The Dream of Scipio

by Iain Pears

  So she was contradictory and difficult, with him and with Julien, hard to understand; often irritable, veering between affection and criticism, drawing close then pulling away again. She knew all the while that she did indeed love Julien, needed his existence in a way that she had never known with anyone else. When she was depressed or frustrated with her work, she thought of him, constantly concerned herself with where he was and what he was doing, felt incomplete without him, and anxious when he was there lest a mistake ruin everything. If he had only forced the issue that day in Palestine before she could consider all the complications, then, she sometimes told herself, all would have been well. She even felt slightly insulted by his rejection, but knew that such disdain was unjust. Julien could not make it so easy for her; he wanted her soul as well, and must bide his time until she was ready to give it.

  So, instead of each other’s physical company, they had their letters, which crossed the country in a constant flow, month after month and year after year, continuing even when Julia went to Vietnam, then on to Japan for nearly two years to seek inspiration and escape there, or when Julien returned to Rome, something he did as often as possible. For much of the 1930s they were not even in the same country, but the letters continued nonetheless, creating something far stronger than mere physical closeness could ever approach. In between the letters, both burrowed down into their work to hide from the world, which was becoming ever more terrifying.

  That there was going to be another war they both knew, as did everyone else; sometimes Julien was even sure there was going to be a civil war, with the streets of France again running with blood and echoing with screams of faction. Almost any little incident, it seemed, could set off a disaster, either in France or in Europe as a whole, but no one knew when it would actually happen. The threat contaminated everything they did and felt long before it actually erupted. Men like Marcel and Bernard took their sides and seemed to make it the more likely, sowing rancor and blame in advance for a defeat that, strangely, everyone knew would come this time. Even those like Marcel, who once lectured Julien on the extraordinary military achievement of France’s defenses, could talk in the next breath of what would happen when the war was over and the Germans had established their grip on the whole of Europe. And as the day grew ever nearer, and the continent sleepwalked its way into a conflict that threatened cataclysm on a scale no one could imagine, his opinions became the more extreme and the more vengeful.

  Julien once pointed out the contradiction to him. “If the defenses are so good, why do you talk of defeat?”

  “All the defenses in the world will be useless if we are led by fools. We’ve built ourselves a wall, but we are crumbling behind it. Our politicians are corrupt, money-grubbing rabble-rousers, obeying the orders of the moneylenders and the masons. Will you fight for them? Give your blood so they can continue to stuff their pockets with money? Sweep them away; then we can start again. Build something new.”

  “You want to be beaten?” Julien asked.

  “Of course not.”

  And Julien returned to his books, turning in these years to the subject that had been in the back of his mind for so long: to describe the resilience of civilization, its enormous strength, the way that even when near death it could revive and regrow, bringing its benefits to mankind once more. It was a lyrical conception, his own defiance of the blackness of Marcel, or the gleeful cynicism of Bernard, who derived much humor in his newspaper articles from describing the confusion, incompetence, and corruption of politicians at work. He imagined civilization as something lying outside the individual, a spirit that only required a little care to survive. It consoled him; as it had sprung up again after the Romans, and again after the Black Death, so it would now, after the darkness to come. His great book on the history of Neoplatonism thus became his plaintive song in the falling light, and gradually he worked in more and more commentary on Manlius’s manuscript to illustrate the points he was making. He, too, expected defeat.

  OLIVIER AND PISANO had little in common during their daily life save their joint adherence to the camp of Cardinal Ceccani, but nothing to divide them either. No faction, heresy, or dispute over politics ever clouded their amity; they were both too lowly to have any interest in such matters, which were solely the concern of the great and the powerful. Their job was to live, although that was not necessarily such an easy thing to accomplish. They shared their food, their hopes, their worries, and sometimes their shoes and clothes and money. Gave each other advice, drank together, and knew that, sooner or later, they would part forever. It was Pisano’s ambition to go back to Siena one day, for he daily suffered the pangs of homesickness and saw himself in exile. Olivier knew perfectly well that he would probably never go there. Nor would their friendship continue by letter, for while Pisano could write, he did not like to do so.

  Indeed, had the commission for the chapel of Saint Sophia not suddenly descended on him, Pisano might have gone already, as until that moment all favor and income had been denied him. He had been in Avignon for two years or more, waiting his chance. He had worked as a journey-man for that fat, smug dauber Matteo Giovanetti when, by rights, the old-fashioned, harebrained scribbler should have worked for him. Pisano was young, but not without confidence, and held within him the conviction that he could do something the world had never seen before, if only he was given the chance.

  He had received the best possible training, under Pietro Lorenzetti himself; the only man in the world for whom he had total reverence and unquestioning devotion. He had seen the quiet, great man racked with the agonies of doubt and indecision about what he did, and seen that uncertainty convert like magic into calm assurance the moment he picked up his brush. For what he was doing was remarkable, unique. He did not try to paint nature; he made his paintings part of nature, as real as the birds and the trees in the countryside all around. The endless possibilities made a head as young as Pisano’s giddy with delight, and after he made his way to Avignon—to seek his fortune, as he had heard of all the building works going on there—he sometimes physically ached with desperation and yearning to show what he could do.

