The Dream of Scipio

by Iain Pears

  Julien listened wide-eyed, completely captivated, for Sautel was a good storyteller and a natural teacher. He told Julien of the legend of the phoenix, its death and rebirth. Julien understood little of it, but was rapt with attention. In his imagination, he saw the men walking through the rooms, the vanished paintings on the walls mysterious in the candlelight, heard the waterfalls in the gardens as they moistened the air on afternoons such as this. He almost heard the conversations, and thought how wonderful it must have all been. Better than any fairy tale, like the bird was better than any real bird.

  “You see,” Sautel continued, “an example of how an archaeologist works. That mosaic you like so much. Look near its beak. What do you see?”

  “A patch,” Julien replied promptly.

  “Quite right,” he said. “Now, this was a rich man’s villa. A very rich man, I’d guess. The mosaic is Italian work, third century. All the different stones brought from the corners of the empire. The villa was destroyed suddenly in the fifth century, I reckon. And in the middle of the centerpiece of the entrance hall, there is an ugly patch. Where a worn spot was filled with concrete. What are your conclusions?”

  Julien stared at the mosaic, momentarily angry that the bird should be discussed in such a dry way, that he should be robbed of its perfection by having its faults so clinically pointed out. He shook his head.

  “The owner was short of money, couldn’t pay to import new stones for a proper repair, couldn’t afford the workmen, if there were any left to hire,” Sautel continued. “The whole place was crumbling. The fields were overgrown as there were no workers. The great estates were breaking up. Trade collapsed, the cities, too. In that little patch you can see the decline of an entire civilization, the greatest the world has ever known. I see you were cross when I pointed that hole out to you. It makes me angry, too.”

  “Why, sir?”

  “Because civilization depends on continually making the effort, of never giving in. It needs to be cared for by men of goodwill, protected from the dark. These people gave in. They stopped caring. And because they did, this land fell under the darkness of a barbarism which lasted for hundreds of years.”

  He shook his head, then glanced at Julien to remind himself he was talking so intently to a mere ten-year-old.

  “Anyway,” he said. “You’re lost. And I am meant to be showing you the way home. If you’ll wait a few moments while I pack my satchel, I’ll take you to the road.”

  It wasn’t far. His newfound friend was walking in the same direction, and Julien padded alongside him, taking two steps for the big man’s one, trying to think of ways to make him keep talking. Sautel needed little encouragement; to every question, he gave a thoughtful, considered, serious reply. He talked to Julien as if to someone his own age, and listened to his responses in a way his brusque, unapproachable father never did.

  When they reached the house, Sautel spoke to his mother, saying the delay was his fault, not Julien’s, and asking if he might be allowed to come to the dig once again.

  “Surely you don’t want him, Father,” Antoinette Barneuve replied. “He would be so much trouble.”

  “On the contrary; he is a lad of sense, and I have a high opinion of his views. He also has a pair of strong arms, and I could do with all the help I can get. I have little money to pay laborers, and if he is prepared to work for free, I will be happy to make use of him.”

  “I don’t know . . .”

  “Please, Maman,” Julien said desperately, scarcely believing that she could even consider rejecting such an offer.

  “I’ll think about it,” she said eventually. “We’ll see.”

  Sautel knew he had won; as he turned to go, he gave the boy a wink. Secretly. Between friends.

  Julien watched as the big priest disappeared down the road, whistling to himself, then until he disappeared out of sight around a corner. He thought of nothing else for the rest of the evening, and went to sleep dreaming of him.

  THAT SAUTEL was a priest caused little concern to Julien, who was at the age when it is still possible to judge people according to how they behave, nor to his mother, whose faith was strong though hidden from view. It enraged his father, however, and when he heard of Julien’s summer occupation, he wrote from Vaison demanding that the connection be severed instantly. For he—a doctor and a freethinker—prided himself on his liberation from superstition and his rigorous attachment to the modern. He detested priestcraft, and one of the major causes of his distance from his wife was his contempt for her weakness in this regard. The Barneuve family, indeed, was defined by this difference between husband and wife for, although it was never mentioned, both were at war, and the object of the conflict was Julien’s soul.

  At any other time, the elder Barneuve might have agreed; the scientific excavation of the past was something that, ordinarily, would have appealed to him. But that summer was not ordinary; he was in no mood to brook the slightest opposition. Merely because his wife wished it was enough reason for him to say no.

  It was not cruelty that led to this decision; rather, he was looking after the welfare of his family, that of his wife as well as that of his only son. For that Easter, while his wife and child were once more staying in the little farmhouse, he had arrived to pay a surprise visit, clattering out on the horse that took him around the large area containing his patients. One was nearing death, and the good doctor—for he was such—came to give such comfort and ease as he could. The patient lived in the same village, so he turned out his horse and set off. As he trotted past the village church on his way to his patient’s bedside, the door into the sacristy opened and out came some children from their catechism lesson. He looked, and saw Julien amongst them.

