“By God, Geraint, did you say that?”
“Indeed I did, Maria. That and a good deal more. I even gave them a touch of the old Welsh hwyl; I sang my peroration. Worked like a charm.”
Maria was overcome. “Geraint, you bloody crook!” she said when she could speak.
“Maria fach, you wound me profoundly. Sincere, every word of it. And true, what’s more. Sim bach, you know what preaching is. Did I say a word that you would not have spoken from a pulpit?”
“I liked that about the Cunning of God, Geraint bach. About the rest of it I can only say that I am sure you were sincere while you were speaking, and I am not surprised the elder Schnaks fell for it. Yes—on consideration I would say that what you told them was true. But I am not so sure about your intention in doing so.”
“My intention was to make them like our opera, and to give them pleasure, and sew up the rent garment of the Schnakenburg family.”
“And did you succeed?”
“Ma Schnakenburg was overjoyed to see her child clean and putting on some flesh; Pa Schnakenburg was, if I do not do the man injustice, glad to find Hulda in such classy company, because there is a snob in everybody, and Pa Schnak has not forgotten the elegant world of aristocratic Europe. I just put the cherry on the cake with some fancy theology.”
“Not theology, Geraint. Rhetoric,” said Darcourt.
“Sim bach, I wish you would stop knocking rhetoric. What is it? It is what the poet calls upon when the Muse is sleeping. It is what the preacher calls on when he must reach ears that need tickling to get their attention. Those of us who live in the world of art would be flat on our arses most of the time if we had no rhetoric to hold us up. Rhetoric is only base when base men use it. With me, it is the way in which I arouse the ancient and permanent elements in the spiritual structure of man by measured, rhythmic speech. Your rejection of my rhetoric springs from a mean envy, and I am disappointed in you.”
“Of course you’re right, Geraint; those of us who lack the gift of the gab are suspicious of those who have it. But it’s just spellbinding, you know.”
“Just spellbinding, Sim bach! Oh, what a pitiable barrenness of spirit lurks in that pauper’s adverb just! I weep for you!” Powell helped himself to another piece of chicken.
“You can’t weep while you’re stuffing your face,” said Darcourt. “Didn’t the Schnaks sniff anything peculiar about the bond between Nilla and their child?”
“Such enormities are unknown to them, I imagine. My recollection of the Bible includes no instance of naughtiness between women. That’s why it has a Greek name. Those tough old Israelites thought deviance was entirely a masculine privilege. They think Schnak is putting on flesh because she has come under a Good Influence.”
“Speaking as a woman, I don’t see the attraction of Schnak,” said Maria. “If I were of Nilla’s inclination I could find prettier girls.”
“Ah, but Schnak has the beauty of innocence,” said Powell. “Oh, she’s a foul-mouthed, cornaptious little slut, but underneath she is all untouched wonderment. I suppose she’s been mauled by a few student morlocks, because it’s the custom in the circle in which she moves, and kids fear to go against custom. But the real, deep-down Schnak is still flower-like, and Nilla’s is just the delicate hand to pluck the flower. But you know what happens; or rather you don’t, because none of you are gardeners; I slaved in my mam’s garden all my boyhood. You pluck the first bloom, and other, stronger blooms hurry to replace it, and that is what is happening to Schnak.”
“What blooms?” said Arthur. “God forbid that we should support a lesbian house of ill-fame. There are limits, even for the Cornish Foundation. Simon, hadn’t you better look into this?”
“Quite right, Arthur. The bills I’ve been paying for champagne and pretty little cakes from the gourmet shops are horrendous. Can’t these women sustain their passion on hamburger?”
“You’re quite wrong,” said Powell. “That’s not the way things are going at all. Nilla has roused Schnak’s dormant tenderness, and let me tell you, boyos, that’s chancy work. Where will it strike next? I think she has her eye on you, Sim bach.”
Darcourt was staggered, and not at all pleased that this suggestion was greeted with hoots of laughter from Arthur and Maria.
“I don’t see the joke,” said he. “The suggestion is grotesque.”
“In love, nothing is grotesque,” said Powell.
“Sorry, Simon. I don’t suggest that you are a ridiculous love-object,” said Arthur. “But Schnak—” he could not speak, and laughed himself into a coughing fit, and had to be slapped on the back.
“You’ll have to dye your hair and go West,” said Maria.
“Simon can look after himself, and he must stay here,” said Powell. “We need him. If need be, he can take flight after the opera is safely launched. The opera is at the root of the whole thing. It was that poetry you quoted to her, Simon. Didn’t you see her face change?”
“You were the one who quoted poetry,” said Darcourt.
“You Welsh mischief-maker, you quoted Ella Wheeler Wilcox to the girls, and Nilla very properly gagged, but Schnak ate it up.
You meant it as a joke, but Schnak swallowed it whole.”
“Because it is true,” said Powell. “Corny, but true. And I suppose it is the first bit of verse Schnak ever heard which went right to her heart, like the bolt of Cupid. But you were the one who trotted out some real poetry, and gave it to her for the culminating moment of our drama.—Simon has found the words for Arthur’s great aria,” he said to Arthur and Maria, “and it’s just the very thing we want. Right period, decent verse, and a fine statement of a neglected truth.”
“Let’s have it, Simon,” said Arthur.
Darcourt found himself embarrassed. The verses were so apt to the situation of the three people who sat at table with him; verses that spoke of chivalry, and constancy, and, he truly believed, of the essence of love itself. In a low voice—he could not bring himself to use Powell’s full-throated bardic manner—he recited:
The verses were received in silence. It was Maria who spoke first, and like a true university woman she set out on a criticism of the words which was rooted in what she had been taught; she had a critical system, unfailing in its power to reduce poetry to technicalities and to slide easily over its content. It was a system which, properly applied, could put Homer in his place and turn the Sonnets of Shakespeare into critic-fodder. Without intending to be so, it was a system which, once mastered, set the possessor free forever, should that be his wish, from anything a poet, however noble in spirit, might have felt and imparted to the world.