attica-ruth magazine 17

Journal Jottings

SHAKE HANDS ON A BARGAIN .....

..... AND A KISS SEALS IT

Deccan Herald: Nagesh Polali

THANK GOD FOR DOGS!

When 45-year-old Debbie Parkhurst choked on a piece of apple, she began to thump her chest to dislodge the piece. Observing her throughout, and seeing her fail, was Toby, her two-year-old golden retriever. Toby knocked her to the floor on to her back, and proceeded to jump up and down on her chest until she had coughed up the piece of apple.

The natural reaction to such stress is a fainting spell, but Toby kept his mistress from losing consciousness until she could summon help by vigorously licking her face. The proof of her account was to be seen in the roughly paw-print-shaped bruises on her chest.

How much is that doggie.......?

scribendi cacoethes

from the series, Clamavi:

BLACK HUMOUR

A family is a fearsome thing, God wot.

Its exterior conceals

The complex of wheels

That turn within,

And relentlessly grind

Each one’s mind.

©2007 by Ruth Heredia

PLEA

The life dutiful

Is not beautiful.

It’s a cruel waste

Not at all to my taste;

So make haste to relieve me,

Oh make haste!

©2007 by Ruth Heredia

HAPPY FAMILIES

(or wise sayings revised)

“Familyarity breeds contempt.”

The family closely bonded

Includes some who have absconded;

But stuck lifelong in the bond

Will be the one who was conned.

“Nothing more than kin

And very much less than kind.”

©2007 by Ruth Heredia

VANITAS

Do you voice inside your head

The words best left unsaid?

Is that your safety valve –

The only one you have –

Lest anger speed you early to a grave?

Must the devious answer serve

A working modus to preserve,

Is't the only way to buy a brief reprieve?

When dreams of creating to ash have turned,

And into smoke the fires that burned,

Is muffling of your screams the prize you've earned?

When to value truth is learnt,

Youthful follies slain and burnt,

Are you unsurprised to find your heroes – weren't?

Don't you feel it most frustrating –

Suffocating – aggravating –

To confine the liberating

Insights you have gained,

To an audience inside your head?

©2007 by Ruth Heredia

G – R – R – RHYME

"And what is it you do?" the occasional visitor asks.

"Housework", she says, distracted from one of her endless tasks.

"But you have so many talents, don't you think it is a waste?"

"Do I have a choice?" she counters, in her mouth the familiar taste

Of bitterish-salt saliva rising swiftly in a tide.

"Excuse me", she mumbles with mouth full, and quickly goes inside.

"Can't you find someone to help you?" – th'inquisitor is not quitting.

"How silly of me not to think of it!" but her tone is forbidding.

"There's no need to be so touchy"; the visitor is offended.

In her mind's eye she makes an image, of this creature – upended.

©2007 by Ruth Heredia

ACCOMMODATION

"You are a caged bird", they told her,

when she was a girl yet,

not woman grown in her mind.

"This is my cage", she thought, ironical,

but spoke no word.

Such thoughts she never voiced,

not then, nor after;

it was the pattern, largely,

of her life.

She couldn't have said why it was –

not then, not till much after –

what consideration

had trammelled her tongue.

But once, a long time after,

her pent-up indignation

had burst out into speech.

The lightning bolts that flew then,

the cannonade they preceded,

had seared into her memory

the reason for her reticence.

Yet she learned to fly, with a difference.

The fledging was long and painful,

but the freedom she found, within her cage,

would suffice until all bars were broken.

©2007 by Ruth Heredia

BOOKWORM

The Old Pretender

TWO BITES AT A CHERRY

~ an idiosyncratic reading of The Lion’s Skin and The Gates Of Doom, both by Rafael Sabatini

PREAMBLE

Once upon a time, we were encouraged to read Prefaces/Introductions in their proper place, which is before the work (novel/biography/study) begins. “Spoiler” was not a concept known to us, not even by some other name, and we actually hoped for some guidance from the writers of those prefaces.

To be sure, it would have been a decidedly unfriendly act to tell someone who had just begun to read a detective story how it was going to end. But those of us who enjoyed detective stories of quality were happy to own copies that could be re-read for other pleasures than the solving of a puzzle.

However, it is now de rigueur to attach the warning “Spoilers Ahead”, so be warned all finicky readers that spoilers, and mainly spoilers, lie ahead.