  Julien only faintly discerned what followed; he was sent out of the room, out of the house even, and did not witness his father’s cold rage, his fury not only at the lessons but also at the disobedience. He heard his mother crying, and tried to comfort her, but she turned away from him. He did not understand what had happened; for him the lessons were a way of playing with the other children in the village; only rarely did the solemnity of the exercise descend on him. For the most part, he remembered the way he giggled with Elizabeth, the grocer’s daughter, then his particular companion, and the way they would go afterward back to her house and be given a cake by her mother. But his father stopped all that; no more lessons, no more sunny, careless afternoons. Julien was never received into the church and for much of his life was inclined to attribute to this lack his slight aching sense of something missing.

  His father had no regrets about his action; he would not tolerate disobedience in his own household. Circumstance, a certain fear of ambition, had brought him to be a country doctor in an isolated town, but in this small universe he was determined to rule. And for him, saintliness was hysteria, miracles naturally occurring phenomena misunderstood by the simple, belief mere self-delusion. A rigorous education in science was the antidote to all such afflictions, and to strengthen this medicine, he added a healthy dose of derision, sarcasm, and contempt.

  Had anyone suggested that the violence of his dislike seemed excessive, that it suggested fear rather than confidence, he would have reacted with disdain. Few educated people in that region, after all, disagreed with him, and Vaison was in an area that had thrown off the shackles of the church long ago. Even his wife submitted quietly and humbly, never questioning his decisions, never answering back to his barbed remarks even though the hurt they caused was obvious on her face.

  Yet there was fear in Pierre Barneuve’s mind, a deep knowledge of the power of the beliefs he so detested, a fear that one day the tentacles of superstition would reach out and ensnare his son. His wife’s passivity, her refusal to argue, made her all the more dangerous. He knew that one day Julien would have to decide between them. Was he to be his mother’s or his father’s child? He knew he had manliness and rationality on his side. But he was also dimly aware in a corner of his mind that Julien loved his moth
er. The idea that he was afraid of his son and had been ever since he was born was absurd, of course, but it was true nonetheless. He had, with his customary incision and lack of sentiment, dismissed all possibility of eternity for himself. The decisions the child took would confer or deny his immortality.

  When he heard of Sautel, the fear within him awoke, and he moved swiftly. Julien was not to go to the excavations. He was not to associate with a priest. If there was any deviation from his wishes, the boy was to be sent back to pass the summer under his father’s watchful eye. It never occurred to him that his wife would disobey him, nor yet that the child would disobey his mother. Nor did either do so, nor did they need to: the damage was already done. Our lives can change direction in an instant, and it is possible that an entire adult can be determined by only a few such moments, sparkling like gold in the dross of everyday experience.

  Lodged forever in Julien’s mind was the memory of that bird, brilliant in the summer sunlight, and the magic of the moment of discovery was linked completely to the kindness of the young priest. Set against both was the brooding authority of his father, never questioned but now suspected to be dark and lifeless in contrast to the brightness of what it forbade.

  It would not be too much of an exaggeration, indeed, to claim that Julien’s entire life was spent seeking to recapture that sensation, that his progression and thoughts and decisions constantly had this unknown goal in mind. It was the phoenix that led him, at school, to concentrate on the classics, so that by fourteen he had a knowledge of Latin and Greek that surpassed that of many a university student. The words of Père Sautel led him to volunteer for the trenches in 1916, and it was the phoenix again that gave him the quiet determination necessary for the agrégation, and sustained him in his career thereafter.

  His father, who tried to be as kindly as duty allowed, encouraged and supported his son throughout, little knowing how much of the child’s drive came from resentment of him. He got a quiet pleasure from every examination his son passed, every glowing report that came from school, every time someone mentioned the boy’s undoubted talents. Certainly, he would have preferred that Julien had wished to become a physician like himself, or pursued a career in law—for he dreamed of his son as a deputy, even perhaps a minister in the government—but he contented himself with excellence in any field, and the prospect of a son one day as an eminent professor—the Sorbonne? The Collège de France?—was more than sufficient to satisfy his desires.

  And when Julien excelled, he was rewarded, each gift bestowed with care, and received dismissively. His father was hurt, doubtless, by this coldness and could not understand why, as Julien grew into manhood, the closeness he had so often dreamed of seemed further away than ever. But each time Julien accepted a present with only perfunctory thanks, his father persuaded himself that this was manly restraint in a youth commendably reluctant to show emotion.

  The grand cruise around the Mediterranean—the presents ever more generous, but no more effective—was the reward for success in examinations. Had his father called him in and said, “I know your mother would have been as proud of you as I am” or, “I wish your mother had been here to see you now,” then his heart would have softened so easily. But he wished to claim Julien for his own and said nothing of his wife. And all Julien could say in reply was:

  “Thank you, Father. That is very kind.”

  Understanding the poetry came later; he initially conceived of Olivier as a man of the greatest promise destroyed by a fatal flaw, the unreasoning passion for a woman dissolving into violence, desperately weakening everything he tried to do. For how could learning and poetry be defended when it produced such dreadful results and was advanced by such imperfect creatures? At least Julien did not see the desperate fate of the ruined lover as a nineteenth-century novelist or poet might have done, recasting the tale to create some appealing romantic hero, dashed to pieces against the unyielding society that produced him. Rather, his initial opinion—held almost to the last—was of Olivier as a failure, ruined by a terrible weakness.

