The Knight And Death; And One Way Or Another, page 8
‘I’m a painter,’ I said.
‘A painter … Wait. I think I recognize you … Wait. Don’t tell me your name … On television about three months ago — they showed how a painting is born, one of your paintings … Frankly you could have picked a nicer picture … But I suppose you did it on purpose — how an ugly painting is born into an ugly world, an unintelligent painting for those millions of unintelligent people who watch television.’
‘You were there yourself, in front of a television set,’ I said rather resentful.
‘That’s a compliment I don’t deserve. I watch television too often to be able to say I’m totally uncontaminated by the leprosy of imbecility … Too often. And I’ll finish by catching it. If I haven’t already caught it … For I must confess that the contemplation of imbecility is my weakness, my sin … Precisely: the contemplation … Giulio Cesare Vanini, who was burned at the stake, could see God’s greatness in a clod of earth. Others see it in the firmament. I see it in imbecility. Nothing is deeper, more abysmal, more vertiginous, more incomprehensible. Only one shouldn’t contemplate it too much … There, I’ve got it: you are …’ and he said my name.
‘I can’t say I’m flattered by the process which led you to recall my name,’ I said joking, but with some bitterness.
‘No no. While I was talking about imbecility part of my mind was ticking away trying to catch up with your name. Quite an independent little mechanism, memory, at least mine is … So. You’d like to stay here today and tomorrow. It’ll be an honour for us, but I’m afraid it won’t be much of a pleasure for you. The whole hotel, however, apart from the few rooms which are occupied, is at your disposal.’
‘But I’d have liked to stay on after tomorrow. I’ve heard that there are going to be spiritual exercises here.’
‘Do you want to take part in them too?’
‘Let’s say that I’d like to exercise my spirituality by witnessing the spiritual exercises of others.’
‘Idle curiosity in fact.’
‘I do admit it.’
‘Or worse: the satisfaction of catching other people doing what you consider, perhaps, unworthy of human beings — of laughing at them …’
‘Maybe.’
‘Well, one never can tell.’
‘What?’
‘Anything. You heard about our spiritual exercises and you felt like attending them … You think this impulse was motivated by the desire to have some fun, to make fun of others … But one never can tell what may come of a mere impulse — an act of freedom …’
‘… to which then the links of causality become welded…’
He looked at me for the first time with some interest. ‘Of course,’ he said, ‘the chain.’
He bowed imperceptibly. And disappeared.
I came down from my room when I heard the prolonged trill of a bell in the corridor – like the arrival of a train being announced in a station. I assumed that it was a sign that lunch was ready. And I wasn’t mistaken.
The refectory was vast, crammed with circular and rectangular tables of which only two were set and occupied. Don Gaetano called me to his. My place was on his right. There were four other priests, among them the porter. The five women were at a table far removed from ours, but not so far that we couldn’t hear their voices, their words, which merged within the circle they formed like water flowing from five spouts into a fountain. They stopped talking when Don Gaetano rose to say Grace. He included them in the blessing, but with just a hint of condescension and mockery in his strictly ceremonial gesture – rather as one who, having eaten the meat, throws the bone to the dog. The women demurely crossed themselves, murmured Grace, crossed themselves again. And resumed their chatter. Don Gaetano sat down and, starting with mine, filled our glasses with wine, praising it as a connoisseur, but in those French terms now current among the uninformed. It was, he said, a local wine cultivated mid-way between mountain and sea. And he quoted in Greek the Greek poet who, according to him, had celebrated precisely this wine, from this locality. He spoke of nothing else. He drank with gusto and ate with distaste. And the fare was indeed distasteful – badly cooked, insipid. There was nothing for it but to add salt and pepper, which at least whetted our thirst for the truly excellent wine. At the end of the meal Don Gaetano apologized, telling me that the cook would arrive the next evening — eating would then be quite another matter.
No change at dinner. Nor the next day at lunch. Had it not been for my curiosity concerning the spiritual exercises and those who were to perform them I’d have left. Even though I greatly enjoyed Don Gaetano’s conversation, whether he talked about wine or Arnobius, Saint Augustine, the Philosopher’s Stone or Sartre.
Dinner on the second evening was much more palatable — even if only relatively so. The cook and his assistants had arrived late in the afternoon. They’d only been able to repair, amend. But the improvement sufficed to raise our spirits, as Don Gaetano observed. And he went on to pour scorn on those fools who pretend they don’t care what they eat or are so naturally uncouth and ill-bred as really not to care. He spoke about French cookery – the only one which, justifiably, honoured a hero such as Vatel, who could be compared to Cato of Utica. For if the latter killed himself on account of a departed freedom, the former did so for a fish which failed to arrive. And his action had, before God, the same value, motivated as it was by the same passion: self-respect.
‘But,’ I objected, ‘there’s self-respect and self-respect, and even God can’t compare a fish — which anyhow was only one of the many courses at the table of Louis XIV — to freedom.’
‘And why not? Let’s leave God out of this, since we know nothing more of his opinions than what is convenient to our salvation, and I think our desire for salvation probably influences our knowledge. So leaving God aside, and granted that self-respect is a valid choice, Vatel is a better example of it than Cato of Utica, for the fish ought to have arrived and did in fact arrive an hour after Vatel had killed himself … Whereas freedom …?’
