The Lyre of Orpheus tct-3

by Robertson Davies

  “Let me remind you right away that I am a convinced unbeliever,” said Hollier. “I know too much about religions to be humbugged by them. So you don’t get around me with your priestcraft, Simon. I am simply doing this out of friendship for Arthur and Maria.”

  Yes, and because you were the first to have carnal knowledge of the child’s mother, thought Darcourt. You don’t fool me, Clem. But what he said was, “Oh yes, I have long experience of unbelieving godparents, and I know how to respect your reservations. All I ask is assurance of your willingness to cherish the child, and help him when you can, and advise him when he needs it, and do the decent thing if his parents should not see him into manhood. Which God forbid.”

  “Obviously I’ll agree to that. I’ll take part in the ceremony as an ancient observance. But don’t ask for acceptance as a spiritual force.”

  “No, none of that. But if there is to be a ceremony, it must have a form, and I know the form which is appropriate. Now, Nilla, what about you?”

  “No doubts and no reservations,” said Gunilla. “I was brought up as what the grocer Shakespeare calls ‘a spleeny Lutheran’, and I am very fond of children, especially boys. I am delighted to have a godson. You can rely on me.”

  “I’m sure we can,” said Darcourt. “And you, Geraint?”

  “You know what I am, Sim bach. A Calvinist to the soles of my boots. I am not sure that I trust you. What are you going to ask me to promise?”

  “I shall ask you, in the child’s name, to renounce the Devil and all his works, the vain pomp and glory of this world, with all covetous desires of the same, and the carnal desires of the flesh.”

  “By God, Sim, that’s very fine. Did you write that?”

  “No, Geraint, Archbishop Cranmer wrote it.”

  “A good hand with the pen, that Archbishop. And I renounce these things for the child, not for myself?”

  “That’s the idea.”

  “You see how it is. As a man of the theatre—as an artist—I couldn’t really set aside pomp and glory, because that’s what I live by. As for covetousness, my whole life and work is hedged with contracts, drawn up by covetous agents and the monsters who regulate the economics of the theatre. But for the boy—for young Dafydd, whom I shall call Dai when we get to know each other—I’ll renounce away like billy-o.”

  “Do we really promise that?” said Hollier. “I like that about the Devil. That’s getting down to realities. I hadn’t realized the baptismal service delved quite so deep into the ancient world. You must lend me the book, Simon. There’s good stuff in it.”

  “What trivial minds you men have,” said Gunilla. “When you talk about artists living for pomp and glory, Powell, speak for yourself. What you say, Simon, seems to me to mean keeping the boy up to high principles. Making a man of him. You need have no doubts about me.”

  “Good,” said Darcourt. “May I see you all at the chapel on Sunday, then, at three o’clock? Sober and decently dressed?”

  When they were leaving, Powell going off to his accustomed bedroom, Darcourt took his opportunity to speak to Maria alone.

  “You said nothing about names, Maria. Have you no preference as to what the child should be named?”

  “I haven’t forgotten my Gypsy ways, Simon dear. When the child came out of me and gave a cry, they laid it on my breast, and I named him. Gave him his real name. Whispered it into his tiny ear. And whatever you do on Sunday, that will be his name forever.”

  “Are you going to tell me what the name is?”

  “Certainly not! He will never hear it again until he reaches puberty, when I shall whisper it to him again. He has a proper Gypsy name, and it will go with him and protect him as long as he lives. But it is a secret between him and me.”

  “You have been ahead of me, then?”

  “Of course. I didn’t think I’d do it, but just before he left my body forever, I knew I would. What’s bred in the bone, you know.”

  9

  Except for one minor mishap, the christening went smoothly. Only the parents, the godparents, and the baby were present; the Cranes had to be told plainly that they might not come. Al murmured incoherently about objective correlatives and the link between the birth of the child and the birth of the opera. It would, he said, make a terrific and unexpected footnote to the Regiebuch. Mabel begged to be allowed to come simply on the ground that she wanted to see what a christening was like. But when Darcourt suggested that she could manage that by having her own impending child christened, she and Al were quick to say that they did not believe that a few words mumbled by a parson over their child could make any difference to his future life.