The theme that emerges from this miscellany appearing under the heading, TWO BITES AT THE CHERRY, will be formally presented at the end, but there will be plenty of clues along the way.

Many of the views expressed here are likely to provoke a dissenting response. My views may be singular, but they are sincerely held, not expressed for the mere love of provocation. Dissent is welcome so long as it is moderated by courtesy.

Part of what’s to come:

Chronologies of The Lion’s Skin and of The Gates Of Doom. The plot of the latter is so full of action and so intricately woven that a chronology as a reference base is preferable to leafing back and forth in search of a thread mislaid. The plot of the former is simple and straightforward, making an interesting contrast.

Chapter-wise notes and remarks, incorporating illustrations (images) and some speculations, for each novel in turn.

Comparisons between the two novels.

THE LION’S SKIN ~ a chronology

(as all the action is confined to 1721, only the month and the day/date will be given) [There's no reason to think that Sabatini bothered about Gregorian or Julian calendars and when exactly the reformed calendar became effective in this or that country. A simple ready reckoner would have supplied such needs as he had, I believe. Sabatini gives us only four indicators of the time: Chapter I is set in April; Chapter II is set in May; the day of the thwarted mock-marriage ends with a night of full moon; Sir Richard is buried on a Monday.]

April ~ Prelude in Paris gives the back story and sets up the plot machinery.

May (we are not told what part of the month) ~

Day 1 (of the action) ~ Justin Caryll, having landed at Dover the previous day, arrives in Maidstone; incident at the inn; Lord Ostermore, Hortensia and Justin reach Croydon by nightfall; encounter in the garden. [If the full moon is to be taken seriously, then this would be Sunday, May 11.]

Day 2 ~ Arrival in London; Justin seeks out his friends from college days and after

Day 5 ~ Incident in the park. [Wharton's line about Dulcinea is probably a quotation from a poem or a play not presently traceable; it cannot be taken literally as an indicator of the date because of the full moon that was specified for the end of Day 1.]

Day 8 or 9 ~ At White’s Rotherby challenges Justin to a duel; Sir Richard visits Justin and is followed back to his own lodging

Day 9 or 10 ~ The duel. [If we take the first day as May 11, this is May 19 or 20.]

(4 weeks later it is June, but when exactly we can only guess) [It might be June 15.]

June ~

Day 1 ~ Incident in the arbour at Stretton House

Day 2 ~ Justin leaves Stretton House

5 days later (evidently a Saturday) ~ Justin visits Sir Richard at dusk; Green’s man shoots Sir Richard, who dies. [If Day 1 is June 15, Day 7 is Saturday, June 21.]

Next day (Sunday) ~ Justin mourns

Monday (Sabatini specifies) ~ Sir Richard is buried; Hortensia reveals her feelings and wishes to Justin

Next 2 days ~ Justin struggles with himself

Following day (Thursday?) ~ Justin goes to Stretton House to ask Lord Ostermore’s permission to marry Hortensia: Lord Ostermore has suffered a stroke; he dies without recovering consciousness; climax of action; conclusion

The Jacobite Cause is a mere peg to hang the story on; one of two pegs, the other being the South Sea Bubble.

THE GATES OF DOOM ~ a chronology

(as all the action is confined to 1721, only the month and the day/date will be given)

June ~

16, Monday ~ Pauncefort’s London house; gaming until early hours of Tuesday. Pauncefort and Gaynor play for the right to woo Damaris Hollinstone

17, Tuesday ~ Gaynor visits Second Secretary Edward Templeton in his office. Gaynor engages a valet either this day or the next

18, Wednesday ~ Gaynor dines with the Templetons en famille

19, Thursday ~ Gaynor warns Pauncefort that there is a traitor in their midst. He sets off for Priory Close, arriving in the late evening. Sir John Kynaston leaves Priory Close for Bath

26, Thursday ~ Gaynor and fellow Jacobites meet at The World's End, Chelsea. Evelyn writes to Pauncefort. Gaynor reveals all he knows about the traitor. Carteret sends a messenger to Priory Close, seeking Gaynor; and men who arrest all the Jacobites gathered in Chelsea but Gaynor. Gaynor contrives to spend the latter part of that night in custody, in the Gatehouse at Westminster

27, Friday ~ Gaynor, released, returns to Priory Close. Pauncefort insists with Carteret that Gaynor is Jenkyn, passing on what he has learned from Tresh. Evelyn's letter is delivered

28, Saturday ~ Gaynor gives notice to his valet; gives Damaris message for Sir John. Pauncefort interrupts their talk, fights Gaynor, flees. Gaynor returns to London, gets a room at modest hostelry, seeks Pauncefort, is arrested as Jenkyn

30, Monday ~ Gaynor is tried as Jenkyn, sentenced in the evening. (Sir John learns of the trial and sentence only just before the scheduled execution.)

