by A. S. Byatt
No—do not be anxious—I would do no such thing—I would not risk our friendship—
As for the rappings and tappings—I have not, so far, been much interested in them. I am not, as some are, whether for religious or for sceptical reasons, convinced that they are nothing—the kind of nothing that emanates from human weakness and gullibility and the strong desire to believe in the loving presence of those lost and much missed, which we must all have felt at times. I like to credit Paracelsus, who tells us that there are minor spirits doomed to inhabit the regions of the air who wander the earth perpetually and whom we might, from time to time, exceptionally, hear or see, when the wind, or the trick of the light, is right. (I believe too that Fraud is a possible and probable explanation for much. I am more ready to believe in D. D. Home’s prestigious skills than in any pre-eminent spiritual opening to him.)
It occurs to me—speaking of Paracelsus—that your Fairy Melusine was just such a Spirit in his books—do you know the passage? You must—but I transcribe it because it is of such interest—and to ask if this is the shape of your interest in the Fairy—or is it her more beneficent castle-building propensities that have interested you—as I remember you said?
The Melusinas are daughters of kings, desperate through their sins. Satan bore them away and transformed them into spectres, into evil spirits, into horrible revenants and frightful monsters. It is thought they live without rational souls in fantastic bodies, that they are nourished by the mere elements, and at the final Judgment will pass away with these, unless they may be married to a man. In this case, by virtue of this union, they may die a natural death, as they may have lived a natural life, in their marriage. Of these spectres it is believed that they abound in deserts, in forests, in ruins and tombs, in empty vaults, and by the shores of the sea.…
Now please tell me, how does your work go? I have most egoistically—and at your generous urging—elaborated on my Ragnarök and on my Déjà-Vu—but of the Melusina—despite some suggestion that you might not be averse to writing of her—nothing. And yet she it was who caused this correspondence to be opened. I remember, I think, every small word of our one conversation—I remember your face—turned aside a little—but decisive—I remember your speaking with such feeling—of the Life of Language—do you remember that phrase? I began so ordinary-polite—you said—you hoped to write a long poem on the subject of Melusina—and your eye partly defied me to find fault with this project—as though I could or would—and I asked—was the poem to be in Spenserian stanzas or blank verse or in some other metre—and suddenly you spoke—of the power of verse and the Life of the Language—and quite forgot to look shy or apologetic, but looked, forgive me, magnificent—it is a moment I shall not easily forget while this machine is to me—
Now—I hope you will write to say that you and of course Miss Glover—are well-recovered, and able to bear the light of this bright Spring again. I do not so much hope to hear that you are venturing forth to more lectures on the Marvellous—for I am not convinced of their beneficence—but if Quakers and table-turners may have sight of you—maybe one day I may hope—for another discussion of rhyme—if not for the sliced green planisphere—
Dear Mr Ash,
I write to you from an unhappy House—and must be brief—for I have an Invalid dependent upon me—my poor Blanche—quite racked with hideous headaches—and nausea—quite prostrated—and unable to pursue the work which is her life. She is engaged on a large painting of Merlin and Vivien—at the moment of the latter’s triumph when she sings the Charm which puts him in her power, to sleep through time. We are very hopeful of this work—’tis all veiled suggestion and local intensity—but she is too ill and cannot go on. I am not in much better case myself—but I make tisanes, which I find efficacious—and wet handkerchiefs—and do what I may.
The other members of the household—the servant Jane, my little Dog Tray and Monsignor Dorato the canary, are of no help. Jane is a clumsy nurse—though diligent—and Dog Tray trundles to and fro looking—not commiserating—but reproachful that we do not accompany him to the park, or hurl interesting sticks for him—
So this letter will not be long.
