The Manticore

Thinking of Netty puts me in mind of Pargetter's warning about the witnesses, or clients, whose creed is esse in re; to such people the world is absolutely clear because they ca

Netty was certainly one of those, and I never really knew why I was always at odds with her (while really loving the old girl, I must confess) till Pargetter rebuked me for being an equally wrong-headed, though more complex and amusing creature, whose creed is esse in intellectu solo. "You think the world is your idea," he said one November day at a tutorial when I had been offering him some fancy theorizing, "and if you don't understand that and check it now it will make your whole life a gigantic hallucination." Which, in spite of my success, is pretty much what happened, and my extended experiments as a booze-artist were chiefly directed to checking any incursions of unwelcome truth into my illusion.

But what am I headed for? Where has Dr. Joha

All very fine. Not too hard to formulate and accept intellectually. But to know it; to bring it into daily life – that's the problem. And it would be real humility, not just the mock-modesty that generally passes for humility. Doubtless that is what Dr. Joha

Meanwhile I must go away for Christmas. Netty will get at me somehow if I stay here… Think I shall go to St. Gall. Not far off and I could hire ski stuff if I wanted it. It is said to have lots to see besides the scenery.

Dec. 19, Fri.: Arrive St. Gall early p.m. Larger than I expected; about 70,000, which was the size of Pittstown, but this place has an unmistakable atmosphere of consequence.

Reputedly the highest city in Europe, and the air is thin and clean. Settle into a good hotel (Walhalla – why?) and walk out to get my bearings. Not much snow, but everything is decorated for Christmas very prettily; not in our N. American whore-house style. Find the Klosterhof square, and admire it, but leave the Cathedral till tomorrow. Di

Dec. 20, Sat.: Always the methodical sight-seer, I am off to the Cathedral by 9:30. Knew it was Baroque, but had not been prepared for something so Baroque; breath-taking enormities of spiritual excess everywhere, but no effect of clutter or gimcrackery. Purposely took no guide-book; wanted to get a first impression before fussing about detail.

Then to the Abbey library, which is next door, and gape at some very odd old paintings and the wonders of their Baroque room. Keep my coat on as there is no heating in any serious sense; the woman who sells tickets directs me to put on huge felt overshoes to protect the parquet. Superb library to look at, and there are two or three men of priestly appearance actually reading and writing in a neighbouring room, so it must also be more than a spectacle. I gape reverently at some splendid MSS, including a venerable Nibelungenlied and a Parsifal, and wonder what a frowsy old mummy, with what appear to be its own teeth, is doing there. I suppose in an earlier and less specialized time libraries were also repositories for curiosities. Hovered over a drawing of Christ's head, done entirely in calligraphy; dated "nach 1650". Some painstaking penman had found a way of writing the Scripture account of the Passion with such a multitude of eloquent squiggles and crinkum-crankum that he had produced a monument of pious ingenuity, if not a work of art.

At last the cold becomes too much, and I scuttle out into the sunshine, and look for a bookshop where I can buy a guide, and turn myself thereby into a serious tourist. Find a fine shop, get what I want, and am poking about among the shelves when my eye is taken by two figures; a man in an engulfing fur coat over what was obviously one of those thick Harris-tweed suits is talking loudly to a woman who is very smartly and expensively dressed, but who is the nearest thing to an ogress I have ever beheld.

Her skull was immense, and the bones must have been monstrously enlarged, for she had a gigantic jaw, and her eyes peered out of positive caverns. She had made no modest concessions to her ugliness, for her iron-gray hair was fashionably dressed, and she wore a lot of make-up. They spoke in German, but there was something decidedly un-German and un-Swiss about the man and the more I stared (over the top of a book) the more familiar his back appeared. Then he moved, with a limp that could only belong to one man in the world. It was Dunstan Ramsay. Old Buggerlugs, as I live and breathe! But why in St. Gall, and who could his dreadful companion be? Someone of consequence, unquestionably, for the manageress of the shop was very attentive… Now: was I to claim acquaintance, or sneak away and preserve the quiet of my holiday? As so often in these cases, the decision was not with me. Buggerlugs had spotted me.

– Davey! How nice to see you.

– Good-morning, sir. A pleasant surprise.

– The last person I would have expected. I haven't seen you since poor Boy's funeral. What brings you here?

– Just a holiday.

– Have you been here long?

– Since yesterday.

– How is everyone at home? Carol well? Denyse is well, undoubtedly. What about Netty? Still your Dragon?

– All well, so far as I know.

– Liesl, this is my lifelong friend – his life long, that's to say – David Staunton. David, this is Fraulein Doktor Liselotte Naegeli, whose guest I am.

The ogress gave me a smile which was extraordinarily charming, considering what it had to work against. When she spoke her voice was low and positively beautiful. It seemed to have a faintly familiar ring, but that is impossible. Amazing what distinguished femininity the monster had. More chat, and they asked me to lunch.

The upshot of that was that my St. Gall holiday took an entirely new turn. I had counted on being solitary, but like many people who seek solitude I am not quite so fond of it as I imagine, and when Liesl – in no time I was asked to call her Liesl – asked me to join them at her country home for Christmas, I had said yes before I knew what I was doing. The woman is a spellbinder, without seeming to exert much effort, and Buggerlugs has changed amazingly. I have never fully liked him, as I told Dr. Joha