July~

2, Wednesday ~ Gaynor writes to Damaris

3, Thursday ~ Gaynor despatches the letter and prepares to die. At about 8 a.m. the ordinary arrives, about 11 a.m. the hangman. Around noon Gaynor is hanged as Jenkyn. After 20 minutes he is cut down and taken to Dr Blizzard, who sedates him on his revival. Witness only to the hanging, and failing to retrieve the body, Sir John goes home. Evelyn spends sleepless night

4, Friday ~ Sir John questions, Evelyn confesses. Gaynor wakes up, is fed, sleeps again until that evening or the next (Sabatini is unclear)

5, Saturday ~ (Sabatini unclear again – could be next day) Damaris confides in Sir John

7, Monday ~ Pauncefort comes to Priory Close, fails to beguile Sir John, threatens him, encounters Evelyn and sows seed of mischief in her mind

10, Thursday ~ Templeton writes to Tollemache

12, Saturday ~ or next day, Tollemache prepares to go to London in response to letter

14, Monday ~ Pauncefort comes again to Priory Close. Damaris agrees to marry Pauncefort in exchange for immunity for Sir John but the latter forbids her. Pauncefort returns to London bent on extreme measures. Dr Blizzard's message takes Sir John to Gaynor in London. On his return home, he is arrested

15, Tuesday ~ Gaynor awaits Sir John and Damaris in vain. Tollemache sets off for London. Damaris yields to Pauncefort's pressure

16, Wednesday ~ Pauncefort partly persuades Carteret to oblige him, then writes to Damaris about wedding. Gaynor continues to wait in vain

17, Thursday ~ Gaynor takes leave of Blizzard, stops at hostelry for fresh clothing, proceeds to Priory Close, returns seeking Templeton . Tollemache arrives at Templeton's just ahead of Gaynor. Pauncefort leaves for Woodlands, his country house in Surrey, to marry Damaris that evening, even as Templeton, Tollemache and Gaynor reach Carteret's house. Climax and conclusion.

The action begins and concludes at night. The span is just over a month, from 16 June to 17 July, during one week of which Gaynor does little more than get better acquainted with Damaris, and during another two weeks of which Gaynor is officially a dead man. This means (sometimes frenzied) activity during a very few days out of thirty-two.

No actual Jacobite plotting is done, in marked contrast to what occurs in the later Jacobite novel, The Stalking Horse, which describes a dizzying succession of such plots. The Jacobite Cause comes across as a rather pathetic and tiresome mix of fanaticism and ineptitude with treachery stirred in; an impression only partly relieved by the quick wits and courage of the hero.

Ruth Heredia is the originator and holds the copyright to all material on this blog unless credited to some source. Please do not use it or pass it off as your own work. That is theft. If you wish to link it, quote it, or reprint in whole or in part, please be courteous enough to seek my permission.

attica-ruth magazine 16

Journal Jottings

Heed my prayer...

Photo: HINDU: YOUNG WORLD

Will they survive the effects of global warming?

Hear my song...

Photo: HINDU: Mohammed Yousuf

At the Nehru Zoological Park, Hyderabad, white tigers wait to be 'adopted' by patrons.

See me dance...

Photo:HINDU:YOUNG WORLD

Elvis, the young Blue or Fairy penguin, is fitted with shoes for his poor little callused feet.

BOOKWORM

[more about Rafael Sabatini’s short stories]

THE FOOL’S LOVE STORY ~ The Ludgate, June 1899

Through 1899 and 1900 Rafael Sabatini continued writing short stories and continued to experience the gratification of seeing many of his stories published.

With theatre in his blood, language in his marrow and his brain teeming with stories, Rafael Sabatini wrote many different kinds of story as the ideas came to him, being under no obligation yet either to earn a living or to please a particular readership.

