Temporary Kings (12 page)

The
lady – perhaps the Queen, perhaps a mistress – less intent on making love,
anxious to augment pending pleasure by delicious delay, suddenly remembering
her own neglect of some desirable adjunct, or necessary precaution, incident on
what was about to take place, had paused. Her taut posture, arrested there in
the middle of the bedchamber, immediately proposed to the mind these, and other
possibilities; that she was utterly frigid, not at all looking forward to what
lay ahead; that – like Pamela herself – she was frigid but wanted a lot of it
all the same; that her excitement was no less than the King’s, but her own
attention had been suddenly deflected from the matter in hand by a disturbing
sound or movement, heard, perceived, sensed, in the shadows of the room. She
had scented danger. This last minute retardation in coming to bed had, at the
same time, something of all women about it; the King’s anticipatory
complacence, something of all men.

The
last possibility – that the lady had noticed an untoward happening in the
background of the bedchamber – was the explanation. Her eyes were cast on the
ground, while she seemed to contemplate looking back over her shoulder to
scrutinize further whatever dismayed her. Had she glanced behind, she might, or
might not, have been in time to mark down in the darkness the undoubted source
of her uneasiness. A cloaked and helmeted personage was slipping swiftly,
unostentatiously, away from the room towards a curtained doorway behind the
pillars, presumably an emergency exit into the firmament beyond. At that end of
the sky, an ominous storm was plainly blowing up, dark clouds already shot with
coruscations of lightning and tongues of flame (as if an air-raid were in
progress), their glare revealing, in the shadows of the bedchamber, an alcove,
where this tall onlooker had undoubtedly lurked a moment beforehand. Whether or
not the lady was categorically aware of an intruding presence threatening the
privacy of sexual embrace, whether her suspicions had been only partially
aroused, was undetermined. There was no doubt whatever some sort of
apprehension had passed through her mind. That was all of which to be certain.
The features of the cloaked man, now in retreat, were for the most part hidden
by the jutting vizor of the plumed helmet he wore, so that his own emotions
were invisible. The calmly classical treatment of the scene, breathtaking in
opulence of shapes and colours, imposed at the same time a sense of awful tension,
imminent tragedy not long to be delayed.

‘I
wonder whether the model was the painter’s wife,’ said Dr Brightman. ‘She
occurs so often in his pictures. I must look into that. If so, she was Guardi’s
sister. Gyges looks rather like the soldier in
The Agony in the Garden
, who so much resembles
General Rommel.’

‘I
don’t remember the story. Didn’t Gyges possess a magic ring?’

‘That
was my strong conviction too,’ said Glober.

Dr
Brightman offered no apology for settling down to the comportment of a professional
lecturer, one she fulfilled with distinction.

‘Candaules
was king of Lydia – capital, Sardis, of the New Testament – Gyges his chief
officer and personal friend. Candaules was always boasting to Gyges of the
beauty of his wife. Finding him, as the King thought, insufficiently impressed,
Candaules suggested that Gyges should conceal himself in their bedroom in such
a manner that he had opportunity to see the Queen naked. Gyges made some demur
at that, public nakedness being a state the Lydians considered particularly
scandalous.’

‘The
Lydians sound just full of small-town prejudices,’ said Glober.

‘On
the contrary,’ said Dr Brightman. ‘The Greeks did not know what being rich
meant until they came in contact with the Lydians, now thought to be ancestors
of the Etruscans.’

I
remembered the text, from the Book of Revelation, inscribed in gothic lettering
on the walls of the chapel that had been the Company’s barrack-room, when I
first joined. Now it seemed particularly apt.

‘Thou
hast a few names even in Sardis which have not defiled their garments, and they
shall walk with me in white, for they are worthy.’