It does me so much Good—that you should write to me of the Melusina—quite as though she were a decided thing—only waiting the accomplishment. I will tell you how the project began—quite back in the mists of time—when I was a child at my dear father’s knee—and he was compiling his Mythologie Française—of which great task I had only an inkling and a wild surmise—I did not know what it might be, his magnum opus as he jokingly said—but I did know, that I had a Papa who told better Tales than any other Papa—or Mama—or nursemaid—that could possibly be imagined. Now, he was in the habit of talking to me some of the time—when his tale-telling fit was upon him—as though he were the Ancient Mariner (a much-loved early acquaintance of Mine, through Him) himself—But some of the time he would talk as though I were a fellow-worker in the field, a fellow-scholar, erudite and speculative—and he would talk in three or four langauges—for he thought in French—and English—and Latin—and of course in Breton. (He did not like to think in German for reasons I shall make clear, though he could and did when occasion arose.) He told me the tale of Mélusine—often and often—for the reason, he said, that the very existence of a truly French mythology was dubious—but that if such a thing might be found—the Fairy Mélusine was indisputably one of its eminences and bright stars—My dear father had hoped to do for the French what the Brothers Grimm did for the German people—recount the true pre-history of the race through the witness of folktale and legend—discover our oldest thoughts as Baron Cuvier spliced together the Megatherium from a few indicative bones and hypothetic ligatures—and his own Wit and powers of Inference. But whereas Germany and Scandinavia have those rich myths and legends from which you drew your Ragnarök—we French have a few local demons and a few rational tales of trickery in villages—and the Matter of Bretagne, which is also the matter of Britain—and the Druids, of whom my dear Parent made much—and the menhirs and the Dolmens—but no dwarves and elves—as even the English have—We have the Dames Blanches—the Fate Bianche—I translate—whiteladies—amongst whom my father said Melusina might be numbered, in some of her aspects—for she appears—to warn of Death—
I wish you might have known my father. His conversation would have delighted you. There was nothing he did not know—in his chosen field—and nothing he knew that was to him Dead Knowledge—but all alive and brilliant and full of import for our lives—He had always so sad a face—thin and lined and always pale. I thought he was sad for the lack of French mythology—piecing together what he said—but he was sad, I think, to be exiled—and to have no native home—he whose paramount preoccupation—was just the Lares and Penates of the home Hearth.
My sister Sophie took no interest in these matters. She liked things women like—pretty things—she was no reader—it irked her, that we lived secluded—as it irked my mother—who had supposed that a Frenchman was always a galant—a Man of the World—or so I believe she supposed—for they were ill-matched. My pen runs away with me—I have had little sleep these last three nights—you will think my thoughts are all over the place—how can I be supposing you want my life-history in place of my Melusina-epic? Yet they are so intertwined—and I trust you—
He wore—at first simply for reading—and then always—little round steel-rimmed glasses. I think of these Cold Circles—as the most friendly, the most comfortable and comforting appearance possible—his eyes behind them were underwater Eyes—sad and large and full of veiled friendliness. I wished to become his Amanuensis—and to this end persuaded him to teach me Greek and Latin, French and Breton, also German—which he did willingly—not to that end—but because he was proud of the speed and economy with which I learned—
Enough of my Papa. I have sadly missed him lately—I think because I have been putting off my epic—and for Reasons—
Yr citation from Pa
racelsus was of course familiar to me. And with your usual quickness you have seen that I am interested in other visions of the fairy Mélusine—who has two aspects—an Unnatural Monster—and a most proud and loving and handy woman. Now there is an odd word—but no other seems to suffice—all she touched was well done—her palaces squarely built and the stones set on rightly, her fields full of wholesome corn—according to one legend my father discovered she even brought Beans to Poitou—the true haricots—which shows she lived on into the seventeenth century—for Beans he proves, were not grown before that date. Think you not—she was not only Ghoul—but a kind of goddess of Foison—a French Ceres, it might be, or turning to your own mythology, the Lady Holda—or Freya of the Spring—or Iduna of the Golden Apples—?
Her Progeny it is true all had something of the monstrous about them. Not only Geoffroy à la Grande Dent—or Boar’s Tusk—but others who became kings in Cyprus and Armenia—had ears like jug-handles—or uneven eyes—
And the Infant Horrible, with three Eyes, whose death she urgently required at Raimondin’s hand, at the moment of her metamorphosis—what are we to make of him?