The Fool’s Love Story has so many interesting points that it’s not easy to choose which one to begin with. So first, to clear away the least important, the fool or jester of the title is named Kuoni. In 1903 Sabatini’s first play was produced, under the title Kuomi the Jester. Nothing survives of it that has come to light so far, but it seems likely to the point of certainty that the play has this story for its plot. In parenthesis, Sabatini had an idiosyncratic way with the names of characters to which reference will be made from time to time. Here it suffices to note that the name Kuoni is repeated for a quite different character – a wholly evil court jester – in the lateish novel The Romantic Prince.

There are three fictional jesters who one might reasonably accept as influences, however unconscious that influence, on Sabatini’s development of Kuoni the jester’s love story. Verdi’s Rigoletto had its première in 1851. The barely suppressed rage and frustration, their eruption in savage mockery, these aspects of Kuoni’s behaviour are very similar to that which appears in the jester Rigoletto. Both conceal a passionate and tender love. The operatic fool is a father, the fool in the story a lover manqué.

In 1892 Leoncavallo’s I Pagliacci introduced the now classic phrases that few people who use them know the source of: “on with the motley” (vesti la giubba) and “laugh, clown, laugh” (ridi, Pagliaccio) from Canio the clown’s famous aria. Why should not Rafael Sabatini the son of operatic singers be acquainted with these two popular operas?

He was surely familiar, too, with Dumas perè’s Chicot the Jester. Like Chicot, Kuoni appears to have been well born; his surname has the requisite particle. Very like Chicot is Kuoni’s concealment behind the curtains in the chamber where the king and his trusted council are met to plot a pre-emptive coup against traitors whose conspiracy has come to their knowledge, and Chicot-like are Kuoni’s comments on the plot he has overheard. Like Chicot, too, are Kuoni’s intelligent countermeasures, swift and decisive action, and above all his skill with the sword, not forgetting his mocking banter all through the dramatic climax of the action.

Unlike Chicot altogether, and unlike any opera I have come across so far, are the sentimental conclusion and the sacrifice of man for woman he loves, respectively. (In the operas I know it’s the other way around: woman sacrifices herself for man she loves.)

In 1894, Anthony Hope’s classic sentimental romance, The Prisoner of Zenda, was published, and in 1898 its sequel, Rupert of Hentzau. Hope (1863-1933) was certainly an influence on Sabatini, his younger contemporary. The hero of Prisoner dies, in the sequel, to save his lady’s honour. It is a conclusion made inevitable by one of the trends in Story at that period in England, whether in print or on the boards.

When compared with the stylized , affected mode of narrative Hope adopted in some of his historical romances – as for instance in the stories published as The Heart of Princess Osra – Sabatini’s Fool’s Love Story is easier to read. The latter is narrated in the present tense, an unusual effect difficult to sustain successfully, but one which conveys a strong impression of drama – rather like a scenario for a film. As he was apt to do, Sabatini uses a number of words and constructions long outmoded, but avoids the flagrant gadzookery he sometimes lapsed into. And a few patches of dialogue either stilted or improbable in the circumstances are compensated by many exchanges with the sharp intelligence, vitality and suppleness which characterise ‘Sabatini speech’, that style of dialogue which makes his best writing such a pleasure to read.

The Fool’s Love Story is set in 1635, beginning perhaps in late June and concluding on the fateful night of August 12. It is the first of a number of stories that Sabatini places in the imaginary kingdom of Sachsenberg (capital, Schwerlingen), apparently a neighbour of France. Kuoni is the Court Fool (Hofnarr, which Sabatini, who read and spoke German, chooses to spell Hofknarr).

Another quirk of Sabatini’s mentioned earlier is the re-use of surnames in completely unrelated stories. King Ludwig IV, his kingdom of Sachsenberg, his favourite companion von Ronshausen, the faithful Ritter von Grünhain, the rebellious Felsheim, Kervenheim and Hartenstein, all appear again in the linked stories beginning with The Outlaw of Falkensteig. Other names turn up, too, in slightly altered form: Leubnitz becomes a place name, von Huld expands in The Malediction to von Huldenstein, von Horst next attaches to a lady, and so on.

Jesse F. Knight, who has rescued Rafael Sabatini from unmerited obscurity, finds Fool markedly operatic in its structure and in what he calls “the grand gesture”. He wonders if Sabatini had a libretto in mind when he wrote this story. He might well have done so, for Sabatini aspired to be a playwright as well as a novelist. He met with little success in the theatre yet we cannot really know why his plays failed because only one of them was ever published. The others seem to have vanished for ever.

