Mark Twain's Medieval Romance (4 page)

Given an iron box, known to contain wealth, said to contain dynamite, arranged to explode when the key is used to unlock it—what would any sane man do?

NUNC DIMITTIS

R
OALD
D
AHL

It is a testament to his creativity that Roald Dahl (1916–1990) was not only a noted writer of crime stories, screenplays, and aviation stories, but one of the world’s most beloved authors of children’s books as well.

Among his screenplays are two based on the work of Ian Fleming:
You Only Live Twice
(1967), a James Bond adventure, and
Chitty Chitty Bang Bang
(1968), the thriller writer’s one foray into the world of children’s literature. Dahl also adapted his own books for the screen with
Charlie and the Chocolate Factory
(2005).

Unknown to most readers is the fact that Dahl, while serving as a pilot during World War II, is credited with inventing the word “gremlins,” which he used to describe little creatures who lived inside the engines of fighter planes, causing them to stall at the most inopportune moments.

Among his outstanding short stories is the memorable “Lamb to the Slaughter,” famously filmed for his television series by Alfred Hitchcock. The collection in which it appeared,
Someone Like You
(1954), was selected for
Queen’s Quorum
as one of the mystery genre’s 106 greatest short story collections of all time.

“Nunc Dimittis” was first published in the September 4, 1953, edition of
Collier’s
magazine.

NUNC DIMITTIS

B
Y
R
OALD
D
AHL

I
T IS NEARLY MIDNIGHT,
and I can see that if I don’t make a start with writing this story now, I never shall. All evening I have been sitting here trying to force myself to begin, but the more I have thought about it, the more appalled and ashamed and distressed I have become by the whole thing.

My idea—and I believe it was a good one—was to try, by a process of confession and analysis, to discover a reason or at any rate some justification for my outrageous behavior toward Janet de Pelagia. I wanted, essentially, to address myself to an imaginary and sympathetic listener, a kind of mythical
you
, someone gentle and understanding to whom I might tell unashamedly every detail of this unfortunate episode. I can only hope that I am not too upset to make a go of it.

If I am to be quite honest with myself, I suppose I shall have to admit that what is disturbing me most is not so much the sense of my own shame, or even the hurt that I have inflicted upon poor Janet; it is the knowledge that I have made a monstrous fool of myself and that all my friends—if I can still call them that—all those warm and lovable people who used to come so often to my house, must now be regarding me as nothing but a vicious, vengeful old man. Yes, that surely hurts. When I say to you that my friends were my whole life—everything, absolutely everything in it—then perhaps you will begin to understand.

Will you? I doubt it—unless I digress for a minute to tell you roughly the sort of person I am.

Well—let me see. Now that I come to think of it, I suppose I am, after all, a type; a rare one, mark you, but nevertheless a quite definite type—the wealthy, leisurely, middle-aged man of culture, adored (I choose the word carefully) by his many friends for his charm, his money, his air of scholarship, his generosity and, I sincerely hope, for himself also. You will find him (this type) only in the big capitals, London, Paris, New York; of that I am certain. The money he has was earned by his dead father whose memory he is inclined to despise. This is not his fault, for there is something in his make-up that compels him secretly to look down upon all people who never had the wit to learn the difference between Rockingham and Spode, Waterford and Venetian, Sheraton and Chippendale, Monet and Manet, or even Pommard and Montrachet.

He is, therefore, a connoisseur, possessing above all things an exquisite taste. His Constables, Boningtons, Lautrecs, Redons, Vuillards, Matthew Smiths are as fine as anything in the Tate; and because they are so fabulous and beautiful, they create an atmosphere of suspense around him in the home, something tantalizing, breathtaking, faintly frightening—frightening to think that he has the power and the right, if he feels inclined, to slash, tear, plunge his fist right through a superb Dedham Vale, a Mont Sainte-Victoire, an Arles cornfield, a Tahiti maiden, a portrait of Madame Cézanne. And from the walls on which these wonders hang there issues a little golden glow of splendour, a subtle emanation of grandeur in which he lives and moves and entertains with a sly nonchalance that is not entirely unpracticed.

