The Etruscan (47 page)

“Tolerable, perhaps, stranger,” he remarked. “Worse pictures have been painted in tombs, eh? But at the moment I am struggling with a horse which will not assume the shape that I wish. My inspiration is fading, my jug is empty and the dust of the paints is smarting unpleasantly in my throat.”

I looked at him and saw he was not an old man but approximately my own age. I seemed to recognize his glowing face, oval eyes and swollen mouth.

He looked eagerly at the clay bottle which I carried in its straw sheath, joyously raised his square hand with its blunt fingers and exclaimed, “The gods sent you to me at precisely the right moment, stranger. Fufluns has spoken. Now it is your turn to speak. My name is Aruns in honor of the house of Velthuru which is my patron.”

I kissed my hand respectfully and said with a laugh, “Let my capacious clay bottle speak first. Undoubtedly Fufluns sent me to you, although we Greeks call him Dionysus.”

He took the bottle before I even had time to remove the cord around my neck, and tossed the stopper in the corner as though to indicate that I would no longer need it. With incomparable skill he sprayed the red wine into the right place without wasting a drop, wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and sighed in relief.

“Sit, stranger,” he urged me. “You see, the Velthurus were angry at me this morning and accused me of delaying my work. How could nobles understand an artist’s problems? And so they had water thrown over me and had me lifted into a cart with only a jar of Vekunian spring water as provisions. They even said sarcastically that it should provide sufficient inspiration for painting a horse since it had inspired the nymph to recite an eternal incantation for Tarquinia.”

I seated myself on one of the stone benches and he sat beside me with a sigh and wiped a bead of sweat from his brow. From my knapsack I took a thin silver goblet which I carried with me to prove if necessary that I was not a humble man, filled it, splashed a drop onto the floor, drank from it and offered it to him.

He burst into laughter, spat on the floor and said, “Don’t trouble to pretend. A man is known by his face and eyes, not by his clothes or his sacrificial habits. The rich flavor of your wine speaks more for you than the silver goblet. I myself am such a close friend of Fufluns that I would consider the sacrifice of a single drop to him sheer waste.

“So you are a Greek,” he went on without inquiring my name. “We have Greeks in Tarquinia and in Caere they make fairly attractive vases. But it’s best for them not to attempt sacred paintings. Sometimes we compare our designs with such enthusiasm that we break empty dishes over each other’s heads.”

He gestured to the youth who brought a wide roll. Aruns opened it and stared at the well-drawn and colored dancers and wrestlers, musicians and horses. He pretended to show me the traditional designs for the paintings but his eyes and wrinkled forehead betrayed his preoccupation with his unfinished work.

“These are of course helpful,” he said absently, groping for the silver goblet and emptying it without even realizing it. “One knows the right colors without guessing and the apprentice can scratch the outlines of the traditional pictures in advance. But a pattern is helpful only so long as it does not fetter but frees and eases the play of one’s own imagination.”

He thrust the roll of pictures into my lap without even troubling to wind it, rose and stepped to the opposite wall with a metallic graver in his hand. He had under way a picture of a youth holding a race horse by the neck. Most of it was completed, with only the horse’s head and neck and the youth’s hands still missing. When I carefully stepped closer I noticed that their outlines had already been scratched in the soft rock. The master, however, was not pleased with them. Suddenly he began scratching a new outline. The horse’s head rose more expressively, its neck arched more muscularly, it lived. The work took only a moment, then in a frenzy Aruns applied the color to the horse’s head without even following precisely the outline he had just made but improving on the position even as he painted.

Tiring a little, he mixed a light brown paint and effortlessly painted the youth’s hands around the horse’s neck without even troubling to etch the outline. Finally he outlined the arms with black so that the muscles fairly bulged to the blue border of the short-sleeved shirt.

