Martins felt he was safe now and said, ‘Zane Grey – I don’t know any other,’ and was mystified at the low subservient laughter from the English colony.

Crabbin interposed quickly for the sake of the Austrians, ‘That is a little joke of Mr Dexter’s. He meant the poet Gray – a gentle, mild, subtle genius – one can see the affinity.’

‘And he is called Zane Grey?’

‘That was Mr Dexter’s joke. Zane Grey wrote what we call Westerns – cheap popular novelettes about bandits and cowboys.’

‘He is not a great writer?’

‘No, no. Far from it,’ Mr Crabbin said. ‘In the strict sense I would not call him a writer at all.’ Martins told me that he felt the first stirrings of revolt at that statement. He had never regarded himself before as a writer, but Crabbin’s self-confidence irritated him – even the way the light flashed back from Crabbin’s spectacles seemed an added cause of vexation. Crabbin said, ‘He was just a popular entertainer.’

‘Why the hell not?’ Martins said fiercely.

‘Oh, well, I merely meant –’

‘What was Shakespeare?’

Somebody with great daring said, ‘A poet.’

‘Have you ever read Zane Grey?’

‘No, I can’t say –’

‘Then you don’t know what you are talking about.’

One of the young men tried to come to Crabbin’s rescue. ‘And James Joyce, where would you put James Joyce, Mr Dexter?’

‘What do you mean put? I don’t want to put anybody anywhere,’ Martins said. It had been a very full day: he had drunk too much with Colonel Cooler; he had fallen in love; a man had been murdered – and now he had the quite unjust feeling that he was being got at. Zane Grey was one of his heroes: he was damned if he was going to stand any nonsense.

‘I mean would you put him among the really great?’

‘If you want to know, I’ve never heard of him. What did he write?’

He didn’t realize it, but he was making an enormous impression. Only a great writer could have taken so arrogant, so original a line. Several people wrote Zane Grey’s name on the backs of envelopes and the Gräfin whispered hoarsely to Crabbin, ‘How do you spell Zane?’

‘To tell you the truth, I’m not quite sure.’

A number of names were simultaneously flung at Martins – little sharp pointed names like Stein, round pebbles like Woolf. A young Austrian with an intellectual black forelock called out, ‘Daphne du Maurier,’ and Mr Crabbin winced and looked sideways at Martins. He said in an undertone, ‘Be gentle with them.’

A kind-faced woman in a hand-knitted jumper said wistfully, ‘Don’t you agree, Mr Dexter, that no one, no one has written about feelings so poetically as Virginia Woolf? In prose, I mean.’

Crabbin whispered. ‘You might say something about the stream of consciousness.’

‘Stream of what?’