Stone's Fall (56 page)

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 practises. 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 overoptimistic 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.”

“How do you know that?”

“Ah.” Marangoni smiled, touching his nose. “There is little secret here, as you will discover.”

“You would consider him insane?”

“Cort, or the spectral Venetian?”

“Both.”

“If the Venetian exists at all, then both, naturally. Thinking yourself immortal is not unusual, of course, and persuading yourself that you are someone else is common enough. I have encountered Napoleon on many occasions, as well as princes and children of popes, all snatched away at infancy. Persuading yourself you are a
city
is most odd. I have never encountered such a thing. I rather hope he does exist. I would love to meet him.”

“And Cort?”

“A hypersensitive young man, in my opinion. He is picking up the unhealthiness of the city, but instead of responding in a rational manner, he embodies it in his fantasies. This Venetian is the degenerate city which killed his mother and it exerts an unhealthy fascination for him. He should leave immediately. I have told him this, but he refuses to listen. He says it would be cowardly, that he has a job to do here. But it will cost him his sanity, if he is not careful. Especially if he continues to keep his wife with him.”

Marangoni was no gentleman. It was bad enough, surely, for a doctor to discuss a man who was a patient in such terms, but to cast aspersions on Mrs. Cort as well I found deeply offensive. I think he saw the look on my face.

“Oh, you chivalrous English,” he said, with a very faint air of contempt. “Very well, I should not have said that. But Mrs. Cort I find to be—”

“That is no doubt because you do not appreciate refinement and character in women,” I said, “being used only to Italians.”

Still the wretched man did not take offence. “That may be so; certainly they are very different in manner. Though not so different in nature. You have met the lady? I think you must have.”

“I found her charming.”

“So she is. So she is. Well, I stand corrected. You no doubt know her better than I, a mere Italian, ever could.”

I found his conversation somewhat alarming. I am used now to capitalists such as myself being detested for their pitiless fixity of purpose, their ruthlessness at the exploitation of others. Perhaps we are so, but I must say that I have never encountered a capitalist half as pitiless as one of those doctors of the mind. Should they ever be allowed to put their ideas into practise, they would be fearsome. The conviction that their method makes them unchallengeable, that their conclusions are always correct, leads them to lay claim to a remarkable authority over others. Capitalists want the money of their customers, the bodies of the workers. Psychiatrists want their souls.

Fortunately Marangoni was tiring of the subject as well as I, and out of politeness turned to questioning me about my trip. “You have met some people already, I believe. It was Mr. Longman who mentioned you to me.”

“A few,” I said. “And I am about to move to new accommodation, in the palazzo of the Marchesa d’Arpagno.”

“Oh ho!” he said with a smile. “Then you must be a special person. She is fussy in her choice. What did you say or do to win her over?”

“It’s my aura, apparently. Or the size of my wallet.”

Marangoni laughed. “Oh, yes. I’d forgotten. The Marchesa is a seer.”

I looked at him.

“Really, she is. The spirits positively queue up to chat to her. It must be like bedlam in her sitting room sometimes. She has the Gift. The Eye. That certain spiritual something which means she is—totally crazy.”

“Another one? You alarm me.”

“Oh, she’s harmless enough. Remarkably so. Naturally, I scented a customer when I first came across her. But I was disappointed. You will note that apart from a few matter-of-fact comments, she is entirely normal.”

“And that means…”

“Clearly she is insane. It is only a matter of time before the madness bursts forth and becomes more explicit. At the moment, though, she is quite normal in her behaviour. Apart from the spirits, of course. You will, I imagine, be summoned to take part in a séance at some stage. Everyone is. But you won’t have any excuse for not attending. So you’ll have to go. Do you believe in spirits? Ghosts? Auras? Things that go bump in the night or under the table?”

“I don’t think so,” I said.

“A shame. But she won’t mind. If you express your doubts, all she does is smile at you in a pitying manner. Blind fools, who do not see the obvious even when it is in front of their very eyes. It is your loss, not hers, if you cut yourself off from the pleasures of the astral planes and the higher wisdom they offer.”

“A bit like alienists, then,” I said with some relief.

“Exactly like alienists,” he agreed jovially. “What is more, the Marchesa doesn’t talk like some charlatan. This is what makes her so fascinating. Her madness is entirely logical and reasonable. So much so that she is very convincing. Mrs. Cort seems to have fallen under her spell, for example. I use the word ’spell’ metaphorically, you understand.”

“Do you believe all women are insane? You must know some who are not so?”

Marangoni considered the question, then shook his head. “Taking all things as equal, no. All women are insane at one level or another. It is merely a question of when—or if—the insanity will manifest itself.”

