The Ballet of Dr Caligari

by Reggie Oliver

  As I drove away from The Old Rectory that evening Sir Bernard stood on the drive waving my car goodbye with Mrs Jacks at his side towering over him. It was the last time I saw him alive and he looked strangely forlorn.

  A few weeks later I was working on the program in one of the editing suites at the BBC when I had a call on my mobile from Dame Felicity Regan. She told me that Sir Bernard had died quite suddenly the previous afternoon. He had had a heart seizure while walking in Churchyard Lane.

  ‘There is going to be a grand memorial service at Oxford in a few weeks time, of course, but I think you ought to come to the funeral proper,’ she said. ‘It’s going to be a cremation in Cheltenham. I don’t really approve of cremations, as you know, being R.C., but that’s what he wanted apparently. There won’t be many there, but I think he would have wanted you to put in an appearance. The last time I talked to him on the phone, only a couple of nights before he died, he spoke about you with some affection.’ She waited for my reaction which was an astonished silence. ‘I know. I was surprised too.’

  The service at the crematorium was as dismal as I had expected it to be. The officiating clergyman had not known Sir Bernard and was obviously embarrassed about conducting the funeral of a notorious atheist. After the committal, we, that is Dame Felicity, half a dozen assorted Oxford dons, and a distant cousin of the deceased, drove the twenty or so miles back to Bourton Monachorum where Mrs Jacks had tea, sherry, and sandwiches waiting for us. At the wake I did not feel much like talking, and I quickly felt very superfluous when the dons got into a huddle to plan the splendours of the Oxford memorial service.

  It was another fine summer day, if a little blowy. I went out onto the empty lawn; then, feeling the need to put even more distance between myself and the academics, I wandered down the drive and into Churchyard Lane. I wanted to be still and remember Sir Bernard, but a restlessness kept me on the move. I began to walk up Churchyard Lane.

  Presently I found myself at the gap in the line of trees which marked the spot from which Porson’s Piece could be seen. The sun was beginning to decline into the West, sending slanted golden rays across the meadow, now strewn with wild flowers: purple vetch and willow herb, comfrey, campion, and blood red poppies. They waved and glittered in the breeze.

  Then at the very top of the field something white appeared which moved quicker than anything caught by the wind. It seemed to bob up and down, appearing above the tops of the grass and then vanishing again, finally resolving itself into a chain of white objects that rose and fell in an undulating motion. It began to come closer and I could see now that it was a line of dancers all in white.

  The dancers wove their serpentine way down the field towards the sunken lane. They were, as Sir Bernard had described, white, dead white all over and perfectly solid in appearance, except that the evening mist which wreathed the grass of the field sometimes obscured their feet. There was nothing overtly threatening about these figures—they seemed too absorbed in their own convoluted movements to threaten anyone—but their sheer strangeness terrified me. I felt my heart banging in my chest, and because the world was silent and the tread of their feet made no sound, the noise of the heartbeat and the rush of blood through veins and ventricles filled my ears. I could not move from where I stood and they were weaving their way towards me, chains of men and women in white, holding hands, dancing down the meadow. As they came closer I began to distinguish their clothes and their features. They were all different: they belonged to no one period or type; only the same dead whiteness of their garments and exposed skin gave them a dreadful uniformity. At the end of one of the lines of dancers one man, I noticed, was stumbling slightly, evidently not as used to the steps as the rest. This line began to make a wide sweep around the field, folding the other dancers into closer concentric circles, until the stumbling end man came down the slight incline towards me where I stood in the lane.

  The man had his back to me at first, but the line of dancers he was holding on to swung him round so that I saw him full face, and so close I could almost have reached out to touch him. It was Sir Bernard, all white, even his eyes which stared at me blankly like the eyes of a marble statue. He extended his free arm and gestured to me, as if inviting me to join him. He opened his mouth to cry out, but no voice could be heard, and a moment later he was pulled away stumbling into the lines of souls as they swayed in endless circles around each other.

