The Dream of Scipio

by Iain Pears

  The conventional interpretation is, in fact, entirely incorrect. Had he not seen a particular woman then, in those precise circumstances, he might have remained either unaware of her existence or indifferent to her appeal. It is no longer fashionable, or even respectable, to talk of fate or destiny taking a hand. Love is a random matter, no more than that, in a universe governed by chance, which has swept aside all other deities and taken on a power that is all but supreme. But what a dull deity Chance is in comparison to those it has vanquished. Dressed up as cool rationality—how rational it is, after all, to assert that there is no reason for anything—it appeals only to the impoverished of spirit.

  This stricture applies even if Olivier did not fall in love with a woman. He fell in love, rather, with an idea as it was mottled with sunlight on that warm morning. Sophia would have said that he was touched with a remembrance of the divine, a faint recollection of the soul’s origins before it fell to earth and inhabited a body. It seemed a breathtaking idea, but was not as unique as he believed. Dante’s Beatrice was scarcely a real person by the time he had reduced her to verse; Petrarch’s Laura might not have existed at all except in his imagination. Both loved their lovers the more after they were dead, and could not disturb their imaginations with the onset of wrinkles or the annoyance of opinions independently expressed.

  The result is well enough known, at least to scholars acquainted with the poetry of the period and the language of the time, for Olivier wrote in Provençal, which had come back into vogue in the generation of Julien Barneuve’s father, and the son learned the language as well. For such people, the surviving poems—about twenty of them—fall neatly into two categories, called the juvenile and the mature. In this categorization, the earlier poems are considered essais, apprentice works where the young poet has not yet mastered the art of expression he was hewing from the rough stone of language. There is an imprecision about the verse that is redolent of the formality of the Middle Ages, the slightly coarse troubadour style that went before. Olivier in his youth did not have the means of expression or the confidence to cut through the inherited mannerisms and speak straight from the heart.

  And then there are the last poems written, it seems, shortly before his downfall, when he finally throws off all artifice and speaks with a vibrancy unheard of in poetry for more than a thousand years. Even in translation and over half a millennium, it is hard not to be touched by the way he talks of his overwhelming joy at love realized and the poignant knowledge that it can lead to nothing. Not that this was the only reaction, of course; for others, the final poems were evidence of a mind disoriented by the Black Death or falling prey to some innate madness.

  What was not considered, because it was not even thought of until Julien surmised it, was that this sudden maturity of expression, this shift toward a heightened emotional intensity—accompanied by a new solidity in imagery and sureness of approach—was because Olivier truly fell in love, this time with a reality, not an abstraction that existed only in his imagination. Nor was it known that this love was not for Isabelle de Fréjus, the commonly accepted subject of his poems; Julien established that this particular association began only after he was dead.

  Isabelle did come down those church steps that day, but Olivier scarcely noticed her. He was looking in the other direction, staring fixedly at a girl in a dark woollen cloak, neatly but obviously patched, hurrying by alone on the other side of the street. Until he saw her again and discovered her name, Olivier searched for her with an obsession that can be seen in the lines he wrote in that period. Every day he went out he hoped to see her; on many occasions he followed a figure in a dark cloak, only to be horrified when at last he did discover whose face lay under the veil.

  She was as beautiful as her father was ugly; in her the darkness, the fullness of the lips, and the slight elongation of the nose produced a result that a painter like Modigliani would turn into a classic image of the age, a hint of unplaceable strangeness. In her father those same features could be stretched, twisted, and caricatured also into another classic image of the age, but with none of the subtlety of a hint.

  He met her that same evening at the cocktail party to celebrate the start of the voyage. They were all in first class, which had been taken en bloc by the organizers for the learned party of professors and writers and intellectuals who had banded together to take the leisurely cruise around the Mediterranean, some giving lectures or leading tours when the ship came to the part they had studied, others listening. Most were French, although there was a scattering of Europe across the tables, mainly from those countries that had so recently fought together. Julia Bronsen and her father, traveling alone, were of uncertain nationality; France was a flavor in a complex recipe, but an expert concerned to analyze could also detect a touch of Italian and a suggestion of Russian about her. Julien never knew how important this was for his love of her.

  Initially it was the father, Claude Bronsen, who struck up an acquaintanceship, and when Julien joined him and his daughter for dinner one evening, he was astonished once more to realize that such an ungainly, un-handsome man could possibly have produced such a beautiful daughter. He responded to the way Bronsen drew him out, asked him questions about himself, congratulated him on his success—which he was vain and young enough to mention before the first course was done—and talked about Paris and Rome and London. They brought a touch of the sophisticated to Julien’s world, for despite the war he had seen little of society. He had long dreamed of such surroundings, of being welcome at soirées and receptions, of counting writers and artists and diplomats and men of power among his circle, or at least to be part of theirs. The Bronsens were his first taste of such things, and he would have found it delightful even had they been less pleasant, less amusing, less friendly than they were.

