The Dream of Scipio (14 page)

He wondered about this in only the most superficial fashion. His parents had not been happy; he did not wish to experience the same unhappiness. He met no one who could tempt him. His work and his paintings held his attention more securely. For the most part, these affairs were conducted with decorum; Julien perfected a style of courtly pursuit, loved lavishing expensive dinners and presents and holidays—none of which he could truly afford—on the women he had chosen for his attentions. Even more, he was meticulous in the little details, always noticing clothes, perfumes, the way their hair was set. Nor was this merely a strategy; he could not help noticing such things, and took the greatest pleasure in being in the company of beautiful women.

Throughout these pointless dalliances he was aware of a sense of avoiding something important, and his constant pursuits had less of the sensual and more of the desperate about them. For every time he was charmed or fascinated or smitten, he was made aware once more of part of him that was detached and that stood aside in disdain. He had no idea what he was looking for, except that he always knew that he had once nearly discovered it; that on the hills outside Jerusalem he had come close to unlocking a secret so deeply buried he might well have lived out his entire life without even suspecting its existence. It was why he was more than a little afraid of Julia.

Instead he occupied himself with those whom he could never be close to, or who could never be close to him, diversions high or low who had no interest in either his work or his pleasures. He invariably pursued those who were unattainable, married, or unlikely to regard him as anything other than a temporary entertainment. At one time he spent several months with a woman slightly younger than himself who worked in one of the great department stores that Rome was at last acquiring. When he bade a final farewell, he could not recall a single conversation he had ever had with her, not one remark that had struck him. Afterward he seduced the wife of a notary a decade or so older than he was, listened carefully to her sadnesses and concerns, enjoyed her company, and took an odd pleasure at the necessary secrecy and subterfuge that enlivened an otherwise empty involvement. It was not insensitivity or cruelty that meant that, some months afterward, he could barely remember her name; both were of the moment, and their moment had passed.

He knew, of course, that not loving them was part of the attraction; Julia was the only one to whom he had ever responded in that manner and with her he had held back. But in contrast to all the others, she remained in his thoughts almost daily; he dreamed of her and could recall every word she had ever said to him. Even more, he could imagine whole conversations he had never had, but knew what she would say nonetheless.

He welcomed the arrival in Rome of her father, for he brought news of Julia, and also provided a good dinner and sympathized with his passions for paintings and ruins. The conversations they had were delightful and fitted in perfectly with the Roman life that Julien had fashioned for himself. Indeed, the sojourn in Rome ruined him. He went there as a bright star, destined for a glittering career; he left it almost a dilettante, unwilling to settle down, determined that the drudgery of teaching would never claim his soul. Rome has destroyed many a character; in the period 1924 to 1927, it claimed Julien’s as well.

An alternative explanation: During this period the impact of the war finally swept over him, and accounted for the sleepless nights, the distraction, the refusal of what was expected. He became dissatisfied and as eager to embrace new experiences as, in the previous few years, he had shunned them entirely. But the frivolity masked the continued seriousness that showed up in his work; the sheer volume of notes he took in this period, squeezed in between the meals and the excursions, the elegantly empty conversations and the charming women. For Julien had seen into the darkness and felt in himself what could happen.

He dreamed of it still, a face he had seen only for a fraction of a second as a flare lit up the area around, and the German soldier turned. He remembered the look of foolish concern as they stared at each other, neither knowing what to do next. And Julien had reacted first; he had been on patrol, his nerves were frayed, while the other had only just come on duty and was slower. A slight frown, the impression that Julien was behaving badly, rudely, when the bayonet went into his stomach. And then nothing else at all; the rest was in total darkness; Julien heard him fall, remembered pulling the bayonet out and ramming it in again and again. More than anything, he remembered the satisfaction. He remembered that he had continued to stab long after he knew it was necessary, that he did so for pleasure. The moment turned him into a barbarian, exulting in his triumph. That was what he dreamed about, and which so frightened him. He knew how easy it had been to surrender to those feelings. Even worse, his dreams played dreadful games with him, and confused themselves, so that when another flare lit up the landscape and he looked down, he saw the deathly pallor on Julia’s face; the blood flowing from her body in the mud; her lips, moving inaudibly as the rattling of gunfire drowned out her words like a train passing through a station and extinguishing all conversation on the platform. He had killed her, and the nightmare came to him fitfully and without any reason he could discern.