He is invariably a bachelor, yet he never appears to get entangled with the women who surround him, who love him so dearly. It is just possible—and this you may or may not have noticed—that there is a frustration, a discontent, a regret somewhere inside him. Even a slight aberration.

I don’t think I need say any more. I have been very frank. You should know me well enough by now to judge me fairly—and dare I hope it?—to sympathize with me when you hear my story. You may even decide that much of the blame for what has happened should be placed, not upon me, but upon a lady called Gladys Ponsonby. After all, she was the one who started it. Had I not escorted Gladys Ponsonby back to her house that night nearly six months ago, and had she not spoken so freely to me about certain people, certain things, then this tragic business could never have taken place.

It was last December, if I remember rightly, and I had been dining with the Ashendens in that lovely house of theirs that overlooks the southern fringe of Regent’s Park. There were a fair number of people there, but Gladys Ponsonby was the only one beside myself who had come alone. So when it was time for us to leave, I naturally offered to see her safely back to her house. She accepted and we left together in my car; but unfortunately, when we arrived at her place she insisted that I come in and have “one for the road,” as she put it. I didn’t wish to seem stuffy, so I told the chauffeur to wait and followed her in.

Gladys Ponsonby is an unusually short woman, certainly not more than four feet nine or ten, maybe even less than that—one of those tiny persons who gives me, when I am beside her, the comical, rather wobbly feeling that I am standing on a chair. She is a widow, a few years younger than me—maybe fifty-three or four, and it is possible that thirty years ago she was quite a fetching little thing. But now the face is loose and puckered with nothing distinctive about it whatsoever. The individual features, the eyes, the nose, the mouth, the chin, are buried in the folds of fat around the puckered little face and one does not notice them. Except perhaps the mouth, which reminds me—I cannot help it—of a salmon.

In the living-room, as she gave me my brandy, I noticed that her hand was a trifle unsteady. The lady is tired, I told myself, so I mustn’t stay long. We sat down together on the sofa and for a while discussed the Ashendens’ party and the people who were there. Finally I got up to go.

“Sit down, Lionel,” she said. “Have another brandy.”

“No, really, I must go.”

“Sit down and don’t be so stuffy.
I’m
having another one, and the least you can do is keep me company while I drink it.”

I watched her as she walked over to the sideboard, this tiny woman, faintly swaying, holding her glass out in front of her with both hands as though it were an offering; and the sight of her walking like that, so incredibly short and squat and stiff, suddenly gave me the ludicrous notion that she had no legs at all above the knees.

“Lionel, what are you chuckling about?” She half turned to look at me as she poured the drink, and some of it slopped over the side of the glass.

“Nothing, my dear. Nothing at all.”

“Well, stop it, and tell me what you think of my new portrait.” She indicated a large canvas hanging over the fireplace that I had been trying to avoid with my eye ever since I entered the room. It was a hideous thing, painted, as I well knew, by a man who was now all the rage in London, a very mediocre painter called John Royden. It was a full-length portrait of Gladys Lady Ponsonby, painted with a certain technical cunning that made her out to be a tall and quite alluring creature.

“Charming,” I said.

“Isn’t it, though! I’m so glad you like it.”

“Quite charming.”

“I think John Royden is a genius. Don’t you think he’s a genius, Lionel?”

“Well—that might be going a bit far.”

“You mean it’s a little early to say for sure?”

“Exactly.”

“But listen, Lionel—and I think this will surprise you. John Royden is so sought after now that he won’t even
consider
painting anyone for less than a thousand guineas!”

“Really?”

“Oh yes! And everyone’s queuing up, simply
queuing up
to get themselves done.”

“Most interesting.”

“Now take your Mr. Cézanne or whatever his name is. I’ll bet
he
never got that sort of money in
his
lifetime.”

“Never.”

“And you say
he
was a genius?”

“Sort of—yes.”

“Then so is Royden,” she said, settling herself again on the sofa. “The money proves it.”