  For Pisano had an idea, an idea of such boldness that he scarcely dared mention it. It first came upon him one day when he had brought his master a drink of water from the fountain after a hot morning’s work at Assisi. He’d found him sitting idly on the ground in the shade, with a young boy before him. They were talking, as Pietro delighted in the company of the young, never turned away any child who came to see him work, spent long hours talking to them, and always gave them a little present when, at last, it was time for them to go.

  The two were talking as he approached, the child laughing and telling the master a story, unaware of his greatness and importance—as, indeed, was most of the world still, despite the prodigies he had created. Pietro was listening and encouraging him to continue, but kept on glancing down at a piece of parchment that he was drawing on with a lump of charcoal. As Pisano put down the water, Pietro laid the parchment aside and told the boy it was now time he went home to his mother. Pisano held out a hand to help the aging, arthritic man up—his hands the only part of him still unaffected, it seemed, either by the grace of God or the sheer determination of willpower—and also picked up the sheets of paper as they were about to blow away on the wind.

  He had drawn a portrait of the boy in the act of tossing his head as he had done when talking and laughing. It was so perfect in the way it captured the child’s spirit that Pisano was astonished and cried out in delight.

  “Something I learned to do when I was young,” the older man said. “Before I was trained and forced to forget it all again. I began with sheep, then shepherds.”

  “It is wonderful.”

  “Ah, but it is but a boy. Our job is to paint the divine.”

  Pisano must have looked confused, not knowing what to say. Pietro clapped him affectionately on the shoulder and laughed gently. “Come with me.”

  He led the way bac
k into the church, then slowly and ponderously climbed the scaffolding that covered the choir of the building, working his way up then across with an agility that left him the moment the day’s work was done. Eventually he reached a scene he had painted himself a few weeks previously; gestured at it, then stood back.

  It was of the Last Supper and, though the face of the Jesus conformed absolutely to what it must be, he had given the figure a similar gesture, that toss of the head, the movement of the shoulders, the slight upward glance and flash of the eye. Half in jest, Pietro held his finger to his lips.

  “Our little secret,” he said. “But observe it well. Something of God is all around us, perhaps. All we need is eyes to see and a hand to capture.”

  Lorenzetti dared no more, however; or perhaps that was the wrong word, for in his craft he was as absolute in his determination as any pope or emperor. He saw no need to. Still his figures for the most part needed to have something of the divine about them, needed to be recognizable as well. He would give them a gesture, a movement, an air that he had seen in the street, but could not go further. His art and his pride would not allow it. Knowingly or not, he turned from that last step, fearing it might lead to blasphemy, that he might be drawn into the conceit of making God, rather than humbly representing Him. Give the Blessed Virgin the face of an anxious mother? Have Saint Peter resemble a fisherman? Make Our Lord look like a carpenter? Thus formulated, Pisano had his answer, and the secret he took with him when he left for Avignon. He would take that extra step, or try to.

  His first essay came when he was given the opportunity to do a whole painting himself in the entrance to the Cathedral of Our Lady in Avignon. Close by the doorway, but in a dark corner, a space of wall that needed filling but that no one would ever see unless they peered hard in the gloom, the contrast with the light flooding in through the door making it all but invisible. Too insignificant a spot for Matteo himself to bother with, so he farmed it out. And there Pisano painted a Virgin high up on the wall, being approached by a prince of the church, an appropriate scene for what was fast becoming the main cathedral of all Christendom. The Virgin was conventional, seated, with the child on her left arm; here he dared little. But with the figure before her he allowed himself to experiment. He painted this as a real man, standing rather than kneeling, giving an impression of power, almost of equality before the divine. And he gave it the face of Cardinal Ceccani, conveying through it the strange mixture of deference and command that that man had so perfected.

  He was not pleased with it; he could do better, he knew. And Matteo was outraged and wanted it erased. It was he who sent word through the corridors of what Pisano had done, hoping to cause a scandal; the result had been that Ceccani himself, the next time he came to the cathedral, stopped and looked, peering up in the candlelight to see his own features flickering on the wall.

  He stared, his eyes narrowed, he grunted. Then he turned to a priest standing nearby. A few weeks later, Pisano was summoned to the cardinal’s palace and given the commission to paint the chapel of Saint Sophia. So cryptic was his benefactor that Pisano could not be sure whether it was a reward or a punishment. Nonetheless, once the dismay and disappointment faded he realized the chapel would give him his chance. There were no conventionally understood notions of what any of the characters in the tales looked like, apart from the Magdalen; the chapel was isolated and unlikely to attract too much attention; he could experiment at will and see what resulted.

  But whom could he choose? How could he decide? This practical detail had gnawed at him. He could not choose anyone; he had to find someone who, in some way, resembled what the saint must have looked like, which meant he had to know in his mind what that was. Hence his reference to prayer, for he was convinced that God would show him the way.

