The Dedalus Book of Dutch Fantasy

by Richard Huijing

Oh, that tiredness. That tiredness and that humming crowd. The heart is feeble. The will is weak. Fear past. That tiredness the worst.

  And that they are close around you. And that they are so quiet. Quiet-busy around you. Doing thus in quiet haste. It hurts, their taking trouble for you; it embarrasses you, all those men, the work you cause them. All those men and hands. You wish their will.

  Only the ascent still. With the tired legs. And that narrow rope that forces a going-up, a going-up backwards behind the man ascending first. Humming, oh, humming - black, black is the fullness - terrible humming. Do not go mad, poor fellow.

  Do they not weep? That ladder wobbles. We both shall fall. Oh God, how heavy with these throbbing legs, this ascending backwards, and a ladder that wobbles. We both shall fall. Hear now the drums rolling close-by. That stomach-searing roll. Hear, hear.

  Hear the terrible townsfolk,

  mounting the tide of High Pleasure.

  Frans Kellendonk

  'No, I won't get up for you. I no longer get up. When I was young, I don't know how long ago, long ago, if there were visitors, I would hide behind a door. Then I would trip, knees bent and on tiptoe, into the room. Not this room. A different room. Everybody was charmed. I'd better not bother with such pranks nowadays. My ankles would collapse. Even with two servants supporting me, my ankles would collapse. Can you see what gout has done to my hands? They lay chalk stones nowadays. I can no longer run along like a chicken, but twice a year my hands lay a little chalk egg. I keep them in that um there, to have a gravel plot laid out with them on my grave.

  If you're afraid of le catch-cold, as they say in your ravaged fatherland, then I'd be happy to ring for my gruff Swiss manservant. However, I would advise you rather to close the window yourself. Philippe is on the booze and he keeps his ears quite deaf to me. I myself no longer catch any colds, not since I abandoned wearing hats.

  Meet Tonton. Shake paws with the young man, Tonton. Tonton is too fat to shake paws with the young man. He was left to me by your much lamented countrywoman Madame du Deffant. ']e suis tombee dans le neant ... je refombe dans le neant,' she used to say, and now I repeat her words. Tonton can't move because he's too fat and I can't because of my gout. We have been condemned to each other's company and to this settee. One lives and lives and then, one day, one wakes up dead.

  Were Philippe not so ill-tempered then I might have asked him to show you round this gingerbread castle of mine. Alas, Philippe is always ill-tempered nowadays. But I shall tell you what you must see. Something that certainly will interest you is my collection of armour and weaponry. Oh yes, I have noticed that you are a martial young man: I gleaned it from your build, your thighs in particular. That collection's housed in the stairwell. Shields of rhinoceros skin, hand-bows, arrows and quivers, all having come from - that is what's said, at least, and I genuinely believe it - all having come from my distant forebear, the renowned Sir Terry Robsart!

  Sir Terry Robsart. The English crusader. Knight of the Garter ...

  Francois Premier, does the name mean anything to you? Your artloving monarch, indeed. As a Frenchman, you are sure to be interested in his suit of armour. Inlaid with gold. You will find it in the entrance to the library. Should you then walk on, into the library, you'll come face to face with another prize exhibit, the painting depicting the uniting in holy matrimony of our Henry the Sixth and your Margaret of Anjou. Two highly talented people but an unhappy marriage. Our countries were at war then, just as they are now. Would you mind also looking up a moment then, up at the painted ceiling? Designed it myself. At the centre, pride of place, my family escutcheon. Do this for me, please. I have not seen it for months.

  And then I have another request. Would you mind not looking with your fingers, not under any circumstance? Last week a vicar's wife from Birmingham broke one of the pipes which Admiral Tromp smoked during his last sea battle. A few days later it turned out that my Roman eagle had lost its beak. It's a miracle that I still have all my teeth. I just sit here all day like an antique. The flesh withers on my bones. An old bunch of faggots is what I am, only fit for the fire. I'll be eighty this coming year. Recently, I heard a visitor say: 'Just take a look at this, Annabel, see that mummy there? That's what the fops looked like in grandfather's day.' Soon they'll be fiddling with me, too. Ah, just look: he's bald underneath his switch. An ear breaks off, and an eye runs across the floor. Better put it in your pocket, Annabel, quick, then no one'll notice.

