Death and Mr. Pickwick

by Stephen Jarvis

Before long, Bladud started to enjoy the company of pigs. He imitated their grunts and their little woofs and came to know the sounds which meant satisfaction and the sounds which meant hunger. ‘Ah, pigs,’ he said – for he spoke to them often – ‘I am not so sure that you eat too much. Poor maligned beasts.’

  The pigs rooted around in the soft spring earth, seeking an old tuber or a piece of decayed bark. One pig would bite the ear of another, and even rip off flesh amidst much blood and shrieking; yet later the same day the two pigs would sleep side by side, as though they had infinite capacity of forgiveness. Deciding that Bladud was not too disgusting, they would sometimes lick his face – to them, in spite of his royalty, he was a pig. And when a pig was slaughtered, some of its lard was used by Bladud in a lamp: he watched its flame burn out upon the wick in the evening, and he would bid his brother farewell.

  One day, a new pig was given into his care – one that had a bent foot. ‘It is surely not possible,’ he said to himself.

  He came to believe – and then it became an unyielding conviction – that this was the very piglet he had freed all those years before, now fully grown. There was a look the pig gave him, which was exactly the look he had received from the piglet in the moonlit grasslands. Bladud needed no more evidence. He felt the greatest joy he had experienced in ages! To think they had been reunited, these old friends! The pig licked his face.

  So life continued for Bladud, and he herded the swine into ancient forests of beech, where early spring flowers and fungi grew, to forage for mast; but pigs, being pigs, had wills of their own, and if they were herded one way, they would take it into their minds that the food was better the other. Indeed, it was most peculiar: they seemed to know which food would make them the tastiest to eat. The roast pork of Bladud’s pigs was renowned.

  As the pigs ate, Bladud stood against the trunk of the largest tree he could find, with foliage so thick that some lower branches were rotting for lack of sunlight. There was nothing to apply his mind to, except the appearance of trees. He knew trees by their frost-cracks and by their twig-scars, their roughnesses and irregularities. He admired in particular the ornamentation of ivy, and the pleasing way it wound around the bark of an oak. All the same, this knowledge was no substitute for the knowledge he desired. He carved Greek letters into bark, forming the start of an incantation, but he could not remember the end. He slapped the bark, as though fearing that soon all his knowledge would be gone.

  One cold day, in late autumn, the pigs roamed far in search of mast. Bladud found himself among forest he did not know. Dead leaves were still clinging to some trees. Then one of the pigs – the one with the bent foot – wandered a long way from the others. Bladud called and the pig turned, but grunted and continued, and vanished behind a rock.

  Bladud found the pig wallowing in a mudhole. He had seen pigs wallow many a time in summer to cool down, but it was a cold day, and steam rose from this mud, as well as a herby, sulphurous odour, which the pig must have scented from afar. The herbiness was easy to explain, for dead leaves and beechnuts were on the surface. Bladud bent and touched the mud, and rolled its warmth between his finger and thumb.

  The next morning the corrupted skin of his fingertips was not as red as before. When he saw his friend the pig, there was a change in its appearance, too. Its skin looked softer overall, and a crustiness around its ears had lessened.

  Bladud immersed himself in the mudpool. He rubbed mud all over his body, even around his eyes, and within his ears and nostrils. He felt the heat reach deep into his pores. He stayed in the hot mud, and his friend the pig joined him. Bladud let the mud dry on his skin, then he stood beside the pool, and gave praise to Sulis, goddess of healing. With beech twigs, pebbles, stones, moss and ivy, he decorated the perimeter of the mudpool. He decorated too the beech tree nearest the pool, whose large overhanging branch dropped its fruit into the hot mud. The pool and the tree formed a sacred pair in his mind. He also returned at night and stared into the black steaming mudpool, which reflected, unsmoothly, the stars and the moon. It was as though he knelt at the very entrance to the underworld, and the celestial bodies were torches to mark the way down. He praised the goddess Kerridwen, for whom pigs were sacred and magical.

  For a full month, Bladud stepped into the mudpool. By the end of that time, his skin was as normal as any man’s. With pride, he ran his hand over his smooth arms and chest.

  He released all the pigs, and lingered over the goodbye to one.

