Iain Pears - The Dream of Scipio

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 back 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.