  You do have a ticket, don't you? You know that tickets for admission must be requested in writing. I'm sorry to have had to institute this rule, but as this edifice consists merely of breadcrust, wallpaper and stained glass, I cannot receive more than four visitors a day. And definitely no children.

  You do not have a ticket.

  You have not come to see the exhibits.

  Have I ever met you before?

  Do you play faro? D'you play loo? Would you like a cup of tea? Or ice-water, perhaps? I only drink ice-water, because of my complaint. No? Take some snuff? I do enjoy taking some snuff, be it from my finger tip, for I have been obliged to sacrifice my tabatiere anatomique to the gout. Finest tobacco, from Fribourg's. No7 Again no.

  Then I will tell you a charming story. It's about Madame de Choiseul, in more youthful days, when she had two lovers, Prince Joseph of Monaco and Monsieur de Coigny. As if that wasn't enough, she fervently wished to possess a parrot as well, one which would be a miracle of eloquence. Macaws, parrots, cockatoos and what have you, Paris has these a-plenty, as you know, and the Prince rapidly managed to lay his hands on a Jaco which was appointed her secretary by the grateful nymph. Not to put Monsieur de Coigny at a disadvantage, she also acquired a fierce longing for a monkey. Strangely enough, monkeys were a rare commodity in Paris in those days - not so now, I believe - but, with great difficulty, the other paladin managed to find one in a restaurant, where the creature was working as a kitchen boy. Madame de Choiseul was delighted and appointed the monkey her chamberlain. Monsieur de Coigny, however, had neglected to purpose or out of forgetfulness, it's not for me to say - in any case, he had not mentioned to her that the chamberlain, in his previous place of employment, had gained great dexterity in the plucking of birds and when Madame, one evil day, returned from making a

  Ah, you already know the tale? You do not care for tittle-tattle. You are a serious young man. Oh.

  I have known marchionesses as old as the hills who were more amusing than you. Of course they didn't look like the Apollo Belvedere. I have been able to admire your thighs from all sides now. They are divine but not for sale, no doubt, so don't lead this old rag-and-bone man into temptation and please sit down, on one of those hundreds of chairs here. There. And now tell me frankly to what I do owe the honour of your visit.

  Chatterton?

  Chatterton.

  Our countries are at war. No ship can cross the Channel. Letters are being intercepted and copied out by your cabinet noir or whatever it's called in these bloody times. Chit-chat, on the contrary, is still as free as the wind. Chatterton - tsk-tsk-tsk. A jungle full of monkeys is what you hear gabbling in that name. You disappoint me. Moreover, you're not au courant at all. Here in England, we ran out of things to say about Chatterton ten years ago.

  But you haven't ...

  Not by a long chalk ...

  Well, well: you don't half know how to use your tongue! Go on, sock it to me! My my, a chiasmus, just like that: 'le martyre perpetuel et la perpetuelle immolation' - that's a chiasmus: anyone else would first have to chew down an entire pen for that. And those antitheses of yours, just like flints: sparks fly. Go on, bawl me out. Your rhetoric is amazing: Madame de Choiseul couldn't have wished for a more talented parrot. It's as if you're reading it all out loud to me. Such irony! Brilliant, razor-sharp, just like that guillotine of yours. Beg pardon: guillotine of theirs. I first thought you were an officer but words are what you set a-marching - you are a poet. There: an alexandrine escapes you, just like that - take care that you don
't begin to rhyme spontaneously. Went to school at the Jesuits', did you? Pity it's such tosh you put into words so splendidly.

  No, just put that back where it came from, that dress-sword. Tosh: I hold to that. A scorpion is what you just called him, the former boy? Imprisoned in a circle of fiery coals heaped upon him by the malevolent bourgeoisie? He seeks a way out, does not find it, and in despair he stabs himself to death. An affecting image of the imperilled poet-of-genius, I admit. Except that scorpions cannot sting themselves to death: that's superstition. Hallowed by being copied out and parroted for centuries, but no less superstition for that. It can do no harm to delve in the Great Book of Nature from time to time - for a poet, too, this can do no harm.

