The Snow Ball Page 6

  ‘I didn’t’, said Anna, drawing her back. ‘Or perhaps. Vaguely. I don’t really know about these things.’

  ‘Well you ought to’, said Anne. ‘He’s said to be immensely distinguished. He’s working on Tom-Tom’s collection. It’s said to be an immense honour for us. Dr. Brompius, the distinguished Dutch musicologist?’ she said, testing the formula. ‘Or is he Swedish? I shall never understand why it’s the least latin races that have the Latin ending for their names …’

  ‘Do you think’, Anna whispered, ‘that in the accusative he’s Dr. Brompium?’

  ‘Doctorem Brompium’, Anne corrected, ‘but do get out of your accusative frame of mind, darling.’

  ‘You go’, said Anna, trying to detach her arm from Anne’s. ‘To adopt your own lousy pun, I’m not feeling very vocative.’

  ‘I would rather not’, said Anne, pulling her forward, ‘be forced to examine which case does suit the way your thoughts are tending at the moment.’ When they were half way across the room, Dr. Brompius looked up, and Anna had to stop tugging against the introduction.

  Munching, he bowed to Anna; stopped munching while he kissed Anne’s hand; and then went shamelessly on with the same mouthful, giving an indelicate impression that it was now a mouthful of Anne’s hand through which he murmured to her, in a heavy unlatin accent:

  ‘Chère madame.’

  ‘Dr. Brompius’, Anne said, ‘is it too much to consult you in your professional capacity a second time?’

  ‘How could it be too much, chère madame, for you?’

  But the gestures of Anne’s head, referring always to Anna, made it clear that it was not for her but for Anna.

  ‘Dr. Brompius’, she explained to Anna, ‘has already arranged some dance suites for us, for later in the evening.’

  Dr. Brompius, taking the idea that he was to address himself to Anna, elaborated to her:

  ‘Some little known works of the Swedish eighteenth-century court composers.’

  Anna smiled at him, and sulked at Anne. But Anne went on:

  ‘And now we want to consult you again. It’s about Don Giovanni.’

  ‘Ah, this is most interesting’, Dr. Brompius said. ‘I will later explain why. But first you, chères mesdames.’

  ‘We want to know’, Anne said, ‘whether Don Giovanni really does seduce Donna Anna.’

  Anne refused absolutely to receive Anna’s look. She fixed her eyes on Dr. Brompius, who said:

  ‘This question is fascinating.’

  ‘Of course we realise it’s one of the classic puzzles. We know she says he didn’t. But we know she’d have to say he didn’t, in any case.’

  ‘Here’, said Dr. Brompius, ‘is a question we must examine in its historical aspect.’ He turned to the table and took a bridge roll. Now it was Anne who was trying to engage Anna’s attention, and Anna who, now the thing was definitely started, had no better defence than to pretend to be insensitive to everything except a polite impatience for Dr. Brompius’s reply. She fixed her gaze on the back of his head. When he turned round again—the bridge roll already, and whole, in his mouth—he took up Anna’s gaze and held it.

  ‘This question is one which we can answer, I think, without going into musical technicalities, which are so boring. What we, however, must consider is history. History is the thing with which we may not dispense. This was said by a professor whose lectures I have attended in Hamburg in 1909, a most gifted man, and I have never forgotten it. If we permit ourselves to forget that in dealing with this matter we are dealing not with a modern but with an eighteenth-century opera, dramatis personae, audience, librettist, etcetera, etcetera, we shall find that we are thinking unhistorically and we shall permit ourselves to be led astray. What we have to do in this case—chères mesdames, you are not eating.’ He slid a silver dish from the table and thrust it towards Anna’s waist. ‘What we have to do is think our way into the conditions obtaining during the latter part of the eighteenth century, for that is when our opera was written, although, of course, its story is much older. To understand the opera situation at this period we must consider the whole culture-situation of the period, in which the opera-situation is embedded like a jewel in its setting.’

  Anna looked down at the shallow silver dish he was proffering. There was nothing in it except a paper doily, some strands of cress and a few crumbs of chopped hard boiled egg.

