William Rabkin - A Fatal Frame of Mind

“And the knights who say ni,” Shawn said.

Kitteredge nodded, clearly mentally adjusting his lecture for his current audience. Gus hoped he wasn’t expanding it too far.

“The details of the Round Table and its knights aren’t important to us now,” Kitteredge said. “But the Victorian approach to it is. In Tennyson’s eyes, and those of so many other poets and painters, Arthur was the image of the ideal man who attempted to build the perfect kingdom of justice, beauty, and truth on Earth. But despite all his grand intentions and brilliant efforts, he failed because of simple human weakness.

“Arthur, as I’m sure you are aware, was married to Queen Guenevere. He loved her with all his heart. And she loved him, too-but only with half of hers. Because when she first came to Arthur from her father, it was Lancelot-the bravest, purest, and most beautiful of the Round Table knights-who brought her. And on that journey Lancelot and Guenevere fell in love. For years they tried to deny their feelings, but ultimately they proved to be all too human. And when Arthur found out about the adultery, it tore his perfect kingdom apart.”

Kitteredge stopped as if he had finished his story and was waiting for someone else to take over.

“And this has what to do with what we’re talking about now?” Shawn finally prompted.

“Oh, right,” Kitteredge said. “Morris and Rossetti. I told you that I’ve come to the conclusion that Morris saw himself as a latter-day Arthur. Some of that comes from the clues I’ve found scattered in his writings, but its psychological truth is indisputable. Time after time in his life, he set up situations where he would be the benevolent ruler of a Round Table of artists, writers, and artisans. In his last years, he even set up what was essentially a small town for his laborers to live in. And as long as Morris was Arthur, Rossetti was his Lancelot-the brave, pure warrior for truth and beauty.

“But it gets really interesting once we introduce Morris’ wife. Jane Burden was the model for many of the most famous Pre-Raphaelite paintings, including Rossetti’s indelible Proserpine, and she was definitely what they called a stunner. It was Rossetti who discovered Jane when he and Morris and several of their friends were painting a series of murals at the Oxford Union. He persuaded her to sit for his portrait of Guenevere. And then he delivered her to Morris.

“Is it possible that Rossetti was in love with Jane even then? I’d say so. But he had been seriously involved for many years with Lizzie Siddal, the other significant model of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, whom he would marry within a few years. So he handed his model for Guenevere over to his friend Morris, who fell in love with her instantly and married her a year and a half later.”

Gus could sense that Shawn was getting bored with the story, if only because he was fidgeting so much he was making Gus’ seat shimmy. But Gus had a sense where this story was going, and he leaned in, fascinated.

“Did they have an affair?” Gus said. “Rossetti and Jane?”

“There is officially some controversy about that,” Kitteredge said. “There are those who insist that their love was never consummated. But those people are, not to put too fine a point on it, fools. Of course they were having an affair. Probably from the second year of her marriage and straight through nearly until his death twenty-five years later. There was a long period where the three of them were even sharing a house together.”

Now even Shawn was looking interested. “And Morris never figured it out?”

“That’s another question on which there is much controversy,” Kitteredge said. “I believe he chose not to know, chose to ignore the signs, because he was so focused on creating an ideal society he couldn’t admit just how far from that ideal he and his colleagues lived. Instead, he focused on his schemes to restore England to what he believed it once had been-schemes that in public were focused on the political but-if my thesis is correct-secretly involved the search for Excalibur.

“And then something happened. In 1871, Morris, who had spent the past few years studying the Icelandic language, took his first trip to Iceland. Officially the purpose was to explore the country that had produced the sagas he’d spent several years translating into English. But I believe there was a second, secret reason for the voyage.”

“To find Excalibur?” Gus said.

Kitteredge gave him another of those “good student” nods. “My belief is that he found clues to its location in the saga of Grettir the Strong, one of the old Icelandic texts he translated. He was gone for several weeks, and his letters from that period suggest he was on the verge of a major change in his life. They are phrased as if he’s merely talking about an alteration in mood brought about by the beauty of the Icelandic wilderness, but if you read between the lines, it’s not hard to see how he might have been preparing himself for the changes that would be set into motion once he returned home with the sword. Those changes were never to come.”

Kitteredge paused, as if he’d timed his lecture to end on a cliffhanger at the precise moment of the class-ending bell rang.

“Why?” Shawn said. Gus glanced over and saw that Shawn was apparently as wrapped up in the tale as he was.

“You must understand that so much of this is my conjecture,” Kitteredge said. “Based on exhaustive research, of course, but so far without objective proof. Until we find that sword.”

“Okay, we understand,” Shawn said. “Let’s have it.”

“Morris returned to Kelmscott House, where Rossetti and Jane had been living as man and wife in his absence,” Kitteredge said. “Who knows what happens that changes the way we see the world? Who can understand why the scales suddenly fall from our eyes? Perhaps it was simply the extended absence that gave Morris the perspective to see what he had been unable or unwilling to see before. But he returned home and could no longer deny the fact that was before him-that his best friend and wife were lovers.”

“Okay,” Shawn said, “I can see kicking Rossetti out of the king thing after that, but Morris still had the sword, didn’t he? He could have sold it-or even cut his so-called buddy in half with it.”

Kitteredge waited for an answer, and after a moment Gus realized what it had to be. “But it wasn’t just his friend sleeping with his wife,” Gus said. “It was repeating the tragic history of Camelot.”

Kitteredge nodded so enthusiastically he nearly fell out of his chair. “When Arthur let his kingdom be destroyed over Lancelot and Guenevere’s adultery, at least he could say he never dreamed that the accusation would have that effect,” he said. “But Morris had studied Arthur, had modeled his life on the king’s. He had read Tennyson’s Idylls and could say to himself, ‘We see where the mistakes were made; we can avoid them and finally build a real Camelot, one that will stand the ages.’ But now he had indisputable proof that no matter how much he knew, no matter how aware he was, there was simply no escaping human frailty. It’s every bit as much a part of us as is our grandeur. And so the dream of building a perfect society must always remain just that-a dream. He was no more fit to rule the Britons than any other schmuck off the street. I believe he confronted Rossetti and then told him the entire project was off. They were going to hide the sword and pretend they had never heard of it.”

For a moment there was no sound in the airplane’s cabin besides the low whoosh of the engines. Then Shawn shook off the mood Kitteredge’s tale had cast.

“That’s a great story, but it’s got a lot of holes,” Shawn said.