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“Let us hope. Yes, hope is the thing upon which we shall build,” said the Doctor, and down went the Hochheimer—not at a gulp, for the Doctor was too elegant to gulp—but without a pause.
“I hope you don’t think it rude of us to speak of the opera so soon,” said Maria. “It is so much on our minds, you see.”
“One should always speak of what is uppermost in one’s mind,” said the Doctor. “I want to talk about this opera, and it is uppermost in my mind.”
“You’ve looked at the music?” said Arthur.
“Yes. It is sketches and indications of the orchestration, and themes that Hoffma
“I hope you don’t see this as another failed opera.”
“Who can say?”
“But you aren’t going to set to work with failure as your goal?” said Maria.
“Much may be learned from failure. Of course that is the theme of the opera, so far as I can see. The Magnificent Cookold, he called it. Am I right to think a cookold is a deceived husband?”
“You are. The word is pronounced cuckold, by the way.”
“As I said. Cookold.—Ah, thank you. This Hochheimer is really very good.—But, now—a cookold; why is it a man? Why not a woman?”
“You are just as right to say cookold as cuckold,” said Professor Hollier, who had also been getting into the Hochheimer with quiet determination. “That was a Middle English form. The French was, and still is, cocu. Because of the notorious goings-on of that bird.” He bowed to Dr. Dahl-Soot over his raised glass.
“Ah, you are a man who knows language? Very good. Then why is it masculine? A person deceived in marriage. Are not women also deceived in marriage? Again and again and again? So why no word for that, eh?”
“I do not know how you would form a feminine from cuckold. Cuckoldess? Clumsy. Or how about she-cuckold?”
“Not good,” said the Doctor.
“Does it matter? It is Arthur who is the cuckold in the Arthurian legends,” said Pe
“So it is. This Arthur was a fool,” said the Doctor.
“Oh, come on! I won’t have that,” said Maria. “He was a noble man, bent on lifting the whole moral tone of his kingdom.”
“But still a cookold. He did not pay enough attention to his wife. So she gave him a big pair of horns.”
“Perhaps there is no feminine of cuckold because the female of the species does not grow horns, however much she is deceived,” said Hollier, solemnly.
“She knows a better trick than that,” said the Doctor. “She gives him the ambiguous baby, eh? He looks in the cradle and he says. What the hell; this is a fu
“But in the Arthurian legends there is no child of the adultery of Guenevere and Lancelot. So he could not have exclaimed what you have just exclaimed, madam.”
“Not madam. I prefer to be called Doctor. Unless after a long time we get on close terms; then perhaps you will call me Nilla.”
“Not Gu
“I despise Gu
Maria thought the time had come to change the direction of the conversation at the Round Table. “My next course is truly Arthurian. Roast pork, and with apple sauce. Very popular dish at Camelot, I am certain.”
“Pork? No, never pork! It must be roast boar,” said the Doctor.
“My butcher didn’t have a good roasting boar,” said Maria, perhaps a little too sharply; “you will have to put up with very good roast pork.”
“I am glad it isn’t roast boar,” said Hollier. “I have often eaten roast boar in my travels, and I don’t like it. A heavy, dense flesh and a great provoker of midnight melancholy. In me, anyhow.”
“You have not had good roast boar,” said the Doctor. “Good roast boar is excellent eating. I do not find it provokes to melancholy.”
“How would you know?” said Pe
“I do not understand you, Professor Raven.”
“You seem to be melancholy without any roast boar,” said Pe
“If I depress you, I am sorry, but the fault may not be mine. I am not a merry person. I take a serious attitude toward life. I am not a self-deceiver.”
“Nor am I,” said Pe
“A fine what?” said the Doctor.
“A fine hlafdiga. It is the Old English word from which our word ‘lady’ is derived, and it means the person who gives the food. A very honourable title. I drink to our hlafdiga.”
“No, no, Pe
“Oh, bugger you, Clem,” said Pe
“Abuse is not argument, Professor Raven,” said Hollier, with tipsy dignity. “The hlafdiga could be quite a lowly person—”
“Possibly even of Gypsy origins,” said Maria, with a good deal of heat.
“For Christ’s sake, are we going to get any pork?” said Powell. “Or are we going to get into an etymological wrangle while everything goes cold? I hereby declare that Maria is a lady in every sense of the word, and I want something to eat.”
“There are no ladies now, thank God,” said Dr. Dahl-Soot, holding out her glass. “We are all on equal footing, distinguished only by talent. Genius is the only true aristocracy. Is that a red wine you are pouring, Professor Darcourt? What is it? Let me see the bottle.”
“It is an excellent Burgundy,” said Darcourt.
“Good. You may pour.”
“Of course he may pour,” said Powell. “What do you think this is? A restaurant? That’s the wine there is and that’s the wine you are going to get, so shut up.”
Dr. Dahl-Soot drew herself up in her chair. “Monsieur, vous êtes une perso
“You bet your sweet ass I am, Gu
There was a pause, during which Darcourt hovered over the Doctor’s wineglass. Unexpectedly she burst into loud laughter.
“I think I like you, Powell,” she said. “You may call me Nilla. But only you.” She cast an excluding eye over the rest of the table. Then she raised her glass of Burgundy toward Powell, smiled with an elegant sweetness, and drained it to the bottom.
“More,” she said, thrusting it at Darcourt, who now was attending to Pe
“You wait your turn, Nilla,” said Powell.
“You are teaching me ma
“Fu