OPINIONSrnWaugh Storiesrnby George McCartneyrn”A shriller note could now be heard rising from Sir Alastair’s rooms;rnany who have heard that sound will shrink at the recollection of it;rnit is the sound of the English county families baying for broken glass.”rn— Evelyn Waugh, Decline and FallrnThe Complete Stories ofrnEvelyn Waughrnby Evelyn WaughrnBoston: Little, Brown and Companr;rn536 pp., $29.95rnTwo vignettes illustrate FACKH Waugh’Srncharacter. One has to do with art;rnthe other, protocol. In 1951, EvelynrnWaugh commissioned a painting depictingrnthe interior of a plane’s cabin. AtrnWaugh’s direction, all the passengers’rnfiices are contorted in various expressionsrnof horror. The implication is unaoidable.rnThe plane is moments awav fromrncrashing. Upon seeing it in Waugh’srnhome, a guest wondered aloud if peoplernmight find it shocking. Wangh gleefullyrnreplied, “I hope so.”rnAs for protocol, Waugh was so committedrnto the prc-Vatican II Lenten disciplinernthat he carried a tiny scale with himrnwhen dining away from home. Wlietherrnvisiting friends or a restaurant, he wouldrnproduce his scale at the dinner table andrnweigh his portions to ensure the’ did notrnexceed the requirements of the season’srntasdng regulations.rnShocking excess, on one hand; scrupulousrnfussing, on the other: Tliese were thernpoles that bounded Waugh’s life. Hernwas, in short, a man of extremes, mischievouslyrnprovocative one moment andrnunwaveringly austere the next. It was thisrninner tension that made him preternatu-rnGeorge McCartney is the author ofrnConfused Roaring: Evelyn Waugh andrnthe Modernist Tradition (IndianarnUniversit)’Press, J987).rnrally alert to the struggle between anarchyrnand order in the world at large.rnWien Waugh attended a Paris art exhibitrnin 1929, he was particularly fascinatedrnby the contrast between two of the worksrnon display. One was a surrealistic effortrnbv Max Ernst; the other, a Cubist work byrnFrancis Picabia. He reports that they:rnhung cheek by jowl, these two abstractrnpictures, the one so defiantrnand chaotic, probing vith suchrnfierce intensit’ into eer’ cre’icernand convolution of negation, thernother so delicately poised, so impossiblvrntidy, discarding so austereh’rnevery accident, however agreeablernthat could tempt disorder.rn[They] seemed between them tornt)pify the continual conflict ofrnmodern societv’.rnWaugh’s interest in these paintings isrnnot difficult to understand. Their “continualrnconflict” between chaotic energyrnand tidy poise marked the fault line fromrnwhich his creatiitv sprung. They representedrnhis own personal dialectic, a tensionrnthat equipped him to render satiricalK’rnan age in which, according tornF’ather Rothschild, S.J., in Vile Bodies, “arnradical instability'” had provoked “an almostrnfatal hunger for permanence.”rnThe experts in our ccntur)’ have providedrnus with plent)’ of ideological maps,rnbut Wangh was convinced that whatrnpeople really need is a reliable compass.rnHe found his in the Roman CatholicrnChurch. It proided him the absoluterncoordinates he craved. This does notrnmean he stayed on course fliroughout hisrnjournev; but he had the grace never tornpretend to l^e a saint or e’en reasonabhrngood. His son Auberon supplies a vividrninstance. During the rationing maniarnfollowing World War II, some British bureaucratsrnhit upon the notion of allottingrnone banana per child to householdsrnthroughout the isles. At the time, thisrnmeant three bananas for the Waughs, thernfamily not having reached its full sixchildrndimensions yet. Wlien the fruit arrivedrnand was placed on the luncheonrntable, the children sat down eagerly.rnThe- then submitted quietly to the spectaclernof their father slicing all three bananasrninto a bowl and, after addingrncream and sugar, eating them himself Arnlesson in Are unforeseen consequences ofrngood intentions, perhaps.rnFrom that da-, Auberon continues, hernnever took seriously anything his fatherrnhad to say about morality. Quite right.rnWe do not go to Waugh for preaching.rnWe turn to him for his abundant and ev-rn24/CHRONICLESrnrnrn