Love in a Bottle

by Antal Szerb

  “My magical powers, if you please! I gave up that other tedious business long ago. There’s not the least bit of truth in the things they say about me. Believe me, I always acted with the best intentions. For example, when I spirited Orilus’ bride away, and changed Meliacans into a tortoise when he was about to go off to the Holy Land—and all those tales.”

  Lancelot was perfectly ready to agree with him. As the evening progressed Klingsor steadily threw off his mood of weary apathy and become ever more congenial. His deep-sunk eyes twinkled with shrewdness and his words sparkled with an old man’s wisdom.

  “You’re a good fellow, my dear Klingsor, I’ve always said,” remarked Lancelot. And he gave the magician a hug.

  Beside himself with happiness, Klingsor sent for an even better wine, one he never offered to anyone, and as he poured it into the goblets his hand trembled with emotion. It had a glorious colour. Lancelot rose, his face became solemn—transfigured, even—as he declared:

  “Klingsor, the time has come… I raise this cup to my noble lady, Queen Guinevere!”

  He downed the entire contents, and stood staring straight ahead for what seemed ages. The magician knew this look. He knew that the moment had come when the amorous knight would either burst into tears and pour his heart out, or seize him by the beard. To pre-empt the latter, and struggling manfully to fight back the dry cough that seemed to be troubling his throat, he asked in a tone of suitable reverence:

  “Ah, so the peerless Guinevere is your lady? Perhaps you are on an errand for her right now?”

  He knew perfectly well that Guinevere was Lancelot’s lady. In those days discretion had not yet been invented, and the most famous loves were peddled by minstrels from country to country. Besides he cared not a whit whether it was Guinevere or Viviane—he no longer had any feeling for women himself.

  A fine, unworldly smile played over Lancelot’s lips, straining to soar heavenwards, as he replied:

  “For these last seven years all my journeying has been in her service. You must surely have heard of some of my doings. True, people love to exaggerate these stories. Right now I’m on my way to slay a dragon. A few days ago, on St Michael’s Eve, it flew into the Queen’s treasury and stole a shoe, one of the pair she was given by her husband, the illustrious Arthur, when he returned from his expedition to Ireland. Some of these dragons are utterly shameless. The Queen has charged me, as her most loyal knight, to recover it. She really wouldn’t be happy to see it in anyone else’s hand, as I’m sure you will understand.”

  “So great a love… you must be very happy,” Klingsor observed wistfully.

  Lancelot was furious.

  “Me? Happy? I drag my anguish about with me wherever I go. Sometimes I just lie on the ground and howl. I spend two thirds of my days in active misery, and the other third wondering how I can ever bear it.”

  “Well, then… I can only assume that the Queen—please don’t mind my saying this—doesn’t love you.”

  Lancelot leapt to his feet and clapped his hand on his sword.

  “What are you thinking, you old villain, you trader of broken-down horses? How could Queen Guinevere possibly love me when she is King Arthur’s wife? She is the most saintly of all the saintly women whose lives have been a reproach to the base nature of our mother Eve.”

  The magician was about to make a little conciliatory speech, but the long-repressed cough finally erupted. His eyes nearly popped out, and he was on the point of falling out of his chair. Lancelot, fearing he might injure himself, rushed to his aid, pummelled him on the back and tried to comfort him.

  “You see, you see,” he said. “It seems those scrapes you kept getting into with the jewel of your manhood—before you lost it—clearly weren’t enough for you. Take care you don’t make any more trouble with your tongue, or you’ll end up biting yourself.”

  The magician recovered soon after. He led Lancelot to his bedchamber and wished him a restful night. At the word “restful” Lancelot heaved a great sigh. Then he uttered his usual fervent prayer to the heavens to watch over Queen Guinevere, and lay down.

