Will I get a bill for those new clothes, or will the Doctor have the tact to conceal them among her own expenses, thought Darcourt. Reasonable enough. So many odd bills were reaching his desk that he began to feel like a Universal Provider. But it all made sense, in a way.

No member of the Round Table was a trained musician, but all were intelligent listeners—concert-goers and buyers of recordings—and they thought that what they heard was good. Melodious, certainly, and passionate. There seemed to be lots of it, and it was being presented in chunks of undeveloped, non-continuous sound. When at last Schnak ceased to play, the Doctor spoke.

“That is what we have, you see. That is what Hulda must develop and stitch together, and occasionally amplify with stuff that is akin to Hoffmann without being genuine Hoffmann. He left quite a lot of notes in prose, indicating what he had in mind. But it is a long way from being an opera. What we must have now is a detailed libretto, with action and words. Words that fit these melodies. At this moment we have not even a final list of the characters in the piece. Of course we know what the orchestration will be—the sort of thirty-two-piece group that Hoffmann would have been able to use in an opera theatre of his own. Strings, woods, a few brasses, and kettle-drums—only two, for he would not have had sophisticated modern timpani. So—what have the literary people been doing?”

“We have a scheme for the libretto. That’s to say, I have a scheme, pretty much like the one I outlined a few weeks ago,” said Powell. “As for characters, there are the seven leading roles: Arthur, Guenevere, Lancelot, Modred, Morgan Le Fay, Elaine, and Merlin.”

“And Chorus?” said the Doctor.

“For the men you have the Knights of the Round Table, and there must be twelve, to make up thirteen with Arthur. Linking it with Christ and the Disciples.”

“Oh, that’s very dubious,” said Hollier. “That’s nineteenth-century romanticism and utterly discredited now. Arthur had over a hundred Knights.”

“Well, he certainly isn’t going to have them in this opera,” said Powell. “As well as Lancelot and Modred he can have Sir Kay, the seneschal, Gawaine and Bedevere who are the good guys, and Gareth Beaumains, who can be a pretty boy if we can find one. Then we want Lucas, the butler, and Ulphius, the chamberlain. For funnies we can have Dynadan, who was a wit and lampoonist and can be a high-comedy figure, and Dagonet the Fool, who can be a jackass now and then to keep things lively. And the two blacks, of course.”

“Blacks?” said Arthur. “Why blacks in sixth-century Britain?”

“Because if you have an opera nowadays without a black or two, you’re in hot water,” said Powell. “Luckily we can use Sir Pellinore and Sir Palomides, who are both Saracens, so that takes care of that.”

“But Saracens were not black,” said Hollier.

“They will be in this show,” said Powell. “I want no trouble.”

“It will be incredible,” said Hollier.

“No it won’t. Not when I get it on the stage,” said Powell.

“Nothing is incredible in opera. Now, as for women—”

“But wait,” said Hollier. “Are you sending this whole thing up? Making it into a comedy?”

“Not at all,” said the Doctor. “I see what Powell means. Opera presents mythic truth, even when it is about nineteenth-century whores with golden hearts. And mythic truth sets you free to do a lot of very practical things. What about women?”

“A woman for every Knight,” said Powell. “They don’t need names or characters. Except for the Lady Clarissant, who must be Number Two to Guenevere and carry her fan, or catch her when she faints, or whatever may be necessary. Basically, Clarissant is Chorus, though she will have to have a few more bucks because she plays a named character. So there you are. Twenty-nine in all; and a few extras for heralds and trumpeters, and of course understudies, and you’ll get out with less than forty, and never more than thirty-four on stage at one time. We can’t get any more on that stage in Stratford if it is to look like anything but the subway at rush-hour.”

“How expensive is it likely to be?” said Darcourt.

“Expense is not our first consideration,” said Arthur. “This is an adventure, you remember.”

“A Quest. A real Arthurian Quest,” said Maria. “A Quest in search of something lost in the past. Let’s not be cheap.”

Was Maria being ironic, Darcourt asked himself. Since their talk—their divano–he had sensed something in Maria that was not new, but a return to the Maria he had known before she became Mrs. Arthur Cornish, and seemed to dwindle. Maria was returning to her former stature.

“I’m glad you feel like that,” said Powell. “The more I think about this opera the more expensive it becomes. As Maria says, the past doesn’t come cheap.”

“What are the singers likely to want?” said Darcourt.

“Their figures are pretty well fixed, according to their reputations. For this job, you want second-rank singers—”

“Need we settle for that?” said Arthur.

“Don’t misunderstand me. I mean second-rank, not second-rate. You don’t want, and couldn’t get, the biggest star names; they are booked up for three and four years ahead, and as they do a pretty restricted group of parts they wouldn’t consent to learn a new role for a few performances. They aren’t used to rehearsal, either. They just swoop in by plane, do their standard Violetta or Rigoletto or whatever it is without much reference to where they are or who they’re with, and swoop out again, clutching their money. No, I’m talking about the intelligent singers who are also musicians, who can act and who keep their fat down. There are quite a lot of them now, and they’re the opera of the future. But they’re always busy, and they don’t come cheap, so we shall have to hope luck is with us. I’ve already made a few inquiries, and I think we’ll be all right. Chorus we can get in Toronto; lots of good people.”

Admirable, thought Arthur. Just what he would have wanted. Lots of initiative in his friend Geraint. And yet—the business man in him would not be silent—money was being promised, and perhaps contracts offered, and who was authorizing all this? The would-be impresario and patron applauded, but the banker had nasty qualms. Powell was continuing.

“The singers aren’t the only problems, let me tell you. Designer—where do you look for a designer now for an opera next summer? Far too late. But we’ve had a stroke of the greatest luck. There’s a real comer who has been doing a lot of supervisory work for the Welsh National Opera, and she wants a chance to design something entirely her own. Dulcy Ringgold, her name is. I’ve talked to Dulcy on the phone, and she’s keen as mustard. But there are conditions.”

“Money?” said Darcourt.

“No. Dulcy isn’t greedy. But she wants to do the whole thing as if it were being done under Hoffmann’s supervision at one of his opera houses—Bamberg, for instance. And that means scene design in the early-nineteenth-century manner, with changes managed as if we had a staff of about fifty stagehands, when we’ll probably have ten, and they’ll have to learn old techniques that will astonish them. Because in those days stage-hands were really scene-shifters, and not button-pushers. It’ll cost a mint.”

“I suppose you’ve closed with her?” said Hollier. The more aquavit he drank, and the more beer he sent down to supervise the aquavit, the more dubious he became.

“I have her on hold,” said Powell. “And I hope to God you agree with her plan.”

“Does it mean monstrously heavy stuff, long intervals, mossy banks covered with artificial flowers, and a lot of rumbling behind the curtain?” said Arthur.

“Not a bit of it. This kind of stage dressing came before all that nonsense. Quite simply, it’s a system where each scene consists of a painted back-drop, and five or six sets of wings on each side of the stage; but they are arranged on wheels so that the scenes change almost instantaneously—in out—in out—so that its almost like movie dissolves. At the end of each scene the actors leave the stage and—whammo!—you’re already in the next scene. But it takes some very nippy work backstage.”