  “And you are going to Rome, is that right?” Julia asked.

  “In September,” he replied. “To the École de Rome for two years.”

  “I congratulate you on your good fortune,” she said. “I have only been once. And that was when I was fourteen. But who knows? Maybe I can persuade Father to let me go again. It is even possible that he might one day let me go without him watching over me all the time.”

  From some mouths such a comment might have been sarcastic and even cruel; Julien at that stage would have talked of his father in this way. But Julia mingled the criticism with a loving acceptance of his weakness that still did not manage to disguise the way his need weighed on her. Her gentle, rich voice had all the resigned, partly amused affection of a daughter for a doting parent, who had separated from his wife when Julia was young, and who had done his best—according to the temper of the times—to bring her up alone. He had never remarried, never even considered it; Julia was his beginning and end, and she accepted this with only a small protest at the cost to herself.

  “And what will you do there, Monsieur?” the father asked. “Become dissipated and steep yourself in idleness? Or waste your time in honest labor?”

  He had this way, which his daughter inherited, of turning remarks upside down and presenting them in a humorous fashion that, if analyzed properly, spoke volumes. Was Julien a mere bookworm? Or was he sensitive to the outside world, could he absorb time and place, feel history in the stones and use this to make his work more sensitive and more subtle? Are you a mere pedant, Monsieur? Or do you have the spark of vitality inside you? Will you do something with your life? Answer my question with all the wit at your disposal and let us see.

  “If I do not labor, I cannot be idle,” Julien replied. “There are constant supervisions and I would be sent back if I didn’t perform well. After nine months we are allowed to live in the city and begin to work more on our own—or not, as the case may be. But I may not have much encouragement in corruption. Everyone at the École, who will be my comrades, will be people like myself.”

  “Which means?”

  “Earnest, hardworking, and dull,” he said. “We cannot help it. Dissipation is no
t on the curriculum.”

  “In that case,” the father said, “you will miss what is most charming and educational about Rome. We must come and rescue you. I have to come to Italy at least once a year, and I offer you an exchange. You show me Rome, which you will no doubt know better than I in a short while, and I will show you the Romans. They, at least, I know well.”

  “I accept with great pleasure,” Julien replied happily. “And you must keep your word. I shall now be looking forward to your arrival and will be greatly disappointed if I don’t hear from you. Might I ask why you come to Italy?”

  After near an hour of conversation, this was the first initiative he had taken, the first time he ventured to move the conversation away from himself, partly aware that he must be seeming terribly self-centered, but more because the two people were making him relax in their company.

  But the father waved his hand. “Neither important nor interesting,” he said. “But merely work. It will take a generation to replace what was destroyed in a few years. Perhaps longer, as the politicians seem determined to waste as much time and money as possible. It is my job to make sure they have no excuse but their own lassitude. But it is not exciting, not in comparison to what you do.”

  Was that a joke at his expense? Julien thought so, but Julia translated for him. “Father is a scholar manqué,” she said gently. “He always wanted to write books. But he became rich instead, so is not allowed.”

  “And you, Mademoiselle?”

  “She is an artist,” Bronsen said, smiling at him.

  “Are you really?” He addressed his question back to her, and noted that she was scrutinizing him carefully as he spoke. False admiration? Disdain for the rich hobbyist of no talent? Incomprehension and slight disapproval of the possible bohemian? “What sort of artist?”

  “A painter,” she said, but gave no more away.

  “A good one?” He persisted.

  Again, her father answered for her. “Yes, she is. She is exceptional.”

  Julien’s smile, understanding but with too much insight, prompted her to respond a little more fully. “No, I am not,” she said. “Not yet.” She said it with such care that Julien, who could easily have changed the subject then to pursue matters less obviously sensitive, was minded to probe further.

  “I sense a little divergence of opinion here.”

  “Father speaks from hope. I speak from knowledge. I am not being self-deprecating. I have the ability to be a good painter. More than that, perhaps. But I am a long way from that point yet.”

  “And what is required? What is missing?”

  “Work,” she said. “Labor. The sweat of my brow. A great painting is not genius with a paintbrush. It’s years of concentrated effort. A journey without maps, with only a faint idea where you are heading.”

  “She is being disingenuous,” Bronsen put in with a smile, patting her affectionately on the shoulder. “You should not be fooled by her modesty. She has none, in fact. She is perfectly aware of her abilities. As are the committee at the Salon d’Automne, which chose three of her pictures for hanging last year.”

  “Now it is my turn to congratulate you. Although without seeing something for myself, I will have to suspend judgment,” Julien said. “I would like to see what you do. If you have no objection. Although I warn you in advance that my opinions are worthless.”

  Julia gazed at him carefully. “We’ll see. Perhaps.”

  ABOUT HALF WAY through the cruise, Julien began talking amiably and purposelessly to a middle-aged man—a jovial, good-natured, kindly fellow, the sort who is instantly likeable. They had just left Athens and were heading for Palestine; the weather was beautiful, all had relaxed into complete pleasure in their shared experience.