  It was now that he returned to his people. As he approached the city walls, he sounded the leper clapper – but now flaunting it proudly above his head, waving it as the one thing he did not need, to announce that he was leper no more.

  Bladud would, in due time, exchange the clapper for a sceptre. He ascended the throne, married and ruled.

  There were glories in Bladud’s reign, and his foundation of the city of Bath, at the site of the mudpool, was certainly one of his finest achievements. The healthy hot springs that continue to attract so many travellers are Bladud’s legacy.

  Yet Bladud was unfulfilled. He yearned for shamanic knowledge. Often neglecting the needs of his subjects, he spent his days working on wooden contraptions, inspired by the arrow of Abaris. Sometimes it was said that the leprosy had been cured on his skin, but the true scar of Athens had been left in his mind – he had not completed the course he had set for himself.

  In Trinovantum, the place now called London, Bladud climbed to the top of a wooden tower, the height of twenty men. He wore a knee-length tunic; around his neck was a beechwood amulet in the shape of a pig with a bent foot; and strapped to his back was a structure of timber, cloth and feathers, which he could flap by ropes attached to his hands and feet. He said incantations. He moved to the edge of the tower. ‘I will do what birds do,’ he proclaimed to the crowd below. ‘I will do what gods do!’

  The tower stood upon a hill. There was an uplift of wind, which he felt upon his face at the tower’s edge. Soaring jackdaws came close, and looked him in the eye.

  ‘I have the will to soar,’ he said, in a low voice. ‘I believe I shall soar. I imagine I am soaring.’

  In the crowd below, Bladud’s son looked up, hand over his mouth. At one shoulder stood his mother the queen, who covered her eyes; at the other shoulder stood a boy his own age, dressed in a jester’s outfit – an exact copy, in miniature, of the outfit worn by the boy’s father, Bladud’s jester.

  ‘I say that if your father thinks he can fly,’ remarked the little jester, ‘he must be feather-brained indeed.’

  ‘I’ll have you whipped!’ said Bladud’s son. ‘We must pray for a storm or a hurricane to lift him up.’

  Bladud now raised the wings, and they filled with the wind. He said one more incantation with his eyelids firmly closed. Then he opened his eyes and launched himself off the edge of the tower.

  An updraught caught his contraption and for a moment Bladud attained flight. He laughed in triumph and was lifted higher.

  Then he twisted in midair, and Bladud plummeted down, down, down. At the instant he struck the earth, the crowd, acting as one, drew in their breath, and this covered the sound of his neck snapping.

  *

  ‘It is easy to see,’ said Moses Pickwick, leaning over the bar of the Hare and Hounds, ‘that Bladud inspires our modern architects, who lay out our city on strict Grecian principles, honouring the studies that Bladud pursued. And I am quite sure that Bladud was a swineherd in the area of my farm at Swainswick. There aren’t many beech trees on the hills now, but there is a place called Beechen Cliff, and surely there he took his pigs. That is my belief.’

  A bearded amateur historian, who occasionally drank in the Hare and Hounds, had been listening to Moses’ account.

  ‘I’ve heard that the story of Bladud is pure invention,’ he said. ‘The pigs were not even in the earliest known version.’

  ‘You insult me, sir,’ said Moses Pickwick. ‘You insult the people of Bath.’

  Moses Pi
ckwick retreated to the back of the inn. He did not emerge until the evening, when he boarded his own late coach to the White Hart.

  *

  After staying overnight at the Hare and Hounds, Seymour took the short walk, of about a mile, to Corsham House. He and several other portfolio-bearing students of art approached the Elizabethan building via a long avenue of trees, and through gardens laid out on picturesque principles. At ten o’clock precisely they were admitted by a liveried footman, who led them across a checkered floor, past bronze busts, a coat of arms, two small flags and up two grand flights of stairs, and then were introduced to a young female guide – the possessor of a doe-like face, a pear-shaped figure, and a timidity which comes from too much study.

  She led the party into the crimson-walled State Dressing Room, and stopped at a Rubens, in which a satyr squeezed grapes beside a tiger and a leopard. She showed them the State Bedchamber, with its fine satin hangings, and Rembrandts for a lullaby. Then the Cabinet Room, with its ottomans and decorative china jars, and Titians, and Raphaels – and all this before one entered the room actually called the Picture Gallery. There was also the Music Room, the Saloon and the Dining Room, each with its overwhelming share of Van Eycks, Van Dycks and other Old Masters. Seymour was especially interested in the works inspired by Cervantes and Tasso – but there were so many paintings he might advantageously study, until his money ran out. For that long he would stay in the village of Pickwick.

