The Life of Polycrates and Other Stories for Antiquated Children (20 page)

A shiver coursed over Des Esseintes’ body and he was considering what course to take when the door to the apartment was flung open and everyone entered in a storm. The musicians were banging on pots and swinging their arms in the air. Harro Pernath carried the caged bird on his head and the old man was dexterously juggling the hard-boiled eggs. The African mice were mounted on Gustav’s shoulders.

Everyone sang in unison:

Des Esseintes’ body broke out in a wintry sweat. He began to bite his nails, while the figure on the bed gnawed at his.

“
Let me take your jacket,” the woman with the large ears said.

“
No, no,” Des Esseintes murmured as he backed towards the door.

He turned and ran out of the room, down stairways and ladders and then stumbled down some dark steps and through a groaning door.

He found himself outside. The night was chilly, and he pulled his coat around himself.

Looking down, he noticed a dirty-looking girl tugging at his sleeve, putting an empty hand forward. He threw some money at her and moved off, towards his hotel, to pack his trunks and portmanteaux as quickly as possible.

The pleasures of foreign cities certainly were exaggerated, he noted as he hurried on with the elastic steps of a much younger man.

The Search for Savino

written in conjunction with

Forrest Aguirre

I.

My search for Savino began in 1926, while visiting the famous art collector and critic Sir Timothy Broughton. He was a man of ample means. His taste was highly cultivated. Night or day, a bottle of chilled champagne, always quality stuff, was by his side, and for this reason, no less than the pleasure of his conversation, I was apt to call on him frequently.

One day our conversation turned to the subject of great artists who had never got their just deserts. I mentioned Pierre Puvis de Chavannes and Henry van de Velde both as being artists who I thought fell into this rank, both being absurdly neglected considering their skill and the impact they had.

Sir Broughton puffed at his cigar and shook his head knowingly.

“
Have you ever heard of Savino?” he asked, with a rather indescribable look in his eyes, something like a magician might have when imparting a secret formula.

I thought for a moment, gently sipping my champagne, and then informed him, with some slight embarrassment, that I had not heard of the man he had mentioned. He rose gravely from his seat and requested me to follow him into his study, which I did with much curiosity. When we reached the room, he pointed to a
quadro
hanging from the wall. It was obviously a relatively recent acquisition, because I had been in the room several times before and never noticed it—and though not in any way loud, it was a very noticeable bit of work. It was a strange stretched canvas, painted all in blue, a damned haunting shade of the colour, a sort of gloaming tint, full of melancholy. The depiction itself was of a rhinoceros, standing in the midst of a forest of strange letters and symbols. I could not make head or tail of it, but was sure that it was full of some deep meaning, possibly sinister, and I had great trouble dragging my eyes from the piece.

“
Is this his work?” I asked, with some emotion.

“
Yes. That is Savino. Back of Anthony Wexler you’re looking at now.”

I did not know what to reply. Sir Broughton calmly lit his pipe and pointed to a stack of papers on his writing table.

“
Take a look,” he said. “It is a catalogue I’m working on. For Sotheby’s and all that sort of thing.”

I took up a sheet and read:

Item
:

The Property of a Gentleman

For Charon: Two Confederate American gold coins, one obverse on the left eye, one reverse on the right, tattooed on the eyelids of retired Confederate Colonel Josiah Stoat, Georgia, United States of America. An inscription in black beneath the left coin reads ‘For Charon’,
inks of ochre and cadmium

45mm x 13mm and 44mm x 12mm

Item
:

From the collection of Prince Georg Lubomirski, Formerly deposited in the Museum at Lemberg, Poland

The Spice River: A single dhow, piloted by a richly-dressed oriental merchant (actually a portrait of the client Xhien Xo Pyang) slowly floats down a languid river. The river’s water is stained with the hues of cinnamon, cardamom, anise, turmeric, coriander, powdered ginger and peppercorns,
ink of charcoal and mixed spice ink concentrates, right eyelid of the merchant Xhien Xo Pyang.

