Geneva

Excerpt A May morning in Geneva, in a meagrely equipped office with secondhand furniture, much the worse for wear, consisting of a dingy writing table with an old typewriter on it in the middle of the room, a revolving chair for the typist, an old press which has not been painted or varnished for many years, and three chairs for visitors against the wall near the door. The stove, an undecorated iron one of the plainest sort, designed rather for central heating in a cellar than for an inhabited apartment, is to the typist's right, the press facing it at the opposite side on the typist's left. The door is beside the press. The window is behind the typist. A young Englishwoman is seated in the revolving chair. From the state of the table she seems to have been working at the compilation of a card index, as there are cards scattered about, and an open case to put them in, also a pile of foolscap from which she has been copying the card inscriptions. But at present she is not at work. She is smoking and reading an illustrated magazine with her heels on the table. A thermos flask, a cup and saucer, and a packet of cigarettes are beside her on a sliding shelf drawn out from the table. She is a self-satisfied young person, fairly attractive and well aware of it. Her dress, though smartly cut, is factory made; and her speech and manners are London suburban. Somebody knocks at the door. She hastily takes her heels off the table; jumps up; throws her cigarette into the stove; snatches the things off the sliding shelf and hides them in the press; finally resumes her seat and looks as busy as possible. THE TYPIST [calling] Entrez, s'il vous plait. A middle-aged gentleman of distinguished appearance, with a blond beard and moustache, top hatted, frock coated, and gloved, comes in. He contemplates the room and the young woman with evident surprise. HE. Pardon, mademoiselle: I seek the office of the International Committee for Intellectual Cooperation. SHE. Yes: thats quite all right. Take a seat, please. HE [hesitating] Thank you; but my business is of great importance: I must see your chief. This is not the head office, is it? SHE. No: the head office is in Paris. This is all there is here. Not much of a place, is it? HE. Well, I must confess that after visiting the magnificent palace of the International Labor Office and the new quarters of the Secretariat, I expected to find the Committee for Intellectual Co-operation lodged in some imposingly monumental structure. SHE. Oh, isnt it scandalous? I wish youd write to the papers about it. Do please sit down. HE. Thank you. [He is about to take one of the chairs from the wall]. SHE. No, not that one: one of its legs isnt safe: it's there only for show. Will you please take the other? HE. Can the Committee not afford you a new chair? SHE. It cant afford anything. The intellectual budget is the interest on two million paper francs that one is glad to get threepence for: they used to be tuppence. So here I am in one rotten little room on the third floor of a tumbledown old house full of rats. And as to my salary I should be ashamed to name it. A Church charity would be ashamed to pay it. HE. I am utterly astounded. [He takes a sound chair from the wall; places it near the office table; and sits down]. The intellectual co-operation of sixty nations must be a very extensive business. How can it possibly be conducted in this bare little place? SHE. Oh, I conduct it all right. It's never in a hurry, you know. HE. But really-pardon me if I am taking too much of your time- SHE. Oh, thats quite all right. I'm only too glad to have a bit of chat with somebody. Nobody ever comes in here: people dont seem to know that the Committee exists. HE. Do you mean that you have nothing to do? SHE. Oh no. I tell you I have to do all the intellectual co- operation. I have to do it singlehanded too: I havnt even an office boy to help me. And theres no end to the work. If it werent, as I ...