A Rich Full Death

by Michael Dibdin

  We had all this while been walking up the great central avenue which leads from the lily pond at the south-western end of the gardens, near the Porta Romana, to the famous terrace in front of the fortress of the Belvedere, where we had just arrived. This commands the most striking and extensive view of the city, and thus Browning was able to parry my question with an urbane ‘ “Do”, Mr Booth? Why, with such a prospect as this before us I hope we shall not be vulgar enough to dream of “doing” anything — anything that is but just rest our arms on this railing and our eyes on one of the great achieved miracles of the human spirit’.

  It is true that the view is miraculous, and it nothing more than the way it obstinately continues to survive the worst that journalists, diarists, essayists, belletrists, aquarellists, hacks, sketchers and daubers of every nationality and either sex, professional and genteel, have been able to do to render it trite, familiar and hateful. There it was again, as fresh and satisfying and perfect as the first time I set eyes on it-all those tiled roofs catching the light at every conceivable angle, showing up as hard and abrasive as sandpaper here, there as soft and plush as velvet. This warm wash of russet, together with the walls in infinite varieties of umber, buff, fawn and burnt sienna, is then punctuated by the three slim towers of the Badia, the Bargello and the Palazzo Vecchio; by the massive rectangular bulk of the Strozzi and Antinori palaces; by the buxom comfortable domes of Santa Maria Novella, San Lorenzo, Santa Croce; and by half a hundred monuments, antiquities, towers and turrets whose names even now I hardly know. AU this, good as it is (as who should say!), is lifted, made perfect, unique and whole by the presence at its heart: Brunelleschi’s great cupola rising massively weightless over the Cathedral Church of St John, superbly dominating and pulling together the entire composition.

  Legions had stood where I was standing, gazing like Keats’s stout Cortez. What their wild surmises may have been I do not know, but I am sure I was the first to look out there and feel that the Florentines had done right to exile Dante!

  To be sure, this nightmare inferno whose geography Browning was exploring with such excitement was but a parody of the poet’s vision. Nevertheless, a man who occupied his life with the creation of an all-embracing minutely-organised vicarious universe in which he was exalted and his enemies made to suffer atrocious and degrading torments-what had he to do with the genius of this place whose finest monument was just this scene before my eyes: not the obsessively organised masterpiece of some lonely exile, but the splendid product of evolution, chance, history, and a dozen different hands?

  Browning had also been actively contemplating the scene.

  ‘How often I have stood up here,’ he pronounced, ‘or on the brow of Bellosguardo, or at Fiesole, looking down on Florence! There it stands, like a theatre after everyone has gone home. How noble the verses must have been! And how the actors must have moved like kings, and spoken like gods. What we but dream of and play at, they performed. But where are they now? Vanished without trace!’

  A desire to shine was almost embarrassingly evident in my companion’s words and manner. The thought which flashed into my mind, rightly or wrongly, was that he had sensed that I had withdrawn my admiration, and was waxing brilliant in order to try and win me back. If so, his efforts were wasted.

  ‘Until now!’ he added, giving me a significant look. ‘Now that power and scope of conception and execution have surfaced once again, albeit in an evil guise. But let us admit it-there is grandeur, there is genius, in the thing! No petty crime this! No nasty tale of a lover’s spite, as at first I thought. No-nothing less than to re-create Dante Aligheri’s Inferno here on earth, bang in the middle of the nineteenth century, punishing the heirs of the poet’s sinners in ways which parallel those which he described. This is evil on a scale worthy of this setting! Tell me honestly, Booth, do you not feel some slight admiration for the man?’

  ‘Not the slightest,’ I replied coldly. ‘Indeed, I am afraid I must say that I most strongly deprecate the views you have just expressed. Unlike you, I do not find evil and crime amusing or inspiring, but dreary, dark and desolate. You ask me to be honest: let me therefore tell you that if I agreed to our meeting today, it was solely for the purpose of announcing my fixed intention of withdrawing from any further involvement in this affair.

