Somnium

by Steve Moore

  I like to think I played my part, and laughed and chased and let my fingers wander, but never quite did catch a girl; and never did I touch the blindfold. Some part of me, it knew this was a test that meant as much to me as Endimion Lee’s did, sleeping with Diana; and if I looked I knew I’d wake up from my dream and find myself in muddy ditch, or Newgate Gaol, or somewhere even worse.

  At last the giggles ceased, and footsteps only shuffled. And then a moment’s silence, next followed by dear Cynthia’s sweet command: ‘unmask!’

  I did, and looked around, but they were gone, and nothing then remained but petticoats all scattered round the floor.

  Sweet Cynthia called again: ‘Dear Kit!’ I looked around to see her leaning round the door, her face, her arm and naked shoulder, nothing more. She blew to me a saucy kiss and then she dashed away.

  I made my way back up to my room; my pocket-watch said four o’clock. I sat upon the bed and wondered if I’d passed.

  ‘Yes, you have,’ said dearest Cynthia, appearing at the door. Now nightdress clad, she bore two glasses and a claret-bottle. She sat beside me, kissed me swift, and poured us both some wine.

  And so we spent two hours in each other’s arms, drinking, kissing and embracing, talking then of many things, I hardly can remember. And then she laid me down upon the bed (no longer could I move), kissed me fondly, wished me sweet good morning, and left me then to sleep.

  I woke this afternoon, two hours before the sunset, and found that it had snowed.

  Saturday, 20th October 1803

  When I had written up my journal, I went down to the dining-room and found a blazing fire. I could not linger long, for Cynthia, Flora and certain other of their dear young girls, all dressed in furs and rosy-cheeked, insisted I should go outside. We played at snowballs for a while, and all the time they laughed and pelted me until I fell down in the snow. A snowman then they proposed to build; I insisted on a snow-Diana. And when I placed two snowballs on its chest, they pouted, mock-offended, and pelted me again. I did not care. Already I was on one knee and praying to the Goddess whose image I had made. I prayed to her for Liz, for Cynthia, for Flora and her maidens; for all of womankind that ever was or is or will be, anywhere throughout the world; and woman’s local representatives spattered me now and then again with snow.

  I laughed and chased, and Cynthia let me catch her. All furry in my arms, with snowflakes falling all around, I kissed her ruby lips. She was so soft and sweet. And all the other girls, they simply stopped and looked.

  I picked up darling Cynthia then (the other maidens, they applauded sweetly) and carried her back into The Bull. I don’t know where I got the strength. She was so light I almost thought she was not there at all. I carried her across the threshold too, as if she was my bride. She wriggled then, but I just would not put her down; I laughed instead and kissed her.

  Wet clothes demanded that we change, and then I joined her in her parlour; another fire was blazing there, and yet another glowed quite in my heart. Roast venison served in sauce of wine, it was our supper; we cut and fed each other; laughed and clutched each other’s hands. I knew I was in love, and never had been more so.

  So fed and fortified with claret, the night all thick and dark outside, then lovely Cynthia sparkle-eyes she took my hand, and led me down below, to that underworld which, in equal measure, fills me with unspeakable delight and quite bowel-trembling terror. I knew that it should only be the former, for Cynthia was with me; she told me then that I was more-than-mortal whenever my hand’s in hers, and all my mind so full of love, I know I did believe her. But all my frail humanity’s not yet quite shrugged off, and there were times… well, there were times when I feared to see the sights before my eyes. Lovely they were, but frightening.

  I had suggested, when we first went back down those stairs and through that ancient door, that Flora, at the least, she should accompany us (though I confess I’d rather have, at every moment of the day, the entire bouquet of lovely floral nymphs all ringed about us as a posy), if for nothing else than to provide us with the extra illumination. But Cynthia put a finger to my lips, and simply would not have it. These particular adventures, she told me, were ours alone, at least until we had explored in full, to be shared with no-one else. No other hand would she have placed in mine and, if the fear and trembling should be on me, no other lips would she have warm upon my own. No other moistened female breathing would she have inside my mouth but hers, no other breasts placed soft against my chest, no other arms enwrapping me in tight embrace. And when she spoke so sweetly, how could I say her nay?