  *

  IT WAS A GREAT ANNOYANCE to Mr Inbelicate that the historical record of Robert Seymour’s works at this time is so slender. There was, however, a large Seymour painting he owned, inspired by Cervantes, called Sancho and the Duchess. It is a scene of sunset falling upon a meadow. Don Quixote is a small thin figure in the background, lance raised, on the edge of a wood. The duchess sits upon a milk-white horse, with a cloth-of-silver side-saddle. Fat Sancho kneels in the foreground, having dismounted from Dapple, his ass, as he imparts a message from his master.

  How Mr Inbelicate urged me to study the Quixote! He wanted me to explore everything from the hero’s rank of hidalgo, to the comedy of the phrase ‘de la Mancha’. He suggested that I might trace the forerunners of the Don and Sancho, specifically a farmer called Bartolo and his squire Bandurrio, and then back, back, back in history to the earliest manifestation in literature of a man and his comic servant.

  I shall never have the time to do so, at least not in the depth Mr Inbelicate desired. For the Quixote is so vast and so complex that no man could understand it in its entirety, were he to devote his entire life to the assignment. Mr Inbelicate had no conception of the limitations of my time. It was as if he believed that certain works of fiction, particularly those of a rambling quality, have the potential to found monasteries, and that there should be a loyal tonsured order, devoted to their silent contemplation. Well, I cannot be a monk of Cervantes. I told Mr Inbelicate that Spaniards themselves rarely read the Quixote in full these days – and the Spaniard who says he has done so is probably a liar. Mr Inbelicate replied that such a Spaniard would be admired if he were telling the truth.

  Occasionally, though – about as often as I buy manchego cheese – a dreaminess comes over me, and I make cursory forays into the study of the Quixote, tempered by realism, common sense and my own awareness of mortality. So, I have briefly studied the Quixote’s reception in England. At first, oddly enough, the Quixote was regarded as a work of the type it was satirising, a somewhat silly romance. But by the time of the translation of Charles somebody-or-other, the Quixote was seen as a work about an idealistic, impractical man, and the hero’s squire was seen as just as important as the hero.

  For there is no Don Quixote without his squire Sancho Panza, and Seymour in his painting of Sancho surely knew this. And, perhaps even then, as a young man at work on this canvas, portraying the thin knight and a fat squire – I say, perhaps even then – his mind wondered, playfully, about the possibility of reversing fat and thin. What if – he might have asked – what if there were a fat knight and a thin squire?

  I also note in passing Sancho’s fondness for proverbs. For there is something in the Iberian soil – or, more likely, the wine – which makes a Spanish tongue produce proverbs with ease, and which also makes a Spanish ear receptive to a proverbial expression. Certainly, a Spaniard with a cigar in his hand is ready to give you wisdom as he puffs out smoke. So, in deference to the wishes of Mr Inbelicate, I have assembled a few volumes of refraneros, or Spanish proverbs. It is from the particular fondness of the Spanish public for these sayings that Sancho Panza derived some of his extraordinary popularity, as though he were a living book of proverbs. His first is: ‘Let the dead go to the grave, while the living continue to eat.’

  But – to return to Seymour – somewhere around the time he painted Sancho Panza, Robert Seymour’s interests changed. It was as though he thought of Sancho’s first proverb and he saw the dead walking to their graves, wrapped in their shrouds, and he wanted to put them on canvas. For suddenly, he took a special interest in the supernatural, above all the supernatural legends of Germany. This appears to have originated with a visit to the opera.

  So let us join Seymour, and his cousin Edward Holmes, as they leave the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane, in September 1825, having watched a performance of Der Freischütz. Holmes, for all his fascination with the superficialities of appearance, was a man with a deep knowledge of music, and lost no opportunity to show his learning. Noting the enthusiasm of his cousin for the opera, the opportunity presented itself.

  *

  ‘YOU DO KNOW, ROBERT,’ SAID Holmes as they left the Theatre Royal, ‘that the story of Der Freischütz is founded on real events.’