  “I am surprised to see you spending so much time with those two Jews,” came the remark. “If you’re not careful, people will think you’re one, too. Personally, I think it spoils the atmosphere, having them on the ship.”

  A pointless, casual remark, made even without malice. For the flickering of a second the comment nestled in Julien’s mind, and made him anxious, but the brilliant, hypnotic glittering of the water was too magnificent for him to worry too much and he soon forgot it. He said nothing in reply to either justify himself or praise his companions’ qualities. Rather, he shrugged with feigned indifference and looked out over the sea; he understood the comment. It was a moment, he realized later, that summed up his whole existence in a tiny moment, like the world reflected in a tiny bead of water as it falls to earth.

  This image lodged in his mind like a photograph, and stayed with him until his death. Such things happen; the entire voyage, the wonderful things he saw—cities and towns, ruins and pyramids, temples and churches—were slowly effaced from his memory, or became the sort of memory that can be summoned when necessary but, for the most part, rests undisturbed. This one vignette had a life of its own. It nagged him, called him, imposed itself on him. As he went to sleep, sometimes when he was buying a newspaper or walking in the street or sitting reading by a warm fire and his mind drifted off, it would take him back to that precise moment—always unvarying, never changing.

  Everyone has a glimpse of paradise in their lives; this was Julien’s. All he had to do was reach out.

  Later, he decided he had been constrained by the morality and timorousness of the provincial bourgeois; the man who returned from Rome in 1927 would have been subject to no such doubts and hesitations; he would have become Julia’s lover then and there, and given the magical moment a fleshly guise. He knew, however, that the explanation was a false one, designed only to disguise and reassure. He was not afraid of being rejected but rather was afraid of being accepted. He knew that she was the one person he would never manage to let go. He was afraid of falling in love with her.

  A few moments later she sighed and began packing her paper back into her bag. She didn’t know why she sighed, she did not do it often. Perhaps she, too, realized something had been missed at that moment.

  And Julien came away with his shard of memory, forever glinting in the hot Mediterranean sunlight, as a reminder of something offered but turned down. It stayed with him until he had learned more and was ready. Until then he had that moment instead, that look on her face as their eyes met.

  Even Olivier thought he traveled for a purpose on his endless criss-crossing voyages across what is now Southern France, Italy, and Switzerland. There is even a hint that he once visited England in the retinue of the Bishop of Winchester in 1344, although there is no solid evidence and, indeed, it seems unlikely. Ostensibly, he voyaged either on those little missions of informal diplomacy and administration at which he proved adept and useful—delivering a message, paying a compliment, finding information—or he was in search of those manuscripts with which he became ever more obsessed.

  And yet Julien did not entirely impose his own values and opinions when he fancied that Olivier took pleasure from the journey as well as the destination, and that he often took a less than direct route and dallied unnecessarily in places with no other interest except their charm. Much, again, was supposition: The poet was only known for certain to have taken two trips, one to Dijon, which produced his great allegorical letter on Saint Sophia, the other to Bordeaux. Nonetheless, others must have been made, for the list of manuscripts he acquired implies considerable travel.

  Certainly Olivier saw the world in a novel and strange fashion. Manlius contemplated the landscape and forced it into the conventions of the Vergilian eclogue, making it a confirmation of a literary tradition that was by his time almost dead and imbuing it with the melancholy of a nostalgic futility. Julien responded with all the orthodoxy of a man brought up on Rousseau, but Olivier’s response was more wayward and indeed more original. For he felt he was tasting a private, personal pleasure; the fact that no one else could—or wanted to—share his delight was the essence of his happiness.

  Some casual comment led to the detour after his trip to the Burgundian court in 1346. Ref
reshing himself at a household obliged to the cardinal about two days outside Avignon, he heard someone mention the Chapel of Saint Sophia, which lay a good walk to the east.

  “A very holy place,” said his host, “with great powers, thanks to the intercession of the blessed saint. Women in particular go there to ask help when faced with difficult decisions. There is also a little hermitage, I believe, of very great antiquity, occupied by a few people who look after the shrine.”

  Olivier was intrigued immediately, and the mere name of the saint almost guaranteed that he would cancel all his plans the next day, leave his small band of servants and friends—much to the irritation of his host, who was faced with the prospect of feeding them for an extra two days—and set off the next morning. That the chapel lay only a short while from his hometown, and he had not seen his family for nearly two years, perhaps also aided his decision. Besides, it was well known, he said to justify himself, for such places to contain all sorts of treasures.

  And all that was part of the reason; the other part, which he scarcely even recognized himself, was the delight of walking through the fresh country air, entirely on his own, never knowing what might be around the next bend. To sit halfway up a warm hill in the sunshine, listening to the birds and eating some bread and an onion, to doze off in the shade, then wake up to the sight of the light glittering through the thick trees above him. And to be quiet, to hear no man’s voice, make no conversation, to let his thought flit hither and thither.