Brideshead Revisited (1981): Season 1, Episode 2 - Home and Abroad - full transcript

Here we are.

Hello, darling.

I wouldn’t put it past Sebastian
to have started dinner.

Thank you, Wilcox.

Well, darling,
I have collected your chum.

I thought you were dying.

I thought so, too.
The pain was excruciating.

Julia, do you think, if you asked him,
Wilcox might give us champagne tonight?

I hate champagne
and Mr Ryder has already had dinner.

Mister Ryder?
Mister Ryder?

Charles drinks champagne at all hours.



I believed myself very near to heaven,
during those languid days at Brideshead.

It is thus I like to remember Sebastian,
as he was that summer,

when we wandered alone
through that enchanted palace.

Is the dome by Vanburgh?
It looks later.

Oh, Charles, don’t be such a tourist.

What does it matter when
it was built, if it’s pretty?

It’s the sort of thing that interests me.

Oh dear, I thought
I’d cured you of all that –

the terrible Mr Collins.

Sebastian in his wheel chair

spinning down the box-edged walks
of the kitchen gardens

in search of alpine strawberries
and warm figs.

Propelling himself through the
succession of hot-houses,

from scent to scent
and climate to climate,



to choose orchids for our buttonholes.

It was an aesthetic education
to live within those walls.

Since the days when, as a schoolboy,

I used to bicycle round
the neighbouring parishes,

rubbing brasses
and photographing fonts,

I had nursed a love of architecture,

but my sentiments at heart
were insular and medieval.

This was my conversion
to the Baroque.

Why is this house called a “castle”?

Because it used to be one
until they moved it.

- What can you mean?
- Just that.

It used to be a castle
about a mile away, down by the village.

Then when they took
a fancy to the valley

and pulled the castle down,
carted it stone by stone up here,

and built a new house.

I’m rather glad they did, aren’t you?

If it was mine,
I couldn’t live anywhere else.

But it isn’t really mine.

I mean, just at the moment it is,

but usually it’s full
of ravening beasts.

If it could only be like this always –
always alone, always summer,

the fruit always ripe,
and Aloysius always in a good temper.

Charles! Charles!

Aloysius!

Are you all right?

- Very funny.
- How’s the ankle?

Very, very funny.

Come on. I suppose
you’ll be in bed for months now.

One day in a cupboard
we found a box of oil paints.

Mummy bought all these paints.

Someone told her that you couldn’t
appreciate the beauty of the world

unless you tried to paint it.

Sebastian gave me the idea
of decorating the Garden Room.

She couldn’t draw at all.

The colours in the tubes
were very bright,

but every time Mummy mixed them,
they came out a kind of khaki.

- Be reasonable.
- Well, you’re ahead of me anyway.

Charles, you do that every single time!

It’s surrounded.

I knew little of oil-painting
and learned its ways as I worked.

By luck, and the happy
mood of the moment,

the brush seemed to do
what was wanted of it,

and in a week it was finished.

Not bad, Charles.

Do you think your mother will mind?

Well, we won’t know
until she sees it, will we?

One day we went down
to the cellars with Wilcox

and saw the empty bays which had once
held a vast store of wine.

Lot of this old wine
just wants drinking up.

We should’ve laid down
the 18’s and 20’s by now.

Her Ladyship says to ask Lord Brideshead,
he says to ask His Lordship,

His Lordship says to ask the lawyers.

That’s how we get low.

I know there’s enough to last ten years,
but what happens then?

That’s what I want to know.

Wilcox welcomed our interest;

we had bottles brought up
from every bin,

and it was during those
tranquil evenings with Sebastian

that I first made a real
acquaintance with wine.

“Now, for the fullest
of appreciation,

“first warm the glass
gently at a candle flame.”

“Fill it a third high...”
of Château Lafitte 1899.

“Swirl the wine gently round the glass.”

That is a claret.

It’s a burgundy,
I have a burgundy in my hand.

You didn’t... You haven’t...
Have you just poured this...?

- I have claret in my hand.
- This is burgundy. This is burgundy.