  She faintly shook her head, as though too rapt to attend to eating.

  ‘You are not hungry’, said Dr. Brompius. ‘In the light of the culture-situation of the period, let us examine the alternatives. Let us postulate, first, that Donna Anna has not been seduced. What, in these circumstances, will she say on this subject? She will say, I think, that she has not been seduced. For there is nothing in these circumstances, the circumstances of not having been seduced, which we are entitled to pick out from a psychological point of view as affording her a motive for telling a lie. We must now consider the other alternative. Let us suppose that Donna Anna has been seduced.’

  At the edge of her vision Anna saw Anne give an apologetic signal to Dr. Brompius, a mime of being drawn away down the table perforce, of taking care nonetheless not to go out of earshot, of continuing at the very least to watch his lips, though she had against her will to slide further and further away, while her hand faintly trailed along the table top until by blindest chance it met a dish from which not all the bridge rolls had been taken.

  ‘Now what is Donna Anna going to say if she in fact has been seduced? Two possibilities are open to her. This is in distinction from the former case, where we discovered that she was unlikely to say anything but the truth. In this present instance she may, as before, tell the truth. On the other hand, she may tell a lie. For in this instance, unlike the other, we may readily identify a motive which might prompt her to lie.’

  Far down the table, Anne, with a bridge roll in her hand, was talking to a knot of guests.

  Anna stared at Dr. Brompius’s spectacles, which reminded her of the eye pieces of an antique gas mask.

  ‘A woman in the eighteenth century who was known to have been seduced was considered dishonoured. Whether this was based upon any deep-seated moralistic or religious conviction need not concern us now. It is possible that the concept of dishonour was not in all strata of society taken wholly seriously. It may even have been regarded with a dash of cynicism, so typical of the period. For us, however, it is enough that this was the conventional belief, whether or not it was a real belief. For our purposes it is sufficient that it was believed to be believed. Here, then, we have Donna Anna’s motive.’

  Still distantly miming to Dr. Brompius that she was not doing, would not dream of doing, could not bear to do any such thing, Anne was leaving the room.

  ‘When I refer to her motive, I mean, of course, her motive for lying—if she is lying. For let us consider the statement Donna Anna actually makes. She says—or, at least, the narrative she relates to Don Ottavio implies—that she has not been seduced. Now you will observe that this fulfils the requirements of at least one possibility in each of the alternatives we postulated. We postulated that if she had not been seduced she would say that she had not, and this is what in fact she does say. But we also postulated that if she had been seduced, it would be open to her to say that she had not, and this is again what she does in fact say or imply. In other words, we are not in a position to infer, on the basis of Donna Anna’s own statement on the subject, from which of the two alternatives we postulated her motivation arises.’

  To Anna’s surprise, he stopped talking.

  She waited, but he did not resume. He seemed to be waiting, rather, for her.

  ‘Yes, I see’, she said in a thoughtful voice. ‘But I’m afraid I still don’t quite see the answer.’

  ‘We have re-stated the problem’, he said, ‘in somewhat clearer terms.’

  ‘O. Yes. I see.’

  ‘And if you ask me how we can be sure that our new statement is somewhat clearer, tha
t can be subjected to an empirical test. For from our new statement of the problem it emerges with greater clarity than it did before that it is not possible to infer the answer.’

  ‘Yes’, said Anna.

  ‘And you still will not take some food?’ He put the dish back on the table. ‘This seems to you perhaps an inconclusive answer?’

  ‘Not at all.’

  ‘The seeker after truth must sometimes accept inconclusive answers. This is better than to be misled.’

  ‘Much better.’

  ‘There is, however, one thing which we can state quite definitely and firmly, without fear of contradiction.’

  ‘Is there?’

  ‘Indeed there is. It is this. If Donna Anna had not been seduced, it is quite impossible—sociologically, historically and psychologically—quite impossible that she would ever have said that she had.’

  ‘Unless she just liked mischief’, said Anna.

  ‘O but I do not think she did’‚ said Dr. Brompius.

