Stone Virgin (31 page)

Ziani maintained an uneasy silence for some moments. Then, with sudden spirit, he said, ‘You are wrong, Battistella. Francesca liked being fucked, she enjoyed it, nothing to do with merchandise. She enjoyed the risk of being caught too, it excited her. And she was cruel too, nothing to do with outraging herself. Why do you try to explain everything in terms of something else? It is a very dangerous practice, especially in regard to women. If we go on like that the time will come when women will not be held accountable for their vices at all, then where will we be? Would you want to live in such a world?’

Ziani reached again for his snuffbox. Good humour had returned to him. He had come out on top in this argument, he felt. ‘It would be the end of civilization as we know it,’ he said. ‘I really did not think that at your advanced years you would fall into that intellectual trap, Battistella.’

Battistella made no reply, had begun in fact his usual snail-like withdrawal.

‘Do you remember that man in Paris who shot off his own
uccello
by accident?’ Ziani said. ‘That was ten years later. That will come in the Paris section of my
Mémoires
. A practised duellist too – he had killed six. I don’t recall what the quarrel was about, an affair of honour no doubt.’

‘You were cheating at faro. He caught you dealing with a mirror in your lap.’

‘Walking towards me, coming up to the barrier, he fired his pistol somehow by mistake and shot off his own cock. You would say that meant something else, for example that he hated himself for having already taken six human lives, but I would say simply that he shot off his cock.’

Battistella, arrested in his creeping retreat, remained obstinately silent.

‘A young man,’ Ziani said. ‘Not more than thirty. He may be alive still. Forty years ago it happened. That would be forty years
senza uccello
. A strange fate for a man. Well, don’t speak, damn you. You can’t bear to be worsted in argument, can you?’

‘Will there be anything else, sir?’

‘No.’ Ziani strove to preserve a dispassionate appearance. ‘No, you can clear off. I have to get on with my
Mémoires
. We have discussed what there is for dinner, have we not?’ he added rather wistfully – he would have liked to run through it again. Battistella, however, had gone or at least was no longer distinguishable among the billowing forms.

Left alone, Ziani thought for some minutes, focusing his memories. Then he began to write.

For some days after Boccadoro’s return we led a charmed life, Francesca and I. We took risks but it seemed that the gods aided us. The old man must have listened to me, for he kept away from her room, though I never dared spend the whole night with her, usually leaving well before morning.

We had some narrow escapes. I remember that Francesca’s music master once nearly surprised us together in the garden – we still, out of gratitude, sometimes made love in the arbour of the Madonna. But the nearest thing was when the priest, Don Antonio, came on one of his visits. He used to come regularly to discuss the affairs of an orphanage Francesca took some interest in, and – more to the point – contributed charity to, though of course it was all Boccadoro’s money. This priest was a stout florid fellow, greatly in love with his own opinions, with a pompous habit of rocking back on his heels.

On this occasion we had forgotten he was coming. It was mid-afternoon, with Boccadoro gone off to his warehouse on the Zattere al Ponte Lungo. Francesca and I were downstairs in her apartment with the door locked, half-naked both, grappling together on the Turkey carpet and she was just beginning to prick me with her claws – she had a delicate way with her nails when excited – when I heard a tapping at the door and it was Battistella come to tell us that Don Antonio was waiting in the anteroom.

Now there was no way out of the salon save by this anteroom and I was afraid that if we kept him kicking his heels there, and then he saw me emerge, he might out of pique, or duty, or a confusion of the two, find the matter of sufficient interest to mention to old Boccadoro. So I dressed with what speed I could and I snatched up some sheets of music and rolled them together in such a way that they might seem like documents and so I made haste out of the room.

There was a short passage, another door, then the small room where he waited. He rose to his feet when he saw me and with a bare greeting began to move towards the door. ‘One moment, padre,’ I said. I had to give Francesca time to dress and compose herself, to overlay with attar of roses that odour of sanctity which love-making bestows on the person, to allow the flush of our encounter to subside from her face.