[to be continued]

scribendi cacoethes

LINGUISTIC LAPSES

Her parents had left Goa before she was born. They spoke often of their native land but never revisited it, and did not teach her to speak either Konkani or Portuguese. Indeed, they seldom spoke either language themselves. Nevertheless, she grew up with the dream of returning some day to the land of her forefathers.

It happened that an opportunity to visit Goa came her way, and she prepared herself for the experience. But there wasn’t much time and she never got so far as to master even her native tongue. So it was that an apprehensive young exile disembarked at Panaji on a May morning.

Instantly her ears were filled with the sound of Konkani spoken – as it seemed to her – at the speed of light, and frequently laced with a liberal dose of Portuguese words vaguely familiar to her. She was charmed by the sounds she heard but dazed by incomprehension. Giving up, she let herself be taken for a tourist.

Yet, safe in the cocoon of an expensive restaurant, she dared to try out her unfledged Konkani. Catching the eye of a waiter she addressed him with assumed confidence: “Agô!” The man was clearly startled. And she, seeing it, was just as plainly abashed. The waiter recovered first, understood, concealed his amusement and took her order. But she saw him at the service door, enjoying the joke with his colleagues. Too late, she recalled that a male is always addressed as “arê”; agô is the usage for a female.

She spent the rest of the day and much of the next trying to furbish her tiny vocabulary of Konkani and Portuguese by leafing through the local newspapers. Next afternoon she visited relatives. Coming away, she realized that she had left her sunglasses (oculos, in Portuguese) behind. So she retraced her steps, and explained to the servant who appeared at the front door that she had left her hokol (bride, in Konkani) on the coffee table.

But she is obstinate, and in defiant mood asked her cousins for the key to their village home, which they had offered her the use of. Recalling the bride on the coffee table, they thoughtfully sent ahead an elderly retainer to cook and keep house for her over the weekend.

When it was past her usual lunch time, she went into the kitchen to investigate. “Arê” (she took pride in getting it right), “mesta, tum kolo?” (Cook, are you a jackal?). Mesta looked at her with a wild surmise, but she was smiling and seemed quite normal. He grinned back nervously and replied: “Na, bai, hanv kolo noi”. She sensed she had made a mistake and retreated.

A while later, ravenously hungry, she tried again. “Mesta, tum kul’li?”(Cook, are you a crab?) Mesta took some time to reply, and eyed her anxiously as she left the kitchen.

What she was going to ask on her third foray into the kitchen he would never know. As soon as he heard her “Mesta” the old man jumped like a shot rabbit and scuttled out of the house at speed. He was taking no chances. Which was a pity because, after all, she had almost got it right this time: “tum kelo?” is a passable attempt at “have you finished?”

Ruth Heredia is the originator and holds the copyright to all material on this blog unless credited to some source. Please do not use it or pass it off as your own work. That is theft. If you wish to link it, quote it, or reprint in whole or in part, please be courteous enough to seek my permission.

attica-ruth magazine 15

Journal Jottings

In the news recently:

Bottoms up!

Young pandas at feeding time.

By Zeus!

photo by S. Eshwar in Deccan Herald

Hmm.......... I think........ I know it!

Barn owls feature in the local news, Bangalore. An owl is the bird of Athene, who sprang fully formed from the brow of Zeus.

Operatic exchange?

TO-MAH-TO, TO-MAH-TO! Po-tah-to, Po-tah-to!

photo: Deccan Herald

Stray dog attacks in Bangalore are no laughing matter, however.

scribendi cacoethes

FOREVER AMBER

Amber is a translucent yellow fossil resin, which frequently includes perfectly preserved specimens of insect and plant life, embalmed by the honey-gold droplets slipping down a tree trunk. Sometimes one has experiences that the mind inexplicably sets in amber, as it were, preserving them for ever – the ‘forever’ of the human psyche.

On a day when mood and circumstance decide on it, an amber memory floats to the surface, and one turns it over fondly, like a fingering piece. A fingering piece? “Once upon a time”, before their lacquered world was smashed to atoms, Chinese noblemen were apt to conceal in their ample silken sleeves some small specially prized object, most often a piece of carved jade. At intervals, such a lordly one would withdraw his treasure from concealment and caress it obsessively. Jade, like amber, was believed to have magical properties, so that the fingering of such a piece brought luck or healing.

