The Children's Book

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 dragon was larger, and fatter and more fearsomely bearded. Its eyes glittered ruby: its talons were silver: its mane frothed with coloured lights. It coiled itself round the box, tail-tip in grinning mouth between pointed, curving teeth. It coiled itself like a constrictor around the Jungfrau herself, who began to make movements of anguish and pain.

The old wizard reappeared, in another set, and prompted a series of princely, strutting puppets, booted, caped, with feathered hats and bright blades, to advance into the chamber and attack the creature. The set for these attacks was an antechamber opening onto the treasure room in which the beast was coiled up and the Princess constricted. They went in—some debonair, some a little tremulous, and were flung out in bloody pieces which spun in segments and fell. Children in the audience cried out with glee.

Prince Frotho appeared. He was a mild and workmanlike figure in serviceable moleskin brown. A serving-maid suggested in mime, he should consult the Mothers.

A new scene showed a bleak stone cavern in which Frotho threw herbs into a cleft in the rock. The Mothers rose slowly from Underground, three huge figures, swaying like growing plants, with veiled skulls for faces and hunched backs. Frotho mimed his problem, mimed the Worm, mimed the Princess. So much expression, Griselda thought, from so simple a collection of wires and china and clay and cloth. The Mothers turned their horrible fixed grins on Prince Frotho and invited him to embrace them. The audience knew he must not hesitate or recoil or he was lost. He stepped out decisively and kissed each creature—they had to bow their upper bodies to receive his kiss. When he had kissed all three, they spun around and around, and changed their appearance—instead of the skull inside the skin, they showed beautiful, dreaming female faces under the now translucent skulls. They stood up proudly and did a stately dance. They had rich hair under their dark veiling. They gave Frotho a blue flower —“Rittersporn,” whispered Wolfgang to Toby, who nodded knowledgeably, and whispered to Griselda that it was “knights’ spurs,” or larkspur, a magical herb.

Armed with the Rittersporn, Prince Frotho returned to the treasure chamber, now entirely filled with the coils of the Worm, between two of which, like a captive through bars, the Jungfrau peered whitely. Prince Frotho brandished his flower and his blade. He whirled it, and the gold head followed its movements. He stabbed—once, twice, three times—and the dragon disintegrated into golden segments, like great coins, which flew in the air and settled in a heap, like money in a vault, with the grinning head on top, and the tail dangling over the front of the stage. The Prince embraced the trembling Princess. The audience applauded. The curtains closed. The puppetmaster stepped out to take his bow. He wore a black gown, absolutely plain, buttoned to the neck, and a kind of square academic cap. Toby and Griselda were clapping vigorously. Dorothy frowned and stared. He had a pale face and a thin, clear-cut mouth. He looked something like one of his own figures, bowing with deliberate grace, unsmiling, lifting his hands, and making a gesture towards the invisible cast behind the curtain, that resembled the acknowledgement of a conductor to an orchestra. His hands were thin and fine. He wore a ring with a green stone. He was alien. He was not quite in this world, and this world was alien to Dorothy, it spoke another language, and lived by other rules and habits. How could she tell who he was? How could she see him? And yet, as with his sons, she “recognised” his face, though she did not know what “recognised” meant. He bowed again, amongst the folds of his gown, and stepped back into the dark.

Wolfgang said, as a dim light glimmered in the theatre, and the audience stirred, that they must all come back and meet his father. Griselda looked at Dorothy who said in a rush that she felt unwell, she really must go home, she was very sorry, another time …

There was some ambivalence as to how far Griselda and Dorothy might be allowed to wander the streets of Munich without a guardian or chaperone. Toby and Joachim took their responsibilities seriously. It was agreed that Karl was a good enough watchman, and the girls managed to persuade him to go “shopping” with them, the next day, and in fact take them as far as the Spiegelgarten. They found the door to the street open, and went in, as before—it was a bright morning, and the next performance was announced on a noticeboard for late that afternoon. Karl was happy to leave them, when they asked if he would. They arranged to meet later in the Cafe Bettina, unlike the Cafe Stefanie, a quiet place where women art students gathered to drink tea and coffee.

There was no one in the little courtyard, where the fountain chuckled perpetually. Dorothy and Griselda went into the auditorium, and waited for their vision to adjust. There was no one there, either. But they could hear movements behind the theatre, whose curtains were closed and still. A rattle, a swish, felted footsteps. Griselda whispered “We could call out—” Dorothy said “Come on,” in the tense voice she had used since they came. She was terribly strung up, Griselda thought, following her. She was resolutely calm, and it was costing her.

Behind the stage was a space which was a mixture of a workroom, a storeroom and a wardrobe. Lifeless figures hung in neat lines from parallel rods, like clothes in a wardrobe, or, thought Dorothy with a pang, like those