It was now that I showed my superlative presence of mind. I knew that this Don Antonio was opinionated and fond of talking
dall’alto in basso
and so I decided on the instant how to snare him. ‘One moment, padre,’ I said, ‘Donna Francesca and I have encountered a philosophical difficulty in the course of our conversation and I would like to take this opportunity of referring the matter to your learned wisdom.’

‘Yes,’ he said, ‘what is it? I would not keep the
nobil donna
waiting.’

‘She will not mind,’ I said. ‘She would explain the difficulty herself, but asked me to do it. Ladies, as we know, are not at their best when dealing with abstract notions.’

‘That is true,’ he said. ‘What is it then?’

At this moment, glancing down, I saw to my consternation that I had omitted to fasten properly the points of my breeches. While not gaping open exactly I was in significant disarray and he would only have to look that way to see it and come to his conclusions.

To button myself before his eyes was impossible. I lowered my hands and covered the place with the rolled-up music sheets and held them there while we spoke. ‘Well,’ I said, ‘I take it you hold that the universe has a plan?’

‘Certainly,’ he said. ‘Nature is God’s own codex. This mighty maze of things cannot lack a plan, indeed it must have the best of all possible plans.’

‘Just so,’ I said, keeping the music in place – never did the vapid airs of Baldovino serve to better purpose. ‘Now I daresay you would call yours an optimistic view?’

‘Certainly I would.’

‘Now here is the point, Don Antonio,’ I said. ‘One can have optimism as a result of mystical insight, at that level at which Spinoza could declare that
omnis existia est perfectio
. If we could see existence as perfect, we could achieve a miracle, we could cancel the gulf between the absolute and the fallen world. Do you see this as a possibility for human beings?’

‘No,’ he said, rocking back on his heels in his self-important way. ‘By definition it is not possible for the creature to cancel distinctions between God and His creation.’

‘So then,’ I said, ‘either your optimism is simply contentment with the existing order of things or you have an explanation why God, the Perfect Being, generated this imperfect world of corruptibles, at the same time making it impossible for us to adopt the beautiful view of Spinoza.’

He was looking less complacent now, perceiving the pit I had dug. I smiled upon him. ‘I think I have you there, padre,’ I said. ‘Yes, I think I have you there.’

‘Not at all,’ he said. ‘By no means, Aquinas has explained this matter. God’s love did not permit Him to remain self-absorbed, without production of the creatures. Since the seeds of all things were latent in His mind, how could He deny them germination?’

‘So,’ I said, ‘if I understand you aright, Don Antonio, God expresses His love for us by generating existences that not only in His sight but even in the sight of man must seem imperfect or evil. Does not this seem strange?’

‘Not to me,’ he said. ‘I do not see your difficulty. The world had to be peopled. God shows his goodness through the number and variety of the phenomena. There is one great scale or ladder of creation and it is continuous from worm to seraph.’

‘Not see the difficulty?’ I said. I decided to make an end of this charade. It had become tedious to stand there obliged all the time to keep myself covered. Francesca would by now have reconstituted herself. Besides, his complacency disgusted me; at least I can feel sorrow for the world. ‘Not see the difficulty? Don Antonio, you surprise me. This optimism of yours is not a hopeful matter at all. You deny our ability to see perfection in created things. You maintain none the less that God’s goodness consists in cramming the universe with them. And where is man in all this? A creature clinging to a ladder between animals and angels, only there at all because of the requirements of plentitude. Then God loves abundance and variety better than he loves happiness or progress? This is not optimism, it is an apologia for the existing state of things, a recipe for inertia. No wonder we are ripe for revolution. It will come, Don Antonio, never fear, and it will sweep you away with it, cassock and all.’

And so I left him spluttering there and made good my escape. Being discomforted already by my clear superiority in debate he did not broach the subject with Donna Francesca and so she did not know till later how I had contrived to delay him.