  ‘As you must remember, I have on several occasions urged you to place such information as you possess in the hands of the authorities. You have until now succeeded in convincing me that this would be a mistake. In the wake of recent events I am no longer convinced. You, of course, must do as your conscience directs. But please be clear that I shall henceforth disassociate myself entirely from any further private investigations into these crimes.’

  Browning stood staring, his bottom lip hanging down, for all the world like a little boy trying not to cry. I almost felt sorry for him-until I recalled how he had treated me that day at the English Cemetery.

  ‘But why?’ he wailed. ‘You used to be so eager to help me! What has happened to change you? What are these “recent events” you speak of?’

  This was too bad. I had thought he would be angry and stalk off, but by showing his hurt so plainly, Browning was managing to make me feel at fault. Was I never to be in the right with the man? There was, however, no turning back now.

  Yes, I have changed,’ I told him. ‘We have been speaking of Dante. He said that his life began again the day he met the woman you have described as a vulgar merchant’s daughter. Well, I too have met Beatrice.’

  Our looks met with an almost audible chink.

  ‘Very well, Mr Booth,’ Browning said-and his voice was hard and full of menace. ‘In that case I need detain you no longer.’

  And now, at last, he turned on his heel and strode off-too late! My victory rang hollow, and I felt I had blundered badly, perhaps fatally.

  20

  I set off for home, only to get lost in a maze of alleys and paths of that over-elaborately calculated landscape. One spot in particular returned continually to haunt me: the path curved invitingly away downhill in what seemed the right direction, only to come to an abrupt end against a high stone wall in a close airless dead-end where I could hardly breathe.

  As I found myself back there for the third or fourth time, and stopped to try and get my bearings, I heard laughter close behind me. I whirled round, but there was no one there. The air suddenly felt chilly, and I shivered as though someone had walked across my grave.

  Then there was a rustle in the bushes, and I took to my heels! Had Browning been right, then? Was this garden hell itself, from which there was no escape? Would I always find myself back at that same spot where the path went wrong, listening to that mocking laughter, for all eternity?

  Strangely, however, in my blind and stupid panic-for the gardens were now rapidly filling with people, and it had been some innocent laugh I must have heard, from another alley beyond the hedge-I somehow managed to find the exit which had eluded me before, and in a few minutes was out of the gardens of the Pitti Palace and back in the noise and turmoil of the streets.

  When I had met Charles Nicholas Grant at Miss Chauncey’s ill-fated ‘seance’, he had told me that he was staying with the Ricasoli family, and urged me to call on him, and as my way home took me directly past the Ricasoli palace I took this opportunity of doing so. Mr Grant received me kindly, and sent the footman for a bottle of wine-which his firm imports, he informed me with a smile and a wink, to add substance to their claret in poor years.

  Mr Grant proved to be a rather different quantity tete-a-tete than he had been in company. The urbanity and the polished charm were rather less in evidence, and a bluff boisterous high spirits considerably more. In particular I found him as thrilled as a schoolboy at the prospect of the poor old Florentine Carnival, which he evidently envisaged as a spanking new edition of the Roman Saturnalia, with all its original excesses intact and a variety of modern ones superadded. His manner became frankly conspiratorial as he intimated that one as
long resident in the city as myself must surely know all those special places and times when the flame of Carnival burned most intensely, and a good time was to be had by all.

  I agreed that I might possibly be able to furnish him with certain indications, and even offered to accompany him if he so desired. He said he could wish for nothing better. I then described some of the traditions of the Carnival, including the opportunity it presented to indulge in masquerade.

  At this the staid merchant’s eyes lit up. Nothing would do but we must immediately repair to an outfitter who specialised in this kind of apparel, and look out something suitable-or rather unsuitable. After much reflection, Grant settled for a suit of jester’s motley, complete with cap and bells-and of course a mask to conceal his identity, lest his respectable acquaintances here catch him thus playing the fool. This costume was duly ordered to be made up in time for the Saturday, when the festivities commence in earnest, continuing without respite until the climax of the grand procession on Shrove Tuesday-on which day Grant and I made our arrangements to meet and sally forth together in quest of adventure.

