The Dream of Scipio Read online

  The chapel of Saint Sophia and the story of her life appealed to him greatly, not least because when he prayed to her for guidance as the papacy was being drawn into the English wars, he found her assistance valuable. He was a man of many vows, and he offered her at that time a gesture of thanks, should her intercession be efficacious. Her name meant wisdom, and wisdom, he considered, had been granted him; the chapel was in his diocese—one of his many dioceses—and it needed a reminder of his power. The area was not entirely quiescent; although the heresies of the previous centuries had not badly infected the region, it had been touched; to have a saint of such antiquity revealed to them in their very midst was a gift from heaven. That she was all but forgotten was better still, if Ceccani could restore her to proper attention.

  All these reasons combined to make Ceccani one day summon Luca Pisano and commission him to decorate the chapel with as much speed and grandeur as he could manage. For his part, Pisano was overwhelmed with gratitude until he learned just how isolated it was; for he was only just beginning to be a master of works, and craved attention more than anything. He knew that Martini was unwell, and would either shortly die or return to Italy; the post of chief painter was there for the taking, and although history has largely forgotten him, at that time he was coming to be highly regarded.

  But a commission was a commission, and one from a man like Ceccani was doubly valuable; everyone thought he could well be the next occupant of St. Peter’s chair, if the French could be persuaded not to meddle for once. And then, perhaps, the papacy might return to Rome after its long exile in Avignon. Pisano bowed deeply, expressed his profound thanks to His Eminence, and backed out of the chamber to go and organize some money with the cardinal’s pursekeeper. He came away from that encounter somewhat disappointed.

  “I think I have you to thank for this, my friend,” he said to Olivier later that day. “It is your doing that I am now a fellow servant of the great cardinal, and must stand and fall with him.”

  “I would like to take credit for your good fortune,” Olivier replied. “But I cannot see how I am responsible for anything.”

  By this stage, the two men were old friends; both were alone and without any family, having to live off their wits in a town where there were many men and few places. They had gravitated into each other’s company mainly by virtue of sharing the same tastes and ambitions, but little opportunity as yet of realizing them. Each believed in the other, and each was convinced by the other that their abilities would surmount all obstacles.

  “Nonetheless,” he continued, “I congratulate you, for it is good fortune indeed.”

  “The higher they are, the further there is to fall,” Pisano said.

  Olivier laughed. “I do believe you are the most miserable person I have ever met,” he replied. “You have gained work from one of the most powerful men in the world, and all you can think about is that he might not remain so. Even if he does fall, so what of it? A brief spell in his favor is better than never to have been favored by anyone. Besides, you might even do a good job of it, although considering your utter lack of ability, I doubt it very much. But should a miracle occur, then others will want you, too.”

  “Why should they?” asked his friend. “No one except shepherds will ever see it. I will quite literally be casting my pearls before swine.”

  “But there will be great things to come, no? Decorate the chapel well, then there will be a basilica in the nearest town.”

  “Oh, yes. Thirty years’ work, no doubt. And meanwhile the pope will go back to Rome, and I will be stranded here.”

  Olivier burst out laughing. Pisano was always superstitious; whenever anything good happened to him, he would spend at least the next day seeking out every possible misfortune that might result from it, on the reasonable grounds that a disaster imagined never occurs. As indeed was the case here; one thing the painter did not foresee was the plague, which ambushed him late one night as he was sleeping beside his donkey on the road back to Italy.

  “You can be certain that this pope will never go back to Rome. He listens to Cardinal Ceccani on most things but on this he has cloth ears. My lord will have to chain him up and drag him there. He is a Frenchman, remember, and they do not like to go far from home. Even being in Avignon makes him feel homesick. You must pray for his health and longevity, I think.”

  “But I am serious,” the painter protested. “I am to paint a series of pictures which no one will ever see, in a chapel hidden from everyone, about a saint I have never heard of.”

  “In that case you can paint anything you want.”

  Pisano frowned. “Just because I am frivolous sometimes does not mean you can take liberties, you know. To honor a saint is a great thing. A life of holiness is precious, and to retell it is a heavy duty.”

  Olivier studied him, surprised by the somber voice. “I suppose so.”

  “And you are my only source for the story.”

  “I know very little.”

  “That is more than anyone else.”

  “I can barely tell you enough for a sketch.”

  “That will be enough. Tell me what you know, and prayer will supply the rest.”

  “Are you sure of that?”

  “If you are sincere, yes. I will pray to the saint and, if my wish is granted, then all the details I need will come to me. If they don’t, then that will mean she does not want her life commemorated, and I will have to tell the cardinal so.”

  And so Olivier settled down and retold the story that he had heard from the shepherds on the hill.

  “Mary did as she was told, gathering half a dozen companions, and went to the shore. Waiting for them was a miraculous boat, empty of sailors, its sails of silk and its hull of pearl. The moment they got in, the sails unfurled and the boat slipped into the water, just as their enemies ran up to stop them.