  Ah, your scorpion comes from a poetic bestiary. A creature of fable, just like the basilisk and the griffon. In that case, I'm sure you will forgive me that I won't take that Chatterton of yours quite literally either.

  A tale of monkeys and parrots after all! For, heavens above, how they have patched up that little urchin in the Valhalla of tittletattle. Changed beyond recognition is what he is. You were on about his 'profil d'un jeune Lacedemonien'. Ever seen him? A portrait? Certainly, there are portraits of him, as there are of the unicorn and of the archangel Gabriel. I myself have never been allowed to behold him, but those who did know him, this I do know, they are agreed that here on earth he had a round, childish forehead and a pug-nose. His eyes weren't 'noirs', they were grey, and as to the 'tres grands, fixes' and, what was it you said again? - ah, yes, 'percants, that's quite a nice description of his right eye, but not of his left. To put it mildly, his face had something unbalanced about it. Then you ascribe to this lad of seventeen an appearance you call 'militaire et ecclesiastique'. What must I imagine at that? Are you saying that he looked like an almoner? He walked hunched over and went dressed in tatters, in rags that had known broader backs and stronger legs. A dressed-up monkey is what he was, nothing else.

  Best not feed a songster too much? Ho-ho! Who said that - did I say that? Poverty as the poet's capital? Again those winged words are mine? Truly it gives me great satisfaction that, via the recycling process of gibberish, something witty comes flowing back to me for once. Harsh it may be, but witty too! That I might be granted to make myself laugh even in my dotage, imagine ...! The fruits of my ill repute are not all bitter, after all. Permit me ...

  I will have you sent away by my Swiss manservant if you won't allow me to tell you what precisely my involvement was in this phantasmagoria. Yes, do start stalking the room, by all means. Make the floor boom beneath your Werther boots, do. The porcelain quivers before you. As you're walking about anyway, perhaps you might take down those four volumes from the bookcase for me, second shelf from the top? The ones stamped with Chattertoniana, of course. Thank you. As you can see, I have collected all the hogwash. And annotated it. Not that my finicky scrawl can effect much against such bold print. But a monkey is not complete without its fleas.

  Chatter-chatter-Chatterton. That I would have driven this jokefigure of yours, this toddler-on-stilts, to suicide through my neglect, no, through my haughtiness - haughtiness is what you said - that's not just an invention, it is a libel. That's a lie which, for more than twenty-five years, has marred my life, me, an innocent. In you, already the second generation of pen-maulers announces itself to venerate this pitiable mite as its martyr and patron saint, and ascribes a gruesome act to me which I have never committed. Never could have committed. As I said earlier: I never met the wonderboy. I can only feel involved in this affair with great difficulty, and only very obliquely at that. If I have been the angel of death to him, then he has allowed himself to be cut down by .. .

  By a loose feather. Now listen carefully. That the boy had taken his own life I only learned in '71, at the annual banquet of the Royal Academy in London. This always takes place in April: he had already been dead 6 months, therefore. Oliver Goldsmith ...

  Oliver Goldsmith, that glassy Irish potato, that inspired fool, the penman surgeon ...

  Goldsmith tapped the edge of his plate. Important news! And he told with grave aplomb how recently a chest full of old manuscripts had been found in Bristol, in the church of St Mary Redcliffe. Not full of bills or deeds, no, belles lettres: chronicles, poems, verse dramas, all written by a fifteenth century monk called Thomas Rowley. We - Reynolds, Johnson, etcetera .. .

  Just you imagine the other gentlemen as cauliflowers, turnips, beets - what odds ...

  We laughed at the good doctor to his face. He had to be the last man in London who did not know that these manuscripts were fakes. That, out into the world from within the darkness of Rowley's cowl, it was the snotty nose of Thomas Chatterton that...

  Don't touch that bell, if you please! It's a real Benvenuto Cellini - that's what I was told when I bought it, in any case. Oh, do sit down, please!