I know this is burgundy.

Yes.
This was claret.

The glass that... inopportunely
dropped out of my hand.

This legless glass.

It is my glass.

Charles, have another biscuit.

Oh, this is claret.

This is a king of clarets.
It is another... a brother.

Definitely a brother.
Go in there.

Up to the light.

Up to the light,

under the nose, breathe it in.

It’s like a flute by still water.

Ought we to be drunk every night?

Yes...

I think we should.

Yes, I think we should, too.

On Sundays, a neighbouring priest
called to say mass.

Sebastian’s faith was
an enigma to me at the time,

but not one that I felt
particularly concerned to solve.

I took it as a foible,
like his teddy bear.

Such an old bore, Father Phipps.

He kept me back half an hour after mass,
talking about cricket.

- Do you want some cold coffee?
- Yes, please.

It’s so difficult being a Catholic.

- Does it make much difference to you?
- Of course. All the time.

Well, I can’t say that I’ve noticed it.

Are you struggling against temptation?

You don’t seem to me
much more virtuous than me.

My dear Charles,
I’m much, much wickeder.

Well then?

Who was it used to pray,
“O God, make me good, but not yet?”

I don’t know.
You, I should think.

Yes.
I do. All the time.

But it has nothing to do with that.

Good Lord, another naughty scoutmaster.

I suppose they try and make you
believe lots of nonsense?

Is it nonsense?
I wish it were.

It sometimes seems
particularly sensible to me.

My dear Sebastian,
you can’t seriously believe it all.

Can’t I?

No, I mean about Christmas
and the star and the ox

and the ass
and the three kings.

Oh yes, I believe all that.
It’s a lovely idea.

But you can’t believe things
because they’re lovely ideas.

Well, I do.

That’s how I believe.

- Do you believe in prayer?
- Oh Charles, don’t be a bore.

I’m trying to read about this woman in Hull
who’s using an instrument.

You started it.
I was just getting interested.

Well, I’ll never mention it again.

But he did, ten days later,
when our peace was disturbed

on the occasion of the
annual Agricultural Fair.

The house, which seemed to have slept
during the past weeks,

awoke to a flurry of activity,

and Brideshead, Sebastian’s elder brother,
came down to preside.

Queer fellow, my brother.

Now he’s here, I think we should
stay out of the way.

He’s in his element today.

He’s a very big part
of the Agricultural Show.

- He looks normal enough to me.
- Oh, but he’s not. If you only knew.

He’s much the craziest of us,
only it never comes out at all.

He’s all twisted inside.
He wanted to be a priest, you know.

I didn’t.

I think he still does.

He nearly became a Jesuit.

It was awful for Mummy.
She couldn’t exactly try and stop him,

but of course it was
the last thing she wanted.

I mean, imagine what people
would have said – the eldest son;

it’s not even as if it were me.

And poor papa.

The Church had been enough trouble to him
without that happening.

I wonder if I’d have been like that
if I’d gone to Stoneyhurst.

I should have gone, but papa went
abroad before I was old enough.

The first thing he insisted upon
was my going to Eton.

Has your father given up religion?

Well, he’s had to, in a way.

He only took it up
when he married Mummy.

When he went off,
he left it behind,

with the rest of us.

You must meet him.
He’s a very nice man.

Now, don’t look down, Charles.

So, you see,
we’re a mixed family religiously.

Brideshead and Cordelia
are both fervent Catholics;

he’s miserable, she’s bird-happy.

Julia and I are both semi-heathens.

I am happy.

I rather think Julia isn’t.

Mummy is popularly believed to be a saint
and papa is excommunicated.

I wouldn’t know
which of them were happy.

Anyway, however you look at it,

happiness doesn’t seem
to have much to do with it.

And that’s all I want.

I wish I liked Catholics more.

They seem just like everyone else.

My dear Charles, that’s exactly
what they’re not –

particularly in this country,
where they’re so few.

I mean, it’s not just
that they’re a clique.

Everything they think is important
is different from other people.

I mean, they try and cover it up,
but it comes out all the time.

