–so that’s obviously you, Geraint, you Cymric mystifier, because you have us all buffaloed about this opera business. It’s just about a crazy voyage that somehow, in an unfathomable way, makes a kind of eerie sense. I mean, so many of us are professors—well, Clem and Simon and me, which is quite a few—and listen to this from the Bellman’s definition of a Snark—
Isn’t that what we’ve been doing all evening? Yammering about Malory and the scholarly approach to something that is utterly unscholarly in the marrow of its bones, because it’s Art. And Art is rum stuff—the very rummest. It may look like a nice, simple Snark, but it can suddenly prove to be a Boojum, and then, look out!
Do you get what I mean, Arthur? Do you see how it fits in and haunts my mind?”
“I might see it if I had your mind, but I haven’t,” said Arthur. “Literary reference leaves me gaping.”
“I bet it would have left King Arthur gaping,” said Maria loyally, “if Merlin had got off a few quaint cracks from his Black Book.”
“Yes, but I see how this whole thing could go very queer,” said Penny. “And I had a hint of it tonight. That poor kid Schnak thinks she’s tough, but she’s just a battered baby, and she’s being let in for something she certainly can’t handle. It worries me. I don’t want to be a busybody, or a soul-saver, or any of that, but surely we ought to do something!”
“I think you’re jealous,” said Powell.
“Jealous! Me! Geraint, I hate you! I’ve just decided. Ever since I met you I’ve wondered what I really think about you, you blathering, soapy Welsh goat, and now I know. You’re in this for what you can get, and you don’t give a maggoty shit for anybody else, and I hate you!”
“We’re all in everything for what we can get, professor,” said Powell. “And if not, why are we in it? What are you in it for? You don’t know, but you hope to find out. Fame? Fun? Something to fill up the gaps in your life? What’s your personal Snark? You really ought to find out.”
“This is where I get out,” said Penny. “Thank you for driving me home, Arthur. I can’t get out unless you get out first, Geraint.”
Powell stepped on to the pavement and bowed as he held the door for the furious Penny.
“You shouldn’t have said that, Geraint,” said Maria, when they drove away.
“Why not? I think it’s true.”
“All the more reason not to say it,” said Maria.
“You could be right about Penny,” said Darcourt. “Why is such an attractive woman unattached at her age? Why is she so flirtatious with men but it never leads to anything? Perhaps our Penny is looking asquint at something she doesn’t want to see.”
“A fight over Schnak is just what we need to relieve the dowdy simplicity of this opera venture,” said Powell. “Art is so lacking in passion, don’t you think? With the Doctor and Penny contesting like the Bright and the Dark Angel for the body and soul of Hulda Schnakenburg, we shall add a little salt to the dreary porridge of our lives.”
7
What do they do? Arthur wants to know, and I, happy in my privileged position, may say that I do know.
I must be careful about my privileged position. “Is there a cosier condition than being thoroughly pleased with oneself?” I must be careful not to become like Kater Murr. Even in Limbo, I suppose, one can sink into Philistinism.
But what Dr. Gunilla and Hulda Schnakenburg do is far from Philistine, and indeed far from the anti-Philistine world as I knew it when I was a part of what is now flatteringly called The Romantic Movement. Of course there were intense and intimate friendships between women then, but whatever physical amusement they generated was not known or seriously considered. Certainly some young ladies hung about each other’s necks in public; they often dressed in identical gowns; they swooned or had hysterics at the same time, for both swooning and hysterics were high among the feminine luxuries of the day, and were thought to show great delicacy of feeling. But it was always assumed that these sensitive creatures would marry at last, and after marriage the intimacy with the female friend might become even more precious. I suppose if, after the first raptures of marriage, your husband was in the habit of coming to bed drunk, or smelling of the bawdy-house, or in a mood to black an eye or give a few hard slaps to a critical wife, it was delightful to have a friend who treated you with delicate respect and who could perhaps rouse an ecstasy that your disappointing husband thought was outside the emotional range of a well-bred woman. That was how it was, you see: that special ecstasy was thought to be the prerogative of whores, and whores became expert at faking it, and thereby flattering their clients.
It was all quite different, in my day. Love was an emotion greatly valued, but it was valued for its own sake, and an unhappy love or a torturing love was perhaps even more valued than a love that was fulfilled. After all, love is an ecstasy, but sex is an appetite, and one does not always satisfy an appetite at the best restaurant in town. The bordel where Devrient and I used to go in Berlin was quite a humble affair, and the women there knew their trade and their place; they did not presume to intimacy with the visitors, who were always called Mein Herr, unless the visitors liked endearments and smutty talk, which was extra, and had to be considered in the tip. It was in Russia and Poland that people who liked that sort of thing became familiar with the whore and, in my opinion, made fools of themselves. I cannot recall the face of a single whore, though I employed many.
Why? Why did I go to the bordel, even when I was out of my mind with love for the unattainable pupil, the lovely Julia Marc? Even in my most love-stricken hours I did not cease to eat, or drink—or visit the bordel. Love was not an appetite, but an ecstasy. Whores were not women, but servants.
What about my wife? Do you suppose that when I was head over ears in love with another woman I would insult my wife, my dearest Michalina Rohrer, by seeking out her bed? Do you suppose I had no respect for her, and all she meant to me? She was a fact, and an extremely important fact, of my life, and I would not have insulted her, even if she were unconscious of the insult—and I do not for a moment suppose she was ignorant of my passion for Julia. She had a close friend, by the way, and I never made inquiry or interfered in whatever may have passed between them. Nor, I suppose, did Dante, when he was sighing for his Beatrice. Dante was a very good family man, and so was I, in the manner of my time. Romantic love and a firm domestic life were not incompatible, but they were not expected to mingle. Marriage was a contract, to be taken seriously, and the fidelity it demanded was not to be trifled with. But the obsession of love might, and often did, lie elsewhere.