  Darcourt forbore to tell them that he thought they were wrong, and silly in their wrongness. He had reservations about many of the things which he, as a clergyman, was expected to believe and endorse publicly, but about the virtues of baptism he had no doubt. Its solely Christian implications apart, it was the acceptance of a new life into a society that thereby declared that it had a place for that new life; it was an assertion of an attitude toward life that was expressed in the Creed which was a part of the service in a form archaic and compressed but full of noble implication. The parents and godparents might think they did not believe that Creed, as they recited it, but it was plain to Darcourt that they were living in a society which had its roots in that Creed; if there had been no Creed, and no cause for the formulation of that Creed, vast portions of civilization would never have come into being, and those who smiled at the Creed or disregarded it altogether nevertheless stood firmly on its foundation. The Creed was one of the great signposts in the journey of mankind from a primitive society toward whatever was to come, and though the signpost might be falling behind in the march of civilization, it had marked a great advance from which there could be no permanent retreat.

  Hollier had decided to accept the baptismal ceremony as a rite of passage, an acceptance of a new member into the tribe. Good enough, thought Darcourt, but such rites had a resonance not heard by the tin ear of the rationalist. Rationalism, thought Darcourt, was a handsomely intellectual way of sweeping a lot of significant, troublesome things under the rug. But the implications of the rite were not banished because some very clever people did not feel them.

  Powell wanted to be a godfather with his fingers crossed. He wanted to make promises he had no intention of keeping—and indeed who can hope to keep the promises of a godfather in all their ramifications? Very well. But Powell wanted to be a godfather because it was as near as he was likely to come to being acknowledged as the real father of the child. Powell could not resist a solemn ceremony of any kind. He was one of the many, who should not therefore be despised, who wanted serious inner matters given a serious outer form, and this was what made him a true and devout child of the drama, which at its best is precisely such an objectification of what is important in life. Darcourt thought he knew what Powell meant better than Powell did himself.

  He had no misgivings about Gunilla. There was a woman who could see beyond the language of a creed to the essence of a creed. Gunilla was sound as a bell.

  As for Arthur and Maria, the birth of the child seemed to have drawn them nearer than they had ever been before. The blessing that children bring is a cliché. It is as corny as the rhymes of Ella Wheeler Wilcox about art. But one of the most difficult tasks for the educated and sophisticated mind is to recognize that some clichés are also important truths.

  It is a cliché that the birth of a child is a symbol of hope, however disappointed and distressed that hope may at last prove to be. The baptism is a ceremony in which that hope is announced, and Hope is one of the knightly virtues in a sense that the Cranes, for instance, had not understood, and might perhaps never understand. The hope embodied in the small body of Arthur David Nikolas as Darcourt took him in his arms and sained him, was, in part, the hope of the marriage of Arthur and Maria. The silver link, the silken tie.

  It was after the blessing of the child, and the saining with water,
that the slight accident occurred. Following an old custom, now revived by ritualists like Darcourt, he lighted three candles from the great candle that stood beside the font, and handed them to the godparents, saying, “Receive the light of Christ, to show that you have passed from darkness to light.”

  Hollier and Gunilla, understanding that they did this on behalf of the child, took their candles with dignity, and Gunilla bowed her head in reverence.

  Powell, startled, dropped his candle, spilling wax down his clothes, and scrambled for it on the floor, murmuring, unsuitably, “Oh, my God!” Maria giggled and the child, which had been an angel of propriety even when its head was wetted, gave a loud wail.

  Darcourt took the candle from Powell, relighted it, and said, “Receive the light of Christ, in your astonishment of heart, to show that you have passed from darkness to light.”

  “That was a bloody good ad lib of yours, Sim bach,” said Powell, at the party afterward. “I’ve never heard a better on the stage.”

  “I think yours was even better, Geraint bach,” said Darcourt.

