A. Yehoshua - The Retrospective

Carefully he takes her wrinkled hand, fragile as a sparrow, and briefly explains his request and its background.

“Would you like to go up to your room to see the picture, or should we ask that it be brought down here?” she says.

He hesitates, but decides for the room. If the picture was removed from the wall, defects might be discovered in the frame or glass that would have to be fixed before it could be re-hung by his bed. He would also feel uncomfortable hearing the explication of a risqué painting in the hotel lobby, amid the guests coming and going. But as they step out of the elevator on the fourth floor, he suddenly realizes he should warn Ruth of their arrival, even though the visitor is an old woman. He knocks on the door and waits, then inserts the key in the lock.

The dark room looks the same as he had left it, disorderly and unventilated, stuffy with the smell of sleep, and Ruth is wrapped in her blanket like an embryo. This is strange, even worrisome. Sleeping this long is rare for her. Without turning on the light he kneels by the bed and gently touches her face, to wake her and let her know that a visitor is joining them, an art expert, who has meanwhile slipped into the room with feline agility and now faces the reproduction, turning on the little picture lamp affixed to the wall.

The dim light is enough to awaken the sleeper, who opens her eyes and requires a moment to recall where she is. In confusion, she smiles at her companion, who returns an embarrassed grin as he gestures at the old woman with the magnifying glass, scouring the picture for the signature of the artist.

“The picture? Why?”

“To explain the background of the painting to us… the story behind it… who the old man is, and why he is nursing at the breast.”

“The old man?”

“The prisoner, the one kneeling on the ground.”

“The prisoner?”

Has that memory vanished entirely? Can it be that no chord was struck as she stood and stared at the picture that morning, then went back to sleep? Had she truly banished from her mind her little artistic mutiny, to erase the humiliation of abandonment by her lover? Or was she only pretending, to test Moses? With genuine puzzlement he studies the actress, the outline of her breasts beneath her thin cotton nightgown inspiring both compassion and desire. “I’ll explain later,” he whispers, “but say hello, because this woman is an art expert who has made a special trip.”

The actress is bewildered and amused at the sight of the expert whom Moses has parachuted into a room cluttered with clothes and blankets, but she doesn’t get out of bed, merely props herself up, turns on the reading light, and nods a greeting to the elderly white-haired woman, who gives a little bow in return. From the gleam in her eye it appears she has already identified the artist.

“Matthias Meyvogel,” she declares, “no doubt about it. Seventeenth century, born in Zeeland — not New Zealand — a Dutchman who worked in Rome; very little is known about him. From the painting he would appear to be a great admirer of Rembrandt, from whom he copied the sitting position of the prisoner Cimon, and the strong light on his naked back—”

“Just a minute, madam,” implores Moses, still unnerved by the expert’s resemblance to his mother, “please slow down. You say ‘Cimon,’ as if I’m supposed to know who that is, but first of all, what is the act of charity here? And in what way is it Roman?”

“Oh, do forgive me, it didn’t occur to me that you had never heard of Caritas Romana. For it is a truly wonderful and important story that has inspired dozens of writers and artists, if not hundreds.”

“An Italian story?”

“Not Italian, Roman. Rome is greater than Italy, and the original story comes from ancient Rome, one of the thousand stories published in A.D. 30 by Valerius Maximus in his collection Facta et Dicta Memorabilia —in other words, ‘acts and sayings that must be remembered.’ The story is about a young woman named Pero who fed her father from her own breast.”

“Her father? The old man, this prisoner, is her father? ”

“Of course, he’s only her father,” the art historian says to calm the Israeli who thought the suckling man was a stranger. “He is Cimon, and he was sentenced to die by starvation, so his daughter came to him in secret and nursed him so he wouldn’t die. In the end, the jailers caught her, but they were so impressed by her daring and unique devotion that they had mercy on the father and set him free. That’s the kernel of the story, which inspired many paintings back in ancient times. For example, when they dug Pompeii out of the ashes of Vesuvius, they found a fresco with this motif. Valerius Maximus himself admitted that such paintings were more powerful than his story. People stop and stare in amazement at this picture — they cannot take their eyes off it, they see it come alive. Even you, sir, a citizen of the twenty-first century, were so agitated by the painting that you sent for me.”

“But is this a copy of an original painting from ancient Rome?”

“No, surely not. The story enticed many important painters over the centuries, and each one expressed it in his own way. Rubens, who painted it at least twice; Caravaggio, Murillo, Pasinelli, and a great many others before them and after.”

“Before them — you mean the Middle Ages?”

“No, in the Middle Ages the motif almost disappears, but it was revived and flourished during the Renaissance and Baroque periods.”

“Maybe because of the overt eroticism.”

“Precisely so. In the medieval period, they questioned the honesty of the compassion and mercy of the daughter nursing her father. Perhaps she was exploiting his misery, in an oedipal fashion, I mean…”

She bursts into hearty laughter.

“Oedipal?” Moses chuckles. “What did they know in the Middle Ages about the Oedipus complex?”

“They didn’t know the term, but they felt the essence of it, the same longing. After all, the truth does not need a label in order to be real. Therefore the eroticism tangled up in this act of kindness deterred, and perhaps frightened, the artists of the Middle Ages, as much as it aroused artists of the Renaissance and Baroque and later, into the nineteenth century. Yet each one dealt with the erotic aspect in a different fashion, depending on his personality, his natural inclinations, and his courage vis-à-vis his surroundings.”

“For instance?”

“In many paintings, the artists made sure that the daughter looked off to the side, so as not to see the face of her nursing father, out of respect for him or out of shame or not to reveal other motives, his and perhaps hers too.”

“Hers?”

“Hers too. Why not? We are talking about human beings who are alive and complicated, not figures made of cardboard. But in some other paintings, such as the one hanging here, or one by Rubens, for example, one sees that Pero is unabashedly studying the face of the old man she is nursing. It all depends, of course, on the father’s situation.”

“In what sense?”

“If he is depicted as feeble and dying, she is allowed to look at him directly, because it is clear to the viewer that his approaching death neutralizes any erotic intent on either side. The daughter may therefore permit herself a gentle gaze, or even support the head of the dying man. But when the father is strong and muscular, as in your painting, or one by Rubens, she must be very careful. Look, for example, sir, at Cimon here. Despite the baldness and the beard, I wouldn’t take him for more than fifty, and a man like that is able to desire and take pleasure, is he not?”

“Why not.”

“And therefore, when such men are being nursed, it is important that they be tied up, either their feet or, usually, their hands, like the man in your picture.”