"It's true, Algy. I was attacked by Spring Heeled Jack after leaving you at the Cannibal Club," he said, putting his book aside. He proceeded to describe the incident.
"Great heavens, but that's wonderful!" enthused Swinburne when he'd finished. "Fancy being punched in the head by a myth! I don't believe you, of course. Have you eaten?"
"I can assure you that I'm telling the truth and it felt far from wonderful. No, I haven't."
"Come on then-let's go for tiffin at the Black Toad."
Burton put the hookah aside and stood. "Very well, but go easy on the ale. Last time we lunched there, I had to carry you out over my shoulder."
"Funny." The little poet chuckled. "I don't remember that at all!"
As he leaped up, his foot clipped another pile of books and sent it crashing down.
A couple of minutes later, the two men, with overcoats buttoned up to their necks, top hats at a jaunty angle on their heads, and canes swinging in their hands, strolled out of 14 Montagu Place and headed east toward Baker Street.
The fog had turned from a deep hellish red to a pustulant pale yellow. People, animals, and vehicles moved cautiously through it. Sound was muted. Even the sudden report of a nearby velocipede's boiler exploding, and the rider's yells as his calves were scalded, sounded strangely muffled.
"Algy," said Burton, "you've knocked around with a Rake or two. Why their enthusiasm for Spring Heeled Jack? What exactly is their philosophy?"
"They're extremists," declared the poet. "Anarchists. Nihilists. Very naughty boys. They claim that all moral codes and social conventions are entirely artificial and that by following them a man is willingly allowing his authentic identity to be suppressed."
They crossed Gloucester Place and entered Dorset Street, Swinburne hurrying along with his characteristically springy step and nervous movements. As they passed the corner, the sweet odour of roasting chestnuts caressed their nostrils; one of the rare pleasurable scents the streets of London could offer. Burton tipped his hat at the vendor.
"Afternoon, Mr. Grub. How's business?"
"Rotten! No one can see me in this blinkin' pea-souper. Can I do you a bag?"
"Sorry, old son. I'm on my way for a nosh-up at the pub!"
"Ah well. Enjoy, Cap'n!"
It was one of Burton's great talents, this ability to communicate with anyone, whatever their social standing. Some of his acquaintances sneered at it; they considered it indecorous to converse with the hoi polloi, but their opinions did little to influence him.
"The difference between a True Libertine and a Rake," said Swinburne as they moved on, "is that the one is concerned with how and what an individual should contribute to society, while the other is concerned only with how society shapes the individual."
"You make the Libertines sound rather virtuous. That's not their reputation."
"No, no! Don't misunderstand me! Both branches of the movement are thoroughly disreputable by the fabled Mrs. Grundy's puritanical standards. Our mystical mother of propriety stamps her little foot at the merest whiff of scandal; and the Libertines stink of it, not least because sexuality is a focal point for their cause. They identify it as the area where the Empire's hypocrisy is most apparent; and they are wickedly unrestrained in their support of eroticism, pornography, pederasty, de Sade, and all manner of vices."
A gentleman walking past at this moment muttered, "I say!" as he caught some of the poet's words. Swinburne chuckled and raised his voice so that other passersby might hear.
"The True Libertine points to the thousands of prostitutes on London's streets and says: `Look! Sex for sale! This is what these woman-and men! have resorted to in order to survive in this so-called civilisation! Where are your much-vaunted morals now, Society? Where is your restraint; your puritan ethic? And these prostitutes have customers! Men whose sexual tastes cannot be satisfied within your rules of so-called decency! You, Society, generate the very thing you denigrate
Burton glanced around as heads turned and disapproving glares were cast at his companion. Swinburne continued regardless, sermonising with more than a little relish.
"The Rake, meanwhile, celebrates the sexual act as the one place where men and women are literally and metaphorically stripped naked and reduced to their purest nature-I mean `pure' in the sense of unaffected; the one occasion when we are most liable to shed the artificial skin of Society and gain a sense of our own fundamental identity."
The two men turned right into Baker Street.
"The Rakes say of shame: what is it? Of virtue: we can miss it. Of sin: we can kiss it. And it's no longer sin!"
Burton gave a derisive snort. However, after a moment of thought, he conceded: "I can sympathise with the general sentiment. Any intelligent man can see that the hypocritical politeness and studied mannerisms of our civilisation suppress and oppress in equal measure. They certainly serve to obliterate difference, enforcing a regime that discourages intellectual, emotional, and sexual freedoms. Far better for Society that its citizens are built according to its dictates, rather than in their own image. It makes them better slaves."
"Hear! Hear!" agreed Swinburne. "Those who allow their identity to be formed by the Empire are nothing but the willing fuel for it! This is why the Libertines, and the Rakes in particular, offend, disconcert-even frightenpeople. The movement pushes at boundaries that the masses aren't even aware of until they are pushed; and it is those boundaries that define most people's identities and which tell them that they're a valued member of a stable society. People like to feel wanted, to know they have their part to play, even if it's only as fuel for the Empire's furnace! My goodness, look at that!"
Swinburne pointed to where an elephantine shape was emerging from the miasma. It was one of the new dray horses-a mega-dray-which the Eugenicists had recently developed. These gigantic beasts stood fifteen feet high at the shoulder (measuring them in "hands" had been deemed ridiculous) and were immensely strong. The cargo wagons they towed were often the size of small houses.
Burton and Swinburne pressed against the wall of the building beside them as the towering animal plodded closer, trying to move as far from it as possible; and with good reason, for mega-drays had no control over their bladders or bowels and were overproductive in both departments. This had proven a serious problem in London's already filthy streets until an enterprising member of the Technologist caste had invented the automated cleaners, popularly known as "litter-crabs," which now roamed the city every night scooping up the mess.
Sure enough, as the horse came abreast of their position, towing an omnibus behind it, large boulders of manure thudded onto the road, splattering across the pavement, narrowly missing the two men.
The mega-dray faded into the lazily swirling pall.
Burton and Swinburne walked on.
"Where does Spring Heeled Jack enter into it, Algy?" asked the king's agent.
"According to the Mad Marquess," answered Swinburne, "if we transcend the borders that define us, we will gain what he termed `trans-natural' powers. Spring Heeled Jack jumping over a house, he maintained, is an illustration of this, for Jack is the ultimate example of a being who dances to nobody's fiddle but his own-law or no law, morals or no morals. This freedom is, apparently, the next step in our evolution."