  10

  The artists and artificers who are assembled to put an opera on the stage make up a closed society, and no one who is not of the elect may hope to penetrate it. There is no ill-will in this; it is simply that people deep in an act of creation take their whole lives with them into that act, and the world outside becomes shadowy until the act is completed, the regular schedule of performances established, and the strength of association somewhat relaxed.

  Those who are on the outside feel this keenly. As the last weeks of work on Arthur of Britain progressed, Arthur and Maria sensed the chill. Of course they were welcome everywhere—which is to say that nobody quite liked to ask them to go away. They were known to be the “angels”. They paid the bills, the salaries, all the multifarious costs of a complicated project, and therefore they had to be treated with courtesy; but it was cold courtesy. Even their intimate friend Powell whispered to their other intimate friend Darcourt, “I wish Arthur and Maria weren’t always bumming around while we’re working.”

  Darcourt had his place in the adventure; he was the librettist, and however unlikely it was that any words would be changed at so late a point in the proceedings, he was free to come and go, and if Powell suddenly wanted him to explain a difficult passage to a singer, it was a nuisance if he were not at the rehearsal. Because of her shadowy association with the libretto, even Penny Raven appeared at rehearsals without any questioning looks. But not the angels.

  “I feel as conspicuous and out of place as tan shoes on a pallbearer,” said Arthur, who was not given to simile in the ordinary way.

  “But I want to see what they’re doing,” said Maria. “After all, we must have some rights. Have you looked at the bills lately?”

  Perhaps they had expected lively doings, with Powell standing in front of a stage filled with singers, shouting and waving his arms like a policeman at a riot. Nothing of the sort. The rehearsals were quiet and orderly. The unpunctual Powell was always present half an hour before a rehearsal began, and he was stern with latecomers, though these were few, and always had reasonable excuses. The ebullient Powell was quiet and restrained; he never shouted, was never discourteous. He had absolute command and used it with easy authority. Was this artistic creation? Apparently it was, and Arthur and Maria were astonished at how quickly and surely the opera began to take shape.

  Not that it seemed like an opera, as they conceived of an opera, in the first two weeks of rehearsal. These took place in Toronto in large, dirty rooms belonging to the Conservatory, and the Graduate School of Music, which had been hired for the work. In charge of these was Waldo Harris, the first assistant to Powell; he was a bland, large young man who never lost his calm in the midst of complexity, and he seemed to know everything. He had an assistant, Gwen Larking, who was called Stage Manager; she had two other girls to do her lightest bidding. Miss Larking occasionally and excusably showed some emotion, and the assistants, who were beginners, did run and fuss, and brandish their clip-boards until Miss Larking frowned at them, and even hissed at them to shut up. But these young women were serenity itself compared with the three students called gofers (because they were always being told to go for coffee, or go for sandwiches, or go for somebody who was wanted in a hurry). The gofers were the lowest, most inconsiderable form of theatrical life. At rehearsals these seven clustered around Powell like iron filings around a magnet, and talked in whispers. They all dealt very largely in paper, and took notes without cease. The provision of new, sharp pencils was part of the gofers’ job.

  But these were all less than Mr. Watkin Bourke, who was called the répétiteur, or coach.

  It was Watty’s job to see that the singers knew their music, and this meant everything from long hours at the piano with the principals who knew their music but wanted advice about phrasing, to principals who read music with difficulty (though they never admitted this) and had to be taught their parts almost by rote. It was Watty’s job to train the Chorus, and this meant the ten gentlemen, apart from Giles Shippen, the tenor lead, and Gaetano Panisi, who played Modred, who made up King Arthur’s Knights, and the Ladies who were their vocal counterparts. The Chorus were all good musicians, but twenty-two good singers do not make a chorus, and they had to be gently persuaded to sing together, and not merely to sing in tune, but to sing in tune as a unity, and to vary their intonation subtly to agree with leading singers who might become the teeniest bit flat or sharp under dramatic stress. In all of this Watty, a small, hatchet-faced, intense man, and a brilliant pianist, was masterly.