A discussion ensued which contributions from the four priests promptly confused and entangled. Don Gaetano and I let them fight it out — each of them having his say without paying the least attention to the others. And, dinner being over, we left them practically at each others’ throats.
As we came out of the refectory Don Gaetano asked if I’d finally decided to stay and attend the spiritual exercises. I said that yes, I had. I thought he was pleased, roguishly. But brandishing his great white hand before my eyes he made a playful gesture of reproof and menace which implied that I was a wicked miscreant who hoped to surprise the true believer in his nest, in his stronghold, and that I’d have to pay for it. And so, leaving me with the vision of that hand still imprinted on my retina, he vanished. (Here I want to explain why, when describing Don Gaetano’s departures, how he leaves or has left, I use the words ‘vanish’ or ‘disappear’ — and shall go on using them and perhaps others such as ‘fade away’, ‘dissolve’. To do so I must resort to the memory of a game we played as children: we would draw on a sheet of paper a completely black figure with a single white spot in the middle, and we would stare fixedly at that white spot counting up to sixty, then shut our eyes or look up at the sky — and we still saw that figure, but now white, transparent. Something rather similar occurred with Don Gaetano: when he’d already gone his image seemed to linger on behind my closed eyelids or in space. So that it wasn’t possible to perceive the precise, actual moment at which he left. Which was doubtless an after-effect of that kind of duplication I tried to describe earlier. The fact is that he seemed to establish a hypnotic sphere — but certain impressions are hard to communicate.)
Owing to a sort of restlessness which had troubled even my sleep, I got up at dawn on the great day. I didn’t want to miss the arrival of those who were going to dedicate a whole week of their lives to those spiritual gymnastics without, however, mortifying their flesh since the famous cook had preceded them. I’d been over-impatient but I didn’t regret it. I hadn’t watched the dawn like that, from my bedroom window, for at least twenty years. In all that time I may have witnessed the odd one from a plane — but that’s not the same. I stood for a while at the window enjoying the total and perfect harmony between nature and my senses. And I was seized by the desire to paint. A desire I promptly resisted for fear of distorting, of disrupting — in short, of failing. Because my desire was obviously superficial, more or less academic, in other words commonplace — the desire of someone who, not knowing how to paint, or knowing without being a real painter, sees a natural scene, a landscape, a particular disposition of objects in space and in light and says: ‘that ought to be painted!’ Which is precisely the most superficial and academic eulogy of nature and simultaneously the best way to debase and degrade painting which, for me at least, is about everything that ought not to be painted. Moreover it was a false desire, as I knew at the very moment I experienced it. I knew because I had cold feet; and ever since I’d read that quip of Voltaire’s, that to paint well one must have warm feet, though he was referring to English painters (and I might have applied it satisfactorily to Bacon and Sutherland), I’ve taken it into account and kept a close check on it. The pictures I’ve painted with cold feet are the worst — which doesn’t prevent them from being the most highly appreciated by critics and collectors. And I’d painted enough with cold feet really to want to paint one while I felt free, no longer bound to my profession, to the market, exhibitions, money, fame. Even if, alas, I owed my freedom to the fact that I’d got all these things already: a lot of fame, a lot of money, exhibitions galore, an ever rising market value, a profession which enabled me to spew out two or three paintings a day. With cold feet, of course. Those I painted when my feet were warm — not many nowadays — I kept for myself. That is for a later and juster fame. But quite frankly I’m not particularly concerned with posthumous fame.
However I felt totally free. Even from painting. Or rather (since I’m on the subject this might be the moment to try and get things absolutely clear), this kind of flight, this illusion of freedom existed only to create a break, a breathing space before returning to painting with warm feet — according to the wise Voltairean precept. An impossible return. And I told myself as much in fits and starts — I’d go on painting a great many paintings with cold feet and a few, a very few with warm ones. But what goes on inside us is always horribly complicated. And we always delude ourselves most convincingly, or try to, when disillusionment appears most obvious and imminent.
So I stood a while at the window. Enjoying the total and perfect harmony etc…. Then I took a very hot bath, to warm my feet and thus put them out of my mind. And indeed I emerged from my bath invigorated. I shaved, brushed my hair, dressed. And went downstairs.
There was a lot of coming and going in the entrance hall. The staff was vastly increased. And also the priests—I counted seven new ones circulating busily. Too much confusion. And I went out on to the esplanade where an array of deck chairs had been set out — all vacant but distended and imprinted by the bodies they had cradled and appearing to have spontaneously broken out of the ranked order imposed on them to gather in groups. They recalled, on account too of the colours — natural wood and widely striped blue and red canvas — some early de Chirico. I entered into the picture — anyone looking out of one of the windows would have taken me for a mannequin abandoned on a chair (I experience the paintings of others more than my own — especially the work of those painters most different from me).
The esplanade, as I think I mentioned earlier, was vast. Besides the space occupied by the chairs there was ample parking and turning space for the many cars that would arrive. But it was nine before the first arrived.