  He took the lesson but could not help himself. Julien was still attracted to the Provençal’s poetry precisely because of the incandescent passion he considered so dangerous. Olivier’s words stirred his blood, created in him images of a different history. It was an effort to subjugate the lyrical, magnificent poems of love to the full force of critical reason, to disregard the expressions of desire and seek out the meanings that surely must lie underneath, to see longing as allegory, the beloved as metaphor, the love as a reflection of faith in the divine.

  At least, the pure physicality of the poetry proved one thing beyond doubt. However much he may have collected the classics of philosophy and joined them to the theological masterpieces he must have read as well, Olivier de Noyen perfectly failed to understand them. While Manlius argued about the need to maintain the supremacy of reason in the face of the irrational that was eradicating all he held dear, Olivier embraced the opposite, unable to subdue his passions and falling victim to his weakness.

  MANLIUS DID not lie to his friend; Bishop Faustus did indeed write to him, asking if he would consent to become Bishop of Vaison. But he did so only after Manlius had spent several months courting the saintly man, slowly convincing him of both the need and the appropriateness of such an appointment. He had acted because of the discomfort that came over him as he saw others, of lower origin, less education, and smaller ability, lording over the region with so little skill and foresight. For many years he stuck to his determination to turn his back forever on public life and live quietly on his estates. He was, after all, one of the richest and most powerful men in the province even when he did nothing but write poetry.

  He had been destined for great things at one stage, but the fate that overtook his father filled him with contempt for a world he considered no longer worth saving; when the body was returned, he swore he would never succumb to such an end, remembered the look on the older man’s face as Manlius cleaned away the blood, washed the caked mud from his hair. Women’s work, usually, but far too precious to be left to them. He would take no obvious revenge; rather, he would stand by, cultivate those things that really mattered, and watch as the consequences of their deeds became clear.

  For his father had attached himself to Majorian, a good and virtuous man, only to see the last competent emperor the West produced abandoned by those who most needed his help, then cut down by the warlord Ricimer, the man who had built him up in the first place. And his father had fallen victim to the purge that followed, set upon in the streets of Arles, butchered and left to die in a gutter. Manlius never discovered who was responsible; there were too many people who might have ordered such a thing. His father had been foolish, too trusting, too merciful. He had not moved fast enough to eradicate those who disagreed with him. “It is what is different about us,” he had said. “We argue, and convince. We allow disagreement. If we no longer allow that, we might as well be Goths ourselves. What do we have a senate for in this poor little region of ours? It is to hear the opinions of those who disagree with us. What is the point of holding council, if we do not hear different opinions? It is our strength, not our weakness.”

  He paid heavily for his faith. Majorian had been the last hope for Gaul. He had a chance of putting together an army that might push the Goths back, rebind Gaul to Rome, and strengthen the frontiers. And he had sacrificed it, thrown it away through his delicacy. The constant bickering and disagreement had so weakened this brave, good man that he doomed himself. Manlius’s father, charged with governing Provence and keeping it sound, had been part of that failure. Manlius knew that he would not show that same weakness; his retreat to his estates stemmed in part from the fear that realization caused in him. He did not wish to know what he was capable of doing.

  Even so, the discomfort remained; the distaste clouded his idyll and drove him, eventually, back to Sophia to see if she could restore his tranquillity with her wisdom. He might have expected that she woul
d do no such thing.

  “So tell me. Why do you continue to live in idleness?” she asked once his salutations were presented. “What is your justification beyond that of natural lassitude?”

  What was it about this woman that made him feel so confident and content? How was it that her mere look, the way she smiled, could banish all his fears and persuade him that all problems could be understood? How was it that, when faced with a difficulty, he always thought of what she would say or recommend? The first thing he had done after burying his father was to go south, to Marseille. She had comforted him, reassured him, stilled his heart. It was because of her words that he had not brought out his troops and let them loose for an indiscriminate revenge that would have convulsed the province into civil war, because of her again that he did not allow his inactivity to grow into a cancerous hatred of humanity. For twenty years now she had been his mentor, his teacher, his guide; never had she failed him. She had criticized, scorned, bullied, but never withdrawn her love. And he had risen to meet that challenge, always seeking to live up to her expectations, even though he knew he must always fall short.

  Her question was a shock, even though it was put in her normal fashion, with the inquiring neutrality of a teacher probing her pupil, forcing him to consider unthought-of questions that he knew only too well once posed. They were in the house he had given her, although it was as unfurnished as the day she walked up the hill and into its door; her way of life was as ascetic as a desert anchorite’s. She never had possessions; a few clothes and her books were all that she had or wished to have. In this she remained thoroughly Greek, although almost as archaic as she was in the Attic she still sometimes spoke in homage to her masters, already dead for nearly eight hundred years.