  Watty, like Powell, never shouted or lost his temper, though from time to time a great weariness might be seen to pass over his small, intelligent face. Such weariness, for instance, as was brought about by his encounter with Mr. Nutcombe Puckler, a bass baritone entrusted with the role of Sir Dagonet.

  “I quite understand that Mr. Powell wants us to have individuality, as Knights of the Round Table,” he said. “Now, the other chaps are all pretty straightforward, aren’t they? Knights, you see. Just brave chaps. But Sir Dagonet is described as Arthur’s Fool, and of course that’s why I have been cast for it. Because I’m not a chorus singer or a small-parts man—not at all; I’m a comprimario with quite a big reputation as a comic. My Frosch, in Die Fledermaus, is known all over the operatic world. So presumably I’m cast as Sir Dagonet to get some comedy into the opera. But how? I haven’t a single comic bit to sing. So something has to be introduced, you see, Watty? Some comic relief? I’ve been thinking a lot about it, and I’ve found just the place. Finale of Act One, when Arthur is haranguing the Knights about the wonders of Knighthood. It’s heavy. Lovely music, of course, but heavy. So—that’s surely where we bring in the comic relief. Now what’s it to be—my Blurt or my Sneeze?”

  “I don’t follow,” said Watty.

  “Haven’t you seen me? They’re my two best laugh-getters. When Arthur’s going on about Knighthood, couldn’t I have a cup of wine? Then, just at the right moment, I give ‘em my Blurt. I choke on the wine and spew a lot of it over the people near by. Never fails. Or, if that’s a bit too strong, there’s my Sneeze—just a simple, loud sneeze, you see—to relieve the atmosphere. My Blurt is really a comic extension of my Sneeze, and of course I don’t want to obtrude, so the Sneeze might be best. But you ought to hear my Blurt before you make a decision. I’d like to know now, you see, before we go into rehearsal on the floor, so I can be thinking about it and tailor my Blurt—or my Sneeze—to come in just at the right moment. Because timing is everything in comedy, as I’m sure you know.”

  “You must talk to Mr. Powell,” said Watty. “I have nothing to do with the staging.”

  “But you see my point?”

  “Yes, indeed.”

  “I don’t want to be obtrusive, you understand; I just want to bring what I can to the ensemble.”

  “It’s Mr. Powells department.”

  “But may I say which you think best? The Bl
urt or the Sneeze?”

  “I have no opinion. It’s not my department.”

  It was an astonishment to Arthur and Maria, and to Darcourt as well, that Watty played from a full orchestral score, instructing the singers what they might expect to hear as they sang, and when they were momentarily silent; the singers worked from sketchy music, giving their vocal line and a hint or two of orchestration; the preparation of all this music, which was in Schnak’s wondrous hand, had cost a small fortune.

  At the musical rehearsals Dr. Dahl-Soot was present, but not a voice. She spoke to no one but Watty, and very quietly. She whispered now and then to Schnak, who was her shadow, learning her craft—learning eagerly and rapidly.

  The first general rehearsal took place in a dirty, ill-lit basement room in the Conservatory. It smelled of the economical lunches that had been consumed there for years by students; there was a pervasive atmosphere of bananas in their last stages of edibility, mingled with peanut butter. There was not much space, for there were three sets of timpani stored there, and in a corner an assembly of double-bass cases with nothing in them, like a conference of senators.

  “How are we going to work here?” said Nutcombe Puckler. “There isn’t room to swing a cat.”

  “Will you all please sit down,” said Gwen Larking. “There are chairs for everybody.”

  “As this is a new work,” said Powell to the group, “and because the libretto offers some complexities, I want to begin today by reading through all three acts.”

  “No piano,” said Nutcombe Puckler, who had a fine grasp of the obvious, as became an opera comic.

  “Not a musical reading,” said Powell. “You all know your music—or you should—and we won’t sing for a day or two. No; I want you simply to read the words, as if this were a play. The librettist is with us, and he will be glad to clear up any difficulties about meanings.”