Incidentally, Uncle Ferdinand has an interesting cultural-historical explanation for the latter. He says, “We, the survivors of the cataclysm of the First World War, who were clever enough to amuse ourselves until the outbreak of this second one, have been accused of toppling the boundary stones of morality and opening our homes to people of questionable background and contestable reputation merely because they entertained us. By so doing, we supposedly undermined the foundations of society. But one can see this in a different light. Putzi Cottolenghi told me that when his grandfather was a young man, he called upon the Vicomtesse de Fegonzac in order to present himself to her. She was already eighty years old, and she received him with the words ‘Don’t you find, monsieur, that the nicest object on earth is a sturdy, erect penis?’ That was still in the best eighteenth-century style, aristocratic through and through. We tried to win back the same freedom after middle-class Victorianism had so dreadfully strangled any natural expression of rapport with life. Épater les bourgeois! was our motto. And today, no one is grateful to us for our efforts . . .” And, having become truly pensive, Uncle Ferdinand adds, “A society preserves its ethical landmarks by ruthlessly expelling anyone who dares to transgress them. He is henceforth cut by one and all. But how can you do that in an era when people have taken up the American custom of drinking cocktails before meals, so that before dinner is even served, everyone is so drunk that no one recognizes anyone, or everyone is ready to hurl his arms around the nearest perfect stranger? . . .”

Uncle Ferdinand stares at me with his round, hazelnut-brown eyes nailed fast by the black pinheads of their pupils. His gaze does not plead for agreement; it is downright demanding. After all, he is presenting his Middle Kingdom not for my critique and analysis but as a costly gift, and despite the exposure of its internal dynamics, he is delivering it in its wholeness and unique givenness, as a happening, so to speak. I therefore abandon myself to the experience without offering resistance.

I gaze at the happy-go-lucky rich of the blissful years of truce between the two world wars. Not only do I peer into their lives, backgrounds, pasts, into their brains, their nooks and crannies, their bank accounts, their businesses and business methods; I am soon initiated into their games, with their often intricate rules, including those games that are not played at polo grounds, tennis courts, golf courses, or roulette and baccarat tables. I know the internal structure of this easygoing world of players, even the view from within this world to the world outside. (For instance, the geography that is a phenomenon of “seasons.” “There are,” says Uncle Ferdinand, “people whom you see on the Riviera in spring and then in London for the season, and afterward, of course, for grouse-shooting in Scotland in August. And in between, there are others whom you see in Biarritz or on the Lido or sailing in the Aegean or in Scandinavia—it all depends on whether someone prefers the sun or the rough sea. And then again, you see others in Deauville for polo or in Merano for the races, or at the autumn hunting in the Ardennes and in Hungary and God knows where else. And others in Egypt during the winter or for skiing in the Engadine. Yes, and then there are people whom you see all year long and everywhere—your friends, in short, the ones who really count . . .”)