  A third person joined them. Without difficulty, surprise or embarrassment, Anna recognised Don Giovanni.

  Dr. Brompius took him in with a glance to the side and turned excitedly back to Anna.

  ‘You will remember that I have said to you that it was very interesting that you should speak of this opera? This was because I already knew that this gentleman was here tonight in the character of Don Giovanni. Permit me to——’

  ‘We’ve already met’, Don Giovanni said. ‘I’ve come to claim Donna Anna.’

  Part Two

  6

  ‘YOU ran away’, he said. ‘Why?’

  His black silken sleeve touched Anna’s bare arm as they leaned on the parapet of the minstrels’ gallery, looking down into the dancers.

  ‘Lots of reasons. I’m old.’

  ‘No older than I am.’

  ‘Well I expect actually I am. But anyway isn’t that one of the things that’re said to be different for men?’

  ‘It may be said. I shouldn’t think it’s particularly true.’

  ‘If one wants to forget one’s age’, Anna said, ‘new year’s eve is the wrong eve to start.’

  ‘Tell me another of the reasons.’

  ‘They’re all interconnected. I’m no longer beautiful.’

  He hesitated for an instant and then asked:

  ‘Were you ever?’

  She, too, considered before replying:

  ‘Well, no. Obviously not, in that sense. But I must have had the sort of beauty that all young human beings have. Anyway, I must have turned into a horrible human being now’, she added, ‘because new year’s eve fills me with thoughts against the young.’

  He laughed. ‘Don’t think I don’t know what you mean. It’s a night for youthanasia.’

  She turned to look at him, took the pun and said ‘Yes’, smiling. He bore no resemblance to the reconstruction she had made while she was searching for him; yet confronted with him her original memory responded to the summons and confirmed without hesitating that it was he and that she was perfectly well acquainted with what he looked like.

  She even remembered, and quite precisely, that towards the wrist, where it fitted closely, his black sleeve wrinkled into small horizontal folds, like a sleeve by Watteau.

  ‘Still’, he said, looking regretfully down at the dance floor, ‘there’s no need for violence. The youngest of them will grow old in time.’

  ‘So I kept thinking’, Anna said. After a moment she added: ‘You ran away, too.’

  ‘No I didn’t. I reculer-d pour mieux sauter.’

  ‘Where did you reculer?’

  ‘To the library.’

  ‘O yes. I’d forgotten the library.’

  ‘That doesn’t surprise me’, he said. ‘It’s because you’re not rich. Are you?’

  ‘That’s the second time I’ve been asked tonight. The other person was disappointed I wasn’t.’

  ‘I’d be disappointed if you were. I like the fellow feeling. I could tell that you and I were both Cinderellas at this ball.’

  ‘What has that to do with libraries?’

  ‘O, because the rich have libraries, whereas people like us have books. People like us read books. The rich have them catalogued.’

  ‘Anne reads them, I think.’

  ‘I don’t know about Anne. I’m fairly sure Tom-Tom doesn’t.’

  ‘Do you know Tom-Tom well?’

  ‘Very well.’ Presently he emended: ‘Very well from one angle only—below. I work with him. At least, that’s how he puts it, which is decent of him. In fact, I work for him.’

  ‘We belong on different sides of the aisle’, Anna said. ‘Bridegroom’s party and bride’s party.’

  ‘But you don’t work for Anne?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘What——’

  ‘Were you in the library the whole time?’ Anna asked.

  ‘Yes, from the moment you ran away. I found old Grumpius or whatever he’s called in there.’

  ‘No doubt he’s got in the habit of being in there. He’s been working on Tom-Tom’s musicological things. Tom-Tom collects manuscript scores and so forth.’

  ‘So Grumpius told me, but at greater length. Fortunately, he got hungry after a while. But it’s just as well he was in there, because he’s arranged everything according to some system, with the result that you can’t find anything without his help. Anyway, why, in particular? I mean about where I was?’

  ‘No reason in particular’, Anna said. ‘What were you looking for?’