  I thought I heard the scrape of a fiddle. I was probably mistaken. I almost certainly was, but I could take no chances. Covering my ears I ran headlong down Churchyard Lane back to The Old Rectory, as the men and women of Porson’s Piece danced on through the twilight.

  LADY WITH A ROSE

  No 235 Lady with a Rose (oil on canvas 81 x 65 cms).

  Attributed to Titian c. 1535

  Against a landscape background possibly depicting the Roman Campagna stands the three quarter length figure of a woman. She wears a loose white undergarment and her right breast is half exposed. Over this undergarment is casually draped a rich robe of pink embroidered silk. Her yellow hair is elaborately braided. In her left hand she holds a deep red rose at which she is staring intently. The smile on her face is enigmatic. Its features are distinctive so that it is evidently a portrait, though the image reflects somewhat the early sixteenth century Venetian fashion for ‘belle donne’ pictures, in particular Titian’s Flora of c. 1520, now in the Uffizi. There is a slight stylistic discrepancy in the painting in that it would appear that the rose may have been added or repainted later, perhaps by another hand.

  I came across this entry in the latest catalogue raisonné of Titian’s work. Tantalisingly, there is no indication as to its present whereabouts, and no photograph. But I, at least, have no need of a photograph; I know it only too well.

  In the late 1960s, after leaving art school, I went to Rome. I am not quite sure why: it was an instinctive move. It may have been because so many great British artists had travelled to Italy in their youth: Reynolds, Wilson, Turner, Leighton and others, the list is long. Was it something to do with the light? At any rate, I was old fashioned and romantic enough to think it would do me good.

  And at first, it would seem that I was a success. I had a facility for draughtsmanship which, though not highly prized in art schools at that time, I thought would stand me in good stead. I had secured an introduction to one or two people in Roman society, and it became for a while quite fashionable to have a portrait done by me, either as a drawing or in oils.

  A painter I once knew said that a portrait is a painting in which there is always something wrong about the nose. Nearly all my clients demanded adjustments to be made to my pictures in order to improve their appearance, or, as they put it, more accurately to represent it. As I was not yet secure enough to afford integrity I complied with their wishes.

  One thing I have noticed about the rich. They like having their portraits done, but they do not put a high monetary value on them. I was young, unknown and naive. I either asked too little for my work or, if on occasion I asked a reasonable amount, I was mercilessly beaten down. (‘That is how the rich stay rich,’ a friend told me unhelpfully.) Even when I had plenty of work I was not able to save much and by the end of my first year the commissions began to flag. I was given an exhibition at a fashionable gallery in the Via Guido Reni which included, as well as portraits, some still lifes and views of the Campagna, but though le tout Rome came to the private view and drank plentiful glasses of chilled Orvieto, they bought very few canvases.

  I had a small apartment in Trastevere and my lifestyle was far from extravagant, but soon after the failed exhibition I began to be very short of money. I did not even have enough to return to England. In desperation I turned to one of the few of my ‘patrons’ with whom I had established some sort of rapport, the Contessa Strepponi.

  Most people when you are painting their portrait (unless you are paying them to model for you) like to talk, usually about themselves. The Contessa differed from the
general run in that she appeared to be genuinely interested in me and my work. While I was painting her and her four young children I became a part of the family and would often take meals with them. Her husband, the Conte, a financier of some kind, I saw but once, and that briefly. He it was who paid me and, though the reward I received for my labours was no more generous than what I had obtained elsewhere, I was still confident of the Contessa’s sympathy.

  My confidence, up to a point, was justified. As we sipped coffee in the grand first floor salon of the Contessa’s apartment on the Via Veneto, I felt able to be completely honest with her about my financial problems and she was properly, uncondescendingly sympathetic. She told me, that though she personally was unfortunately unable to help me, her maternal uncle, the Prince Valerio-Grandoni, might. She had heard that he was on the look-out for an artist such as myself. She then went to her desk and wrote a letter of introduction to him which she said I should present as soon as possible, together with a portfolio of my work, at the door of the Palazzo Valerio-Grandoni in the Via del Corso.