A very special amber memory is also very old: a gracious mansion, high-ceilinged, dark, but splashed with light from tall windows. The furniture is dark, too, carved and enormous, but not frightening. (Oh, furniture can affright a small child.) There is glass in most of the towering cabinets, armoires and court-cupboards; spotless mirrors and arching glass panes with more glass behind them, red and green crystal on clear stems, and enchanting bubbly cups with matching saucers.

both photos from Inside/Outside, March 2000; but both printed in reverse - a serious fault in editing from so prestigious a magazine

Once, on a sea-voyage along the west coast, the ship rounded a headland beyond which, in the grey-green of dusk a deep-set cove could be glimpsed through the palm trees. Riding at anchor in it, all in a row, were three ships, sails furled, black in the fading light. There was not a soul in sight; they might well be ghostly galleons instead of smugglers’ dhows. The lines of those vessels and their hide-away were straight out of the Chronicles of Captain Blood, that first taste of Sabatini, and in itself another piece of amber.

Some amber memories still carry a frisson. Night descends on two cars stranded in the stony bed of a river whose waters slumber far beneath a thick cover of sand. On a journey between Rajasthan and Gujarat the travellers have missed the road and run out of fuel for man and for machine. The menacing, shadow-filled scrubland is bandit terrain, but in that faraway time it is leopards the adults fear more than men. Then lantern-light approaches, swung in the hands of turbaned villagers offering shelter and whatever else they can give, especially steaming smelly cups of fresh drawn goat’s milk, which the ungrateful children who are persuaded to sample it spew forth with cries of rage.

Another time, another journey, another piece of amber: as the travellers sped away from Belgaum on the last leg of a three day journey from dusty dry Ahmedabad to leafy, rain-washed Bangalore, a big red egg-yolk sun heaved its bulk over the top of the hills on their left. More journeys, more memories: three children reading aloud historical tales out of Collier’s Junior Classics, turn and turn about, The Lance of Kanana, Leonidas, The Devil and Daniel Webster, and tantalising episodes from Master Skylark, Emmeline, Johnny Tremain, The Pool of Stars, Silent Scot…. (What incredulous joy one felt on finding two of those coveted sources – Master Skylark and Johnny Tremain - in second-hand bookshops many years into adulthood!)

The reading was necessary to divert the mind from mile upon mile of parched, featureless interior Saurashtra until the first salt smell of the sea announced the proximity of Veraval. And then a sun-dazzled day on a trawler marvelling at the diverse catch of creatures, beautiful, grotesque, good to eat, poisonous, harmless, lethal, varied beyond the limits of our piscatory knowledge. Through all that journey over land and over sea, a white rabbit named Peter sat in his cardboard box munching green coriander with supreme indifference to baking interior of car and salt-sprayed galley of trawler.

Close, but....

....no(t) Peter

fishing fleet in Veraval harbour

It is imprudent to finger all the amber pieces at once. The wise old Greeks knew that amber briskly rubbed produces static: elektron was their name for the rare substance. Better to merely contemplate the tumbled heap, taking flashes of reflected light as they come, seeking no pattern, indulging no sentiment. Pieces of amber, more precious than gold.


BOOKWORM

Introduction to Rafael Sabatini (1875-1950) and to his short stories

INTRODUCTION

Rafael Sabatini was surely destined to be a purveyor of romances, given his parentage, the sad mystery of his illegitimacy, and the unusual education he received. Destined or not, he became a fine teller of spellbinding tales, whose memory – dimmed by some of history’s quirks – should be revived, that he may make new friends and be given his due.

The union of Anna Trafford (real surname Jelley), English pianist and singer from Liverpool and Vincenzo Sabatini, Italian operatic tenor and – later on – singing teacher, resulted in the birth on 29 April 1875 of their only child, Rafael, in Jesi, a small town near the Adriatic port of Ancona. Thus far no reason has been found for his parents’ not being married before his birth, and most probably not after it either. The fact of his illegitimacy is plain from the parish register which recorded his baptism, and it was a fact he found painful, as one can deduce from a recurring theme in his works of fiction.

Rafael acquired languages, five with fluency and two – Latin and Greek – as an integral part of a good education. It was inevitable that he should become multilingual as his home and school moved around Europe. When very little he learned English in his maternal grandparents’ home outside Liverpool; from his father he learned Italian; fluency in Portuguese and Spanish came from the years when he was at school in Porto, Portugal; German and French were necessary acquisitions during his time at the academy in Zoug, Switzerland to which he was sent for a final polish.

