Iain Pears - Stone's Fall

And this was the person now beaming at me and shaking my hand, leading me to a table in the corner for a chat. It is disconcerting to encounter someone once known, but not seen for several years. At that stage the shock was limited, but still real. Now it is positively a heartache to meet a person I have not seen for thirty or forty years, to see the thinning hair, the stoop, the lines when you expect (no matter how much you realise it cannot be so) the person to look exactly as they did when last seen. And to realise they are as shocked by your appearance as you by theirs.

As we had swapped country, so we also exchanged roles; my surprise at Marangoni's sudden reappearance in my life was so great that I said little. He, in contrast, never stopped talking. We remembered things very differently; he talked of the good fellowship of his days in London, the fine friends he had made, asked about the members of that little group of apprentice rakes – which information I could not provide, as, apart from Campbell, I had cast them off as I had abandoned that way of life, and I have never cared for gossip in any case. Then he began to surprise me.

'I wish I'd liked London more,' he said. 'It is such a dull place.'

'In comparison with Venice?'

He groaned. 'Ah, no. Professionally Venice is interesting, but hardly glittering, alas. No, in comparison to a place like Paris, for example. The English – do forgive me, my friend – are so respectable.'

I was half-minded to be insulted by this, but looked enquiringly instead.

'Take my fellow medical students, for example. In Paris, they live together, and eat together, and all have their shopgirls for mistresses and housekeepers until they qualify or find someone suitable to marry. Their life is their own. In London everyone lives with a landlady, eats every evening some hideous meal she has cooked and goes to church on Sunday. Riotous living consists of getting drunk, and little else.'

'I'm sorry you were disappointed.'

'I wasn't there to enjoy myself; merely to learn and observe. Which I did, with great profit.'

'To learn and observe what?'

'Medicine, as you know. Particularly the science of alienism. I am a doctor of the mind and so it is my business to study people in all their variety. I learned much there, although less than I did in Paris. The group you were attached to was full of instruction.'

I was, as may be imagined, a little offended by this remark; the idea that all the time we were ignoring him, treating him as some insignificant little foreigner, he was, in fact watching and assessing us. A bit like the Marchesa, only more scientific, I hoped. He saw my discomfort and laughed.

'Do not be perturbed. You were the least interesting person there.'

'I do not find that reassuring.'

'But who knows what lurks beneath the surface? I joke. You were by far the most normal of my companions. The others, mind you, were quite fascinating in their many different ways.' He mentioned one man. 'Clear degenerate tendencies, with a pronounced swelling indicating distorted cranial lobes. Certainly a tendency to insanity, erratic judgement and a pronounced attraction to violence.'

'He has just become a Queen's Counsel,' I commented dryly.

'Proves my point, does it not?'

I said nothing. (A few weeks ago, as I write, I discovered my erstwhile acquaintance has been confined to an asylum after a murderous attack on his wife of thirty years. The matter has been kept quiet lest the idea of a complete lunatic in charge of criminal cases – as a judge he became notorious for his infliction of the death penalty – lessens the awful majesty of the law in the public's mind.)

'Alas, I rarely have the opportunity to deal with such intricate cases now,' he said almost wistfully. I was not hugely interested, but asked him of his progress since we had last met. It appeared that Marangoni, his studies in Paris ended, had returned to Milan, where he had briefly worked in an asylum, trying to introduce the best French practices. He had done so well (this was his account, not mine) that he had then been transferred to the Veneto, to embody there the new ideas that unification with Italy represented. He was the emissary of the State, sent to organise the asylums of the city and to corral, bully, persuade and intimidate the insane back to health, using the most up-to-date methods. He was not over-optimistic about his prospects, although gratified by the salary his new employment provided.

'And, lest you think I am being rude about England, I must assure you that in comparison with Venice, it was like being in paradise. Here the insane are still in the hands of the priests, who intone their mumbo-jumbo over them, and pray they will get better and beat them when their prayers are not answered. So you see, I have a big job on my hands. I must fight the insane and the Church simultaneously.'

'Which is worse?'

He waved his hand. 'Do you know, sometimes I can't tell them apart. Degenerates,' he said, as he sipped his drink. 'Little to be done for them except identify, isolate and eliminate. The city is inbred, generation after generation has never even left the lagoon. What you see as a city of unparalleled beauty and untold richness is, in fact, a festering, seeping sore of mental illness. A people weakened and debilitated, incapable of fending for themselves. You have read the history of the city, no doubt, about how it finally fell to Napoleon. It was not Napoleon who conquered this city; it was the steady eating away of the population by degeneration, which stripped it of all ability to resist.'

'And you recommend what, exactly?'

'Oh, if I had my way, I'd ship everyone out.'

'Everyone? You mean the whole city?' I asked slightly incredulously.

He nodded. 'If there is a house with plague in it, you don't adopt half measures, do you? That is what Venice is; a plague city, spreading corruption to all who are in contact with it. We are at last trying to build a nation here in Italy, we need a forceful, healthy population that will multiply and meet the challenges of modern life. We cannot take the risk of having a place like this undermining all our efforts, sapping our vitality with contaminated stock.'

He smiled as he saw my surprise at his remarks. 'I say that so forcefully because I know no one is going to listen to me. No one has the will to take the necessary measures. So, instead, I do what I can and must, case by case.'

'I hate to challenge the opinion of a scientist, but I have seen many idlers in London and Paris. And noted no tendency here to violence.'

He nodded sagely. 'There are degenerates everywhere. Particularly in Europe, which is crumbling. Do you know, one eminent doctor has estimated that up to a third of the entire population might be afflicted?'

'And you would like to get rid of all of them?'

'Not possible,' he replied, clearly suggesting he would like nothing better. 'What I am trying to do is identify them. If they could be stopped from breeding, for example, then eventually the problem would diminish on its own. As for the violence, don't be fooled. Their natural lassitude makes them seem passive enough, but when something snaps they behave like beasts. What is more, the city attracts more such people, every day they arrive, and find the place congenial. There is a man called Cort, for example—'

'I have met Mr Cort,' I said, no doubt a little stiffly. 'I found him very pleasant.'

Marangoni smiled in a slightly superior fashion. 'That is why there are alienists,' he said. 'To spot things the untrained eye cannot perceive. Mr Cort is a man on the edge, and could topple over into the ravine of madness at any moment. He should never have been sent here. But that's you English all over. He was sent here to toughen him up, I believe the saying is. It may well do the exact opposite, and finish him off. He is having hallucinations, you know. He thinks there is a man following him. And not just any man, oh dear me no. He is being followed by the city itself.'