Temporary Kings - Anthony Powell [38]
‘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