‘Exactly,’
said Dr Brightman. ‘Gyges tried to be one of the worthy at first, but Candaules
insisted, so he gave in, and was hidden in the royal bedchamber. Unfortunately
for her husband, the Queen noticed the reluctant voyeur stealing away – we see
her doing so above – and was understandably incensed. She sent for Gyges the
following day, and presented him with two alternatives: either he could kill
Candaules, and marry her
en secondes noces
,
or – no doubt a simple undertaking in their respective circumstances at the
Lydian court – she would arrange for Gyges himself to be done away with. In the
latter event, familiarity with her unclothed beauty would die with him; in the
former, become a perfectly proper aspect of a respectably married man’s – or
rather married king’s – matrimonial relationship. Gyges chose the former course
of action. His friend and sovereign, Candaules, was liquidated by him, he
married the Queen, and ruled Lydia with credit for forty years.’

There
was pause after Dr Brightman’s terse recapitulation of the story. Everyone
seemed to be thinking it over. Glober was the first to speak.

‘Then
the owner of the magic ring was another guy – another Gyges rather? Not the
same Gyges that saw the lady nude?’

Dr
Brightman gave the smile reserved for promising pupils.

‘Versions
vary in all such legends. According to Plato, Gyges descended into the earth,
where he found a brazen horse, within which lay the body of a huge man wearing
a brazen ring on his finger. Gyges took the ring, which had the property of
rendering its wearer invisible. This
attribute may well have facilitated the regicide. The Hollow Horse, you
remember, is a widespread symbol of Death and Rebirth. You probably came across
that in the works of Thomas Vaughan, the alchemist, Mr Jenkins, in the course
of your Burton researches. The historical Gyges may well have excavated the
remains of some Bronze Age chieftain, buried within a horse’s skin or effigy.
Think of the capture of Troy. I don’t doubt they will find horses ritually
buried round Sardis one of these days, where a pyramid tomb may still be seen,
traditionally of Gyges – whose voyeurism brought him such good fortune.’

This
was getting a long way from Tiepolo, but, seasoned in presentation of learning,
Dr Brightman had dominated her audience. Even Pamela, who might have been
expected to interrupt or walk away, had listened with attention. So far from
becoming restless or rebellious, she too showed signs of being impressed, in
her own way stimulated, by the many striking features of the Candaules/Gyges
story.

Her
cheeks had become less pale. Glober responded to the legend too, though in
quite a different manner. He seemed almost cowed by its implications.

‘That’s
a great tale,’ he said. ‘David and Uriah the other way round.’

‘An
excellent definition,’ said Dr Brightman. ‘You mean Candaules, by so to speak
encouraging a Peeping Tom, put himself, without foreseeing that, in the
forefront of the battle. One thinks of Vashti and Ahasuerus too, where much
less was required. Nowadays such a treat would be in no way comparable. You
need to go no further than the Lido to contemplate naked bodies – all but naked
at least – but in Lydia, Judah too for that matter, the bikini would not have
been tolerated.’

‘There’s
a difference between a bikini, and nothing at all, Dr Brightman,’ said Glober. ‘You’ve
got to grant that much.’

Pamela
was full of contempt for such a comment. Now she showed herself getting back to
her more normal form.

‘What
are you talking about? What the King wanted was to be watched screwing.’

If
she supposed that observation likely to discompose Dr Brightman, Pamela made a
big mistake, though she was herself by then likely to be beyond such primitive
essays in shocking. She had always spoken out exactly as she felt on any given
occasion; at least exactly as it suited her to give public expression to
whatever she wished to pass as her own feelings. In this particular case, she
seemed genuinely interested in the true aim of Candaules, the theory put
forward, a matter of psychological accuracy, rather than lubricious humour. Dr
Brightman did not hesitate to take up the challenge.

‘Others,
as well as yourself, have supposed mere nakedness an insufficient motif, Lady
Widmerpool. Gautier, in his conte written round the legend, characteristically
adumbrates a melancholy artist-king, intoxicated by the beauty of his
artist-model queen, whom he displays secretly to his friend Gyges, drawn as a
French lieutenant of cavalry. Gide, on the other hand, takes quite a different
view, somewhat reorganizing the story. Gide’s Gyges is a poor fisherman, who
delivers to the King’s table a fish, in which the ring of invisibility is
found. Candaules, a liberal, forward-looking, benevolent monarch – no less
melancholy than Gautier’s prince, though not, like him, a mere Ivory Tower
aesthete – decides as a matter of social conscience to bestow on his
impoverished subject, the fisherman, some of the privilege a king enjoys. Among
such treats is the sight of the Queen naked. To this end, Candaules lends Gyges
the ring. Gyges, once invisible, is master of the situation. He spends a night
with the wife of Candaules, who thinks her husband in unusually high spirits. Naturally,
Gyges slays his benefactor in the end, taking over Queen and Kingdom.’

