IF INSTEAD OF INVESTIGATORS we had here a bevy of literary critics and philologists (who would not do badly to cultivate the sharp persistence of the private eye), the reader can be certain that after a chapter like the previous one there would be no avoiding a learned lecture on comparing Dickens and Alessandro Manzoni.
But as it is, only the colonel of the Carabinieri patriotically evokes the name of the great Milanese writer: after all, aren’t Edwin and Rosa promessi sposi – betrothed? And isn’t there a distant echo of Monzafn1 in the ex-convent where the author summons up the shades of refractory nuns, walled up alive for following their . . . er, natural instincts?
A colonel of the Carabinieri always merits respect, and Dr Wilmot murmurs suitable thanks for the interesting suggestion. But in his reference to the turbid, prison-like aspects of convent life, the anti-clerical Dickens was probably inspired more by Diderot and Voltaire than by the pious Manzoni. As for the promessi sposi, ‘Eddy’ and Rosebud’s situation is somewhat different – if not, indeed, the opposite – from that of Renzo and Lucia.
On the other hand we know, the editor of The Dickensian adds, that this was the very first idea for the novel. Let us travel back to April 1869. Physically exhausted by lecture-tours in America and forced to rest by his doctor, Dickens has retired to his beautiful country-house at Gadshill and is sitting at his study-window, which has a distant view of the tower of the cathedral of Rochester/Cloisterham. Those close to him are seriously worried by the state of his circulation. Yet his extraordinary creative energy shows no signs of flagging. He has not written a single page of a novel for four years. He feels, perhaps, professional envy towards his friend Wilkie Collins, who in fact is not quite so much a friend since the sensational success of The Moonstone, the bestseller of 1868.
And so in the rural peace of Kent, Dickens begins to look around for a plot. The first story which comes to him is that of two adolescents who not only love each other (or believe they do) but who, by the express desire of their deceased parents, must marry when they are of age. An original twist, in which the obstacle on the road towards love and the happy ending consists in the very fact that the love and happy ending have been so carefully provided for. A few weeks later, Dickens changes the plot radically, but without giving up his pair of lovers.
We will spare the reader the sarcastic asides that Philip Marlowe and Lew Archer exchange on the subject of the betrothed couple. These ‘tough guys’ are extra edgy due to alcohol deprivation, and their only thought now is the solemn inauguration and the refreshment that they hope will flow freely afterwards.
But others have found clues of varying importance amidst the chapter’s mawkish bickering and simpering. Poirot says nothing, but he is musing over what would seem to be an unimportant detail. Gadshill . . . Gadshill . . . He repeats it over and over to himself. Where has he heard that name before? Like all Anglicised foreigners, he has dutifully read his way through the Bard’s work, including the sonnets, and now his diligence is rewarded. Gadshill. Why of course, in Henry IV, Part One! It’s where Falstaff gets a richly merited thrashing by two ‘rogues in buckram’ (buckram: a coarse cloth stiffened with paste): two rogues, who in his heroic-epic account of the ‘battle’ swell first to four, then seven, then eleven . . . Ever since, ‘men in buckram’ has proverbially meant ‘imaginary men’. And now something gently stirs in Poirot’s mind, like the drifting tendril of an aquatic plant: the vague idea bobs before him, of a connection between those chimerical assailants and the ‘sun-browned tramps’ who pass through Cloisterham at a quickened pace. A mere touch of colour to emphasise the city’s gruff provincialism? Or does this little detail mean that the culprit – provided, of course, there was a crime – is going to play the usual trick of trying to persuade the inept investigators to close the case, since the evil deed was clearly the work of some ‘passing malefactor’?
Porfiry Petrovich meanwhile has been ferreting his way down the labyrinthine passages of psychology.
PORFIRY PETROVICH, with fervour: Yes, two infantile characters, two innocent souls. But only up to a point. Edwin candidly admits that he is ‘not clever out of his own line’, and, as is typical of young men of that age, we see he cannot understand or deal with the girl’s caprices and mood-changes. But there are indications that she is more than a ridiculous feather-head. When she hears Jasper’s voice singing in the cathedral, she is agitated, frightened; she begs Edwin to take her away from there at once. But she goes into ‘ecstasy’ at the memory of the ball and her girlfriend dressed as a young man. Is it pushing things too far to consider such behaviour as erotic disturbance, though obviously undirected and unconscious as yet, which is typical of young women of that age?
FATHER BROWN, with a sigh: Sex, sex, sex . . . Poor Dickens.
ARCHER, through clenched teeth: Come on, behind all that Victorian holier-than-thou stuff, Dickens was no plaster saint. He got that old rake Wilkie Collins to show him the seamy side of gay Paree. He secretly supported an actress, Ellen Lawless Ternan, thirty years younger than he. There may even have been some funny business with his sister-in-law.
FATHER BROWN, curtly: Pure slander.