  “The voyage lasted weeks, but no one was afraid. When it rained they did not get wet, when there was a storm the boat scarcely rocked. Angels brought them food and water every day, and kept them cool in the sun by carrying a great silken awning over them. When the time came, the boat turned inshore, even though the wind was blowing strongly in the opposite direction, and came to rest on the beach of a strange land. Again an angel spoke to Mary and said they were to travel throughout the land and tell everyone of Christ’s coming. But some were afraid, and refused to leave Mary’s side, knowing that she was beloved. Only Sophia obeyed, bidding farewell to Mary and converting town after town so that everywhere she went became Christian, tearing down temples and building churches in their place.

  “Many miracles attended her; on one occasion a great nobleman called Manlius who had been blind for years came to her.

  “ ‘You say God is love and cares for all His creation, yet I am blind,’ he said. ‘How can that be?’

  “Sophia took him to one side and instructed him, then passed her hands over his eyes, and instantly his sight was restored. He fell at her feet in gratitude, and the crowd was so amazed that they all did the same. This man spent the rest of his life preaching, and established himself at Vaison, converting the whole area around. He, too, became a saint.

  “One day, when Sophia was preaching in a town, the people, incited by the priests, began to shout and threaten her; they took her to jail and sentenced her to death. But her work was not yet done, and an angel appeared to the man she had cured and told him of her plight. Straightaway he was transported to the spot and held up his arms; the guards all fell asleep and the jail doors opened. He then escorted her away from the town, and they walked until they came to a hill. When she died she was buried there, and so many wonderful things happened at her grave that all realized she was a saint. So they built a chapel, and came on pilgrimage.”

  Initially, though, he did not pursue it, not really knowing how to do so. And, in any case, he was distracted by some of the other fragments in the same folder, one of which appealed more to his youthful sense of drama and flair. To begin with he was
mainly interested in the mention of Gersonides, as he sat in the Vatican archive one spring, dressed in suit and tie and waistcoat, sweating in the heat, taking endless notes in his neat, precise hand. He never hurried, never skipped a page, but wrote methodically and steadily. It was his technique not to think too much about what he was transcribing; he had discovered that this made him careless.

  Rather, he emptied his mind entirely and copied, storing up impressions that he refused to dwell on during his working day. The pleasure of analysis he kept for later, for the evenings when he returned to the École and, after eating with his fellows, went for a walk or for a quiet drink in the Piazza Navona. Here he would sit, watch the world go by, and let his mind wander over all his day’s reading.

  Shortly after his discovery, he was taken to dinner by Julia’s father. Julien was pleased by the invitation; he was intrigued by the older man and he was, in any case, kept on a tight financial leash by his bourse and the supplement given to him by his own father, an allowance that was generous by his standards but pitifully small when set against Julien’s Romanized tastes. For he began there the interest in art that was to become a passion for the rest of his life. He spent every lira—a drawing here, a painting, a print—and on several occasions he visited the monte di pietà to pledge his watch or his ring to get the cash he needed for another purchase. Every couple of months, more or less, another letter went to Vaison, and his father grumbled, criticized, moralized, then sent the money required, just in time for him to recover the articles he had pawned. Julien never felt any gratitude for the generosity, although he knew he ought to do so.

  In Rome also he discovered those more sensual pleasures to which his inner turbulence made him all too susceptible. The series of mistresses he acquired began in Rome and did not end for some fifteen years. Unlike his pictures, he took few pains to retain them once the initial pleasure had faded. He discovered he could be charming, was generous with his time and his money, listened well, but could not be held, always moving on before the slightest hint of disappointment or true intimacy could taint the pleasure.

  He wondered about this in only the most superficial fashion. His parents had not been happy; he did not wish to experience the same unhappiness. He met no one who could tempt him. His work and his paintings held his attention more securely. For the most part, these affairs were conducted with decorum; Julien perfected a style of courtly pursuit, loved lavishing expensive dinners and presents and holidays—none of which he could truly afford—on the women he had chosen for his attentions. Even more, he was meticulous in the little details, always noticing clothes, perfumes, the way their hair was set. Nor was this merely a strategy; he could not help noticing such things, and took the greatest pleasure in being in the company of beautiful women.

  Throughout these pointless dalliances he was aware of a sense of avoiding something important, and his constant pursuits had less of the sensual and more of the desperate about them. For every time he was charmed or fascinated or smitten, he was made aware once more of part of him that was detached and that stood aside in disdain. He had no idea what he was looking for, except that he always knew that he had once nearly discovered it; that on the hills outside Jerusalem he had come close to unlocking a secret so deeply buried he might well have lived out his entire life without even suspecting its existence. It was why he was more than a little afraid of Julia.

  Instead he occupied himself with those whom he could never be close to, or who could never be close to him, diversions high or low who had no interest in either his work or his pleasures. He invariably pursued those who were unattainable, married, or unlikely to regard him as anything other than a temporary entertainment. At one time he spent several months with a woman slightly younger than himself who worked in one of the great department stores that Rome was at last acquiring. When he bade a final farewell, he could not recall a single conversation he had ever had with her, not one remark that had struck him. Afterward he seduced the wife of a notary a decade or so older than he was, listened carefully to her sadnesses and concerns, enjoyed her company, and took an odd pleasure at the necessary secrecy and subterfuge that enlivened an otherwise empty involvement. It was not insensitivity or cruelty that meant that, some months afterward, he could barely remember her name; both were of the moment, and their moment had passed.