“So if I come across a woman who is entirely normal and balanced…”

“Then she merely has not yet manifested the signs of madness. The longer she remains in a state of apparent normality, the more violent is the underlying insanity. I have wards full of them. Clearly, some women hide the symptoms all their lives, and the insanity never rises to the surface. But it is always latent.”

“So being sane is a proof of insanity? In women, I mean?”

“I fear so, alas. But I am not dogmatic on the subject, unlike some of my colleagues. Tell me,” he continued, abruptly changing the subject, “is money still your main occupation in life?”

“Why do you say that?”

He shrugged. “It was always obvious that you were never going to be one of the poor of this world,” he replied with a smile. “You were always too watchful. If I said ’calculating’ you would take it as an insult, which I do not intend. So let us say too aware, and too intelligent.”

“Yes. Let us say that then. I do have some financial interests.”

“Which you are not pursuing here?”

“No.”

“I see.” He smiled again, which I found annoying. There is something acutely irritating about men whose expressions depict a sort of omniscience, who pretend to be able to read the minds of others. “I never thought of you as a man for holidays.”

“It is time to think again then. Although you are right, in general. My inactivity does weigh on me a little.”

“But you are staying here.”

I nodded. “Perhaps there are other things to do in Venice than look at buildings.”

“Such as?”

I shrugged. I was beginning to find him irritating. “Build them?”

“I see you are not minded to say more,” he said after he had considered my face for a few moments. “You leave me to work it out for myself.”

“Precisely.”

“Very well. Give me a week, and a few meals together, and we will see. If I guess your purpose, you buy me a meal. If I fail, I buy you one.”

“Agreed,” I said with a faint smile. “And if you will excuse me, I must see to my packing. The Marchesa expects me by six.”

“Willingly. I must go as well. I have a new patient who was brought in this morning.”

“Interesting?”

He sighed. “Not in the slightest.”

CHAPTER
7

Until I made that response to Marangoni about building, I had not thought at all seriously about the vague ideas that had passed through my mind. It was only because of this chance conversation that it became a fixed purpose; a small project that might give me occupation, and end the purposeless wandering that I was beginning to find disturbing.

To that end, I needed to find an appropriate site. A preferred option would have been to buy some ground in the centre of the city and demolish all the buildings to make way for a modern and efficient structure. I soon learned, however, that such a proposal was unlikely to come to anything. Permission had to be gained from the council for any work of that nature, and the local government had the instinct to oppose anything which smacked of the modern. Permission to demolish half a dozen palaces on the Grand Canal (however magnificent the result) was unlikely and, in any case, the initial cost of purchasing the site would have been prohibitive.

Nonetheless, I hired a gondola for the next morning and instructed the rower to go wherever he wished. It was a pleasant enough pastime, idling along broad canals and narrow ones, watching the water carriers fill the wells, the faggot vendors selling wood, all the business of the city carried out in the strange way that must evolve in a city drowned in water. Listening to the echoes of voices against tall narrow buildings, made slightly sharper and more diffuse by the effect of the water, began to bring back to me the mood of odd peacefulness that had overcome me my first evening, and which was so opposite to my supposed purpose.

In brief, I indulged in all sorts of fantastical notions. This happened time and again during my stay. My wonder was, not that the citizens of Venice were now so idle, but rather that they had once been sufficiently energetic to raise themselves from the lagoon, and turn their wooden huts on mudflats into the great metropolis that had once ruled the Mediterranean. Had the Venetians of old been more like me in mood then, they would still be paddling about in silt up to their knees.

I write as I remember, and give some sense of my mood that fine September morning, as the gondola slowly turned a corner, and I saw Mrs. Cort walking along the side of the canal we had now entered. It was easy to recognise her; she looked and walked in a way which meant she could only be English—more upright, and with more bearing than Venetian women, who do not discipline their bodies into deportment.

On top of that, she was dressed in the same manner as when I had met her, eschewing a top coat in honour of the fine weather, and wearing only a hat to guard her fine white skin from the sun. I called out to her and gestured to the gondolier to pull over to the side, where there were some landing steps.

“I have been to the pharmacist for some cough medicine,” she said once we had exchanged greetings. It did not matter what she said. I noticed that her eyes were bright and met mine when we spoke. She stood closer to me than I would have expected from a woman I hardly knew.

“And is this your son?” I asked, gesturing at an infant in the arms of a stocky peasant woman standing a few feet away. The child looked sick and was whimpering. The other woman—a nurse or nanny of some sort—rocked it gently in her arms and sang a crooning song in its ears.

