You remember Byron's words: "I am sure my bones would
not rest in an English grave, or my clay mix with the earth of that
country. I believe the thought would drive me mad on my deathbed
could I suppose that any of my friends would be base enough to convey
my carcase back to her soil. I would not even feed her worms if I
could help it."
SAVOYARD. Did Byron say that?
THE COUNT. He did, sir.
SAVOYARD. It dont sound like him. I saw a good deal of him at one
time.
THE COUNT. You! But how is that possible? You are too young.
SAVOYARD. I was quite a lad, of course. But I had a job in the
original production of Our Boys.
THE COUNT. My dear sir, not that Byron. Lord Byron, the poet.
SAVOYARD. Oh, I beg your pardon. I thought you were talking of the
Byron. So you prefer living abroad?
THE COUNT. I find England ugly and Philistine. Well, I dont live in
it. I find modern houses ugly. I dont live in them: I have a palace
on the grand canal. I find modern clothes prosaic. I dont wear them,
except, of course, in the street. My ears are offended by the Cockney
twang: I keep out of hearing of it and speak and listen to Italian.
I find Beethoven's music coarse and restless, and Wagner's senseless
and detestable. I do not listen to them. I listen to Cimarosa, to
Pergolesi, to Gluck and Mozart. Nothing simpler, sir.
SAVOYARD. It's all right when you can afford it.
THE COUNT. Afford it! My dear Mr Savoyard, if you are a man with a
sense of beauty you can make an earthly paradise for yourself in
Venice on 1500 pounds a year, whilst our wretched vulgar industrial
millionaires are spending twenty thousand on the amusements of
billiard markers.
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