“How is she?” It was the question that he asked as soon as was seemly.

“Splendid,” her father would reply, as he always did, even when the letters she wrote to Julien suggested differently. Julien never discovered whether Bronsen was unaware of her travails, the difficulties she had in painting something she was proud of, or whether he was reluctant to admit that she was not perfect. If the last, the aim was laudably paternal, but even when he first met the Bronsens he considered that it made her life that much more difficult, and in one burst of correspondence he mentioned it. Once a month on average, Julia wrote him a letter, once a month Julien wrote back—long letters on both sides, funny and touching, although neither fully appreciated how much the other waited for them, opened them eagerly, and read them with breathless delight.

“Of course you are right,” came her terse reply. “He wants so much of me and how can I deny him anything? It’s hard to work with someone looking over your shoulder all the time. It would be easier if he thought I was a bad painter, if he discouraged me rather than being entranced by every piece of rubbish I produce. Sooner or later, though, I must find some room . . .”

“She is doing wonderful things, wonderful,” Bronsen said at the dinner in a magnificent restaurant near the Spanish Steps shortly after this letter arrived. “She must keep going with it, I think. I do hope her marriage will not distract her.”

This was said with a slightly arch look, as though he was well aware of the impact the words would have.
What, young man? You presumed to my daughter? Don’t be so ridiculous.
Julien froze for a moment, and had to make an immense effort to try to hide the effect of the news.

“I didn’t know . . .”

“She’s very private, of course. She will marry a diplomat, a man with the greatest potential, from a good family and the sort of connections which will help her immensely with her work. They will be very happy together, I’m sure.”

So that was the escape she had decided upon, Julien thought. He was not quite convinced by the story; her father seemed too satisfied and content, but he wrote some formal congratulations that omitted all the little intimacies of earlier letters. And back, in due course, came an equally formal reply. There their friendship lapsed for some time.

“Perhaps Mussolini will manage something. Who knows?” The conversation continued, as did the dinner, and Julien tried to enjoy himself, or at least to appear to do so. “Everyone else has failed. He has the support of absolutely everyone from cardinals to avant-garde sculptors, so there must be something to him.”

Bronsen had turned to politics now. He had that morning been at a meeting at the finance ministry and two days previously had met the new Italian leader for the first time.

“What did you think?”

Bronsen paused, enjoying himself. Julien had learned that there was no point expecting an even conversation on such topics; Bronsen believed firmly that the person who knew most should dominate. To give him credit, he deferred to Julien on the subject of ruins and paintings, but would brook no interruption on more worldly topics. It made conversations with him sometimes a bit like miniature lectures. “I was impressed,” he said. “Truly I was. He looks like a bit of a fool, but clearly isn’t. He knows what he’s doing and what he expects everyone else to know as well. That clarity is refreshing. It makes a change from the normal squabbling and bickering. Decisions get taken and acted upon. You don’t know how rare that is. God knows this country needs it. France could do with some of the same, I fear. Someone like Mussolini would make mincemeat of the corrupt incompetents we manage to put into power.”

Julien shrugged and looked away. “Politics bores you?” Bronsen said.

Julien smiled. “It does. Apologies, sir, and it is not that I haven’t tried to be fascinated. But careful and meticulous research has suggested the hypothesis that all politicians are liars, fools, and tricksters, and I have as yet come across no evidence to the contrary. They can do great damage, and rarely any good. It is the job of the sensible man to try and protect civilization from their depradations.”

“And how do you do that?”