  We returned then, with a bag of extra candles for the lanterns, claret, goblets, and honeyed dainties to take us through the night. And this time I was no longer shocked (though I confess myself disquieted nonetheless) to find pale marble-sculpted Diana fully-dressed and mounting on her chariot, nor when I found that curtain-wall raised higher still, and dear Diana likewise chariot-carried there. We skirted the water-garden, though I had brought a flaming torch beside the lanterns, for added light to see by; I was tempted then to stop, for it seemed that all the statues now stood restored to beautiful and edifying verticality. And when we reached the gatehouse, there was Diana all in gems and nothing ruined, and we went through into the quadrangle beyond.

  I raised my torch, while Cynthia held up both our lanterns, and saw, oh, such a palace. No Whitehall, or Placentia, or Hampton Court, was ever quite like this; not even wondrous Nonsuch, all plastered up with pale divinities, the loss of which is crime and tragedy, alas, beyond recall. For here, though buried far beneath the ground, was gloriously spired and quite inspiring Somnium, the Palace of the Moon, the like of which was never seen, unless it were in dream. Marbled, enamelled and mosaiced like a precious jewel, it sparkled on a sudden, as if by fullest Moonlight; and I saw what I had written, and I knew I’d written true. For there is no other world but dream, and all that others say is real, is not.

  To write, and write it true… that is a thing of wonder, and sublime.

  So standing in that fountain-sprinkled court, all paved, I swear, in moonstones, I took soft Cynthia, suddenly clad (I know not how) in merest film, into my arms’ embrace, and kissed her as my true beloved. She began to sing a Somniac song; I knew the words as well, though written by I knew not who (yet I suspect Endimion Lee, even though I know full well that, if he had wrote that song, then I had written him in turn). And we kissed again, and how she clung, so warm; and more than this, she was my Goddess and my woman both, united in a single lovely form, and she was in my arms and held so close, that somehow we were one and never more to part.

  And I never would have let her go, except at last she broke away, and took my hand, and laughing led me on. She led me quite across that court and through another gatehouse, to a further quadrangle yet beyond. And standing there before my wondering eyes were glorious edifices quite unruined: great halls and temples of the lovely Moon, a glitter-sparkled throne-room of the beauteous satellite-queen, and marvellous octagon-towers with oriel-windows crystal-paned, and library-chambers full of glory (for no one ever dreamed the like of Somnium, and all its books are full of glorious Somniac dream, and Diana of the many names and aspects; and all her tales are tolden there, her sweetest stories and her truest loves, her histories and her hymnals, and such vasty epics of the silver-spattered night as old blind Homer would have writ, if ever he had set eye upon the lovely Moon). For Somnium is more than palace, more than temple, more than college, and even more indeed than that strange and mysterious School of Night of cherished memory; for Somnium, exactly as I wrote it, is the outpost of the Moon upon the Earth, the Embassy of Golden Planet Spheres, the Colony of the Sparkling Stars. But most of all, it’s of Diana, and all that’s lunar, and feminine, and sweet, and loved.

  I had written it as combining Tudor palace, and classical acropolis, and nine parts in ten of dream; but having it before my eyes in truth, I knew that it was all of these, and yet it was much more. Because it is all those th
ings that cannot be, and because they cannot be, and are, then there is nothing here but miracle and wonder and everything that sweet Diana is and gives and cherishes.

  And Cynthia she turned to me again, and all the film she wore before was now dissolved, and she was naked now except a filigreed pectoral necklace of silver-mounted gemstones, strung mesh-wise from her shoulders to her lovely rounded breasts; the pointed golden crescent it was shining on her brow, and the Moonlight sparkled silver in her eyes. And no more was she just my sweetest Cynthia, but Diana Regina, Goddess-Queen of Somnium, eye-flashing and imperial, lovely-locked and beauteous in her majesty.

  Yet more than this, she was Selene, who stands above the all: perfection of perfections, perfected nine times more.