So you see it’s difficult for
semi-heathens like Julia and me.

Sebastian!

Sebastian!

God, that sounds like my sister Cordelia.
Cover yourself up.

Where are you?

Go away, Cordelia.
We’re not decent.

Yes, you are.

I guessed you were here.

You didn’t know
I was about, did you?

I came down with Bridey
and I stopped off to see Francis Xavier.

He’s my pig.

And then I had lunch with Colonel Fender
and then onto the show.

Francis Xavier got a special mention.

But that beast Randal got first
with a very mangy-looking animal.

Darling Sebastian,
it is lovely to see you.

- How’s your poor foot?
- Say how-d’you-do to Mr Ryder.

- Sorry. How do you do?
- I am sorry about your pig.

They’re all getting pretty boozy
down there, so I came away.

I say, who’s been painting
the Garden Hall?

I went in to get a shooting stick
and saw it.

Be careful what you say.
It’s Mr Ryder.

But it’s lovely.
I say, did you really?

You are clever!

Oh, why don’t you both come down?
There’s nobody about.

Bridey’s bound
to bring the judges in.

No, no, he won’t. I heard him
making arrangements not to.

He’s very sour today.

He didn’t want me to have
dinner with you, but I fixed that.

Oh, do come on.

I’ll be in the nursery
when you’re fit to be seen.

We were a somber
little party that evening.

Brideshead was only three years older
than Sebastian and I,

but he seemed of another generation.

I hope Sebastian is seeing to the wine.

Wilcox is apt to be rather grudging
when he is on his own.

- He’s treated us very liberally.
- I’m delighted to hear it.

- You’re fond of wine?
- Very.

I wish I were.

It’s such a bond with other men.

At Oxford I tried to get drunk
once or twice.

But I didn’t enjoy it.

Beer and whisky
I find even less appetizing.

Events like today’s show
are in consequence a torment to me.

I like wine.

My sister Cordelia’s last report

said that she was not only
the worst girl in the school,

but the worst that had ever been
in the memory of the oldest nun.

That’s because the Reverend Mother said
that if I didn’t keep my room tidy,

Our Lady would be very grieved.

and I told her that our Blessed Lady
didn’t give two hoots

whether I put my gym shoes on the left
or the right of my dancing shoes.

Reverend Mother was livid.

Cordelia, Our Lady cares
about obedience.

Bridey, don’t be so pious.

We’ve an atheist in our midst.

- Agnostic.
- Really?

What were the entries like this year?
Were you pleased?

No, the standard was remarkably low.
Not a decent animal to chose between.

If I’d had my way,
no prizes would have been awarded.

- It would have served Randal right.
- Cordelia!

By the way, did I tell you
I’d seen the Bishop of London?

No, Bridey, you didn’t.

He wants to close the chapel.

He couldn’t.

- Do you think Mummy would let him?
- There are so few of us.

It isn’t as though we’re old Catholics
with everyone on the estate coming to mass.

Do you mean we have to drive miles
on winter mornings?

We must have
the Blessed Sacraments here.

I like popping in at odd times;
so does Mummy.

So do, I but it’ll have to go
sooner or later,

perhaps after mummy’s time.
No, thank you.

The point is whether it wouldn’t
be better to let it go now.

You’re an artist, Ryder,
what do you think of it aesthetically?

I think it’s beautiful.

Is it Good Art?

Well, I don’t quite know
what you mean.

Oh, Bridey, stop being so Jesuitical.

I’m sorry, I thought
it was an interesting point.

Well, if you’ll excuse me.

I must take Sebastian away
for half an hour.

There are some family matters
to deal with.

It’s time you were in bed, Cordelia.

Must digest first.

I’m not used to gorging
like this at night.

I’ll talk to Charles.

“Charles”? “Charles”?
“Mr Ryder” to you, child.

Send her to bed if she’s a bore.

Are you really an agnostic?

Does your family always talk
about religion all the time?

Not all the time.

It’s a subject that comes up
naturally, doesn’t it?

Does it?
It never has with me before.

Then perhaps you are an agnostic.

