TEN MINUTES OF SOLITUDE

'In England, spring is rising: should it be ever rising thus, and coming alive within the human soul?' So, impeccably attired as a gentleman, might I scribble with a golden Parker pen upon my snow-white cuff on a melancholy March evening at the Athenaeum Club ...

Or rather, I might if I were one of those dusty relics whose entire existence devolves into ritually serving out their allotted time in deep, green leather chairs, sipping weak, sepia tea dutifully delivered by albine waiters, or wafting desultorily through the newspapers.

It is, of course, extremely flattering to be admitted to the Athenaeum's hallowed inner sanctum. Yet I confess I am a poor connoisseur of its ancient and time-honoured privileges, being rather better acquainted with much more modest old curiosity shops. I rarely wear bow-ties, and my sole pair of golden cufflinks bears only the singular coat of arms of the Tatars – not exactly buoyant currency in today's bonfire of the vanities!

To be honest, I was never destined for such a serene and regulated life, and I have not yet quite reached that pinched age when I do actually need to scrawl liverish notes upon my sleeves.

Indeed, I still retain some fleeting memories, amid a host of which sits that delicious riposte of Oscar Wilde, the supreme Irish arbiter of fashionable wit: 'We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars.'

I also maintain that to thoroughly inhabit a gentleman's being, rather than simply resemble a gentleman, one must actually be born wearing a Saville Row suit and bow-tie, and then take up residence in them in infancy. Otherwise, the entire thing is an utter masquerade. And despite the natural obligation to dissemble, I know I don't look at my best in masks, which are apt to slip – even though I also know the hardest thing in life is to be what you are, regardless of the consequences.

Just between us – beneath this sneaking yen to not merely appear like a true gentleman but actually be one – I admit an even deeper longing to be a man of noble qualities, in contradiction to the advice of Confucius, who observed that, 'the genuinely noble man is not worried when his merits go unnoticed; he is far more concerned with his own imperfections'.

Ironic, then, that this narrative, the invisible creation of which has brought its author so many pangs of conscience, should unconsciously and uncharacteristically commence with starched cuffs and vague sartorial musings!

What then took me on this diversion, and almost led me astray? Perhaps it was that absurd and theatrical procession along the Staroluzhski embankment in Karlovy Vary, when, past the common folk watching from the pavement cafés, there paraded grandly towards the Mill Colonnade such a gaudy, peacock array of young and not so young aristocrats – the elite of the Old World.

Observers marvelled at them and instantly diagnosed their blue blood from their haute-couture garments – those green velvet tail-coats and black tuxedos, those ballgowns in all shades of red from Bermudan dawn to Sinai sundown; the flowing silk mantles and luxurious capes; the ladies' shimmering elbow gloves and lustrous beaded purses; all polished off by extravagantly costly shoes and exquisite canes.

That evening, I tell you truly, the Fifth Congress of the European nobility was holding a Vampire Festival! And it all culminated spectacularly, late that night, with fireworks