“The Mendelssohn Choir,” said I; “a happy choice.”

“Not so happy,” said Frog-Igor. “Very degenerate; very tainted music. Trained as I had been in the state-approved people’s music of Soviet Russia I found strong traces of ideological retrogression in this music. But—I must sing, or die, so I sang what the Mendelssohn Choir sang, all the time keeping my own reservations about the material.

“At last came this time of year, the winter festival called Christmas, and the Mendelssohn Choir announced that it would offer a large composition unknown to me, called Messiah. You will understand, little father, that I was not pleased when I discovered, by going through the libretto with a dictionary, that this Messiah was a piece of overtly Christian propaganda. Yes! Shameless. But, I said to myself, these backward countries must take what music they can get. This music is degenerately modern to the Soviet ear, but there are a few good tunes and the whole score goes with a swing that is extraordinary when the source of its inspiration is considered. So—I shall consent to sing in it.

“You see, the great Iseler was very kind to me. He created an entirely new group within the choir, for me alone. Third Bass, it was called. I admired Gospodin Iseler devotedly. A man of rich spirit and Byzantine beauty, little father, and even in Russia we meet few like him.

“But still there was my problem. What was I to do about the nakedly religious nature of the text? And then I hit on a great idea. I would sing Messiah with mental reservations. Whenever the name of the false Hebrew God or his discredited Son occurred, I uttered an indeterminate sound, which, in the Mendelssohn Choir, nobody would notice. But in my mind I substituted the name of our mighty leader, Nikita Khrushchev. And thus, you see, I preserved my integrity.

“Oh, little father, it worked at rehearsal, but when the first performance came, musical enthusiasm betrayed me. It was a great night. Massey Hall was filled to capacity with wealthy bourgeois. The smells of face-powder and mink recalled the worst days of the Czarist regime. I supposed it was because this was a new work we were launching, and I looked everywhere in the audience for the composer, but though many men had long hair, none looked like the picture of Handel on my music book.

“All went well, and my system of mental reservation worked like a—what is it you say it works like—?”

I have a fine academic command of cliche. “Like a charm?” I prompted.

“Ah, good, good!” said Frog-Igor. “Like a charm. But then we approached one of my favourite passages. It is in a big chorus, where everybody sings, ‘For unto us a child is born,’ but mentally I was singing, ‘For unto us a people’s republic is born,’ and as we approached the climax, with the words—And the government shall be upon his shoulder—I was thinking so powerfully of Comrade Khrushchev that his beautiful, benign face seemed to rise right in front of me and—”

“Yes,” I said, “and—”

“And I made a wrong entrance,” said Frog-Igor, hanging his huge, warty head in shame. “Before everybody else I sang, thunderously and triumphantly—And the government shall be upon his shoulder—meaning Khrushchev, you see, and all at once I felt a most terrible blow, as if I had been struck with a bullet. I raised my eyes from my music, and found that the mighty Iseler was looking at me with such hatred, such loathing, such unutterable detestation, that I dropped my score, struggled past all the other basses who sat between me and the door, and ran into the street. Oh, the shame, the bitter shame.”

“All that audience knows Messiah by heart,” said I. “Elmer wouldn’t care for a wrong entrance.”

“Well you may say it,” said Frog-Igor. “As I hurried back to the College I felt worse and worse. You remember me as I was; a splendid figure of a Russian—two metres tall, two metres wide, two metres from front to back—but as I hurried through the streets I felt myself shrinking, and my free stride was becoming more and more difficult. And hot! I was perishing with shame. At last, when I reached the College I pressed myself under the gate—I could not bear to come under the glance of the Cossack McCracken—and flung myself into the cooling pool. And there, sitting on a stone, with the chill water of December washing over me, I considered my fate.

“It became clear at last. All my life, little father, and all my education, has been a rejection of superstition. Reason is all! So says the Soviet: so also says Massey College. But in Russia, there are still those among our old people who talk of very bad, almost forgotten things. And one of them is the Evil Eye. And I knew the worst: I had done wrong, in the sight of everybody; I had spoiled the first performance of this new work, this Messiah, and the great Iseler had cast the Evil Eye upon me. And—there I sat in the pool and I had to face it—I had been turned into a frog.

“Since then, I have lived in the pool all summer, and when the coldest weather comes, the good Comrade Roger puts me in here, in this nice wet tank, and I sleep the winter away. But O, little father, how I long to sing again.”

I put out my hand and patted Frog-Igor on the head. It was not a pleasurable sensation, but I have never allowed personal considerations to stand in the way of a noble action.

“You shall sing, again, Igor,” I said; “but first of all we must do something about your personal appearance. Did the old people who spoke of the Evil Eye say anything about how to get rid of it?”

“Yes,” said Frog-Igor; “it is very difficult. But you, little father, you are a good, simple man, a real member of the proletariat, and everybody pities you. Perhaps you could persuade him.”

“Persuade who?” I asked.

“The great Iseler,” said Frog-Igor. “I can only be restored to human form again by his kiss.”

In old-fashioned books one often reads about somebody being “nonplussed”. I had never before paid much attention to the word, but in that instant I understood its meaning fully. I was nonplussed. Frog-Igor was going on.

“Go to him, little father. Fall at his feet; caress his knees. Let him see the tears running down your withered cheeks. Entreat for me. He will not be able to refuse you.”

It was now clear to me that, as so often happens in these invasions of the College by the forces of unreason, I was cast for an ignominious, absurdly demanding role. I spoke crisply.

“Useless,” I said. “I know Elmer Iseler quite well. If I crept up on him and pawed his knees I don’t know what he might think. You don’t understand life in the democracies. All that crawling and cringing and weeping is much too Dostoevskian for twentieth century Canada.

“Isn’t there anybody else who could kiss you with the same effect?”

“There is Comrade Khrushchev,” said Frog-Igor hopefully. “He has what we call in Russia the Proletarian Touch; it is the sovietized version of what used to be called the Royal Touch.”

I knew something that Frog-Igor, during the past seven years, had not heard. I suppose a very limited version of the world’s news gets into our pool. So I temporized.

“Too far away,” I said. “But what about a beautiful girl? In these situations on this side of the Iron Curtain it is always a princess who kisses the frog and turns him back into a prince.”

“I refuse to be turned into a prince,” said Frog-Igor. “It is against all my principles. A bass, da; a prince, nyet.”

“Perhaps a soprano?” I suggested.

Frog-Igor looked as doubtful as a frog can.

“Or a very beautiful contralto,” I wheedled. “The most beautiful girl in our choir?”

To make a long story short, I talked him into trying it. I put the situation squarely up to Gordon and Giles, and at the next choir rehearsal Gordon made a very graceful little speech, not harping on the Frog aspect of the problem. Only the most beautiful of the women’s section, he said, was expected to volunteer.