The first four followed each other closely. As the first drew up in front of the hotel, Don Gaetano materialized on the doorstep. But perhaps he’d been there all the time. From the car a Bishop emerged. And a Bishop emerged from each of the three others. Once they were all gathered together I noticed that one of the three wore a red skull-cap instead of a lilac one. A Cardinal. I identified him, not very respectfully, I admit, thanks to a verse of Belli’s: ‘he took off the black and put on the red’ — about a police patrol breaking into a brothel where the sergeant in command finds himself face to face with an austere looking priest who, removing his black skull-cap and replacing it with a red one, turns into a Cardinal. To the sergeant’s intense embarrassment.
A Prince of the Church. And in consequence about a dozen motorcycles, with as many policemen one foot on the ground bestriding them, filled the esplanade with their din, drowning the voices of Cardinal, Bishops and Don Gaetano. These seemed to be exchanging greetings and jokes. Don Gaetano as usual in his cassock; the other four in dark grey suits, dark grey pectorals on which the silver crucifix stood out, and shiny starched collars. And skull-caps. None of the four seemed to have a distinct personality. Two looked like peasants and two like bureaucrats. The cardinal was a bureaucrat — of the relentless, hardboiled kind. Had they removed their skull-caps it was Don Gaetano at a guess who should have been the Cardinal — the others would have been parish priests, two from the city, two from the country. Despite his attitude of filial devotion, of gaiety and at times of mirth, Don Gaetano maintained a detachment, a dignity, an authority which aroused my deepest admiration. A Cardinal? He might have been the Pope himself.
The motorcyclists departed in a flurry of noise. In the unexpected silence I heard the Cardinal praise the beauty and magnificence of the Hotel. Don Gaetano, so it seemed to me, glanced in my direction with a wink of pitying irony — for the poor Cardinal who should have known, and didn’t, what true beauty and magnificence were. Then he said: ‘Eminence …’ and led the little bunch of dignitaries into the hotel.
I’d been so intent on trying to hear what the Cardinal, the Bishops and Don Gaetano were saying that I hadn’t noticed the arrival of the other cars. Nearly all with uniformed chauffeurs, therefore company or ministerial cars. Those who emerged must have been Ministers, Undersecretaries, General Directors, Chairmen, Vice-Presidents. Some however were driven by women. It didn’t take me long to conclude that these were wives bringing their husbands so as to take back the car. One of them struck my fancy — not precisely beautiful (but I’ve never liked precisely beautiful women — I only married one and left her), but tall and shapely, intelligent looking, ironic, something unrestrained, impatient in her movements, her smile, the glint in her eye, as though she were about to burst into a great shout of freedom, a flurry, almost a flight of rapture. And while her husband opened the boot and took out his suitcases, she talked volubly. And her voice rang in my ears like an invitation, as if somehow in reminding her husband not to catch cold, not to over-eat, to put on his sweater in the evening and take his pills at mealtimes, she was telling me (since she had noticed and possibly identified me): I’m leaving this fool, this swine, this swindler, and for a week I’ll be free, free, free … And while I was decoding her message she eyed me, amused, languid, defiant and determined, confirming it. Briefly, I was tempted to follow her or, more practically, to ask her for a lift into town, in front of her husband who would have benefited from a small dose of anxiety concerning his wife — if he was capable of such a thing — in view of the exercises he was about to undertake. But I watched her leave without moving — an absent-minded kiss to her husband, a last glance at me, her legs well exposed as she closed the car door. And indeed, someone was probably already waiting for her — at last a week all to ourselves … But for a while I cherished the illusion that for me she’d abandon anyone else.
The esplanade was now packed with cars and little piles of suitcases and bags. Porters came and went agitated and sweating. But they were obviously incapable of discerning the status of the arriving and waiting guests, so that some of these were hailing them and complaining in a tone of voice which implied: the cases you’re taking before mine are those of my Vice-Chairman. Whereas I’m a Chairman and I should have precedence even if I arrived after him — or words to that effect. But apart from such isolated manifestations of bad temper directed at the porters, the atmosphere was one of easy, unreserved conviviality — exclamations of surprise, embraces, handshakes, bantering abuse. At the arrival of a Minister the jolly camaraderie subsided — there was a silent eddying towards his car like metal filings towards a magnet. Likewise for another three or four whom I failed to identify. But when Don Gaetano suddenly appeared that eddying which had converged upon the Minister and the other unidentified personalities was now directed towards him — but halting a good metre away from him in a semi-circle. And it seemed that in this semi-circle the order of precedence for kissing his hand was rigorously maintained. Don Gaetano acknowledged everyone, recalling with each some detail concerning his function or his family or the state of his health. And everyone was delighted to have been thus recognized and distinguished. But always, in whatever Don Gaetano said or did there was an echo, a hint of mockery — which clearly no one in that herd gathered around him was capable of noticing. And I noticed, and this enchanted me. Because they seemed, that refined mockery, that subtle scorn, to bear witness to a kind of understanding, of complicity between him and me — and because he represented, if older and wiser and more accomplished, the ideal to which I aspired.