  ‘Evidence. To convince you it’s no use running away.’

  ‘Did you find it?’

  He handed her a piece of paper, which she unfolded. It was die-stamped at the top with Anne’s and Tom-Tom’s address. Underneath, Don Giovanni had copied out in pencil:–

  ‘… what is true is that she is one of the hero’s victims, that Don Giovanni in the dark of night, disguised as Don Ottavio, has reached the summit of his desires, and that the curtain rises at the moment when Donna Anna has come to the realization of the terrible truth of her betrayal. In the eighteenth century no one misunderstood this. It goes without saying that in the famous recitativo accompagnato in which she designates Don Giovanni to her betrothed as the murderer of her father, she cannot tell Don Ottavio the whole truth …’

  Underneath he had written:

  ‘Einstein, Mozart, p. 439’

  Anna handed the paper back to him. ‘In all the authorities you must have consulted, could you find only one to back you up?’

  ‘But what an authority’, he said, putting the paper away in the pocket of his eighteenth-century coat. ‘The authority.’

  ‘Incidentally’, Anna said, ‘you can’t kill my father. He’s been dead for ten years.’

  ‘It’s not that aspect of my character I’m pursuing tonight.’

  ‘Yet it’s that aspect that’s preoccupying me tonight.’

  ‘Of my character?’

  ‘No, of things in general. It comes between me and your character. No doubt it’s really why I ran away.’

  They were silent for a moment. Anna shifted her stance a little, so that her wrist instead of her elbows rested on the parapet and she was no longer touching Don Giovanni. She clasped her hands. She was aware of Don Giovanni’s gaze moving slightly sideways, towards her: not enough to take in her, but taking in her hands and, probably, her wedding ring.

  ‘Seriously’, he said, ‘if that’s so, it’s all the more reason for you not to run away.’

  She did nothing.

  She felt him move. One arm remained extended, the hand lying on the parapet, but he had shifted round to stand behind her, perhaps in order to come in contact with her again—her back could faintly feel him—or perhaps in order to speak from behind, with the voice of a tempter.

  ‘There’s only one answer to thoughts of that kind’, he said from behind her.

  She did not reply.

  ‘Seriously. It’s a well-known psychological fact. Obsessive thought
s about death are in inverse proportion to the frequency of sexual intercourse.’

  She made no move.

  ‘Listen’, he said in a rough voice. ‘How long is it? When did you last have an affair?’

  For a moment it appeared she was still not going to answer. Then she turned completely round, leaned her back against the parapet and stared full at him, deep into his mask.

  ‘Last year’, she said, making her own face like a mask.

  ‘O, but tonight’, he said quickly, ‘tonight that could mean …’

  ‘Yes’, said Anna. She stared at him an instant longer and then turned again and gazed deep into the dancing.

  It had become intense. Some of the lights had been turned out. Frills of talk and laughter from the verges of the ballroom and from the more brightly lit corridors and rooms round it indicated that those people who danced only socially were pursuing their social purposes elsewhere and had withdrawn from the dance floor, leaving only couples who were seriously interested either in dancing or in one another. The band itself was playing less noisily and more intently, giving only a concentration of its musical purpose, which would be understandable to connoisseurs.

  Don Giovanni moved away from Anna: she was aware he had moved further along, into the recess of the gallery, the small, dark, dusty section at the end, which was invisible to the ballroom.

  Few of the dancers spoke to one another. The band had almost abnegated melody. For bars at a stretch the only sound it made was a dry bean-bag noise, as though seeds were being shaken inside a gourd. From the floor the only sound was a concerted shuffling of feet, like a rhythmical breathless sighing, or like the repeated sifting of brown sugar with a spoon held by someone concentrating on something else.

  Don Giovanni came back to her. ‘Did you know there was a curtain here?’

  ‘A curtain?’

  They spoke in low voices, because of the quiet in the ballroom.

  Anna followed him along to the end of the gallery. Drawn well back, bunched up and stowed out of sight was an immense heavy curtain of a patterned deep yellow brocade which brought to mind the word genoese.