WILMOT, conciliatory: Well, but one can hardly imagine that so full-blooded, prodigal, and exuberant a writer was without personal knowledge of certain . . . sides of life . . .
N. WOLFE cuts the discussion short with an impatient gesture: Gentlemen, gentlemen, we are overlooking the main clue slipped into this chapter. Miss Twinkleton! A writer like Dickens knew that every novelistic device can be made plausible and acceptable to the reader if it is presented at a distance, subtly anticipated in a different context. When we are told that Miss Twinkleton, a typical comic spinster, lives a double life, we should be on the alert at once. There are two Miss Twinkletons, the author tells us, two quite separate and distinct persons, each existing unknown to the other. And he gives us the crucial example of the watch which somebody hides while drunk, and which he can find only by becoming drunk again. This is a classic case of split personality, and if Dickens presents it to us so early in the book, and in a ‘light-hearted’ context, I have little doubt that we will see it return sooner or later in a dramatic context, if not indeed in the final solution.
TOAD, raucous, but with the air of one who is fully aware of what he is saying: And a fine piece of plagiary that would be!
This word cannot be allowed to slip by unremarked, reader. Toad has a certain amount of prestige in these circles, but even he cannot be permitted to level an accusation of plagiarism against one of the most fecund and imaginative novelists of all time. Words of censure rain down from all sides, and the committer of sacrilege is insulted and invited to leave the room. The most loudly indignant, naturally, are those who have the least interest in the conference; who came, with mysteriously obtained invitations, to while away an afternoon.
When an elderly lawyer, a primary-school teacher, and a young activist without a cause start to raise the decibel level of the debate, the reader can be sure that utter confusion is now guaranteed. In vain does Dr Wilmot attempt to point out that this is a specific conference on a specific novel; in vain does he repeat that D’Annunzio’s plagiaries, Victorian hypocrisy, the early stages of the industrial revolution, and Dickens’s zodiac sign have little to do with the argument.
He is saved by Loredana, who stems the tide of chaos by reminding everyone of a great truth: Time is flying. There is now only half an hour until the inauguration. But no need to panic. If the participants will all go to their rooms to freshen up, they will find a surprise in the hotel’s complimentary basket of fruit; a scroll tied with a yellow silk ribbon containing the text of the last two chapters – four and five – of the first, April number of the MED. This is a further example of the organisers’ efficiency: photocopies have been produced on Japanese handmade-paper, each one numbered and signed by the author in facsimile, so that in the course of the evening everyone will have the chance to read and meditate upon them, and even discuss them – unless of course they should be drawn by the rival attraction of the Turkish-Brazilian orchestra, who are to play on the hotel’s roof-terrace after the Socialising Dinner.
Archer and Marlowe spring to their feet, run their hands over their darkly-shadowed chins but decide not to bother with a second shave, and saunter off in search of the Inauguration Room. Or rather, of the room next to it. There, as their experience of conferences tells them, a row of barmen will undoubtedly be poised to set the glasses clinking and the bottles gurgling.
The other participants disperse to their rooms. Everybody has forgotten about Sherlock Holmes and the announcement he was going to make. A moment or two later, he gives a resigned shrug and follows the others in silence.
The solemn inauguration of a convention is in itself a triumph of completeness. There are at least a dozen television cameras filming every part, at least thirty photographers recording every possible image, however trivial. There is a complete array of dignitaries, all dressed in sober blues and dark greys. The ladies, too, are complete, to the last lacquered detail, from foundation cream to nail varnish, from hairdos to high heels, and amidst the glitter of their jewellery they gaze at one another in reciprocal assessment and are satisfied.
The only thing that falls short of the occasion is our journalistic talent. For example, how can we do justice to the Eternal City’s welcome, a welcome conveyed not by the mayor (who was unable to make it after all) but by the deputy-mayor, who belongs to another political party but still bears a 78 per cent resemblance to the mayor? It is a speech complete with gratitude to the sponsors, respect for the illustrious speakers and participants, Classical quotations, and references to international co-operation, world peace, and universal brotherhood.
And the speeches of the orators who follow him are no less complete. In a hundred ingenious ways, the concept of completeness is pulled to pieces and put together again, each speaker parading his repertoire of quotations, examples, metaphors, and theories. Plato and Dante, Pericles and the Renaissance, Leibniz and the Encyclopaedists, not to mention physics, astronomy, geometry, matrimony, the ecosystem, UNESCO, Interpol, a drop of water, a simple wild rose.
All orotund speeches, orotundly delivered. But why bother listening to them, reader, when Dickens’s satirical genius offers us the very quintessence of pomposity in Mr. Sapsea? Why not imitate the Drood work-group, as one by one they surreptitiously unroll their scrolls and settle down to read the last two chapters of the first number? Let’s unroll with them.
fn1 In a famous chapter of his novel The Betrothed, Manzoni recounts the true story of a nun in Monza who, in the seventeenth century, was seduced by a scoundrel and became accomplice to a murder in order to conceal her sin. (Translator’s note.)