- I’ll pray for you.
- Thank you.

I’m sure it’s more than I deserve.

Oh, I’ve got harder cases than you.

I’ve got Lloyd George, the Kaiser,

and Olive Banks.

Who’s she?

She got bunked last term
from the convent.

The Reverend Mother found something
she’d been writing.

If you weren’t an agnostic,

I should ask you for five shillings
to buy a black goddaughter.

Nothing would surprise me
about your religion.

It’s a new thing
that a priest started last term.

You send five bob
to some nuns in Africa

and they christen a baby
and name her after you.

I’ve got six black Cordelias.

Isn’t that lovely?

That night I began to realise
how little I really knew of Sebastian,

and to understand why he had always sought
to keep me apart from the rest of his life.

He was like a friend made on
board ship, on the high seas;

now we had come to his home port.

Sorry I’ve been ignoring you.

Bridey’s got all these papers
he wants me to take to Papa.

I’d had a nice talk with Cordelia.

She’s going to pray for me.

She made a novena for her pig.

Now, come on. We must pack.

I’ve decided you’d better
come to Venice with me.

But that’s absurd,
I haven’t got any money.

I’ve thought of that.
We live off papa when we’re there.

The lawyers pay my fare –
plus first class and sleeper.

We can both travel third for that.

You see, it’s fixed.

- But I haven’t got any clothes for Venice.
- Oh, Charles...

And so Sebastian and I came to Venice.

We had travelled
on the long cheap route

by boat and train,
on wooden seats,

in hot carriages filled with
peasants and the smell of garlic,

as the sun mounted higher
and the country began to glow with heat.

You’ve been here before?

No.

I came once from the sea.

This is the way to arrive.

- Hello, Plender.
- Hello, my Lord.

- How are you?
- Very well, thank you.

- Mr Ryder.
- How do you do, sir?

- How do you do?
- We expected you on the morning express.

His Lordship thought you must
have looked up the train wrong.

Ah, well. We came third.

His Lordship said to tell you
that he was at the Lido.

Did he?

This is your room, my Lord,
the one you had before.

Right, thank you.

Mr Ryder, you’re next door.

Mosquito.

Mostica not now.

Make hot wash.

If I may, sir.

It’s this Venetian plumbing, my Lord.
It’s not to be trusted.

I’ll get some hot water.

- A bit bleak.
- Bleak?

Come here.

Now, look at that.

I don’t think you could call it bleak.

- Hot wash?
- Not so hot wash.

Better look respectable to meet Papa.

- Plender, is my father alone?
- At the moment, my Lord, yes.

Good.
Charles, we needn’t dress for dinner.

Darling papa.

Goodness, how young you’re looking!

This is Charles, papa.

Charles, don’t you think
my father very handsome?

- How do you do?
- How do you do, sir?

Whoever looked up your train
made a bêtise. There’s no such one.

- We came on it.
- You can’t have done.

Only a slow train from Milan
at that time.

I’ve just been to the Lido.

I’ve taken to playing tennis there
with a professional

in the early part of the evening.

It is the only time of day
when it’s not too hot.

How very energetic of you, papa.

I hope you boys will be comfortable.

My room’s wonderful.

This house was built
for the comfort of one person only.

I am that person,
and I have a room this size

and a very splendid
dressing-room besides.

And Cara has taken possession
of the only other sizeable room.

- How is she?
- Cara?

Oh, she’s gone to visit some Americans
at a villa on the Brenta canal.

She’ll be back with us tomorrow.

So what shall we do tonight, papa?

Oh, we could go to the Luna,

though it’s getting very filled up
with English people now,

or would it be too dull to stay here?

Cara is bound
to want to go out tomorrow.

No, no. That would be lovely.

Well, we dine at eight.
We could go out and have a drink first.

I had been full of curiosity
to meet Lord Marchmain.

When I did so
I was first struck by his normality,

which, as I saw more of him,
I found to be studied.

It was as though he were
conscious of a Byronic aura,

which he considered to be in bad taste
and was at pains to suppress.

