ith you there--when you can get them.

THE COUNT. Why not get them? The difficulty is not that there are no
beautiful realities, Mr Savoyard: the difficulty is that so few of
us know them when we see them. We have inherited from the past a vast
treasure of beauty--of imperishable masterpieces of poetry, of painting,
of sculpture, of architecture, of music, of exquisite fashions in
dress, in furniture, in domestic decoration. We can contemplate these
treasures. We can reproduce many of them. We can buy a few inimitable
originals. We can shut out the nineteenth century--

SAVOYARD. [correcting him] The twentieth.

THE COUNT. To me the century I shut out will always be the nineteenth
century, just as your national anthem will always be God Save the Queen,
no matter how many kings may succeed. I found England befouled with
industrialism: well, I did what Byron did: I simply refused to live in
it. 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, wh