  So, we laughed scornfully at Goldsmith, to his glassy face, and I recalled, and this I told the company at the time, too, that I could have gladdened the literature-loving world earlier with that particular damp squib. In '69, let me look it up for you - March 27th, 1769, I had received a note from a Thomas Chatterton, in those days an attorney's apprentice in Bristol. He wrote to me that he had old documents in his possession which might interest me. From these, it would become clear that painting in oils was already being practised here in this country in the twelfth century, and this by an Augustinian abbot from his home city. Were I to tell you now that a short while previously I had held forth in print that Jan van Eyck could not be the inventor of that particular art, then you would understand that I was highly delighted with this news. I took the bait, I believed the boy, and that is the only injustice I ever did him. Fraudsters are flatterers, and I was flattered. I wrote him an encouraging reply in return. Only afterwards did I consult experts, my friend William

  Mason, an eminent scholar, take it from me, and others, and they made it plain to me that I was dealing with a trickster. The transcripts of a number of documents he had sent me had been couched in a macaronic kind of language quite as mediaeval as this house of mine. The cumbrous spellings, the consistently barbarous idiom: these were the unmistakable hallmarks of falsification, so I was assured, the way the ever-present signature and the neverabsent craquelure are on a painting. That was when I terminated the acquaintance. That's all. Nothing more was transacted between us.

  I recounted these facts during that banquet as well, and curiously enough only silence emanated from that otherwise so lively company. It was there that, for the first time, I got the feeling I have had ever since when Chatterton is mentioned - that without wishing to do so, I was defending myself, no matter what I said. A dull atmosphere prevailed, one of which I understood nothing at all, until someone remarked: 'And now that poor rascal's dead.' Then it was my turn to be the one who was the last man in London, the last one to hear that. Even Goldsmith knew. Thus I heard for the first time, too, of his mad pride and ambition. That, after my letter - nobody said it, but it thundered in my ears - because of my letter he had seen all of London lying at his feet. I heard the whole incredible story that would be ludicrous had not death, that great big bully, been haunting it - of the laurel wreaths which failed of fall down from heaven when he had come to London posthaste; of the bread the baker did not want to supply him with at no charge, in awe of his genius; of lifelong disappointment and lack of recognition having driven this seventeen-year-old to suicide.

  In each of these defamatory pamphlets, almost a hundred in number, it is painted in the most garish colours what happened that early morning in August, in that slum where I have never set foot but nevertheless turn out to have been to, after all. How the seamstress from whom he had rented an attic room had clambered up the five steep staircases, rasping breath and cursing sotto voce. All made up, it is, but right down to my dreams I hear her step, the wheezing of her lungs, I hear her cry: 'Master Chatterton! Master Chatterton!' and bang against the door which shall never be opened by him again. I can even hear her
fall silent and, in two minds, hesitate, and I don't need to fetch a locksmith to see that he is lying dead on his bed. His face is ashen but he smiles and indeed, you all are quite right, he is beautiful. The attic window, overlooking the city, is half-open and across his temple and his cheek falls the glancing light of his mendacious glory, already dawning above the roofs of London. His dead hand is clenched around a crumpled piece of paper, on the floor lies a broken ampoule, scraps of paper everywhere, and on the table beside his bed a burning candle stands smoking. My wet finger doused that candle prematurely. How dare I deny that?

  Only the facts, the poor reviled facts, are the ones whence I derive my audacity. In one of these little volumes you will find my Letter to the Editor of Chatterton's Miscellanies where I published them. Chatterton was said to have done himself in with opium, hence the smile playing round his dead lips. Poets very much like to have their corpses smile; they like to smuggle a bit of life into death. I will not maintain that he did not eat opium - remnants of the stuff were prised from his teeth by the coroner, for that matter - but for a felo-de-se something more potent is required: arsenic, let's say, or vitriol. I plump for the fact that he drank from the vitriol with which he was trying to cure himself, for this boy of not yet eighteen years had already had such intimate knowledge of so many little seamstresses that he was quite squishy with the pox. I don't wish to deny him his glorified body, but when he was lying there, dead, he had a face like a wrung-out dishcloth - this the seamstress herself has testified to.

  And then to think that, with a little bit of luck, this apparition might have been a respected soapmaker. Immediately before his desperate deed he wrote to a school chum in Bristol that he was planning to say farewell to Parnassus. From now on, he wrote, he wished to devote himself to the preparation of 'smegma', which is Greek for soap, so my good friend Mason assures me.