Taki, Nostalgic

Taki, the old Greek antisemite, cannot stop re-telling the stories of his golden youth, spent whoring around with no-good Porfirio Rubirosa and his kind. Who remembers Porfi except Taki?

When Peter, Nicola, Vladimir and Franqois were in their late teens, I was about ten years older, and could get them into New Jimmy's, the chicest club of the period. The first time Porfirio Rubirosa set eyes on Franqois, he called him the spitting image of Johnny de Caraman. 'Well,' said someone, 'who do you expect him to look like, the milkman?' 'You'd be surprised how many sons of aristocrats look like the milkman,' answered the wise Rubi.

Porfirio may have been talking from personal knowledge, as he was famous for the length of his sexual organ--Truman Capote, in Answered Prayers, described it as eleven inches long--and to this day the extra-long pepper mills in French bistros are called "Rubirosas." Taki´s anecdotes have been heard by everybody at least twice and he keeps repeating them. Chattering old fools are unbearable, and only themselves are happily unaware of it. Politeness demands that one feign attention for at least two minutes, and a few masochists are able to hold it that long. But rich men are endlessly fascinating - and Taki is very rich - even when their chattering starts showing signs of clinical dementia praecox.