I would write, if I undertook it—a little from Melusina’s—own—vision. Not, as you might, in the First Person—as inhabiting her skin—but seeing her as an unfortunate Creature—of Power and Frailty—always in Fear of returning to the Ranging of the Air—the not-eternal—but finally-annihilated—Air—
I am called. I cannot write more. I must make haste to seal this—which I fear is a Plaintive Screed—a Convalescent Muttering—I am called again—I must close. Believe me yours most truly
Dear Miss LaMotte,
I trust all is now well in your household, and that work—on the Merlin and Vivien—and on the increasingly fascinating Melusina—continues apace. As for myself—I have now nearly finished my poem on Swammerdam—I have a rough blocked-out version of the whole—I know what is in and what is never so regretfully eternally abandoned—and when I have tidied up a multitude of imperfections—I shall make you my first fair copy.
I was entranced and moved by your brief portrait of your father—whose prodigious scholarship I have always admired and whose works I have read and reread most frequently. What better Father could a poet have? I was emboldened by your mention of the Ancient Mariner to wonder—was it he who named you and was that for Coleridge’s heroine of his unfinished poem? I have not had occasion to tell you—though I tell all I meet, with the regularity with which dear Crabb tells his tale of retrieving Wieland’s bust—I once met Coleridge, I was once taken to Highgate—when I was very young and green—and had the chance of hearing the Angelic—(and mildly self-important) voice speak on and on—of the existence of angels and the longevity of yew-trees, and the suspension of Life in Winter (the banal and the truly profound thick and fast upon each other here) and premonitions and the Duties of Man (not Rights) and how Napoleon’s Spies had been hot on his heels in Italy on his return from Malta—and on True Dreams and Lying Dreams. And more, I think. Nothing on Christabel.
I was so young and green, I worried inordinately that I had no chance, in all this spate of brilliant monologue, to interpose my own voice—to be heard to be able to think in that company—to be remarked. I do not know what I should have said if I could have spoken. Very likely something futile or silly—some erudite and pointless questioning of his doctrine of the Trinity, or some crude wish to be told the end of the poem Christabel. I cannot bear not to know the end of a tale. I will read the most trivial things—once commenced—only out of a feverish greed to be able to swallow the ending—sweet or sour—and to be done with what I need never have embarked on. Are you in my case? Or are you a more discriminating reader? Do you lay aside the unprofitable? Do you have any privileged insight into the possible ending of the great S.T.C.’s Tale of Christabel?—which teases so, for it is like the very best tales, impossible to predict how it may come out—and yet it must—but we shall never know—its secret sleeps with its lethargic and inconsequential author—who cares not for our irritable quandary—
I partly see your meaning about Melusina—but hesitate to write thoughts of mine which may distort your thinking—either by causing you annoyance at my imperceptiveness—or worse by muddling the bright tracks of your own ideas.
What is so peculiarly marvellous about the Melusina myth, you seem to be saying, is that it is both wild and strange and ghastly and full of the daemonic—and it is at the same time solid as earthly tales—the best of them—are solid—depicting the life of households and the planning of societies, the introduction of husbandry and the love of any mother for her children.
Now—I am greatly daring, and I trust you not to fly out at me scornfully if I am wrong—I see in the gifts you show already in your writings such mastery of both these contradictory elements—that the Story may appear to be made for you, to await indeed—You—to tell it.
Both in your wonder-tales and in your fine lyrics—you have a most precise eye and ear for the matter of fact and the detailed—for household linen for instance, for the fine manipulations of delicate sewing—for actions like Milking—which make a mere man see the world of little domestic acts as a paradisal revelation—
But you are never content to leave it there … your world is haunted by voiceless shapes … and wandering Passions … and little fluttering Fears … more sinister than any conventional Bat or Broomstick-witch.
