“Exactly as I remember him,” said the Princess. “A whiff of brimstone. Irresistible. And Byronic.”
“He ended as a shambling eccentric,” said Darcourt. “Agreeable, when you knew him. But a long way from le beau ténébreux.”
“Wouldn’t you have expected that?” said Thresher.
“What would Byron have been like if he had lived to be an old man? A fat, bald Tory with fearful indigestion. Probably an embittered woman-hater. These romantic heroes are lucky if they die early. They are not built for long wear.”
Although the conversation continued throughout an evening that Darcourt ended by leaving sharp at eleven o’clock, he heard nothing more of significance about Francis Cornish. The talk touched on Cornish again and again, then veered away to some matter of concern to the art world, about which Thresher had an endless fund of hints and stories that might have been illuminating if Darcourt had been better informed than he was about the great sales, the great exposures, and the stupefying prices.
His evening, however, had not been quite so limited in its information as it might have seemed. Max and Amalie did their best to requite him for the drawings he had placed in their hands before dinner. They played fair in that, and when he left, the Princess gave him all her photographs of her adolescent love. But all evening his eyes turned again and again toward The Marriage at Cana, and when he caught his plane the next morning he was on fire to continue some research which would, he greatly hoped, tell him something about Francis Cornish that would make his book much more than a respectable, respectful biography.
5
Was Arthur pleased that such an important meeting of the Cornish Foundation should be taking place somewhere other than at the Round Table? That instead of the nuts and fruits and sweets from the Platter of Plenty they were refreshing themselves from a slapdash smorgasbord Dr. Gunilla Dahl-Soot and Schnak had whipped up with a few biscuits and tins of smoked fish? That a potent aquavit was being drunk—drunk rather too freely by Hollier—with beer chasers?
No, Arthur was not pleased, but his self-control was so great that nobody would have known it, and indeed he was not fully aware of it himself, except as a generalized discomfort. He felt that control of the opera project had been taken out of his hands without any obvious snatching, and he was now an adviser only, rather than in his accustomed place as Chairman of the Board.
They had come to listen to music. There was a piano in his splendid penthouse, and if a piano was needed to learn what Hoffmann’s music was like, and what Schnak had been able to make of it, why had the Doctor somewhat imperiously demanded that they come here? Schnak was playing now.
She was a competent pianist, for a composer. That is to say, she could play anything at sight but she could not play anything really well. She could play from an orchestral score, giving what she called “a notion” of what was written there, piecing out what she could not play with her ten fingers by hoots, whistles, and shouts of “Brass!” or “Woodwind choir!”. When she wished to indicate that a melody was for a singer, she sang in a distressing voice, and as there were no words she took refuge in Yah-yah-yah.
As astonishing as Schnak’s noise was her altered appearance. Clean, to begin with. Dressed in some new clothes that looked as if they might have been chosen by the Doctor, for they were severe and might have had style if Schnak had worn them better. No longer haggard, but puffily plump, like someone who has been eating too much after a long abstinence. Her hair was now a respectable colour, an undistinguished brown, and flew about in uncontrolled wisps. She looked happy, and deeply engaged in what she was doing. A Schnak transformed.
Will I get a bill for those new clothes, or will the Doctor have the tact to conceal them among her own expenses, thought Darcourt. Reasonable enough. So many odd bills were reaching his desk that he began to feel like a Universal Provider. But it all made sense, in a way.
No member of the Round Table was a trained musician, but all were intelligent listeners—concert-goers and buyers of recordings—and they thought that what they heard was good. Melodious, certainly, and passionate. There seemed to be lots of it, and it was being presented in chunks of undeveloped, non-continuous sound. When at last Schnak ceased to play, the Doctor spoke.
“That is what we have, you see. That is what Hulda must develop and stitch together, and occasionally amplify with stuff that is akin to Hoffmann without being genuine Hoffmann. He left quite a lot of notes in prose, indicating what he had in mind. But it is a long way from being an opera. What we must have now is a detailed libretto, with action and words. Words that fit these melodies. At this moment we have not even a final list of the characters in the piece. Of course we know what the orchestration will be—the sort of thirty-two-piece group that Hoffmann would have been able to use in an opera theatre of his own. Strings, woods, a few brasses, and kettle-drums—only two, for he would not have had sophisticated modern timpani. So—what have the literary people been doing?”
“We have a scheme for the libretto. That’s to say, I have a scheme, pretty much like the one I outlined a few weeks ago,” said Powell. “As for characters, there are the seven leading roles: Arthur, Guenevere, Lancelot, Modred, Morgan Le Fay, Elaine, and Merlin.”
“And Chorus?” said the Doctor.
“For the men you have the Knights of the Round Table, and there must be twelve, to make up thirteen with Arthur. Linking it with Christ and the Disciples.”
“Oh, that’s very dubious,” said Hollier. “That’s nineteenth-century romanticism and utterly discredited now. Arthur had over a hundred Knights.”
“Well, he certainly isn’t going to have them in this opera,” said Powell. “As well as Lancelot and Modred he can have Sir Kay, the seneschal, Gawaine and Bedevere who are the good guys, and Gareth Beaumains, who can be a pretty boy if we can find one. Then we want Lucas, the butler, and Ulphius, the chamberlain. For funnies we can have Dynadan, who was a wit and lampoonist and can be a high-comedy figure, and Dagonet the Fool, who can be a jackass now and then to keep things lively. And the two blacks, of course.”
“Blacks?” said Arthur. “Why blacks in sixth-century Britain?”
“Because if you have an opera nowadays without a black or two, you’re in hot water,” said Powell. “Luckily we can use Sir Pellinore and Sir Palomides, who are both Saracens, so that takes care of that.”
“But Saracens were not black,” said Hollier.
“They will be in this show,” said Powell. “I want no trouble.”
“It will be incredible,” said Hollier.
“No it won’t. Not when I get it on the stage,” said Powell.
“Nothing is incredible in opera. Now, as for women—”
“But wait,” said Hollier. “Are you sending this whole thing up? Making it into a comedy?”
“Not at all,” said the Doctor. “I see what Powell means. Opera presents mythic truth, even when it is about nineteenth-century whores with golden hearts. And mythic truth sets you free to do a lot of very practical things. What about women?”
“A woman for every Knight,” said Powell. “They don’t need names or characters. Except for the Lady Clarissant, who must be Number Two to Guenevere and carry her fan, or catch her when she faints, or whatever may be necessary. Basically, Clarissant is Chorus, though she will have to have a few more bucks because she plays a named character. So there you are. Twenty-nine in all; and a few extras for heralds and trumpeters, and of course understudies, and you’ll get out with less than forty, and never more than thirty-four on stage at one time. We can’t get any more on that stage in Stratford if it is to look like anything but the subway at rush-hour.”