‘That
taught His Majesty to brag about his luck,’ said Glober. ‘He went that much too
far.’

Dr
Brightman allowed such a point of view.

‘Gide’s
political undertones insinuate that Candaules represents a too tolerant ruling
class, over anxious to share personal advantages, some of which are perhaps
better left unshared, anyway that sharing, in the case of Candaules, led to
disaster. You must remember the play was written nearly half a century ago. I
need hardly add that both Gautier and Gide treat the theme in essentially
French terms, as if the particular events described could have taken place only
in France.’

Pamela
remained unsatisfied.

‘That
wasn’t what I meant. I didn’t say having an affair. I said watching – looking
on, or being looked at.’

She
spoke the words emphatically, in a clearer tone than that she was accustomed to
use. Her attention had undoubtedly been captured. Dr Brightman, not in the
least denying that to ‘watch’ was quite another matter, nodded again to show
she fully grasped the disparity.

‘You
mean one facet of the legend links up with kingship in another guise? I agree.
Sacrifice is almost implied. Public manifestation of himself as source of
fertility might be required too, to forestall a successor from snatching that
attribute of regality. You have made a good point, Lady Widmerpool. To speak
less seriously, one cannot help recalling a local example here in Venice – or
rather the island seclusion of Murano – of the practice to which you refer. I
mean Casanova’s divertissement with the two nuns under the eye of Cardinal de
Bernis.’

Pamela,
perhaps from ignorance of the Memoirs, appeared out-manoeuvred for the moment,
at least attempted no comeback. The subject could already have begun to pall on
her, though for once she was looking thoughtful rather than impatient.
Moreland, too, was fond of talking about Casanova’s threesome with the nuns.

‘I’ve
never myself been more than one of a pair,’ Moreland said. ‘How inexperienced
one is, even though the best things in life are free. For the more venturesome,
the song is not
How happy could I be
with either
, but
How happy could I be with two girls
.’

By
now the rest of the Conference had begun to infiltrate the Longhi room, the
vanguard of oncoming intellectuals substantiating Dr Brightman’s comparison
with the sages, abbés, punchinellos, pictured on the white-and-gold walls.
Gwinnett was among this advance party, which also included two other British
representatives, Ada Leintwardine and Quentin Shuckerly. Both of these
accommodated at an hotel on the Lido, I had done no more than exchange a few
words with them. They were taking the Conference with great seriousness, from
time to time addressing sessions, an obligation for which Gwinnett and myself
had substituted contribution to the organ devoted to its ‘dialogues’. Ada, not
least because she retained some of the girlish good-looks of her twenties, had
been warmly received in her observations regarding the necessity of assimilating
European culture to that of Asia and Africa, delivered in primitive but daring
French. Shuckerly, too, won applause by the artlessness and modesty with which
he emphasized the many previous occasions on which he had made his now quite
famous speech about culture being the scene-shifter to ring up the Iron
Curtain.

Shuckerly
was a great crony of Ada’s. Tall, urbane, smiling, businesslike, with a
complexion so richly tanned by the sun that his enemies (friends, too) hinted
at artifice, he had by now begun almost to rival Mark Members himself as a
notable figure at international congresses. In earlier days, both as intimate
friend and committed poet, he had been closely associated with Malcolm
Crowding. Bernard Shernmaker, always irked by even comparative success in
others, had designated Shuckerly ‘the air-hostess of English Letters’ at some
literary party. ‘Better than the ad-man of french ones,’ had been Shuckerly’s
retort, a slanting gloss on Shernmaker’s recently published piece about
Ferrand-Sénéschal. Ada and Shuckerly sat on the same committees, signed the
same protests, seemed to share much the same temperament, except that Ada, so
far as was known, required no analogous counterpoise to Shuckerly’s alleged
taste (Shernmaker again the authority) for being intermittently beaten-up.