  Klingsor was suffering from chronic insomnia at the time. He picked up one of his lighter books of Arabian magic to banish the tedium of the night. But he found little to interest him in what he was reading. Whenever his thoughts turned to Lancelot’s fate his eyes filled with tears. Finally he broke down and sobbed. The old magician was a thoroughly good-hearted man—von Eschenbach, like everyone else in the Middle Ages, was quite wrong about him. He had abducted Orilus’ bride simply because he knew exactly what sort of ruffian the fellow was. A man who won his lady’s hand after his days of knightly battles were over would simply work off his lingering war-like impulses on his wife. He would beat her twice a day, after breakfast and luncheon, and not stop at breaking her wrist. And as for the Meliacans business, he only changed the knight into a tortoise because he knew that if he went to the Holy Land his bride would deceive him with a Jewish stocking merchant.

  His heart bled for Lancelot. It seemed inconceivable to him that anyone should suffer so much for love. He too, in his youth, had been something of a ladies’ man. But ever since one grim husband had taken his revenge on him in a manner so cruel that even today one cannot write about it without blushing, he had forgotten what love was, and he felt decidedly the better for it.

  He spent a long time wondering whether or not he should help his friend. He knew the world would misconstrue whatever he did, and it could all end up with Lancelot seizing him by the beard yet again. But that wasn’t enough to stop him. His feelings of pity were far too strong.

  He rummaged through his instruments, looking for his magic pincers and the blue spectacles that allowed him to see spirits. Then he took off his shoes and crept into Lancelot’s room.

  A small candle was burning in the darkness. With the aid of the magic spectacles he could see through the bedclothes, through Lancelot’s shirt and skin, and into his body. Looking closely, he was able to follow the mischievous frolickings of the little life spirits as they chased one another up and down the labyrinth of blood vessels. It took him a while to discover which was the Love spirit, but eventually he succeeded. There it sat, astride Lancelot’s spine, tickling him with a little feather brush. After a while it grew tired of this game. It wriggled its way adroitly between the folds of the lung and set about squeezing the knight’s heart. But it must have got bored with that too, because it then slipped into the aorta, where the flow of blood carried it into the brain. It fiddled about for a while among the convolutions, pulling all sorts of things out of the drawers and then stuffing them back again, got itself tangled up in the network of nerve endings, gave a great yawn and jumped out through Lancelot’s mouth onto the bed. There it sat, dangling its legs over the edge and gazing at itself in a little mirror. Love is always rather vain. But it wasn’t exactly beautiful. It was pale and gaunt, restless and malformed, and its veins were knotted from years of stress. Of course it saw nothing of its own ugliness, for, as we all know, Love is also blind.

  The spirit perched on the edge of the bed—this was Klingsor’s chance. He grabbed the pincers and gripped it firmly by the neck. Love uttered a few squawks and dropped the mirror.

  The noise woke Lancelot—always a light sleeper. In an instant he was on his feet, his hand on the sword drawn from under the pillow, and he started towards Klingsor. When he realised who was standing there he lowered the weapon, feeling at once confused and rather suspicious.

  “Is that you, Klingsor?” Lancelot was sorry to have caught his host in such an embarrassing situation.

  “Yes… I came in… I thought I’d see how you were sleeping.”

  “But why have you got those pincers in your hand?”

  “Well, you know, if an insect happened to be disturbing your sleep, I could catch it.”

  “You’d use a thing like that to catch it? I find a sheet of paper works very well.”

  “I’m very squeamish by nature.”


  “And have you caught anything?”

  “Oh, yes… but nothing important.”

  And he showed him the Love spirit.

  “Phew, it’s ugly,” said Lancelot, and he lay down again, still feeling rather doubtful.

  Klingsor went back to his room. He stuffed the spirit into a bottle, carefully capped it with some parchment and string and stamped it with the royal seal of Solomon. On the side he attached a little label bearing the words “Amor, amoris, masc.”, and placed it up on a shelf with the other bottles of spirits. The Love spirit swam round and round in the liquid, like a mournful frog. Satisfied with his night’s work, Klingsor went back to bed.

  “If only I could do such a good deed every day,” he sighed earnestly, and quickly fell asleep.