She sat silent for a while, sipping her brandy, and I couldn’t help noticing how the unsteadiness of her hand was causing the rim of the glass to jog against her lower lip. She knew I was watching her, and without turning her head she swivelled her eyes and glanced at me cautiously out of the corners of them. “A penny for your thoughts?”

Now, if there is one phrase in the world I cannot abide, it is this. It gives me an actual physical pain in the chest and I begin to cough.

“Come on, Lionel. A penny for them.”

I shook my head, quite unable to answer. She turned away abruptly and placed the brandy glass on a small table to her left; and the manner in which she did this seemed to suggest—I don’t know why—that she felt rebuffed and was now clearing the decks for action. I waited, rather uncomfortable in the silence that followed, and because I had no conversation left in me, I made a great play about smoking my cigar, studying the ash intently and blowing the smoke up slowly toward the ceiling. But she made no move. There was beginning to be something about this lady I did not much like, a mischievous, brooding air that made me want to get up quickly and go away. When she looked around again, she was smiling at me slyly with those little buried eyes of hers, but the mouth—oh, just like a salmon’s—was absolutely rigid.

“Lionel, I think I’ll tell you a secret.”

“Really, Gladys, I simply must get home.”

“Don’t be frightened, Lionel. I won’t embarrass you. You look so frightened all of a sudden.”

“I’m not very good at secrets.”

“I’ve been thinking,” she said, “you’re such a great expert on pictures, this ought to interest you.” She sat quite still except for her fingers which were moving all the time. She kept them perpetually twisting and twisting around each other, and they were like a bunch of small white snakes wriggling in her lap.

“Don’t you want to hear my secret, Lionel?”

“It isn’t that, you know. It’s just that it’s so awfully late …”

“This is probably the best kept secret in London. A woman’s secret. I suppose it’s known to about—let me see—about thirty or forty women altogether. And not a single man. Except him, of course—John Royden.”

I didn’t wish to encourage her, so I said nothing.

“But first of all, promise—
promise
you won’t tell a soul?”

“Dear me!”

“You
promise
, Lionel?”

“Yes, Gladys, allright, I promise.”

“Good! Now listen.” She reached for the brandy glass and settled back comfortably in the far corner of the sofa. “I suppose you know John Royden paints only women?’

“I didn’t.”

“And they’re always full-length portraits, either standing or sitting—like mine there. Now take a good look at it, Lionel. Do you see how beautifully the dress is painted?”

“Well …”

“Go over and look carefully, please.”

I got up reluctantly and went over and examined the painting. To my surprise I noticed that the paint of the dress was laid on so heavily it was actually raised out from the rest of the picture. It was a trick, quite effective in its way, but neither difficult to do nor entirely original.

“You see?” she said. “It’s thick, isn’t it, where the dress is?”

“Yes.”

“But there’s a bit more to it than that, you know, Lionel. I think the best way is to describe what happened the very first time I went along for a sitting.”

Oh, what a bore this woman, is, I thought, and how can I get away?

“That was about a year ago, and I remember how excited I was to be going in to the studio of the great painter. I dressed myself up in a wonderful new thing I’d just got from Norman Hartnell, and a special little red hat, and off I went. Mr. Royden met me at the door, and of course I was fascinated by him at once. He had a small pointed beard and thrilling blue eyes, and he wore a black velvet jacket. The studio was huge, with red velvet sofas and velvet chairs—he loves velvet—and velvet curtains and even a velvet carpet on the floor. He sat me down, gave me a drink and came straight to the point. He told me about how he painted quite differently from other artists. In his opinion, he said, there was only one method of attaining perfection when painting a woman’s body and I mustn’t be shocked when I heard what it was.

“‘I don’t think I’ll be shocked, Mr. Royden,’ I told him.

“‘I’m sure you won’t either,’ he said. He had the most marvellous white teeth and they sort of shone through his beard when he smiled. ‘You see, it’s like this,’ he went on. ‘You examine any painting you like of a woman—I don’t care who it’s by—and you’ll see that although the dress may be well painted, there is an effect of artificiality, of flatness about the whole thing, as though the dress were draped over a log of wood. And you know why?’

“‘No, Mr. Royden, I don’t.’