  He knew, of course, that not loving them was part of the attraction; Julia was the only one to whom he had ever responded in that manner and with her he had held back. But in contrast to all the others, she remained in his thoughts almost daily; he dreamed of her and could recall every word she had ever said to him. Even more, he could imagine whole conversations he had never had, but knew what she would say nonetheless.

  He welcomed the arrival in Rome of her father, for he brought news of Julia, and also provided a good dinner and sympathized with his passions for paintings and ruins. The conversations they had were delightful and fitted in perfectly with the Roman life that Julien had fashioned for himself. Indeed, the sojourn in Rome ruined him. He went there as a bright star, destined for a glittering career; he left it almost a dilettante, unwilling to settle down, determined that the drudgery of teaching would never claim his soul. Rome has destroyed many a character; in the period 1924 to 1927, it claimed Julien’s as well.

  An alternative explanation: During this period the impact of the war finally swept over him, and accounted for the sleepless nights, the distraction, the refusal of what was expected. He became dissatisfied and as eager to embrace new experiences as, in the previous few years, he had shunned them entirely. But the frivolity masked the continued seriousness that showed up in his work; the sheer volume of notes he took in this period, squeezed in between the meals and the excursions, the elegantly empty conversations and the charming women. For Julien had seen into the darkness and felt in himself what could happen.

  He dreamed of it still, a face he had seen only for a fraction of a second as a flare lit up the area around, and the German soldier turned. He remembered the look of foolish concern as they stared at each other, neither knowing what to do next. And Julien had reacted first; he had been on patrol, his nerves were frayed, while the other had only just come on duty and was slower. A slight frown, the impression that Julien was behaving badly, rudely, when the bayonet went into his stomach. And then nothing else at all; the rest was in total darkness; Julien heard him fall, remembered pulling the bayonet out and ramming it in again and again. More than anything, he remembered the satisfaction. He remembered that he had continued to stab long after he knew it was necessary, that he did so for pleasure. The moment turned him into a barbarian, exulting in his triumph. That was what he dreamed about, and which so frightened him. He knew how easy it had been to surrender to those feelings. Even worse, his dreams played dreadful games with him, and confused themselves, so that when another flare lit up the landscape and he looked down, he saw the deathly pallor on Julia’s face; the blood flowing from her body in the mud; her lips, moving inaudibly as the rattling of gunfire drowned out her words like a train passing through a station and extinguishing all conversation on the platform. He had killed her, and the nightmare came to him fitfully and without any reason he could discern.

  “How is she?” It was the question that he asked as soon as was seemly.

  “Splendid,” her father would reply, as he always did, even when the letters she wrote to Julien suggested differently. Julien never discovered whether Bronsen was unaware of her travails, the difficulties she had in painting something she was proud of, or whether he was reluctant to admit that she was not perfect. If the last, the aim was laudably paternal, but even when he first met the Bronsens he considered that it made her life that much more difficult, and in one burst of correspondence he mentioned it. Once a month on average, Julia wrote him a letter, once a month Julien wrote back—long letters on both sides, funny and touching, although neither fully appreciated how much the other waited for them, opened them eagerly, and read them with bre
athless delight.

  “Of course you are right,” came her terse reply. “He wants so much of me and how can I deny him anything? It’s hard to work with someone looking over your shoulder all the time. It would be easier if he thought I was a bad painter, if he discouraged me rather than being entranced by every piece of rubbish I produce. Sooner or later, though, I must find some room . . .”

  “She is doing wonderful things, wonderful,” Bronsen said at the dinner in a magnificent restaurant near the Spanish Steps shortly after this letter arrived. “She must keep going with it, I think. I do hope her marriage will not distract her.”

  This was said with a slightly arch look, as though he was well aware of the impact the words would have. What, young man? You presumed to my daughter? Don’t be so ridiculous. Julien froze for a moment, and had to make an immense effort to try to hide the effect of the news.

  “I didn’t know . . .”

  “She’s very private, of course. She will marry a diplomat, a man with the greatest potential, from a good family and the sort of connections which will help her immensely with her work. They will be very happy together, I’m sure.”

  So that was the escape she had decided upon, Julien thought. He was not quite convinced by the story; her father seemed too satisfied and content, but he wrote some formal congratulations that omitted all the little intimacies of earlier letters. And back, in due course, came an equally formal reply. There their friendship lapsed for some time.

  “Perhaps Mussolini will manage something. Who knows?” The conversation continued, as did the dinner, and Julien tried to enjoy himself, or at least to appear to do so. “Everyone else has failed. He has the support of absolutely everyone from cardinals to avant-garde sculptors, so there must be something to him.”