The Phantom of Manhattan

Of the two prima donnas, who will star in this unknown new work? They cannot both do so. Who will arrive first? Which one will sing with Gonci to the fierce baton of yet another star, conductor Cleofonte Campanini? They cannot both do so. How will the Metropolitan fight back with its highly risky choice of Salome as the season-starter? What is the name of this new, untried work that the Manhattan insists upon for its inaugural? Will it prove a complete flop?

There are enough hotels in New York of the finest quality to permit the two prima donnas not to share the same roof, but what about the liners? France has two stars, La Savoie and La Lorraine. They will simply have to have one each. Oh, opera-lovers, what a winter to be alive!!

7

THE LESSON OF PIERRE DE CHAGNY

SS LORRAINE, LONG ISLAND SOUND, 28 NOVEMBER 1906

‘WELL, WHAT’S IT GOING TO BE TODAY, YOUNG Pierre? Latin, I think.’

‘Oh, do we have to, Father Joe? We’ll be coming into New York Harbor soon. The captain told Mama over breakfast.’

‘But at the moment we are still passing Long Island and an empty coast it is. Nothing to see but mist and sand. A fine moment to kill some time with Caesar’s Gallic Wars. Open your book where we left off.’

‘Is it important, Father Joe?’

‘It certainly is.’

‘But why should Caesar invading England be important?’

‘Well, if you were a Roman legionary heading into an unknown land of wild savages you’d have thought so. And if you were an Ancient Briton with the eagles of Rome marching up the beach you’d have thought so too.’

‘But I’m not a Roman soldier and certainly not an Ancient Briton. I’m a modern Frenchman.’

‘With whom I am charged, Heaven save us, to try and give a good education, academic and moral. So, Caesar’s first invasion of the island he knew as Britannia. Start at the top of the page.’

‘Accidit ut eadem nocte luna esset plena.’

‘Good. Translate.’

‘It fell … nocte means night … night fell?’

‘No, night did not fall. It had already fallen. He was looking up at the sky. And accidit means “it befell” or “happened”. Start again.’

‘It happened that on the same night … er … the moon was full?’

‘Precisely. Now put it into better English.’

‘It happened that on the same night there was a full moon.’

‘There was indeed. You’re lucky with Caesar. He was a soldier and he wrote in clear soldier’s language. When we get on to Ovid, Horace, Juvenal and Virgil there will be some real brain-teasers. Why did he say esset and not erat?’

‘Subjunctive tense?’

‘Well done. An element of doubt. It might not have been a full moon but by chance it was. So, the subjunctive. He was lucky with the moon.’

‘Why, Father Joe?’

‘Because, lad, he was invading a foreign land in the dark. No powerful searchlights in those days. No lighthouses to keep you off the rocks. He needed to find a flat, shingly beach between the cliffs. So the moonlight was a help.’

‘Did he invade Ireland too?’

‘He did not. Old Hibernia remained inviolate for another twelve hundred years, long after St Patrick brought us Christianity. And then it was not the Romans but the British. And you’re a cunning dog, trying to draw me away from Caesar’s Gallic Wars.’

‘But can’t we talk about Ireland, Father Joe? I have seen most of Europe now, but never Ireland.’

‘Oh, why not? Caesar can make his landfall at Pevensey Bay tomorrow. What do you want to know?’