“Well,” he said wearily, “This will have to do for the Velthurus for today. How could an ordinary person understand that I was born, I grew, learned, drew, mixed paints, raged and spent an entire life merely for these few moments? You, stranger, saw that it lasted but a few moments and probably thought, ‘He is very skilled, that Aruns.’ But it is not skill. There are enough and even too many with skill. My horse is eternal and no one has ever painted one precisely like it. Therein lies the difference which the Velthurus don’t understand. It is not merely color and skill but suffering and ecstasy almost to the verge of death that enables me to reveal life’s game and caprice in all its beauty.”

The youth said consolingly, “The Velthurus understand that. There is only one Aruns the painter. Nor are they angry at you. They are only thinking of what is best for you.”

But Aruns was not so easily appeased. “In the name of the veiled gods, take away this dreadful burden! I must swallow an ocean of gall before I can squeeze a drop of joy from it and for a few fleeting moments be content with my work.”

Hastily I filled the silver goblet and extended it to him. He began to laugh. “You are right. A few vatfuls of wine have of course gone down with the gall. But how else could I free myself? My work is not so easy as people believe. This sober youth will understand it when he has reached my age if he develops as I expect.”

He placed his hand on the youth’s shoulder. I suggested that we return to the city and eat together, but Aruns shook his head.

“No, I must remain here until sunset. Sometimes I remain even longer, for here in the bowels of the mountain there is neither night nor day. I have much to think about, stranger.”

He indicated the blank rear wall and I saw how the pictures alternately leaped alive and faded to a mist before his eyes. Forgetting my presence he mumbled to himself, “After all, I was at Volsinii when the new nail was struck into the pillar of the temple. The Lucumones permitted me to see that which an ordinary man does not see until the curtains fall. They believed in me and I must not betray their confidence.”

Once more he remembered me and my silver goblet. “Forgive me, stranger. Your face is still smooth although you are probably my age. I myself can see this swollen mouth, these tired eyes, the wrinkles on my forehead and the lines of discontent at the corners of my mouth. But I am discontented only with myself. Everything else goes well. I am gnawing at myself only to create that which has never before been created. May the gods be with me and with you also, stranger, for you brought me good luck and I was able to solve the problem of the horse to my own satisfaction.”

I understood his words as a farewell and did not wish to disturb his thoughts further, for he was staring at the blank wall and making impatient gestures in the air.

He was probably ashamed of having banished me so abruptly, for he suddenly said, “Well, stranger, those who do not understand are content with everything if it has the traditional lines and colors. That is why the world is full of skilled people and they are successful and life is easy for them. A real artist can compete only with himself. No, I have no competitor in this world. I, Aruns of Tarquinia, compete only with myself. If you wish me well, my friend, leave your clay bottle here as a memento of your visit. I feel that it is still half full and you will tire your fair shoulder if you carry it back to the city in the heat of the day.”

Gladly I left the bottle for that remarkable man since he needed it more than I.

“We shall meet again,” he said.

Not in vain had I noticed the goddess’s sign on the stone wall when I descended into the tomb. It was intended that I should meet that man and see the completion of the painting that he then planned. But I met him also for his own sake, to enable good luck to help him in his work and to rescue him from a human’s greatest despair. That he deserved. Already then I recognized him from his face and eyes. He, Aruns, was one of those who return.

For several weeks I did not meet Aruns nor did I wish to descend again into the tomb for fear of disturbing him at his work. But at vintage time one moonlit night he came toward me with his drinking companions, so fearfully intoxicated that I had never before seen anyone in such a condition because of wine. Nevertheless he recognized me, stopped to embrace me and kissed my cheek with his wet mouth.

“There you are, stranger! I have missed you. Come, my head needs a cleansing from within before I begin working, so let us drink deep so that I may empty my head of all useless thoughts and thereafter vomit my body clean of all earthly filth before undertaking divine matters.

But why are you wandering through the streets at night with a clear head, stranger?”

“I am Turnus from Rome and an Ionian refugee,” I thought it best to explain to his noisy companions. To Aruns I said, “The goddess troubles me at the time of the full moon and drives me from my bed.”

“Join us,” he suggested. “I’ll show you living goddesses, as many as you please.”