Why, I wonder, are the Italians always
supposed to be so good at sweets?

We had an Italian pastry-cook
at Brideshead until my father’s day.

Then we changed to an Austrian,
so much better.

Now, I suppose, there is a British matron
with beefy forearms.

How do you two propose
to spend your time here?

Bathing or sight-seeing?

Well, I should like to do
some sight-seeing.

Cara will love that.
You can’t do both, you know.

Charles is very keen on painting.

- Yes?
- Yes.

Any particular Venetian painter?

Bellini.

Ah, which one?

I didn’t know there were two.

There are three, to be precise.

Painting then was very much
a family business.

How was England when you left?

It’s been lovely this summer.

Was it?

Was it?

It’s my tragedy that I abominate
the English countryside.

I suppose it’s very wrong
to inherit great responsibilities

and be entirely indifferent to them.

I am all that the Socialists
would have me be,

and a great stumbling-block
to my own party.

However, no doubt my elder son
will change all that,

if they leave him anything to inherit.

He’s rather a poppet, isn’t he?

Don’t worry.
He’s really very sweet underneath.

He does frighten me a bit.

You’ll soon get used to that.

Well, shall we walk, or take a cab?

Oh, I think a cab.

Where do you want to go?

I’ll show you something
very, very special.

The Bridge of Sighs, St Marks...

Lord Marchmain’s mistress
appeared the next day.

- Buon giorno, Cara.
- Buon giorno.

I was completely ignorant of women

and could not with any certainty
recognise a prostitute in the streets.

I was not, therefore,
indifferent to the fact

of living under the same roof
as an adulterous couple.

But I was old enough
to hide my interest.

Lord Marchmain’s mistress, therefore,

found me with a multitude of
conflicting expectations about her,

all of which were, for the moment,
disappointed by her appearance.

How lovely to see you, Sebastian.

- You must be Charles.
- How do you do?

My dear.

Alex, Vittoria Corombona
has asked us to her ball.

Shall we accept?

Very kind of her.
But, as you know, I do not dance.

No, but for the boys?

It is a thing to be seen –
the Corombonna Palace,

lit up for a ball.

And one does not know how many
such balls there will be in the future.

The boys must do as they like,
but we must refuse.

And I have asked Mrs Hacking Brunner
to luncheon.

She has a charming daughter.
Sebastian and his friend will like her.

Sebastian and his friend are more
interested in Bellini than heiresses.

Oh, but that’s what I’ve always wished.

I have been here
more times than I can count

and Alex has never let me
inside San Marco even.

Let’s become tourists.

There’s an extraordinary little man,
Daisy Guzzoli’s uncle,

he knows everybody.

He’ll make a marvellous guide.

And now, off to see our works of art.
Tiepolo, Tinteretto, Bellini...

So we became tourists.

All doors were open to Cara’s
little Venetian nobleman.

With him and a guide book
she came with us,

flagging sometimes,
but never giving up.

A neat, prosaic figure amid the
immense splendours of the place.

As a child I had no religion.

I was taken to church weekly,
and at school attended chapel daily,

but, as though in compensation,

from the time I went to my public school
I was excused church on the holidays.

The view implicit in my education was
that the basic narrative of Christianity

had long been exposed as a myth.

And that opinion was now divided

as to whether its ethical teaching
was of present value.

A division in which
the main weight went against it.

Religion was a hobby which some people
professed and others did not.

At the best, it was slightly ornamental.

At the worst, it was the province
of complexes and inhibitions.

Catchwords of the decade,

and of the intolerance,
hypocrisy, and sheer stupidity

attributed to it for centuries.

No one had ever suggested to me
that these quaint observances

expressed a coherent
philosophical system,

and in transigents historical claims.

Nor, had they done so,
would I have been much interested.

My father did not go to church

except on family occasions
and then with derision.

My mother, I think, was devout.

It once seemed odd to me that she
should have thought it her duty

to leave my father and me and go off
with an ambulance, to Serbia,

to die of exhaustion
in the snow in Bosnia.

But I later recognised
some such spirit in myself.

