Wolfgang’s stance was perfect. He was absolutely rigid and unmoving, for all the world like—well, actually, like a wooden statue.
“It’ll be the easiest thing in the world for me to manage,” he’d said after he’d explained the scheme. “The head psychiatrist at the asylum says I’ve got the finest catatonic trance he’s ever examined! Such a compliment!”
And I’ll admit his ventriloquism was as good as his catatonia. I couldn’t see a trace of his lips moving, even as he continued to babble on.
“I knew it! I knew it! The wonderful touch with the scalps! The unmistakable style! And the bon mots!” He bubbled with mad laughter—a strange sound and sight, let me tell you, coming from unmoving lips! Grotesque, really.
“I was there, you know,” he continued, “at the Criticism of the Critics. I was actually there in person!”
I was stunned. “You were there? You saw it?”
The smug voice: “Every moment. From the preface, to the disclaimer, to the rebuttal, to the conclusion. One of my fondest memories.”
It was before my time, of course, but it was a legend in the clan. Over the years, I’ll admit to growing a bit skeptical. But as we made our slow way down the boulevard, Gwendolyn stolidly hauling the cart through the fetid crowd, Wolfgang hissed a full description of the great event.
“Amazing arrogance, when I look back on it,” he whispered. “But then, what can you expect from a lot of critics? A vile, contumacious breed. And quite unstable mentally. An incredible percentage of megalomaniacs were critics in early life, you know? Still, it’s astonishing. Had I been a critic invited to express my criticism of a young Sfondrati-Piccolomini before his assembled condottiere brothers and cousins, I believe I should have declined. And I’m a madman! But damned if they didn’t show up—a hundred of the parasites, at the least. Gabbling away as soon as they took their seats. The condottiere listened politely for an hour or so, while the critics dissected every error of the young artist—Alessandro, wasn’t it?—”
“Domenico,” I corrected.
“Ah, yes! Anyway, on and on they went, explaining how the lad had done everything wrong—the colors, the strokes, the perspective—even the quality of the canvas and the grain of the wood on the frame. But they reserved their fiercest criticism for the actual content of the painting. On this the critics were united—unusual circumstance!—that the depiction of five soldiers of fortune sitting about a table quaffing their wine was a most unsuitable subject for a portrait entitled Gods At Their Pleasure.”
“The critics never grew up in the Sfondrati-Piccolomini clan,” I remarked, “where respect for one’s elders is not to be taken lightly. As it happens, my uncles were the models for the portrait.”
“You don’t say! Odd, really. I myself didn’t see any resemblance at all between the divine, serene, and radiant features in the portrait and the—you will take no offense?—scarred, raffish and altogether wicked-looked visages of your uncles. The more so once they began their own criticism of the critics! Such a scene! It was marvelous! I don’t imagine half of the critics managed to escape the auditorium alive.”
“Not many critics left in Ozar to this day, that’s a fact,” I commented.
“Just think of it! Such a civilized place, the Ozarine! Rapacious, grasping lot of imperialists, of course. But civilized. Here in Grotum, your critics are a positive plague, a scandal, a threat to public health! Ask any sullen, malcontented little boy or girl who can’t tie their shoelaces what they want to be when they grow up and they’ll not hesitate for an instant—want to be a critic! Even find a few in the mental asylums. Not many—criticism is in the main a disease of sane people. And they don’t last long, of course. It’s not conducive to long life, being a critic locked up with a bunch of psychopaths.”
Wolfgang continued on in this vein for a minute or so longer, but then he discontinued his discourse. We were now almost at the Dreary Gate. We were about to discover if Wolfgang’s plan would work.
But just as we drew up before the gate, an interruption occurred. A pack of cavalry horses were drawn up before a saloon located right next to the gate—if the noble term “cavalry horses” can be applied to as sorry and broken-down a lot of nags as I ever laid eyes on. Just as our dray pulled even with the saloon, a disordered mob of soldiery poured out of its swinging doors, most still clutching their jugs. In their middle, hoisted on their shoulders, was a portly captain.