  I must have looked slightly puzzled by these arrangements, but the Contessa explained to me that the Prince no longer had a telephone. I got the impression that there was some family saga connected with this but I was discreet enough not to make enquiries. Accordingly, an hour later, shortly after midday, I was ringing the doorbell of a massive grey building in the Via del Corso. I could not afford to waste time: I was that desperate.

  After a several minutes the door was opened by a tall and exceptionally good-looking man of about my age, perhaps a little older. Beyond him I could see a dark passageway leading to a small courtyard where a fountain played. The young man eyed me suspiciously as I explained myself, but he took my letter and the portfolio and told me to wait in the street.

  I stood patiently outside the Palazzo in the baking sun. Several passers-by looked at me curiously; an extravagantly uniformed Carabiniere paused in his ramblings and stared at me from across the street. Half an hour went by, then the door opened again.

  ‘The Prince would like to see you. I am Massimo, Secretary and Personal Assistant to the Prince. Please follow me.’ He spoke good English with a slightly Americanised Italian accent, but there was no warmth in his manner.

  When he had shut the heavy front door behind us the bustle and hooting of the Via del Corso was at once muted almost to extinction. A few steps brought us out of the dark barrel-vaulted passageway and into the courtyard.

  This was neatly arranged with stone walkways dividing four triangular parterres consisting of small areas of grass surrounding beds in which had been planted rose bushes, all of them bearing blooms of a deep red colour. The fountain in the centre of the courtyard featured a bronze Triton, surrounded by dolphins, blowing a conch from which gushed a glittering arch of crystal water. The water cascaded into a wide stone basin in whose depths red and gold fish glided noiselessly. On each side of the parterres were stone benches whose feet were carved to echo the dolphin motif of the fountain. It was an elegant and impressive scene, but not, somehow, a restful one.

  I was now in another world, almost another era: 1960s Rome seemed many miles away. Massimo led me across the courtyard to a pair of double doors that faced the entrance to the Palazzo. These when opened revealed a massive marble staircase, crouching in cool shadow, that led up to a grand saloon on the piano nobile.

  The grandeur of the Contessa’s saloon was positively bourgeois by comparison with this, even though it was sparely furnished. The walls opposite the windows that looked out onto the courtyard were covered in fine early Brussels tapestries. The ceiling was a riot of gilded plasterwork and painted putti tumbling among clouds. These complemented the few pieces of French Rococo furniture that stood on an elaborately designed marble floor.

  As I was being ushered in by Massimo I saw at the farther end of the room a man of perhaps seventy sitting on a kind of baroque throne in a shaft of sunlight. Beside him, on a great round marble table with a sumptuous pietra dura decoration, my portfolio lay open. On the top of the pile of drawings he had placed a drapery study that I was particularly proud of.

  ‘This is Signor Cartaret, Principe,’ said Massimo. The man waved me over with a pontifical gesture. I was in the presence of Prince Valerio-Grandoni.

  He was large, though far from fat, with a massive head, a shock of white hair, and an impressive beak of a nose; pale blue eyes stared out from under thick white bushy eyebrows. The man was a Roman Imperial Eagle. At once I wanted to paint him, and I hoped this was to be my commission, though even then I suspected it was not. The Prince, I guessed, was not a vain man in the normal sense: his egoism was of an altogether higher order.

  ‘My niece was right,’ he said, gesturing towards my portfolio. ‘You draw like an old master. Can you paint like one as well?’ His English was almost perfect; only a slight rhythmical inflection in his sentences betrayed Italian nationality.

  ‘I try to,’ I said.

  ‘Good!’ The Prince nodded his head, as if I had given the correct answer to a difficult examination question. He gestured towards Massimo. ‘What do you think of my Massimo? Mmm? A handsome man is he not? Would you like to paint him?’

  ‘I would rather paint you, sir.’

  It was true. Like many good-looking young men Massimo’s expression was complacent and vacuous; he would be a bore to paint. My answer, for some reason, did not please the Prince.

  ‘You will paint neither of us,’ he said. He rose from his throne and without looking in my direction gestured to me and Massimo to follow. We went through a door and into a long wood-panelled corridor on the walls of which hung several unframed canvases. They were splashy, drippy abstract works in oils, vaguely reminiscent of Jackson Pollock but with none of his control or subtlety. The Prince paused before one of them.