“Me? In particular?”

“Yes.”

“My contribution is to go into the archives and read old manuscripts. To collect paintings—one of which I would like to show you later on to get your opinion—and try to communicate the importance of such things to other people. To persuade people that politics is the waste product of the ferment of civilization, unavoidable but dangerous if not properly contained. To be a teacher, in fact, which is probably what I will end up doing when I go back to France.”

“That’ll frighten them, no doubt,” Bronsen said with a smile.

“I mean it,” he said, trying to cover his earnestness with a worldly smile. “Civilization needs to be nurtured, cosseted, and protected from those who would damage it, like politicians. It needs constant attention. Once people stop caring, it withers and dies.”

“So? The world burns and you sit in a library?”

“The world did burn,” Julien replied. “I was at the cremation. And it would have been better if I had stayed in a library. One person, at least, would be alive now who is dead, because I wouldn’t have been there to bayonet him.”

Bronsen grunted. “I admire your clarity—though not the experiences which brought it to you. My horizons are bounded by making money, because it is something I know and am good at. I become thereby something of a caricature, which distresses me, but not enough to deter me. I am all too aware that a Jew without money is even more vulnerable than a Jew with money. Not that any of this is so very interesting. I would much rather hear what shape your defense of civilization is taking these days. So tell me. What news from the archives?”

 
 
 
MANY YEARS AFTERWARD, Julia told him that her father had been utterly perplexed by the conversation. “He was so pleased with himself. He had just signed the biggest contract of his life, to build two factories outside Rome and Milan, and was bursting to tell someone. And you never asked what he was doing.”

“I thought I had,” Julien replied. “But he had just dropped into the conversation the little detail about your getting married. I don’t think I was quite so keen to gratify his vanity after that. I did give him a chance to tell me, though. At least, I gave enough hints.”

She laughed. “Oh, dear. Did you never notice that he didn’t understand the meaning of the word ‘hint’? That subtlety was not part of his makeup?”

“I thought it would be rude to ask.”

“And he thought it was rude that you didn’t. Therein lies a lesson for us all.”

“Is this a characteristic you’ve inherited?”

She considered. “I am, perhaps, a little bit more civilized than he is. But only up to a point. You may, perhaps, have realized that now.”

 
 
THE MAIN THINGS preventing Claude Bronsen and Julien Barneuve from becoming close friends were Julia, and their different ages, a form of separation that the ever more egalitarian twentieth century found no means of overcoming. In other respects, a deep and abiding amity should have been possible. But the reserve that attends a span of years, building disparities of experience and vision, was too great. Over the few days following the meal the two saw each other frequently, talked incessantly. They shared many small experiences, and many pleasures. But the distance remained, and in the end Bronsen left to go home and Julien returned to his archives. Insensibly the friendship, otherwise so promising, lapsed because neither of them saw its potential, and because Bronsen was a constant reminder of his now unattainable daughter.

No such possibility even arose with Ceccani and Olivier de Noyen, although each had a genuine though ill-defined affection for the other. There the distance was much too great. It was impossible for a man such as the cardinal to have friends; there was no one with whom he could share. He was bound by the strictness of his relations; disparities of power were evident in all his dealings with his fellow men. Popes and kings required deference and respect, which shrivels friendship like vinegar on the oysters he loved so much he stopped eating them. His fellow cardinals were also his rivals, requiring constant watching. Others were his clients and his servants, and the rest of humanity simply did not exist.

Similarly, the gap between Manlius and Syagrius was too great, because Manlius regarded his secretary as a son, and no true friendship can exist between fathers and sons. Indeed, in the
Dream,
he excluded such relationships specifically from consideration when he touched on the subject of love. There duty took pride of place as the great motor; children fulfilled their fathers’ wishes, ensured that their names and fame continued. There was no room in such a vision for anything more tender. It was because of this that his treatment of the young man was also so harsh and distant, for Syagrius was his opportunity and his reproach.