  The next day Lancelot woke to something remarkable: the sun was already high in the sky. He was so astonished he simply remained where he was, not moving, for ages. For the last seven years he had woken every day at dawn and leapt out of bed in a state of frantic anxiety, and now he felt little inclination even to get up. He dressed very slowly, and gave little thought to putting his long curls in order. As for shaving, he just didn’t bother.

  “I look quite elegant enough for the dragon,” he thought to himself.

  Eventually he made his way down to breakfast. Klingsor gave him a delighted reception.

  “How did you sleep? And what did you dream about?” he wanted to know.

  “What? Oh, yes, that I lost my spurs in a muddy field.”

  “That’s a pity. Because the first dream you have in an unfamiliar place usually comes true.”

  “That would be a shame. You know, what with the price of wheat these days, my estates aren’t doing as well as they used to, and I really hate unnecessary expense.”

  “It might have been better if you had dreamt of the fair Queen.”

  The colour drained from Lancelot’s face. It was true! For the last seven years he had dreamt of Guinevere every night, and now… he had even left her blessed name out of his morning prayers, for the simple reason that he had entirely forgotten to say them. And he’d been awake for a whole hour, and if the magician hadn’t mentioned her he wouldn’t have given her a moment’s thought.

  Still in a daze, he took his leave of Klingsor and set off for the road that wound up the mountain. The magician stood waving after him.

  “Not happy yet,” he murmured, stroking his beard. “He still hasn’t noticed the blissful transformation inside him. But sure enough, in time he’ll come to bless an old man’s memory.”

  And he sobbed with emotion.

  Lancelot trotted along the road for several hours, deep in thought. Then the way turned into a little beechwood. A woman on a donkey was approaching from the opposite direction. Before her and behind, the donkey’s back was piled high with fine-looking loaves. A baker’s wife, evidently.

  “God give you good day,” he called out politely. The knight without a stain always made a point of greeting women first, including peasant women. The baker’s wife returned his greeting.

  The wench was not unattractive. Indeed, her plump, homely manner had a fragrance of its own, like the bread.

  “Aha, you must be Amalasuntha,” Lancelot began. “Didn’t your late grandfather make wafers for the Bishop, and didn’t you offer three candles last Easter so that you might see the Archangel Gabriel face to face?”

  “No,” the woman replied.

  “Ah, then your name can only be Merethén. Two of your four children have died of smallpox, but the third is doing wonderfully well. There is a blue hedgehog on the sign over your shop, and you are rather partial to trout?”

  “No,” the woman replied.

  “Right, that’s enough small talk,” said Lancelot. He dismounted, tied the woman’s donkey to a tree and lifted her down from its back. The loaves on either side stayed where they were.

  Some time later they returned to the highway. Lancelot helped her back up onto the donkey, settled her in between the loaves, untied the beast and sent it off down the road. He stood for a while waving after them in a friendly fashion, then mounted his steed and continued on his way.

  But he had gone barely five hundred paces when he suddenly tugged on the horse’s bit and stopped, rooted to the spot. He took out a finely embroidered kerchief and mopped his brow. It was dripping with cold sweat.

  The penny had dropped.

  “Everything seems to confirm,” he said quietly, “that I desire other women than the divine Guinevere.” He remained there for a whole hour, wondering what the explanation might be. During this time, to his horror and embarrassment, the image of the baker’s wife kept rising up before his mind’s eye, followed by a succession of others—a captain’s widow, two grape-picking wenches, a person of ill repute, and Guinevere’s three chambermaids. Only the Queen was missing.

  In deep gloom he continued on his way until sunset. As night began to fall he passed through a rather charming little town with a handsome, high-roofed inn calling itself the Famous Griffin. He would gladly have stopped there for dinner, but it would have meant being late for the dragon. It usually emerged from its cave only in the early hours of darkness, to drink.

  He arrived at a grim wood, where the strange shape of the trees, the dark green cliffs and fearsome airborne cries signalled the proximity of danger. He steadied the lance in his hand and, following his instinct, rode directly into the place where the air of menace seemed greatest. Only then did he begin to wonder why he had not encountered a single shepherd or ancient mountaineer warning him to proceed no further.

