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14-07-2016, 16:54
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Joseph Conrad’ (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Conrad)s 1907 novel*The Secret Agent is set in London in the 1880s and*features as a key location an imaginary German beer hall*called The Silenus — a haunt of violent revolutionaries.We made passing reference to The Silenus in*our short e-book about German lager in Victorian and Edwardian London,*Gambrinus Waltz (https://www.amazon.co.uk/Gambrinus-Waltz-German-Victorian-Edwardian-ebook/dp/B00PIJUH1A), because*it demonstrates the suspicion with which German beer halls in Britain came to be viewed in the run up to World War I.
For his fictional composite Conrad borrowed a location from two real establishments, Darmstätter’s and the Tivoli, which stood near each other on the Strand, while its name would seem to be a reference to an entirely different establishment, Ye Olde Gambrinus, which we think is pictured above in a photograph from around 1902.
Anyway, here’s a chunk*from Chapter 4 of The Secret Agent*via the Project Gutenberg edition (http://www.gutenberg.org/files/974/974-h/974-h.htm), in which Comrade Ossipon meets The Professor at The Silenus:
Most of the thirty or so little tables covered by red cloths with a white design stood ranged at right angles to the deep brown wainscoting of the underground hall.* Bronze chandeliers with many globes depended from the low, slightly vaulted ceiling, and the fresco paintings ran flat and dull all round the walls without windows, representing scenes of the chase and of outdoor revelry in medieval costumes. Varlets in green jerkins brandished hunting knives and raised on high tankards of foaming beer.
‘Unless I am very much mistaken, you are the man who would know the inside of this confounded affair,’ said the robust Ossipon, leaning over, his elbows far out on the table and his feet tucked back completely under his chair.* His eyes stared with wild eagerness.
An upright semi-grand piano near the door, flanked by two palms in pots, executed suddenly all by itself a valse tune with aggressive virtuosity.* The din it raised was deafening.* When it ceased, as abruptly as it had started, the be-spectacled, dingy little man who faced Ossipon behind a heavy glass mug full of beer emitted calmly what had the sound of a general proposition.
‘In principle what one of us may or may not know as to any given fact can’t be a matter for inquiry to the others.’
‘Certainly not,’ Comrade Ossipon agreed in a quiet undertone. ‘In principle.’
With his big florid face held between his hands he continued to stare hard, while the dingy little man in spectacles coolly took a drink of beer and stood the glass mug back on the table.
QUOTE: Joseph Conrad’s Silenus Beer Hall (http://boakandbailey.com/2016/07/quote-joseph-conrads-silenus-beer-hall/) originally posted at Boak & Bailey's Beer Blog (http://boakandbailey.com)


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