“I’m perfectly willing to be magnanimous, but I’m jealous for Arthur—Simon, I hate, and detest, and loathe and abhor the alternative title of this God-damned opera: The Magnanimous Cuckold. I feel that Arthur is being screwed.”

“Cuckolds aren’t screwed; they are deceived.”

“That’s what I mean.”

“Arthur is most at fault, if that’s what’s happening to him.”

“Simon, I wouldn’t say this to anybody in the world but you. You understand what I mean when I say that Arthur has a truly noble nature. But noble isn’t a word that’s used any more. Elitist, I suppose. But there’s no other word for Arthur. He’s generous and open in a way that is marvellous. But it also exposes him to terrible abuse.”

“He’s very fond of Powell. He asked him to be best man at your wedding, as I needn’t remind you.”

“Yes, and I’d never heard of Powell till he turned up then, all elegance and eloquence—full of piss and vinegar like a barber’s cat, to use the old expression.”

“You’re getting heated, and your heat makes me thirsty. I will have that drink, after all.”

“Do. I want your best advice, Simon. I’m worried, and I don’t know why I’m worried.”

“Yes you do. You think Arthur is too fond of Powell. Isn’t that it?”

“Not in the way you mean.”

“Tell me what I mean.”

“I think you mean some homosexual thing. Not a bit of that in Arthur.”

“Maria, for a very brilliant woman you are surprisingly naive. If you think homosexuality means no more than rough stuff in Turkish baths, and what Hamlet calls a pair of reechy kisses and paddling in necks with damned fingers in some seedy motel bedroom, you are right off your trolley. As you say, and as I believe, Arthur has a noble nature, and that isn’t his style at all. Nor, to be just, do I think it’s Powell’s. But an obsessive admiration for a man who has qualities he envies, and for whom he is ready to give great gifts and take great risks, without grudging—that’s homosexuality too, when the wind is right. Nobility isn’t cautious, you know. Arthur is really Arthurian: he seeks something extraordinary—a Quest, a great adventure—and Powell seems to offer it and is, therefore, irresistible.”

“Powell is a self-seeking bastard.”

“And just possibly a great man—or a great artist, which is by no means the same thing. Like Richard Wagner, another self-seeking bastard. Remember how he exploited and horn-swoggled poor King Ludwig?”

“Ludwig was a crazy weakling.”

“And his craziness has endowed us all with some magnificent opera. Not to speak of that totally insane fairy-tale castle of Neuschwanstein, which cost the people of Bavaria what was literally a king’s ransom, and has recovered them the money a dozen times over, simply as a tourist sight.”

“You’re appealing to a piece of dead history, and a messy scandal, which has nothing to do with what we’re talking about.”

“History is never dead, because it keeps on repeating itself, though never in quite the same words or on quite the same scale. Remember what we said the other night at that Arthurian dinner, about the wax and the stamp? The wax of human experience is always the same. It is we who put our own stamp on it. These shared obsessions between patron and artist are as old as the hills, and I don’t think you are going to be able to change that. Have you talked to Arthur?”

“You don’t know Arthur. When I bring it up he just tells me to be patient, and that omelettes aren’t made without breaking eggs, and all that sort of calm, uncomprehending thing.”

“Have you told him he’s in love with Powell?”

“Simon! What do you think I am?”

“I think you’re a jealous woman, among other things.”

“Jealous of Powell? I hate Powell!”

“Oh, Maria, haven’t you learned anything in your university years?”

“Meaning what?”

“Meaning that hatred is notoriously near to love, and both are obsessions. Passions when they are pushed too far sometimes flop over into their opposites.”

“What I feel about Arthur isn’t going to flop over into its opposite.”

“Bravely said. And what is it you feel about Arthur?”

“Doesn’t it show? Devotion.”

“An expensive devotion. As devotion always is, of course.”

“A devotion that has enlarged my life more than I can say.”

“A devotion that seems to have cost you what meant most to you in the world before you married.”

“So?”

“Yes, so. How much work have you done on your edition of that unpublished Rabelais manuscript that was found in Francis Cornish’s papers? I remember your raptures when it was turned up—thanks to that monster Parlabane—and how Hollier said it would make your reputation as a scholar. Well—that’s something like eighteen months ago. How’s it getting on? Arthur gave it to you as a wedding present, as I recall. Now there’s something significant: bridegroom gives bride a gift that will demand the best of her energies and understanding. Something that might mean more to her than her marriage. That would almost certainly mean reputation and scholarly fame of a special kind. A dangerous gift, certainly, but Arthur risked it. So what have you been doing?”

“I’ve been getting used to living with a man, and running this house, which is the exact opposite of the Gypsy tsera where I lived with my mother and uncle, and all the hair-raising crookedness of the bomari and the wursitorea that hung over that awful place. I only go there when you insist on it, Simon—”

“Don’t forget it was Arthur who settled what was left of all that Gypsy mess in the basement of this very building where you are playing the fine lady, Maria.”

“Don’t be so disgusting, Simon! I’m not playing the fine lady—My God, you sound like my mother!—I’m trying to work my way finally and utterly into modern civilization, and put all that past behind me.”

“It sounds as if modern civilization, which is largely rooted in Arthur, so far as you are concerned, had cut you off from what was best in you. I don’t mean the Gypsy connection; forget that for the moment; but from what made you a scholar. From what drew you to Rabelais—the great humane spirit and the great humour that saves us in a rough world. I remember when you first got that manuscript; you wouldn’t have called Professor M. A. Screech your uncle, and he’s a mitred abbot among you Rabelaisians, I understand. And now—well, now—”

“I have by degrees dwindled into a wife?”

“You still have a nice touch with a quotation. That’s something saved out of the wreck.”

“I won’t be called a wreck, Simon.”

“All right. And I don’t knock wives. But surely a woman of your qualities can be both scholar and wife? And the one all the better for the other?”

“Arthur takes a lot of looking after.”

“Well—don’t let him eat you. That’s what I’m saying. Why do you look after him so much? He seemed to be getting on pretty well before he married you.”

“He had needs that weren’t being gratified.”

“Aha.”

“Don’t say ‘Aha!’ like Mervyn Gwilt! You think I mean sex.”

“Well—don’t you?”

“Now you are the one who is being naive. Celibate priest that you are.”

“And whose fault is that, may I ask? I gave you your chance to enlighten me.”

“No use crying over spilt milk.”

“I don’t recall that we spilled any milk.”

“You know perfectly well it wouldn’t have done. You’d have been a worse husband than Arthur.”

“Aha! Now I can say it—Aha!”

“I’m tired and you’re bullying me.”

“That’s what women always say when they are getting the worst of things. Now come on, Maria: I’m your old friend, old tutor, old suitor. What’s wrong between you and Arthur?”

“Nothing’s wrong.”

“Then perhaps too much is right.”

“Perhaps. It’s not that I’m panting for continual excitement and passion and all that kid stuff. But the stew could do with a little more salt.”