  ‘Massimo too is an artist,’ he said. ‘But in a more modern style than you, I think?’ I caught a gleam of malicious humour in the Prince’s expression as he glanced at us. For a moment I thought he was going to invite my opinion of Massimo’s work, but was fortunately spared that embarrassment. ‘Alas, unlike you, he is no draughtsman. His talent lies in other directions.’

  At the end of the corridor was a door with a magnificent pedimented surround in dark polished oak. Within the pediment was a carved and painted escutcheon: the images it bore were those of a conch-blowing Triton quartered with that of a dark red rose. The Prince took a key from his pocket and opened the door.

  A small windowless room was revealed, the walls hung with rich dark red damask hangings. The floor was of oak boards, innocent of furniture, even rugs. Only one object of interest occupied the chamber, lit by two discreetly placed spotlights which the Prince had switched on upon entering. This was a painting in an elaborate gilded frame which had been placed in the centre of the room on an easel, draped in red velvet cloth.

  ‘Titian?’ I asked.

  The Prince turned to me with a look of annoyance. ‘Who told you that?’

  ‘No-one. It’s only a guess. I’ve never seen it before in my life.’

  The Prince relaxed. ‘Very few have. It has been in the family for over four hundred years. It is, as you say, a Titian. Its title is Lady with a Rose, but it is in fact the portrait of a direct ancestress of mine, the Principessa Julia Valerio-Grandoni.’ There was a silence which, in that muffled, airless room, seemed to last an eternity. All of us were still; none of us so much as breathed heavily or creaked a floorboard until the Prince said: ‘I want you to make an exact copy of it.’

  No further conversation took place until we had returned to the saloon. Then the Prince ordered Massimo to fetch a bottle of wine from the cellar, together with some bread and figs and cheese and olive oil. It was lunchtime. ‘We live simply here,’ said the Prince. Massimo went on his errand with an ill grace.

  By the time Massimo had returned the Prince and I had discussed all the relevant arrangements, which were unusual. Though I was allowed to do the squaring up and init
ial sketches from photographs in my own studio, I was to do all the painting at the Palazzo with the original before me. Above all, I was to tell no-one about what I was doing, especially not the Contessa or any of the Prince’s relations. If I were asked what I was doing at the Palazzo I was to say I was painting portraits of Massimo and the Prince. I was to be paid well for my trouble and would receive half immediately and half on completion.

  The canvas on which I was to execute the copy had been prepared for me and was identical in size to Lady with a Rose. It was an old one from the sixteenth century that had had its original painting (a Madonna and Child by an obscure artist) painstakingly scraped off. Moreover I was to use the exact pigments and glazes that Titian had been known to employ. These had already been sourced by Massimo and would be available to me at the Palazzo.

  I was in no position to question these arrangements, but I must have looked puzzled, suspicious even. The Prince smiled, and said: ‘Do not worry, my friend, I am asking you to make a replica, not a forgery.’ But he did not offer any further explanation and I did not ask for one. Once again he urged absolute secrecy upon me.

  When Massimo returned with our simple lunch the atmosphere became lighter and business was no longer discussed. The Prince was a good talker, but, like most people of his rank in society, he expected at all times to direct conversation. If he asked you a question, he would listen appreciatively to your reply, but you were not allowed to introduce a topic of your own. He asked me about England, then spoke of it himself.

  ‘I lived for some time in England. Before and during the last war. My family did not care for Signor Mussolini, a most dreadful vulgarian, a petit bourgeois poseur of the worst kind. . . . In fact I was once married to an English woman: my second—no, my third—wife. Lady Constance Martlesham. Do you know her?’ The shake of my head went unnoticed. ‘She was a great beauty in her day, you know. A society beauty. Yes, I am fond of England, though I have not been there for many years. In fact I still have a property in London. In The Boltons. A small apartment. Do you know The Boltons, Signor Cartaret? It is, I believe, quite “respectable”, as you say.’