He linked his arm with mine and pressed onto my head the vineleaf wreath that drooped from his ear. I accompanied him and his friends to the house that the Velthurus had provided for him. His wife, awakened from her sleep, met us with a yawn, but she did not drive us away as I expected. Instead, she opened the doors, lighted the lamps, brought out fruit, barley bread and a jar of salted fish, and even tried to comb Aruns’ tangled and wine-dampened hair.

As a sober man and a stranger in the city I was ashamed of forcing my way into the house of a casual acquaintance in the middle of the night. And so I mentioned my name and apologized to Aruns’ wife.

“Never before have I seen such a wife as you,” I said courteously. “Any other woman would have boxed her husband’s ears, poured a tubful of water over him and driven away his friends with oaths even though it is vintage time.”

She sighed and explained, “You don’t know my husband, Turnus. I do, having lived with him more than twenty years. It has not been an easy time, I assure you. But year by year I have come to know him better, although some weaker woman would long ago have packed her things and left. He needs me. I have worried about him, for he has not tasted a drop in weeks, merely pondered and sighed, walked to and fro, broken wax tablets and torn expensive paper onto which he had drawn pictures. Now I feel better. This always happens when the pictures begin to take shape in his mind. It may last a few days or a week, but when his head has cleared he will don his work robe and hasten to the tomb even before dawn lest he lose precious moments.”

While we talked Aruns had tottered to the yard and fetched a large wine crock which he had concealed under a heap of straw. He tore open the seal but was unable to remove the stopper. Finally his wife dexterously opened the crock, removed the wax and poured the contents into a large mixing vessel. She did not, however, insult Aruns and his friends by adding water to the wine. Instead, she brought out her best dishes and even filled a cup for herself.

“It is best so,” she said to me with the experienced smile of a knowing woman. “The years have taught me that everything is easier if I also become intoxicated. Then I no longer worry about broken objects, ruined floors and gate posts which guests carry away with them.”

She extended a cup to me. When I had emptied it I noticed that it was of the newest Attic ceramic ware with a picture of a cloven-hoofed satyr and a struggling nymph at the bottom. The picture remained in my memory as a symbol of that night, for soon two dancers appeared and we went into the garden where there was more room.

In Rome I had been told that even at their wildest the Etruscan dances are sacred dances, danced traditionally for the pleasure of the gods. That was not true, however, for when the women had danced awhile with fluttering garments they began to disrobe and with upper bodies bare danced joyously to permit us to enjoy their beauty. One of the guests proved to be a master at the flute and never in east or west have I heard such exciting melodies. They quickened my blood more than did the wine.

Finally those beautiful and ardent women danced on the grass in the moonlight with no clothing whatsoever save beads of pearls which one of the guests had indifferently tossed around their necks as gifts. I was told that he was the young Velthuru although he was dressed as modestly as his companions.

He spoke to me also, drank with me and said, “Don’t despise these drunkards, Turnus. Each of them is a master in his own field and among them I am the youngest and the most insignificant. True, I ride fairly well and can use a sword, but am a master at nothing.”

Carelessly he indicated the dancers, who were mature women. “I presume you have noticed that they also are masters in their own field. Ten and even twenty years of practice every day are required to enable a person to portray gods with his body.”

“I fully appreciate both the sights and the company, you noble,” I said.

Nor was he offended by the fact that I recognized him, for he was still young and vain even though he was of the house of Velthuru and no Velthuru need be vain because he already is what he is. He was of such an old family that he presumably instinctively knew me and hence did not inquire how I had joined the company. But that I realized only much later.

Since Aruns was so overflowingly at peace with the world and himself, I took advantage of the situation to inquire, “Why did you paint the horse blue, master?”

He stared at me with dull eyes. “Because I saw it blue.”

“But,” I insisted, “I have never seen a blue horse.”

Aruns was not hurt. Shaking his head in sorrow he replied, “In that case I pity you, my friend.”

We spoke no more of that matter but his words were a lesson to me. After that I often saw a horse as blue, regardless of its other color.