  He had the face of the Magdalen easily, although he did not know where it came from; he sat down one morning and this handsome, tranquil face drew itself on the piece of slate he habitually used for idle jottings. It was not what he expected, certainly, but the pious painter was not one to query the will of Heaven; he had prayed and had then settled down to draw: this had been given him. A pretty face, young and charming even after the necessary artistic improvements had been made to make it conform, just a little, to what such a woman must have looked like. He knew well enough that it was probably the face of someone he had seen, someone glimpsed in the street, for he had an extraordinary memory for such things. But he had not the slightest idea who it was, or when he had seen her. His mind, or God, had joined the face with the subject; that was all he needed to know.

  For the blind man, he decided he would allow himself a small jest—nothing impious—but painters were habitually permitted a little leeway in the matter of sinners. He used Olivier for this figure, a piece of whimsicality that made him smile throughout the business of transferring his sketches onto the chapel wall. For Olivier was, surely, such a person, forever seeking wisdom so he could see more clearly. But even he, this man he saw daily when he was in Avignon, he could not get right. He could draw his face, of course, that was easy. But he could not get the pair of them, the saint and the blind man, Olivier and this unknown other, to look anything other than two figures placed side by side, and he wanted more than that.

  For Saint Sophia herself would not come to him, and as she was to occupy all the first panel and was to be a major figure in all the others as well, the lack reduced him to despair. He could, of course, have used a conventional image, but knew he must not; he had set out to do something new, and refused to retreat into the ordinary merely because a difficulty came to interrupt his progress.

  So Pisano went to the chapel, then came back to Avignon having accomplished little, and there he moaned to Olivier and all the friends who were prepared to listen, prayed incessantly but to no avail. Even renewed visits produced only the barest outline of a face, until one day he was walking through the streets and saw the Blessed Saint Sophia, shopping at a market stall. He noticed nothing at first, and only became aware of her when Olivier turned pale and gasped in surprise.

  Pisano noticed and followed his eyes, saw what he saw, and knew that his search was over. That was what the saint would look like, and that was how a blind man given back his sight would react, not with joy, not with a happy smile, but with something close to anguish, with a piercing cry and an expression of something approaching terror.

  “Yes,” he cried. “That’s it. Perfect.”

  Pisano began to dance up and down in his excitement, making so much noise that passersby turned to look, and the woman herself glanced around in fright and then hurried away.

  “Hush, my friend,” Olivier said urgently. “Calm yourself.”

  “Why should I be calm? You’re not. I’ve never seen anyone turn so sickly in my life. Who is she? Are you in love with her? You must be. Is this the woman you’ve been putting in all that doggerel you produce?”

  “Be quiet,” Olivier snapped, so violently that Pisano for once ceased his otherwise endless babble. “I do not know who she is. But I am going to find out. Stay here. Don’t move, and above all, don’t talk.”

  He pushed his friend away and told him to wait quietly at the corner of the street, then walked up to the seller of herbs she had bought from.

  “Who was that woman you were talking to?” he asked.

  The woman chuckled at his attempt at innocence. “The fat one?” she asked.

  “No.”

  “The old one with the warts? I have lots of customers.”

  “No.”

  “It couldn’t possibly be the beautiful one in the old cloak.”

  He grinned.

  “The one wearing the yellow star,” she added with a smirk as she saw Olivier’s face freeze.

  “Fallen in love with a Jew, have we, dearie?” she said with a cackle.

  Olivier looked shocked, and stared at the grinning woman. “No,” he said hesitantly. “It could not have been her.” And he retreated before her jeering, contemptuou
s look.

  He kept tabs on his dinner party friends, though their differing trajectories meant that he saw them only infrequently. The occasional letter, a meeting every year or so, sometimes a holiday skiing with Bernard. He went to Marcel’s wedding—a staunchly Catholic girl from a respectable family of lawyers, just right for him—and again a year later to become acting godfather to their newborn daughter. The world outside the library detained him only a little; the rash of strikes that paralyzed the country in 1936, the riots in Paris he read about; the way the streets became dirtier, voices more harsh and raucous, tempers shorter. He noticed, but his only reaction was to find his work the more comfortable. He was sheltered from the storms, and felt they could never touch him.

  Only Marcel, solid and dutiful, had anything that could be called a career in this period. His grandfather had been a prosperous corn merchant, his father an ever poorer miller, whose love of drink exceeded his devotion to duty. Of the three friends, only he had known poverty, and from the age of fourteen, when he had found his father covered in his own vomit with his neck broken at the foot of the stairs, he became determined never to make its acquaintance again. His father had debts, and his creditors, who had long indulged him, were harsh when he died. Marcel came away from the experience with a fear of insecurity and a hatred of those who lend money. Big business, banks, financiers, men like Claude Bronsen, were his natural enemies, who exploited the humble and honest who could not defend themselves. For him the civil service was the perfect home—warm, comforting, and secure. His achievement in rising within it was an immense one, too easily discounted by the likes of Bernard, whose own father—a landowner and rentier whose wealth had begun to form with Napoleon—had protected him from too much reality until the economic hammer blows of the twenties and thirties turned his fortune also to dust.