  Meanwhile I at last heard from Beatrice’s lips the news I had longed for-that Browning had been to visit her, and she had severed her relations with him.

  ‘I said that I was grateful for all he had done for me, but that his visits had become inconvenient, since I had lately been the subject of the attentions of another gentleman, who had proposed marriage to me. I thought it better to say so’-she went on quickly, having caught the look I gave her.

  ‘Did he ask who he was, this gentleman?’

  ‘No.’

  What did he say?’ I asked in some exasperation. I had expected something more satisfying than this.

  ‘Nothing, at first. He just looked at me very long and very hard. Then he shrugged, like one who wishes to pretend that he does not care. “Very well,” he said. “But you’ll be sorry!” ‘

  ‘Was it a threat?’ I asked.

  ‘I don’t know. Perhaps. Or a prophecy.’

  A dark cloud seemed to settle on her face, normally so serene, and I made haste to dissipate it with renewed demonstrations of affection.

  ‘At all events,’ I pursued, ‘the important thing is that he is out of your life-out of both our lives. Why should we mind what he says? He cannot harm us!’

  But Beatrice remained doubtful.

  ‘For my sake, be careful!’ she urged. ‘He is clever, and has powerful friends. Such men are always dangerous.’

  The rest of the weekend and the Monday passed without further incident, and shortly before ten o’clock on the morning of Shrove Tuesday, in accordance with our arrangement, I presented myself at Mr Grant’s suite. I found that former pillar of the City of London already fully attired in the costume he had ordered, and as excited as a girl on the eve of her first ball. We accordingly wasted no further time in joining the merry throng in the streets, where everyone in Florence-rich or poor, young or old, foreign or native-was out savouring the intoxicating atmosphere of light-hearted revelry.

  It must be admitted that much of the entertainment on offer is of a distinctly juvenile variety: bags full of lime and flour are carried, and liberal quantities of both distributed indiscriminately in all directions, and dropped on to the heads of the passers-by from balconies and windows-all to the accompaniment of loud squeals and giggles. Missiles far more dangerous are the confetti. These were originally sweetmeats, but are now more usually plaster imitations, rock-hard, which are flung with merciless force at any unsuspecting or distracted bystander, the more venerable or respected the better. Indeed, this aspect of Carnival epitomises life in Italy, where there are no bystanders, and the highest possible tax is levied on anyone who allows his attention to be distracted for a single moment from his immediate surroundings.

  My masked companion and I proceeded at a leisurely pace through the streets and piazzas, where Mr Grant attracted much attention. But the Florentines are above all an articulate race- from a jester they expect jests, and finding my companion unable to satisfy this want, despite his fetching costume, they soon deserted us to admire some other prodigy. But these fickle folk were immediately replaced by fresh admirers, so that upon the whole Mr Grant had no reason to feel that his efforts had been wasted.

  The fresh air soon gave us an appetite, and as Grant wished everything that day to be as typically Florentine and as different from his usual life as possible, I took him where no foreigner would normally dream of going-to a little cook-shop near Santa Croce, where we dined off the modest local fare-slices of fried polenta, artichoke fritters, chestnut dumplings and river fish, with a flask of the new wine to take off the taste of the old oil. Mr Grant enjoyed himself hugely, making a considerable impression both on the other clients of the establishment and on our flask of wine, which in turn made a considerable impression on him.

