Anthony Powell - Temporary Kings

‘The Philosophy of Engagement — Obligations of the Writer — the Arts in relation to World Government — all that sort of thing.’

‘Ah-ha, yes. There can be serious sides to such questions, but they are rarely tackled. Now those attending your Conference, do any émigré writers from the USSR, or Balkan countries, turn up there? One would be interested to hear what such people are saying and thinking, especially the Russians. For example how they react to the “thaw”, as people call it. I’ve been looking through a novel called Dr Zhivago . I expect you’ve heard of it. It’s been given a good deal of publicity. I suppose that sort of book, purporting as it does to present the point of view of certain members of a generation very much on their way out, might give a certain amount of satisfaction to expatriate Russians? Those who’ve chosen to dissociate themselves from the great developments taking place in their country. It would gratify them, a book like that, by stilling their self-reproach. Have you come across instances of that? One would be interested to hear.’

‘I haven’t met any émigré Russians at the Conference. I couldn’t swear none are there.’

‘Which again reminds me. There’s a certain Dr Belkin who might have turned up. He visits Venice from time to time. Usually lets me know at the last moment.’

‘Not an émigré?’

‘No, no. Far from it. A man of the soundest views in his own country. He informed me some little while ago he might be looking in on this congress, or one about this time. He enjoys coming to Venice, because he’s devoted to painting. He’s even kind enough to be interested in my own humble brush. Of course my sort of painting is practised comparatively little in Western Europe. Nice of him to include a novice like myself in his survey. He’s been to visit me several times. Naturally we see eye to eye politically.’

‘Somebody else was asking about him.’

‘Belkin has many friends. I do what I can to keep him up to date about books and things. Hold them for him sometimes, if he’s afraid they’ll go astray in the post. That avoids delay in the long run. He admits his own impatience with some of the bureaucracy unavoidable in getting an entirely new system of government working, a revolutionary one. We all have to face that. There’s quite a lot of stuff he prefers to collect personally when he turns up here.’

‘Somebody said they thought he wouldn’t be able to come to the Conference.’

‘Very possibly not. It’s of no great importance. I can hold his stuff for him. I always like to see Belkin. Such a cheerful fellow. Full of ideas. Where does this Conference of yours meet?’

‘Over there on San Giorgio.’

A mist of heat hung over the dome and white campanile, beyond the glittering greenish stretch of water, across the surface of which needles of light perpetually flashed. It was so calm the halcyon’s fabled nest seemed just to have floated by, subduing the faintest tremor of wind and wave. We reached the Gardens, and entered the cool of the lime trees. Tokenhouse made for the enclosure permanently consecrated to the cluster of strange little pavilions, which, every two years, house pictures and sculpture by which each country of the world chooses to be known to an international public.

‘We’ll look at everything. Just to get an idea how low the art of painting has fallen in these latter days of capitalism. You were speaking of the obligations of the artist. I hope someone has pointed out that art has been in the hands of snobs and speculators too long. Indeed, I can guarantee that the only sanctuary from subjectless bric-à-brac here will be in the national pavilions of what you no doubt term the Iron Curtain countries. We will visit the USSR first.’

The white pinnacled kiosk-like architecture of a small building, no doubt dating from pre-Revolutionary times, seemed by its outwardly church-like style to renew the ecclesiological atmosphere that pursued Tokenhouse throughout life. Within, total embargo on aesthetic abstraction proved his forecast correct. We loitered for a while over Black Sea mutineers and tractor-driving peasants. Never able wholly to control a taste for antagonism, even against his own recently voiced opinions, Tokenhouse shook his head more than once over these images of a way of life he approved, here found wanting in executive ability.

‘Don’t think I’m lapsing into aestheticism in complaining that some of these scenes from the Heroic Epoch seem a little lacking in inspiration. Not all of this expresses with conviction the Unity of the Masses. I shall return for a further assessment. Now we will marvel at the subjective inanities you probably much prefer.’

Tokenhouse showed no ill will in exploring the other national selections on view, my own presence giving excuse to examine what, alone, might have caused him to suffer guilt at inspecting at all.

‘Absurd,’ he kept muttering. ‘Preposterous.’

In the French pavilion we came upon Ada Leintwardine and Louis Glober. They were standing before a massive work, seven or eight foot high, chiefly constructed from tin or zinc, horsehair, patent leather and cardboard. Ada was holding forth on its points, good and bad, Glober listening with a tolerant smile. Glober saw us first. ‘Hi.’

As neither of them seemed attached to a party, it was to be supposed they had become sufficiently friendly at the Bragadin palace to arrange a visit to the Biennale together. There was the possibility, a remote one, that both had decided to spend Sunday morning at the Exhibition, run across each other by chance. Ada wore a skirt and carried a guidebook, outer marks of serious sightseeing, but the idea of Glober setting out on his own for such a trip was scarcely credible. Ada’s immediate assumption of the exaggeratedly welcoming manner of one caught in compromising circumstances was not very convincing either. The Biennale was hardly the place for a secret assignation.

‘Why, hullo,’ she said. ‘Everyone seems to have decided to come here today. What fun. We’re having such an argument about the things on show, especially this one. Mr Glober sees African overtones, influenced by Ernst. To me the work’s much more redolent of Samurai armour designed by Schwitters.’

To recognize a potential pivot of Conference gossip, a touch of piquancy, in detection of the pair of them together, was reasonable enough on Ada’s part. Glober’s greeting too, his serenely hearty manner always retaining a certain degree of irony, was seasoned this time with a small injection of deliberately roguish culpability. Nevertheless, their combined acceptance of giving cause for interesting speculation could not be taken at absolute face value. Pretence to an exciting vulnerability was more likely to be demanded by sexual prestige, an implied proposition that something was ‘on’, no more than mutual tribute to each other’s status as ‘attractive people’. That was to take a cool commonsense-inspired view. At the same time, the significance of so rapid a move towards association together was not to be altogether ignored, even if Glober, as playboy-tycoon, was no longer in his first youth; Ada, near-bestseller, mother of twins, alleged to prefer her own sex.

Ada’s pronouncements on the subject of the artefact in front of us, extensive and well informed, continued for some minutes, so there was no immediate opportunity to introduce Tokenhouse. He was contemplating the metal-and-leather framework with unconcealed dislike, dissatisfied, too, at prospect of meeting strangers, particularly an American, representing by his nationality all sorts of political and social attitudes to be disapproved. A pause in Ada’s talk giving opportunity to tell him she was a well-known novelist, also active force in a publisher’s office, so to speak, on the other side of the counter, he showed no awareness of her writing, but grudgingly muttered something about having heard of her husband. When, on the other hand, Glober’s name was announced, Tokenhouse displayed an altogether unexpected remembrance of him. He seemed positively glad to meet Glober again after thirty years.