“Yes. That is Henry,” she said, scarcely giving him a glance. “He is very like his father.”

The conversation faltered. I was pleased to see her, but had nothing to say. That easy talk which passes between men, or couples of long acquaintance, was not possible. Neither of us wanted to go on our way, but neither could think how to prolong the interview.

“And you are seeing the sights?” she said eventually.

“After a fashion, although I do believe I have been down this canal three times already. Or perhaps not; they all begin to look the same after a while.”

She laughed lightly. “I can see you have not benefited from Mr. Longman’s expertise,” she said. “Otherwise you would know that that house on the corner,” she gestured behind me, and I turned to look at a nondescript pile that looked long deserted, “was once the home of the lady with the skull.”

She smiled at me as I looked again. “Do you want to hear the story as he told it to me?”

“By all means.”

“I do not know when it happened,” she said. “Most stories in Venice have no date to them. But, a long time ago, a man was walking down an alley a short way from here. He was thinking of the woman he was about to marry, and his happy thoughts were disturbed by a beggar, asking for money. He was angry, and kicked the man for his insolence, and caught him on the head with his boot. The beggar rolled over into the canal, struck dead, and the young man ran off.

“The wedding day came and eventually the bride and groom were alone in their bedchamber. There was knock on the door. The man, cursing, opened it and saw a horrible apparition. A corpse, flesh dropping from its bones. Eyes staring from their sockets. Teeth protruding where the flesh had been eaten away by fish.

“The man screamed, as you might expect.

“‘Who are you? What do you want?’ the man cried.

“‘I am the beggar you killed. I want burial,’ the apparition replied.

“Again the man ignored the request. He slammed the door, and bolted it. When he had recovered enough he went back upstairs to the bedchamber.

“But when he walked in the room, he turned pale and fainted.

“‘What is the matter, my love?’ cried the wife.

“She got up, and began to walk towards him. But as she passed a mirror, she turned to look at herself.

“Her face was white and skull-like, the hair torn out, the eyes staring from their sockets, the teeth protruding where the fish had eaten away the flesh.”

She was talking ever more softly, and I found myself moving closer to her as she told this hideous, fascinating fairy story. When she ended, I was close enough to feel her breath on my face. She looked openly and frankly at me.

“And the moral of the story is, never be unkind to beggars,” I said.

“No,” she replied softly. “The moral is, do not marry a man who is cruel and heartless.”

I came to myself and stepped back. What had just taken place? I did not know, but it was as though a charge of energy had surged through me; I was in a state of shock. Not the story, but the teller, and the manner of the telling.

It was the way her eyes fixed on me that caused the true shock, so far beyond what was correct, and to which I responded. Or didn’t; I initiated it, perhaps. Perhaps she responded to me.

“Now I feel dissatisfied to travel so ignorantly,” I said.

“Perhaps you need a guide.”

“Perhaps I do.”

“You should ask my husband,” she said, and registered the disappointment in my face. “I’m sure he would allow me to show you the sights of the city.”

Again those eyes.

“Do I need to ask his permission?”

“No,” she said with a touch of contempt in her voice.

“I do not wish to trouble you. I’m sure you are very busy.”

“I could spare you some time, I’m sure. I would enjoy it. My husband is always telling me I should do more out of the house. He knows there is little of my own here, not that he does anything except apologise.”

I could not get the encounter out of my mind, then or later. It grew in me, like my feeling for the city itself, without me even noticing. But I was aware that what I saw and did was blending with my thoughts, almost to the point of not being able to tell one from the other. Although I wished to clear my head, I also wished the strange state to continue. It was luxurious to surrender to the least impulse, to allow any thought to pass through my head, to abandon that careful discipline I had steadily cultivated. To be other than myself, in fact.

I needed company for distraction, but I also wished to discover more about Louise Cort. What was her history, her nature? Why had she talked to me in such a fashion? What sort of person was she?

I had only met her on two occasions by this point, and only for a few minutes in all. Not enough to explain her place in my thoughts; certainly no other woman—and by then I had met many more charming, more beautiful, more notable in all respects—had such a rapid effect on me. For the most part I had forgotten them the moment they had passed from my sight.

I found my way to the restaurant a few days later as I again needed company to fill my hours; the Marchesa was perfectly happy to provide food, at an extravagant extra cost, but her cook was dreadful and she insisted on dining in state in the old dining room. Just her and me, at opposite ends of a very long table. Conversation was difficult, to say the least, and the predominant sound was of clinking cutlery and the noise she made as she ate, for she had false teeth which did not fit very well and which needed to be sucked back into place after every bite.