The soon-to-be writer had from the first an insatiable appetite for reading. He read much, and widely, and as is not unusual for one circumstanced as he was, he read when young books meant for much older readers. History, biography, and above all, tales of adventure and romance, soon became his favourite reading. This preference would influence his writing, too. And Rafael began to write when quite young. This man, jealous of his privacy almost to the point of being secretive, occasionally volunteered information about himself and thus one learns that his earliest writing was done in French, while at the academy in Zoug. But in his opinion all the best stories were written in English.

Not yet grown to be a man, the 17 year old Rafael, at his father’s direction left the school in Switzerland and sailed to Liverpool, where he was employed by a trading firm as a translator and letter writer. Here he practised his by now rusty English for a while before venturing to write stories again. When he did begin it was in English that he wrote first and last.

By 1895 or 96 he was certainly writing short stories and his first published stories appeared in some Liverpool newspaper or periodical but as nothing earlier than 1898 has been traced so far no more can be said about these earliest efforts. From 1898 onwards Rafael Sabatini’s short stories began to appear in some of the best British magazines. The earliest found until the present is:

THE RED MASK ~ The Ludgate, December 1898

The narrative of The Red Mask is in the first person, a mode much favoured by Sabatini in his early years as a writer. Events are recounted by one De Cavaignac, captain of the Cardinal’s Guards, a good-hearted but simple-minded soldier. He tells of a conspiracy against Cardinal Mazarin and of what transpired.

The story is slight and a bit predictable, but mercifully it has no more than a single ‘tis and ‘twas occurs twice; there is no meseems (ugh!) at all, nor any methought, only the one methinks. (Alas, Achilles had a vulnerable heel and Sabatini’s was a tendency to sprinkle tales not set in his own time with these tis-anes and me-grims, sometimes with a very heavy hand!)

The Red Mask is obviously the work of a very young Sabatini, full of spirit but somewhat short of discipline, whence the following niggles. Louis XIII died in 1643, a year after Mazarin had succeeded Richelieu as Prime Minister. Louis XIV was then not yet five, and Cardinal Mazarin was indispensable to the regent, Queen Anne of Austria. In 1654 Louis was crowned and attained his majority a few years later, so that Mazarin’s “reign” could then be said to have ended. However, he continued to be Prime Minister and his “reign” only ended with his death in 1661, at which time the young monarch was twenty-three years old.

With these facts in mind, the period in which The Red Mask is set becomes somewhat problematical. If the story is set in 1660, the last year of Mazarin’s “reign”, then Louis XIII could hardly be the “late’ king, having been dead seventeen years. If it is set in 1642, the last year of Louis XIII’s reign, that might make sense were it not for the reference to Mazarin’s “long pointed beard which he still wore, after the fashion of his late Majesty, Louis XIII”. I have not seen very many portraits of Mazarin but in those that I have seen it would be difficult to describe his beard as “long”, or his person as “tall, lean”. That description is better suited to Cardinal Richelieu.

On the other hand, what makes The Red Mask interesting is that it already manifests one of the characteristic charms of Sabatini’s story-telling, his dramatic use of direct speech. His characters acquire life through their speech – and it is no surprise that Sabatini wrote plays, loved the theatre and had many friends from the theatrical world. Clearly it did no harm to have both parents opera singers. Young Rafael must have had his ears filled with dialogue, sung dialogue no doubt but dialogue nonetheless. Perhaps his fondness for dramatic (some would say overly dramatic) utterance and richly coloured language is traceable to his heritage and upbringing.

The Red Mask may be no more than a trifle with which to launch a career as a writer, but it pleases.

Characters: Cardinal Mazarin; De Cavaignac; the Comte de St Augère “creature of the Prince de Condé”

domino - the mask is separate

[to be continued]

SUGGESTION

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So mistresses, masters, gentles all, will ye not try a courtly measure with Master Knight or Mistress rimfire, to the tunes of Rafaello?

Ye shall thereby know much pleasure and know not any pain;

Ye have naught to lose but your ignorance, and much of int’rest to gain.

Ruth Heredia is the originator and holds the copyright to all material on this blog unless credited to some source. Please do not use it or pass it off as your own work. That is theft. If you wish to link it, quote it, or reprint in whole or in part, please be courteous enough to seek my permission.