  The way was precipitous, and, tormented by hunger, he was becoming ever more impatient. Finally he came across a great pile of human bones. At the start of the next turning he could see a cave. To the expert eye its shape betrayed, quite unmistakably, that it was tailor-made for a dragon. Bearing his lance stiffly before him (he had earlier taken care to remove the little English flag) he advanced warily.

  But who could describe the rage he felt when, on reaching the entrance, he spotted a large notice announcing in flowery Gothic lettering that the dragon had since moved house, and now resided in the cave under the peak popularly known as the Dead Mountains’ Carnival Doughnut?

  Lancelot knew only too well that the Dead Mountains lay some twenty miles to the north, and that, moreover, with its many precipitous ranges and three infamous passes where thieves waited to plunder travellers, the route, even ignoring the poor transport arrangements of the period, was not generally considered a very agreeable one.

  After much humming and hawing, he turned his horse round, went back and stopped for the night at the Famous Griffin. Dinner began with some white breast of chicken, finely sliced, followed by a large carp, a highly spiced and very tasty leg of veal, some rather unusual regional pastries and a basket of superb apples. The wine was no less satisfactory. But the greatest surprise of all was that he wasn’t miserable.

  Nor did his misery return the next morning. The sun shone. There was a cheerful clonking of bells under his window as a line of cattle went past on their way to the meadow, and the whole beautiful world was filled with the comforting smell of manure. The breakfast liqueur (a light vermouth) and the rabbit pâté that followed were both extremely pleasant. Lancelot felt an irresistible urge to bathe in the lake and then fall asleep in the grass.

  And then he remembered the dragon, the three mountain passes bristling with robbers, and all the dismal hardships of the life of derring-do. For some hours he waged a difficult struggle with himself.

  Finally, towards midday, he pulled on his boots and, thus attired, stamped his foot decisively on the floor.

  “No, I won’t!”

  And he set off, back towards Carreol, without the Queen’s shoe. And the dragon lived happily ever after, in its cave under the peak of the mountain popularly known as the Carnival Doughnut.

  “He’s only human, after all,” Lancelot told himself.

  A curious dullness crept through his brai
n. He was living in a new universe, one in which everything was pleasant and amiable—and that was precisely what was so terrifying and incomprehensible. The landscape of this new world was so impossible to find his way around that it simply annihilated thought. He felt like a man who has drunk a great deal of beer. And not without cause. He had knocked back a pint at every hostelry along the way.

  And thus he arrived at Carreol, where Arthur held court in those days. He washed off the dust of the road and prepared to enter the exalted presence of the Queen. But he had barely stepped out of the door of his lodgings when he bumped into Gawain, who greeted him with the exciting news that it was two-all at half-time in the crucially important jousting tournament between Cornwall and Wales, and promptly dragged him along to watch. After the match there was a banquet in honour of the victors. Lancelot completely forgot himself in the general jollity, which continued until well after midnight, and it was only the next morning that he remembered his audience with the Queen.

  By the time he reached the Palace she was already out walking with her ladies in the park. Fortunately he was very familiar with the route she took, and he dashed off to take his place behind the lime tree whence, according to the courtly custom that had grown up over the years, he would step out into her path, as if by chance, as she came strolling by.

  But he arrived too late. She was already in the avenue. To hide behind a tree and then instantly reappear from behind it now seemed a rather pointless formality.

  He knelt before her and kissed the hem of her garment. An ambiguous smile played on her lips, and she did not immediately pronounce her usual “Pray rise, worthy knight!” until Lancelot had grown tired of kneeling and a degree of irritation had infused itself into him.

  “They tell me you came back yesterday,” she suddenly remarked.

  “That is so, my lady,” he replied, blushing.

  “Indeed? Then rise, worthy knight,” she declared, but with an offhand brusqueness that reduced the time-honoured phrase to a casual insult. Lancelot was deeply disconcerted. What worried him most was that the Queen’s anger seemed so distant—as if it had not been directed at him at all.