I found myself thinking of Orlando Furioso. It was years since I’d read it and I’d forgotten most of it but not the part in Canto X where the beautiful Angelica, chained naked to a rock on the Isle of Tears, is about to be devoured by the sea-monster, Orca. Ruggiero, flying over the outer Hebrides on the hippogriff, sees her plight and speeds to her rescue. He wounds Orca, unchains Angelica, and off they go, Angelica on the pillion seat and Ruggiero lusting for his reward. He lands on the shore in expectation of heroic delights but while he’s struggling out of his armour Angelica puts a magic ring in her mouth, becomes invisible, exits with her virginity intact, and leaves Ruggiero to his own devices.
It struck me, as I walked to the Lord Jim, that the Angelica/Ruggiero/Orca pattern is a paradigm of the human condition: in every situation large and small there is an Angelica, a Ruggiero, and an Orca. Take a simple everyday thing like the shopping: the near-empty larder, Angelica, needs to be rescued from emptiness, Orca; the one who goes to the shops for food is Ruggiero. Or a big thing like a coronary bypass: the heart is Angelica; the thrombosis is Orca; the surgeon is Ruggiero. There is, of course, no frustration for either of these Ruggieros.
At the present time I seemed to be Angelica to Mr Rinyo-Clacton’s Orca. What a position to be in! And within myself the Angelica of my essential identity was threatened by the Orca of my stupidity. Or my death-wish. Or something else? How well did I know myself? Where were my Ruggieros, internal and external?