Later, too, I have come
to accept claims

which, then in 1923,
I never troubled to examine,

and to accept
the supernatural as the real.

But I was aware of no such needs
that summer.

Some days life kept pace
with the gondola,

as we nosed through the side-canals

and the boatman uttered his plaintive
musical bird-cry of warning;

on other days with the speed-boat

bouncing over the lagoon
in a stream of sun-lit foam.

Every morning after breakfast,
Sebastian, Cara and I

would leave the palace
by the street door

and wander through a maze of bridges
and squares and alleys,

for Florian’s for coffee,

and watched the grave crowds crossing
and recrossing under the campanile.

I was drowning in honey, stingless.

The fortnight at Venice
passed quickly and sweetly,

perhaps too sweetly.

it left a confused memory
of fierce sunlight on the sands,

of cool, marble interiors;

of water everywhere,
lapping on smooth stone,

reflected in a dapple of light
on painted ceilings;

of a night at the Corombona Palace
such as Byron might have known.

I remember most particularly one
conversation towards the end of my visit.

Sebastian had gone
to play tennis with his father,

and Cara at last
admitted to fatigue.

We sat in the late afternoon

at the windows
overlooking the Grand Canal.

It was the first time
we had been alone together.

I think you’re very fond of Sebastian.

Certainly.

I know of these romantic friendships
of the English and the Germans.

They are not Latin.

I think they are very good
if they don’t go on too long.

It’s a kind of love that comes to children
before they know its meaning.

In England it comes a little later,
when you are almost men.

I think I like that.

I think it’s better to have this first
kind of love for a boy than for a girl.

Alex, you see, had it for a girl,
his wife.

Do you think he loves me?

Really, Cara, you do ask
the most embarrassing questions.

How should I know?

I assume...

He does not.
But not the littlest piece.

But then why does he stay with you?

Because I protect him
from Lady Marchmain.

He hates her.

But you can have no conception
how he hates her.

My friend, he is a volcano of hate.

He can’t breathe the same air as she.

He won’t set foot in England
because it’s her home.

He can scarcely be happy with Sebastian
because he’s her son.

But Sebastian hates her, too.

Oh no, I think you’re wrong there.

He may not admit it to you.

He may not admit it to himself.

They are full of hate.

Hate of themselves.

Alex and his family.

And how has she deserved all this hate?

She’s done nothing except to be loved
by someone who was not grown up.

When people hate
with all that energy,

it is something in themselves
they are hating.

Alex is hating
all the illusions of boyhood –

innocence, God, hope.

Sebastian is in love
with his own childhood.

That will make him very unhappy.

His teddy-bear, his nanny,

and he is nineteen years old.

How good it is to sit in the shade
and talk of love.

Come, let’s go and meet them.

Sebastian drinks too much.

I suppose we both do.

Oh, with you it doesn’t matter.
I’ve watched you together.

With Sebastian it’s different.

He’ll become a drunkard if someone
doesn’t come to stop him.

I have known so many.

Alex was nearly a drunkard
when I met him.

It’s in the blood.

I see it in the way Sebastian drinks.
It’s not your way.

Cara!

English weather!

Well, thank God,
it’s driven the English away.

It is sad, for the boys’ last day.

We arrived back
the day before term began.

On the way from Charing Cross I dropped
Sebastian in front of Marchmain house –

his family’s London home
on the edge of Green Park.

Good morning, Austin.

Well, “Marchers”.

I won’t ask you in because the place
is probably full of my family.

See you in Oxford.

Have a good journey up tomorrow.

The taxi took me all alone to Bayswater,

where my father greeted me
with his usual air of mild regret.

Here today and gone tomorrow.
I seem to see very little of you.

Perhaps it’s dull for you here.
How else could it be otherwise?

Have you enjoyed yourself?

Very much.

- I went to Venice.
- Yes. Yes. I suppose so.

- The weather was fine?
- Yes, father.

That friend you were so
concerned about, did he die?

No. I went to Venice with him.

I’m very thankful.
You should have written to tell me.

I worried about him so much.