As if to say—you have the power to render the secure keep of Lusignan—as it might be in the lives of the lords, ladies and peasants in the brilliant colours of a Book of Hours—and yet you can render also—the Voices of the Air—the Wailing—the Siren Song—the Inhuman Grief that cries down the avenues of the years—
What will you be thinking of me now? I told you—I cannot think of anything without imagining it, without giving it shape in my mind’s eye and ear. So, as I said, I have the clearest mental vision of yr unseen Porch, overarched with Clematis—one of those delightful deep-blue violet ones—and little clambering roses. I have also the clearest vision of your parlour—with its two peaceful Human inhabitants employed—I will not say at netting, but perhaps at reading—aloud, some work of Shakespeare or Sir Thomas Malory—and Monsignor Dorato all lemony plumes in a filigree dome—and your little dog—now of what kind is he? if I were to hazard a guess I would say perhaps a King Charles Spaniel—yes, I see him now, unfortunately clearly, with one chocolate ear and one white and a feathery tail—and yet he is maybe no such thing—but a small hound—a milk-white fine creature such as Sir Thos Wyatt’s ladies kept in their mysterious chamber. I have no vision of Jane at all—but that may come. I do have the clearest olfactory ghost of yr tisanes—though they hesitate between verveine and lime and raspberry-leaves, which my own dear mother found most efficacious in case of headache and lassitude.
But I have no right, however I may extend my imagining gaze on harmless chairs and wallcoverings—I have no right to extend my unfortunate curiosity to your work, your writing. You will accuse me of trying to write your Melusina, but it is not so—it is only my unfortunate propensity to try to make concrete in my brain how you would do it—and the truly exciting possibilities open up before me—like vistas of long rides in sun-dappled shade in the mysterious forest of Brocéliande—I think—so, she will do it—so, she would enter the project. And yet I know your work is nothing if not truly original—my speculations are an impertinence. What can I say? I have never before been tempted to discuss the intricacies of my own writing—or his own—with any other poet—I have always gone on in a solitary and self-sufficient way—but with you I felt from the first that it must be the true things or nothing—there was no middle way. So I speak to you—or not speak, write to you, write written speech—a strange mixture of kinds—I speak to you as I might speak to all those who most possess my thoughts—to Shakespeare, to Thomas Browne, to John Donne, to John Keats—and find myself unpardonably lending you, who are alive, my voice, as I habitually lend it to those dea
d men—Which is much as to say—here is an author of Monologues—trying clumsily to construct a Dialogue—and encroaching on both halves of it. Forgive me.
Now if this were a true dialogue—but that is entirely as you may wish it to be.
Dear Mr Ash,
Have you truly Weighed—what you ask of me? Not the Gracile Accommodation of my Muse to your promptings—for that wd be resisted to the Death of the Immortal—which cannot Be—only Dissipation in Air. But you Overwhelm my small diligence—with Pelion piled on Ossa of Thought and fancy—and if indeed I sit down to answer all as it should be answered—there is the morning quite gone—and what has become either of the setting of the junket or of the Fairy Melusina?
Yet do not on that account cease to write to me—if I skimp a little on the Fairy-cakes—and write you a truncated and scanty answer—and procrastinate—not unfruitfully—one more day for the Melusina—all may be botched together somehow.
You say you cannot imagine Jane. Well—I will tell you, this much—she has a Sweet Tooth—a very sweet tooth. It is beyond her powers to let be a set of little milk-jellies—or delicious macaroons—or brandy-snaps—in the Larder—without abstracting one insignificant exemplar here—or indenting a Spoon there and leaving traces of her gourmandise. So it is with my sad Self and the inditing of letters. I will not do it I say, until this is quite done—or that embarked on—but in my mind runs an answer to this that or the other—and I say to myself—if this argument were disposed of (if just that sweetmeat were tasted and slid down) my mind would be my own again, without agitation—
No, but how ungracious to quibble. I was just asserting—I am no Creature of your thought, nor in danger of becoming so—we are both safe in that regard. As for the Chairs and wall-coverings—imagine away—think what you will—and I shall from time to time write a small Clue—so that you may be the more thoroughly confounded. I will say nothing as to clematis and roses—but we have a very fine Hawthorn—just now tressed and heavy with pink and creamy blooms and alive with that almond smell—so sweet—too sweet—that the sense aches at it. I will not say where this Tree is—nor how young or old, large or small—so you will be imagining it not as it is indeed—Paradisal and Dangerous—you know the May must never be brought into the house.