  And for I knew not then how long it was at all, it seemed to me that time was quite annihilated; and all the world it rippled then and became but lights that shone out from her eyes. And at the same time I could not look upon such loveliness, while just as much I could not look away. And there was merely lucent shimmering light, and all that light was in Selene, and Selene, she was in every light that ever burned. I knew then that I looked on Goddess, with all her human form shrugged off; and all I thought to see among that light was sweet eternal love. I yearned to lose myself in all her light; but still I was a creature of the wheeling temporal world.

  She let me have myself back at the last (I think), though when that was, I never was quite sure. And sweet Selene, descended through Diana first, she dressed herself in Cynthia’s form once more. Though still she was a light.

  And as she stood before me, gleaming oh-so-brightly in her loveliness, I realised we were encaverned then no more, and above us all the silver stars were scattered quite across the infinite sky, and Somnium, that should have been but never was before, threw up its soaring spires and titan turrets in all their glory to heights undreamed since Salmoneus played the ape of Zeus. And then the full Moon sailed swiftly up toward the zenith, silver-gilt and beaming, and we were bathed, the both of us, in an impossible delirium of lovely glowing Moonlight.

  And I could do nothing else but fall upon my knees before her, the Empress of Nocturnal Bliss, and kiss her lovely ankles, and surrender everything that ever made me what I am, and worship my dear Cynthia-Selene beyond all measure, for without her I was nothing, and with her I possessed the world.

  And I knew then, beyond all doubt, that I, at last, had come back home. Home from the world of lowly men, and mud and mire and matter; and returned again unto the world of lovely lunar angels and she who, bright-eyed and brown-eyed in her high imperial pomp, led them onwards all majestic, and was by far the loveliest of them all.

  And Cynthia took my hands and raised me to my feet, and kissed me, and with that simplest kiss made all my world, and me besides, divine.

  I do not know how long I held her naked in my arms; or if I ever did. I only know at last I looked again, and once more beheld dear Cynthia human, dressed quite as she had been when first we’d descended the cellar stairs.

  We were encaverned once again as well, the Moon no longer in the sky. And Somnium, though builded up as tall as just before, no longer had that sparkle.

  ‘Not quite finished yet,’ sweet Cynthia Brown-eyes smilingly remarked, all winsome and all wistful. I was not quite sure to what she did refer: to Somnium, my book, or Somnium, that reviving palace, or even then perhaps to both. Or perhaps, indeed, to me. She did not give me time to think.

  ‘Now chase me for a kiss,’ she giggled next, and dashed away, her lantern held so high. She was as fleet as Atalanta; I had no golden apples. I only caught her at the cellar-door; we’d almost closed it tight behind us, and she’d had to put her lantern down and use both hands to move it. Yet looking back now as I write, I have to think she could have been the quicker. I did not care; I did not think; I’d caught her and demanded my reward. I kissed her then so long and deep I thought I’d die there in her arms. To do so would have been quite sweet.

  I had to let her go at last; I had her clutched so close and I was so aroused, I thought that she would notice.

  The inn had closed when at the last we rose up from the cellar. Sweet Flora’s flowers were gathered round the blazing taproom fire all hugged up in each others’ arms and kissing; I thought this was a little odd, and how they laughed to see my wide-eyed stare. But if I thought it rather odd, I also thought it rather sweet. I imagined the whole group of them as sisters; beyond that again as sisters of my own; and then I thought of Lizzie helpless in their cuddling arms and victim of their kisses. It was too much. I had to stop, before I thought of Liz and Cynthia together naked in my bed. My soul was saved, I thought, by Flora, who offered me a mug of hot mulled wine. I drank it at a draft and waited for my head to spin.

  I do not quite remember then how many further drafts I drank, or who I kissed, or who sat on my lap; nor, indeed, who played the harpsichord so sweetly and so skilful. Somehow it seemed a plot, to leave me then no time to think of what I’d seen down in the cellar. It worked so well my memory’s almost disappeared; though what remains it makes me blush. All I recall is darling girls, and my hands seemed little more than paws; one, I think, I tried hard to undress, but which I do not know; another, I kissed about the ear because it made her shiver; and one, I know, I tried to touch… I simply cannot write down where.

