By way of introduction we would like to simply point out the loneliness of this poem, how it captures the whole ‘sophisticated, outsider’ culture of modern life from Pound to Eliot to Auden to Ashbery. Noel Coward, welcome to the pantheon of Modern Poets. In this holiday season, when people without family feel lonely, this poem by Noel Coward is dedicated to them.
Should They Wish To Lay Bare Their Lives In Their Language
Sitting outside this cafe in the afternoon sunshine
His mind felt pleasantly alert.
It had certainly been a good idea, this little continental jaunt;
Here he could sit, for hours if need be, just watching and listening.
Later, of course, in the bar of the hotel or in the lounge after dinner,
He would get into conversation with various people and draw them
Out subtly to talk about themselves, to tell him their stories.
His knowledge of French being only adequate, he hoped that
Should they wish to lay bare their lives in their language,
That they would not speak too rapidly.
Of German he knew not a word,
So whatever he gathered would have to be in English,
Slow French, or by signs.
At this moment in his reflections his attention was caught
By the seedy-looking man whom he had noticed before
Buying a ticket for a boat. Something in the way he was standing,
Or rather leaning against the railing, struck a familiar chord in his mind.
He reminded him of somebody, that’s what it was, but who?
He scrutinized him carefully, the grey suit, the umbrella,
The straggling moustache, the air of depressed resignation.
Then he remembered—he was exactly like a commoner,
Foreign edition of Uncle Philip.
Aubrey sighed with relief at having identified him.
There is nothing so annoying as being tantalized by a resemblance.
Uncle Phillip! It might make quite an interesting little story
If Uncle Phillip, after all those years of marriage,
Suddenly left Aunt Freda and came here to live
In some awful little pension with a French prostitute.
Or perhaps not live with her, just meet her every afternoon here at the pier.
His eyes would light up when she stepped off the boat
(She worked in a cafe in a town on the other side of the lake and only had a few hours off),
And they would walk away together under the chestnut trees,
He timidly holding her arm. Then they would go to some sordid bedroom
In the town somewhere and he, lying with her arms round him,
Would suddenly think of his life, those years at Exeter with Aunt Freda,
And laugh madly.
Aubrey looked a the Swiss Uncle Philip again; he was reading
A newspaper now very intently. Perhaps, after all, he was a secret agent
As he had at first thought and was waiting for the boat to take him
Down the lake to the town on the other side of the frontier,
Where he would sit in a bar with two men in bowler hats
And talk very ostentatiously about his son who was ill in Zurich,
Which would give them to understand that Karl
Had received the papers satisfactorily in Amsterdam.
At this moment a bell rang loudly and a steam sidled up to the pier.
The man folded his paper.
He waved his hand and was immediately joined by a large woman in green
And three children who had been sitting on a seat.
They all went on to the boat together, the children making a good deal of noise.
Aubrey sighed. Just another family.
(from the short story, “The Wooden Madonna,” by Noel Coward, 1939)
