Picture it: a lovely evening, gentle breeze blowing, your window open. You hear drunken strangers on the path outside when suddenly one of the strangers approaches your window, leans in, vomits on your floor and walks away. And you don’t clean it up.
Seriously? This happens to Ryder and he leaves it there until his “scout” (which I’m thinking is code for manservant) arrives the next day. And then the scout says that Sebastian (the former stranger) is, “A most amusing gentleman, I’m sure it’s quite a pleasure to clean up after him.”
Seriously? Is cleaning up vomit ever a pleasure? Wouldn't delay make it more unpleasant? How could Ryder go to sleep with puke on the floor? And not even his own puke, but someone else’s? I don’t believe I could leave the vomit until the next day, servant or no servant. (But I suppose this is why I could never be an aristocrat.)
The day after vomiting on the floor, Sebastian fills Ryder’s room with flowers. Apology, air freshener, or come-on?
I've got to say, that scene really did a lot to turn me off from this book almost instantly.
ReplyDeleteDid it? I thought it was hilarious and a brilliant way to illustrate the characters of Ryder and Sebastian. Rather than saying, "Sebastian is a troubled yet charmingly lovable young man while Ryder longs to be loved so becomes Sebastian's friend/sycophant," Waugh illustrates this with that scene.
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