  They must have carried me off to bed, and once again undressed me. I hardly dare to think just what those lovely girls they might have done to avenge themselves for what I tried to do to them; fortunately, by then I was in no condition whatsoever to remember anything at all.

  I woke this afternoon and wrote once more to Liz; begged her yet again to come and join me, or failing that, at least to write. Oh how I wish that she was here, to dance with me by Moonlight, to kiss me when I’m drunk.

  To sleep with me at night.

  Without my Liz, this world is best forgotten.

  Sunday, 21st October 1803

  Last night was so confusing. I know I drank too much, and smoked too much, and kissed too many ladies.

  And how I danced, although I know not quite to what. I danced, it seemed, the last dance in the world, whereafter then all time would cease to be.

  Some part of me it knows that, being Saturday night, the hall was once again quite crowded, with fiddlers playing jigs, with men in soldiers’ uniforms with all the brains of prawns, with thugs and highwaymen who’d rather leap a while with ladies before they skipped a-rope or shot each others’ heads off, all come up the hill to dance with Flora’s warm-lipped maidens.

  Another part knows all those ripe young girls were there with me alone in lovely Cynthia’s parlour, and wearing nothing more than pure white petticoats. No other man they wanted then to dance with, nor other man to squeeze and kiss them. And all the music then was gavottes and galliards, all tinkled on the harpsichord. And how we leapt, and how we loved; and how they were so sweet a-prancing. And Cynthia most of all; because I knew that every girl I danced with (call them Flora, Violet, Rose or what you will), all were Cynthia in disguise; and yet she could not hide at all the sweet round softness of her lovely body. I hugged her, oh so tightly.

  And yet I also know that (Cynthia perhaps apart) those lovely maids were all outside, full-dressed and dancing in the hall as well.

  I did not understand it then; and now I do not either.

  I’d wanted to return below and explore some more of Somnium; but Cynthia would not let me. She told me, mock solemn but quite firmly, that if I wished to see those spires again, my writing must be finished first. Besides, she asked, all wreathed in smiles, how could I leave so many lovely ladies unpartnered for a dance? I almost answered that they had partners quite enough there in the hall outside, but still I was confused; besides, a moment later, soft, smiling girls were all around me, offering me their hands and begging loud for dances and for kisses.

  I let myself be persuaded. It was not hard at all.

  Before too long I was quite drunk, and dancing as if ther
e was no other thing in life. Another drink or two and I added kissing to my world. I told those sweetheart girls I loved them all, both individual and collective. Another glass, and then I said I’d forsake London quite for good, and simply stay with all my lovelies ever more, and kiss them till the world was ended. I glanced around then, and Cynthia looked at me so strangely.

  And when I’d drunk a little more, I simply stopped remembering.

  I woke this afternoon all afire to pick up pen and paper, to write my story’s coda.

  And so my little tale of Somnium’s quite concluded.

  ‘Why how now, good my lord?’ asked young Bartholomew Greene, a browning oak-leaf wind-tossed still and falling past his shoulder.

  And Endimion Lee, his head was all a-reel.

  He knew he’d been this way before, he knew he’d dreamt a more-than-dream; he hoped that if he closed his eyes, it’d happen all again. And yet he knew it wouldn’t; and memory was all he had for now.

  He sat a horse by dark-wood Shooters Hill, but now the sky was twilit-bright, and nothing seemed amiss. But everything was gone. A void was in his soul and mind, and only now a little spark, it lingered in his heart. A flame he’d always cherish, called Diana.

  And now to think her name was but to think of loss. He cursed the Fates that would not let them love; and then the worst… he cursed himself for never thinking: were the Fates a dream as well? Could they, opening up their love-besmitten eyes, have woken from that prohibition? He did not know, but all the world now seemed to him collapsed into an abyss of deep regret.

  For everything was gone.

  ‘Why stop you here, my lord?’ continued Greene. ‘This hill has all too ill a name.’

  Endimion Lee, he raised a hand, and though it seared his soul to say it, said it anyway: ‘It’s nothing, Bart. A moment’s pain, here in the chest, a rising humour setting all my brain awhirl. You see? It’s passed away already. So let’s be on to Greenwich.