  ‘You will not have me believe that, Edward.’

  ‘There are records of a court in Bohemia to prove it. Let us go for a drink, and I shall tell you.’

  Once they were settled, Holmes began.

  *

  IT WAS A HOT JUNE evening in 1710, and across the cooling shadow of Chod Castle’s tower stepped an unobtrusive youth. He carried a hunting gun in one hand, and an empty sack in the other. For such a youth, the sturdy, unmemorable name of Georg Schmid was appropriate. Whilst he would not be thought handsome, he would not be thought ugly either. He was one of those fellows who make little impression on life, and yet are always attracted to pretty girls. It so happened that evening, as he drew close to an inn upon the street, that he noticed an exceptionally pretty barmaid.

  He knew by sight all the striking local faces, but he took a special interest in this new girl. She was then collecting tankards in the evening sun. She had fair hair, a green dress, and was laughing with the men who were leaning on the window ledge outside.

  And she paused in her work, tray in hand, and very deliberately turned and smiled at Georg Schmid.

  The toe of his boot made a twitch in the direction of the inn, and he might well have entered had he not suddenly been overcome with shyness and embarrassment. The boot jerked itself back, and Georg Schmid half stumbled – he heard a laugh, which he suspected was the girl, but he did not dare check. The source of his embarrassment may partly be explained by the sack he carried: it was empty.

  Georg Schmid longed to be acclaimed an excellent marksman. Whenever not working as a clerk for his father, he went to the woods to shoot game. Rarely was he successful, but on occasions he brought something home for the pot. If his sack had been full that evening, he would certainly have visited the inn and spoken to the barmaid.

  Every day during the next week Schmid went out shooting, to the great annoyance of his father, who accused him of neglecting his duties, but Georg thought only of impressing the pretty girl in the inn. On the seventh day, he met with success. He shot, and an excellent rabbit was his! Instead of carrying it in the sack, he held it proudly on display by the ears. He strode past Chod Castle tower again, and this time his boots led him confidently inside the inn.

  ‘You’re Schmid’s son, aren’t you?’ said the barmaid a
s he approached the counter and placed the rabbit down.

  ‘How did you know?’ said Georg, amazed and yet delighted by her knowledge.

  ‘I just know,’ she said, with a smile. ‘I see you have been out shooting.’

  Young Schmid could hardly conceal his excitement. ‘It is yours to make into a rabbit pie,’ he said, ‘if you let me have the first piece.’

  ‘It is a very fine rabbit,’ she said. ‘It is the finest I have ever seen – apart from one. Yesterday, Herr Weber presented me with a rabbit, which is like the father to this, it is so much larger.’

  Having noted Schmid’s reaction, she said: ‘Why don’t you bring me a deer – a fine deer – I am keen on venison.’

  ‘I cannot trespass on the estates,’ he said.

  ‘Sometimes deer break free,’ she replied. ‘But if I must settle for a rabbit – make it an exceptional rabbit.’

  ‘I shall shoot you the finest rabbit in the forest.’

  ‘Do you promise to come here every time you have been out shooting?’ she said. ‘I want to know how you are doing.’

  Georg Schmid made his promise; and every few days, in the next month, he returned to the inn; but he did not strictly abide by the terms of the promise, for the humiliation of unremitting failure would have been unbearable. He hunted at least twice as often as he visited, using a circuitous route home which did not pass the inn when he wished to avoid the barmaid. When he did enter the inn, always she said: ‘Where is that rabbit?’ or ‘Have you failed again, Georg Schmid?’ or ‘Herr Weber brought me another rabbit yesterday, and it was bigger than his last.’ Always she added: ‘But if I had venison, that would be better than anything.’

  ‘I shall bring you a rabbit,’ he said, ‘but it has to be the finest in the forest.’ He did not tell her that he had missed every tail he had shot at.

  After these exchanges, Georg Schmid usually retired with his ale to a corner of the inn, which gave a direct diagonal view of the counter, so he could watch her pour drinks. Also, he knew from experience that she would, at least once, gaze and smile directly along that diagonal, right into his eyes. That night, to his annoyance, the corner was already occupied by a bearded man with a narrow, sallow face whom Georg had never noticed before, and Georg realised he would have to put up with a slightly less advantageous view.