The Children's Book - A. S. Byatt [220]
The house was high and forbidding. It had runes—Toby said they were runes—painted on its doorposts and lintels, and a Jugendstil painting of an apple tree, with gold and silver fruit, in the architrave. The young men met them at the door. They went through a dark inner corridor directly to the back of the house, which was lit through a stained-glass window, with more runes, in ruddy gold on white, and a medallion depicting a figure in a circle of flames.
Through this door, they went into a high, bright courtyard, with painted inner walls and bushes in flower in tubs and pots. A tiny fountain splashed in the centre: it was carved with efts and lizards, butterflies and snails, which from certain angles could be construed as peering faces or outstretched fingers. Griselda exclaimed with delight: Dorothy stood back. The sunlight poured in, golden and quivering in the heat like liquid. The puppet theatre was in an outbuilding on the other side of the courtyard. Its door was flanked by two carved wooden figures, one winged, hooded and slender, one short, stalwart and bearded. Elf und Zwerg, said Wolfgang to Griselda. Elf and dwarf. He added something which Toby translated as “The guardians of the other world.” How Mother would love this, thought Dorothy, grimly.
Inside was as dark as the courtyard was light. They were in a small theatre, they saw, as their eyes adjusted to seeing—the sudden change had blinded them, and filled the space with hallucinatory flashings and varied colours, intense, fading. They made out rows of benches, and on the walls mirrors framed with carved heads and foliage, some of them covered with black veils. The easiest thing to see was the high, gilded proscenium of the marionettes’ stage, covered with a blue silky curtain painted with moons and stars. A kind of blackboard to the side of these announced “Heute wird gespielt Die Jungfrau Thora, ihr Lindwurm, seine Goldkiste.”
There was a source of light behind the curtain, limelight mixed with rays of crimson, pink, sky-blue and deep green. Other members of the audience crept in and stood, getting their bearings. Music began, a faint high twanging, a wistful fluting. Wolfgang said to Griselda
“He never comes out before the play. The characters don’t speak. It is all light and movement. Sometimes he comes out after. He waits for complete silence. He is exigent.”
Leon said to Dorothy, who was on the end of the bench, “Are you comfortable?” He said it in English. It was the first thing he had directly said to her. Yes, thank you, she said, clasping her hands in her skirts.
The curtains opened. The Jungfrau, Thora, glided in. She was a delicate, lovely creature, with an exquisite porcelain stare and a mass of floating, silky, silvery hair. She wore a white dress and blue mantle, and her movements were thoughtful and precise.
She was presented with the glittering gold casket, by a kind of white-bearded, black-gowned wizard on bended knee. The set was a turret room, the starry sky visible through slits of windows, with high Gothic chairs. The Princess placed the casket on a table, and, when she was alone, bent over it and opened it. A tiny golden worm, sinuous and bearded, shot out of it like a firework, shimmered in the air, flew in circles, and went back to rest.
The story of Thora and the Lindwurm is the story of dragons and gold, Toby Youlgreave later explained. Dragons sleep on gold; a poetical kenning for gold is “ Wurmbett,” dragon’s bed. This dragon increased the gold in its casket and the size of its gold bed. The hidden treasure shone out of its box with brilliant ruddy light. The dragon grew, and outgrew its case. The curtains of the theatre slid together and reopened, and each time the