bungalow …”
MRS SWAN Dak bungalow.
FLORA “… although there is not a duck to be seen.”
She disappears into the bathroom with her suitcase.
MRS SWAN Dak was the post; they were post-houses, when letters went by runner.
IKE Ah …
PIKE “Perhaps my soul will stay behind as a smudge of paint on paper, as if I’d always been here, like … Radha?”
MRS SWAN Radha.
PIKE “—the most beautiful of the herdswomen, undressed—”
MRS SWAN (Interrupting, briskly) Well, the portrait, as it happens, is on canvas and Flora is wearing her cornflower dress.
ANISH Oh … yes. Yes, I am a painter like my father. Though not at all like my father, of course.
MRS SWAN Your father was an Indian painter, you mean?
ANISH An Indian painter? Well, I’m as Indian as he was. But yes. I suppose I am not a particularly Indian painter … not an Indian painter particularly, or rather …
MRS SWAN Not particularly an Indian painter.
ANISH Yes. But then, nor was he. Apart from being Indian.
MRS SWAN As you are.
ANISH Yes.
The case was dismissed on a technicality, and the policemen were awfully sweet, they got me away through the crowd in a van. My sister was asked to leave school. But that was mostly my own fault—the magistrate asked me why all the poems seemed to be about sex, and I said. “Write what you know”—just showing off. I was practically a virgin, but it got me so thoroughly into the newspapers my name rings a bell even with the wife of a bloody jute planter or something in the middle of Rajputana, damn, damn, damn, no, let’s go inside.
PIKE Do you think he had a relationship with Flora Crewe?
DILIP But of course—a portrait is a relationship.
PIKE No, a relationship.
DILIP I don’t understand you.
PIKE He painted her nude.
DILIP I don’t think so.
PIKE Somebody did.
DILIP In 1930, an Englishwoman, an Indian painter … it is out of the question.
PIKE Not if they had a relationship.
DILIP Oh … a relationship? Is that what you say? (Amused) A relationship!
PIKE This is serious.
DILIP (Laughing) Oh, it’s very serious. What do you say for—well, for “relationship?”
PIKE Buddies. (Dilip almost falls off his chair with merriment.) Please, Dilip …
Codswallop! Your “house within a house,” as anyone can see, is a mosquito net. And the book is Emily Eden, it was in her suitcase. Green with a brown spine. You should read the footnotes!
It’s no go the records of the Theosophical Society, it’s no go the newspaper files partitioned to ashes … All we want is the facts and to tell the truth in our fashion … Her knickers were made of crêpe-de-Chine, her poems were up in Bow Street, her list of friends laid end to end … weren’t in it for the poetry. But it’s no go the watercolour, it’s no go the Modigliani … The glass is falling hour by hour, and we’re back in the mulligatawny … But we will leave no Das unturned. He had a son.
Quite possibly. Or with Captain Durance. Or His Highness the Rajah of Jummapur. Or someone else entirely. It hardly matters, looking back. Men were not really important to Flora. If they had been, they would have been fewer. She used them like batteries. When things went flat, she’d put in a new one … I’ll come to the gate with you. If you decide to tell Mr Pike about the watercolour, I’m sure Flora wouldn’t mind.
“Darling, that’s all from Jummapur, because how I’m packed, portrait and all, and Mr Coomaraswami is coming to take me to the station. I’ll post this in Jaipur as soon as I get there. I’m not going to post it here because I’m not. I feel fit as two lops this morning, and happy, too, because something good happened here which made me feel halfway better about Modi and getting back to Paris too late. That was a sin I’ll carry to my grave, but perhaps my soul will stay behind as a smudge of paint on paper, as if I’d always been here, like Radha who was the most beautiful of the herdswomen, undressed for love in an empty house.”