Ziani laid down his pen and wiped his eyes with triumphant self-congratulation. It had been a superlative performance on his part. I routed that porcine padre completely, he thought. What poise, what address, what presence of mind. Handicapped as I was, obliged to shield my open fly, denied all freedom of gesture with which to emphasize my remarks.

When, a little later, Battistella came in with his dinner, Ziani tried to recall the episode for him, but his servant seemed to remember nothing of it.

‘Your powers are failing,’ Ziani said, tucking in his napkin at the neck. ‘You are not the man you were, Battistella.’ His tone was peevish; he had been hoping for some endorsement of his triumph. ‘In those days we were all optimists,’ he said, pursing thin lips to suck the hot soup from his spoon. ‘We believed that nature and reason went hand in hand. Now I know that is untrue. Now it is reason alone I believe in. I have embraced the Jacobin philosophy, Battistella. I repudiate the notion of human nature. I repudiate it utterly.’

In the vehemence of this statement his hand shook and soup ran over his chin. More quietly, he said, ‘The rules of reason and justice are applicable at all times and in all places. Man comes into the world with nothing but his own percipience, he is a blank sheet.’

He had the impression that Battistella was now further away, less distinguishable among the shrouded forms of the apartment. ‘Anything can be inscribed on that
tabula rasa
,’ he said. ‘I have finished my soup. Where is the game pie?’

‘Nature is nature,’ Battistella said, as he came forward. ‘History is history, begging your pardon. They can talk about Jacobins. Is it reason and justice that is occurring in France or is it barbarities? Your head would be off, sir, you would be a
tabula rasa
, begging your pardon, I will leave you to finish.’

He had commenced his usual snail-like retreat. ‘We may come into the world with nothing,’ Ziani heard him say from somewhere near the door. ‘In France you go out of it short of a head. All the inscription goes into the basket.’

‘That is illogical, Battistella,’ Ziani said, peering across the apartment. He realized after a moment that his servant had gone, but he was not put out by this, replete as he was, still buoyed by his consummate handling of Don Antonio. That night, which was his last, he slept well.

Next morning he was at work early. He was eager to finish the affair of the Madonna and move on to the Naples section of his
Mémoires
. In fact, there was little left to tell. Barely waiting to finish his chocolate he dipped pen in ink and began.

We managed on several occasions, with the help of the servants, to go into town for the evening. We went to the San Benedetto theatre and took a box at the top row and heard half of Gluck’s
Ipermestra
, which was all the rage those days; the other half we missed, having grown excited by the music – we locked the door and drew the curtains and made love on the floor. We also went to hear La Zabaletta at the Incurabili and afterwards to the Ridotto, where we gambled and lost.

Most enjoyable was the night we went to the Giudecca festival. The gardens of the island could not contain everyone, so they moored rafts out in the canal with banks of flowers on them, where people could eat and drink and listen to the music. The streets were strewn with flowers and all the houses decked out with flags and garlands. We danced the
furlana
for hours on end. Francesca had on a sleeveless red bodice and a white silk skirt. She danced with several men but came back to me. We had fritters and watched the clowns and the wrestlers. There was light in the sky when we got back.

That was not the night we came upon Boccadoro praying in the garden; then it was earlier, not much after midnight. We were returning from the Ridotto and had entered the garden by the canal gate. We saw his light and heard him muttering, alone there, kneeling at the feet of the Madonna.

I would have kept away, skirted the garden, repaired immediately to the house. It was she who wanted to go nearer, to hear what he was saying, so I was obliged to go too. Hand in hand we crept forward. I was afraid of making some false step in the darkness, disturbing him. But he was quite intent. He was saying Ave Marias to her.

He had set a lantern down beside him, at the base of the statue. Its rays lit up the side of his face nearest to us, some of his black velvet robe, the outstretched arm of the Madonna, the folds of her skirt. A paler light was cast upwards, on to her bosom and her dreaming face. The old man’s eyes were lowered and his lips moved reverently: ‘Hail Mary, full of grace … blessed art thou among women …’