  Midday had struck when we at length arrived in the great square before the Franciscans’ basilica, where the procession was already forming up. By and by it moved off amid the clacking of hooves and the rumble of wheels. As the leading coach-and-six lumbered by we caught a glimpse of the Grand-Duke Leopold himself, waving mechanically to the crowd. He is an utterly inoffensive and insignificant person, who would do very well as Governor of Rhode Island. His sole wish in life-to be spared any trouble whatsoever-is one which he is unlikely to be granted, the times being what they are. But it cannot be denied that he has done far better by his subjects than many Italian sovereigns, and it is a measure of how exaggerated some reports of their discontent have been that he is able to appear in public protected by no more than a couple of lackeys and an ornamental cuirassier or two. As for the notorious Austrians, they were nowhere to be seen-having no doubt realised that whatever pleasure they might extract from the spectacle would hardly compensate for the twitting and the taunts they would have to endure.

  After the horse guards, looking as operatic as such characters generally do south of the Alps, came another equipage enshrining the Grand-Duchess-a much more formidable proposition; one of the Neapolitan Bourbons of the grand old ‘Let them eat cake!’ stock-and then a long train of more or less decrepit carriages filled with the nobility of Florence.

  I now suggested to Mr Grant that we might to advantage cross town and watch the defile pass down Via Tornabuoni to the Piazza Santa Trinita, where the quality and the foreign community most thickly gather. Here, I hinted, my companion might Le advantage of the licence of Carnival to play a prank or two upon some of his friends. We accordingly set off through the heart of the old city towards the river. The streets, as I had expected, were eerily deserted, their inhabitants having taken themselves off to enjoy the gratuitous entertainment.

  I was more than a little worried about the time, but when I finally emerged in the Trinity square the procession-which makes a long detour by way of the Cathedral-was not yet in sight. I accordingly took a turn up and down the street, accompanied at a slight distance by my masked companion. I was recognised and hailed by a number of friends and acquaintances, and thus the time passed very agreeably. The only slightly discordant note was struck by the very large number of uniformed police to be seen about the square-a show of force which no one to whom I spoke seemed able to explain.

  At length I fell in with a company which included Mr Hiram Powers and Dr Harding, a local physician. The conversation turned upon the terrible slaughter in the Crimea, where Harding has a son serving — this is indeed the modern way of sending our fellow-creatures to the next world, Prescott! A thousand here, a thousand there: a whole nation of the dead raised at one fell swoop. It makes the efforts of our murderer here in Florence seem as much of an anachronism as Cellini’s salt-cellar beside the serried ranks of the standard Birmingham model!

  Suddenly I caught sight of the slight figure of Commissioner Antonio Talenti moving slowly and watchfully through the crowd. I immediately extricated myself from the discussion on the war in the East, and went to greet him.

  ‘Are you
alone, Signor Boot?’ the police official remarked, with that insinuating smile of his.

  ‘No, I am with Mr Grant,’ I replied, indicating the figure in motley who was busily jingling his bells at some attractive young ladies.

  ‘And Mr Browning? Where is he today?’ Talenti pursued.

  ‘I have not the slightest idea, I am afraid. I have severed all connections with Mr Browning.’

  The Commissioner gave me an appreciative glance.

  ‘Really? You have done well, Signor Boot.’

  ‘I trust that you are not expecting anything in the nature of a disturbance?’ I asked the police official, who never ceased peering alertly this way and that the whole time we were talking.

  ‘I received a note this morning, hinting that some attempt might be made to disrupt the Carnival as it passed along Via Tornabuoni,’ he murmured. ‘It is most likely a hoax, but I am bound to take every precaution.’

  Since Talenti appeared to be in a confiding mood, I asked him if any further progress had been made in apprehending those responsible for the murder of Mr Tinker. But it appeared that the police were baffled, principally because of the apparent absence of any motive for the crime.

  ‘Motive is what always traps the criminal in the end, Signor Boot!’ the official told me. ‘CW bono? as our ancestors put it. Find that out, and ten to one you have your man. But in this case there appears to be no answer to this question, and so for the moment we remain in the dark.’

  While we had been talking the procession had come in sight at the end of the street, along which it proceeded towards us at crawling pace, at length rolling past to some rather desultory cheers. To the Commissioner’s evident relief no incident occurred, and the crowd began to disperse to seek further diversion at one of the many public and private functions which enliven the final evening of the Carnival.