She would also, at least once every mealtime, get a dreamy look on her face, which I soon enough learned was the sign of a imminent visitation from the Other Side. On top of that there was no gas lighting; the only illumination after dusk came from candles, and the great multicoloured chandelier in my sitting room—though large enough to hold several dozen candles—had not, I thought, been lit since long before the extinction of the Serenissima. It was blackened with use, and covered with dust from disuse. It was dark and impossible to read after dinner.

Strangely, the person I most looked forward to meeting again was Macintyre. I found him curious, and my interest was heightened by the desire to discover what, exactly, a Lancashire engineer was doing in a city so far away from any industry. So I engaged him in conversation, ignoring Cort and Drennan, who were the only other people there that evening.

It was not easy, as conversation was a skill Macintyre had not mastered. Either he did not reply at all, or answered in monosyllables, and as he ate, he drank, which made his words difficult to understand. All my attempts to indicate an interest, to ask careful questions, met with grunts or noncommittal replies.

Eventually I lost patience with him. “What are you doing in this city?” I asked, bluntly and quite rudely.

Macintyre looked at me, and gave a faint smile. “That’s better,” he said. “If you want to know something, ask. Can’t stand these manners, skirting round things all the time.”

“I didn’t wish to be rude.”

“What’s rude about curiosity? About things or people? If you want to know something, ask. If I don’t want to say, I’ll tell you straight out. Why should I find that rude?”

He pulled a pipe from his pocket, disregarding the fact that no one else had finished their meal, filled it swiftly and lit it, blowing thick clouds of pungent, choking smoke into the air like a steam train preparing for a long journey. Then he pushed his plate away and put both elbows on the table.

“So how did you end up here?”

“By chance. I work for hire, shipyards, mainly. I served my apprenticeship with Laird’s in Liverpool.”

“Doing?”

“Everything. Eventually I worked with a little group of people designing different sorts of propellers. By the time I left I was in charge of the entire design office.”

He said this with pride, almost defiance. He must have been used to expressions of blank indifference from the sort of people he encountered in Venice, who considered designing a propeller as an accomplishment of no significance whatsoever.

I wished to ask more. Laird’s was an impressive company; its ships set the standards for others to match. But he was already standing up. “That’s too long a story for tonight,” he said gruffly. “If you’re interested, I might tell you. Come to my workshop sometime, if you’ve a mind to hear it. But I must go and see to my daughter.”

“I would like that very much,” I replied. “Perhaps I could take you for lunch.”

“No restaurants where I work,” he said, but he was easier in his speech now; the roughness of resentment had eased off him. His final parting was almost civil.

“Well, you are the privileged one,” Drennan drawled as we both stood to put on our coats after the meal. The days were still lovely, but the evening air was now getting steadily cooler. “What have you done to win his favour? No one has ever been allowed in that workshop of his.”

“Maybe I just showed interest? Or perhaps I was just as rude as he, and he was drawn to a kindred spirit.”

Drennan laughed, a pleasant laugh, easy and warm. “Maybe so.”

Nor should I have been surprised by Macintyre’s workshop, when I arrived there the next day, somewhat late due to the difficulty of finding its location. The part of Venice where he had settled was not only unfashionable amongst the Venetians, I am prepared to wager that not one tourist in a thousand has ever ventured into it.

He had rented a workshop in the boatyards around San Nicolo da Tolentino, a quarter in which all pretensions to elegance fade away to nothing. This is not the poorest part of the city, but it is one of the roughest. Many of the inhabitants, I am told, have never wandered even as far as San Marco, and live in their quarter as though it is a world of its own, entirely independent of the rest of humanity. I gather (though my own lack of skill prevented verification) that they even speak in a way which is distinctly different from their fellow citizens, and that the forces of law and order rarely penetrate, and then only with some trepidation.

Their business is boats; not the grand seafaring vessels which were once the pride of Venice, and which were constructed on the other side of the city, but the vast numbers of small craft on which the entire lagoon depends. Need has produced whole species of boats and in a manner which would have satisfied Darwin: specialised to the point where they can do one thing, and one thing only, dependent absolutely on their conditions of existence for their survival, vulnerable to changes which can wipe out an entire class of construction. Some prosper, some fail; thus it is in life, in business and in Venetian shipping as well.

The galley has gone, vanquished by the sailing ship, just as the sailing ship is inevitably falling victim to the superiority of the steamer. Many have vanished even in my lifetime, but their names live on. The gondola, but also the gondolino, the fregatta, the felucca, the trabaccolo, the costanza, all of these still survive, but their days doubtless are numbered. Their passing will be a loss only to the aesthetic sense of those who do not have to operate them, for how much better is a steamer at nearly all things!