39mm x 10mm

Item
:

The Property of a Gentleman

His Lover’s Eyes: A collage of twenty-three irises and pupils, each image taken from the body of the original. Each eye reflects the face of the client—the much-feared and renowned rapist and serial killer Renault Duchamp—at various ages. Behind this montage is a single large iris of deep brown: that of Duchamp’s un-named hangman,
manganese based salt inks, left eyelid

39mm x 10mm

Item
:

The Property of the late Madame Winifred de Rothschild

Copy of Moore’s The Epicurean, with several pages sketched on by Enzio Savino
,
in one volume, printed by A. & R. Spottiswood, New Street Square 1832, bound in leather with gold lettering on spine, slight foxing

List of pages on which these drawings appear:

a vi, recto:
Slight study of one fat gentleman,
black chalk

p.
3: Uncomplimentary study of Ferdinand Keller,
black chalk

p
. 164: Study of Zeus,
black chalk, touched in pen and ink

Three loose pages of blank paper inserted at this place

p.
270: Study after a porphyry sculpture of the emperor Heliogabalus,
black chalk

End page:
Study of Prometheus saved by Hercules,
black chalk, touched in pen and ink

Item
:

The Property of Mrs. Lisa Stewart, of San Francisco

Romnisovic’s Supernova; Right Eyelid: White stars superimposed on a light blue grid over a black background. The single brightest star is named for the client, Sergei Romnisovic, who discovered it in the midst of much public controversy over his private life and heretical religious beliefs,
charcoal and rye inks

38mm x 10mm

Item
:

The Property of Mrs. Lisa Stewart, of San Francisco

Romnisovic’s Supernova; Left Eyelid: Block-scripted letters and numbers listing information regarding the star:

RA (1900): 15 41 47.2

DECL (1900): +48 32 4

MAG (A): -4.27

inks of charcoal and soot

38mm x 10mm

II.

His victims, his lovers, his comrades, whores he picked from the street and boozing oafs he snatched from the bars: drawn back to his chambers: his dark Berlin studio in that third phase of his career.

At first he used nightshade, hypnoticon, the Solanum manicon described by Dioscorides, a drachma intermixed with wine. But the results were twice fatal, and getting rid of corpses was an awkward business. He toyed with belladonna, but found it too potent: the victims often sleepy for forty hours and more. So he settled for the fabulous sleeping apple: a concoction made from opium, mandrake, juice of hemlock, the seeds of henbane and a touch of musk. This he rolled into codling sized balls. He needed simply give one to his guest and ask her/him to sniff it, a marvellous incense, which when smelt made the eyes gently close and bound them in unbreakable chains of sleep. Unclothed, naked and resting on their stomachs, and the canvas was ripe:

With water impregnated with salt ammonide, quicklime and the oil of galls, he went to work: painting away with rapid, predatory strokes. The designs initially appeared white, but after drying disappeared altogether from sight, the victim awaking with only a rather red and sore region, mere traces: apply to the skin a mixture of litharge, vinegar and salt and they would reappear, even if a hundred years might expire. (Note Enzio Savino’s last will and testament and the instructions held therein.)

III.

From an interview with Graham Lynch, cousin of Anthony Wexler:

We had received a letter from Tony regarding the museum piece and the commission Enzio was to receive from Frau von Bekken, which effectively solidified the couple’s financial base for life. A few weeks later, Tony sent us the following:

Their future looked quite bright and we hoped that Enzio might now be able to spend more time with his ailing lover (Tony passed on only two years later), but this was not to be the case. Tony’s next letter arrived two weeks later:

Of course neither Tony nor I could interpret his meaning. Only on Frau von Bekken’s death, several months later, did we begin to understand what he had done.

IV.

Extracted from
The
Avant-garde
Artists of the Nineteenth Century
, by W. B. Fry, London, William Heinemann, 1924:

Enzio Savino (1864-1901)

Though certainly not the most successful, if success can be measured in terms of conventional fame, or monetary gain, Enzio Savino was possibly the most influential painter of the symbolist movement, surpassing even Redon and Moreau in influence amongst his fellow artists, and prestige amongst the culturally literate.

Born in Possagno, near Treviso, the son of a house painter, he was at a young age seduced by the German artist Ferdinand Keller, and moved with him to Paris in 1880, where he published his first series of lithographs,
Concerto Campestre
, at the age of eighteen—a project that was undoubtedly financed by the purse of the older man.

Though not attending, he spent much of his time at the École des Beaux-Arts, where he made friends with Gerôme, by whom he was much admired, though to an equal degree feared. Carolus-Duran and Alexandre Cabanel, through uncontrollable jealousy and hate, had a petition passed around to ban Savino from the precincts of the school. The document stated that the young Italian was an evil influence on the other students and that his presence prevented them from going about their work. Savino slapped Cabanel in public and the latter challenged him to a duel. Savino, caring more for vengeance than honour, pulled out a
stiletto
and stabbed the teacher on the spot, though as luck would have it not mortally wounding him. After spending three months in jail, the young man was released, due to the influential intervention of Keller, who was still living in a nimbus of liquorice fascination.