By our sober Swiss standards she is dressed like a French tart. For my taste she is beautifully turned out. The trousers show off her long dancer’s legs and her slim waist. The blouse emphasises the thrust of her breasts, which are neither too large nor too small. The head scarf confines her hair and shows the fine bone structure of her face, cleancut as an old cameo. I pay her a compliment. She accepts it with a smile. Then, immediately, we are down to business. I ask her to sketch for me her student life in Padua, to describe in detail any incident or encounter which was significant in her later life. Without hesitation she plunges into the narrative.
“What Papa had done to me was a terrible shock. It had, however, the same effect as his sending me back to school for matriculation. I was determined to succeed, to establish my own credentials in this new world of university life. You must understand that Padua was a proud place, where students of all tongues and nations congregated. The English and the Scots had long ago established themselves as a ‘Nazione’ with special rights and an honourable tradition. Thomas Linacre, physician to Henry the Seventh of England, Edward Wootton, physician to Henry the Eighth, both studied there. The medical schools of Leiden and Edinburgh, Philadelphia, Columbia and Harvard, all had their roots in Padua. We were taught this from the beginning. We were taught to be proud of it – arrogant if need be – with outsiders. Ours was the most reputable degree in Europe – if you’ll forgive me, Doctor Jung.”
I forgive her. I am happy to see her so excited by so pure a memory of youth. I ask myself cynically how long it is likely to last.
“Even now I’m a good student. If I take up something, I have to do it well or not at all. The Paduan style of teaching threw great responsibility on the student, and the examinations, both oral and written, were rigorous. So, during the week I lived a very regular life: lectures in the daytime, an hour or two in the coffee house, then home to Lily to bathe, change, dine and write up my notes for the day. I was not eager for intimacies among the students. I felt too vulnerable. I had too many secrets. I was content, at least for the beginning, to play the exotic bluestocking, unfamiliar with the student scene, dependent – oh so dependent! – on the chivalry of her escorts. I did, however, learn very quickly that Italian males are incurably spoiled by the time they are ten years old and that any woman who marries one needs the tolerance of Patient Griselda. The senior professors were the best in the world. The juniors were badly paid and of variable quality. Some of them were not above accepting an envelope of cash at examination time in return for a good report and a good raccoman dazione. It was suggested to me that I might like to pay in kind. My standard reply was that if I needed to peddle my body for a pass mark, I would rather deal with the chancellor or a senior professor.”
“But all in all, your academic life was uneventful?”
“Yes. I had one or two small romances; but they came to nothing. I had no taste for teaching young men the facts of life. Besides, I had made another discovery. Love affairs in Italy are highly public. Names, dates, places and sexual manners were bandied about freely. I wanted no part of that scene!
“Weekends were another matter. From Friday to Monday I lived in another world: the Club della Caccia, the gaming salon in Venice, the theatre, the whole social round. You see, there was something about Papa which I had never realised until this time. His name was good; his credit was good; and none of his women ever had a bad word to say about him. So, of course, Lily and I profited from that. Nobody quite knew where I fitted into the chronology of Papa’s life. It was clear that I had been born on the wrong side of someone’s blanket; so, my presence at a party was always good for an hour’s gossip. Lily had schooled me well in social diplomacy. If I wanted to keep our entree open, I should defer to the dowagers in public, permit myself to be courted respectfully by their sons, and flirt with their husbands in private.”
“Did you have any thoughts of marriage at this time?”
“Not only thoughts; I had a serious proposal.”
“From whom?”
“The son of a very old, very wealthy Venetian family. I believe one of his ancestors had been a Doge.”
“I did. Why not? He was handsome, romantic, rich and just stupid enough so that I was sure I could manage him.”
“What happened?”
“I had forgotten about the small print on the contract. He was Roman Catholic. I was nothing – atheist in fact. He would have to get permission from the Church to marry me. It would be a hole and corner affair. The ceremony would be performed behind the high altar or in the sacristy. I should have to take instruction from a priest to understand my husband’s moral and religious convictions. I should have to promise that all my children would be brought up in the Roman faith. It was all too much. I declined with thanks. His mother was so happy she embraced me and told me I was a noble girl with a beautiful nature. She would write to her brother the bishop and have him say a mass for my intentions. My intentions being all bad ones at that moment, I didn’t see the point of the exercise. However, I kissed hands and cheeks and went back to Padua.”
“Broken hearted?”
“Anything but. I was wild and ready for mischief. The next week at the Caffè Pedrocchi I was telling the story – with dramatic embellishments of course! – to a group of friends from my anatomy class. This lot were all ‘spiriti liberati’, free thinkers and anti-clericals. One of them offered me a bet: that I wouldn’t dare go to confession in the duomo. I asked what he would put up as his side of the wager. He offered a dinner for us all with a chitarrista thrown in to make music. I agreed. Then the boys – all convent trained, of course! – set about teaching me the ritual and the Act of Repentance I must recite at the end. It was short enough for me to get it word perfect in a few minutes. The next thing was to choose a good list of sins. We settled on fornication, adultery and what we agreed to call abnormal acts. This, according to my friends, was bound to lead to some interesting dialogue with the confessor, all of which I must report to my friends as part of the wager.”
“And you went through with it?”
“Without a tremor. No, that’s not true. When the time came I was scared. I felt as though I were meddling with something magic. I felt the same thing when . . . but that’s another story. Let me finish this one.
I do not see where all this is leading; the story of the marriage proposal and her rejection of it was told in a flippant, offhand fashion like a piece of drawing-room gossip. Perhaps it was no more than that; but she seems more interested in this new anecdote, more eager in tone, more expressive in gesture. So, I make no comment and let her run on.
“On Saturday afternoon – that’s confession day for the Romans; they scrub their souls in preparation for Sunday – the boys walked me down to the cathedral, and knelt with me in the prie-dieus near the confessional. There was quite a line ahead of me, so I had to wait, getting more and more nervous with every moment. What made it worse was that, up ahead in a side chapel, I could see a long line of pilgrims passing by the tomb of Saint Anthony, touching it, kissing it, leaning against the stones, as if the magic of the Wonderworker communicated itself to lips and fingertips. It was quite eerie. These devotees really believed they were in communication with the long dead saint, and that they could count on him to answer their whispered prayers. So, you see, by the time my turn came to enter the confessional, I was ready to cry off and pay the wager myself. The boys would have none of it. They pushed me forward, and the next moment I was inside the box.”
Now a curious thing happens. She gets out of her chair and begins to act out the scene, using me as the priest figure, kneeling on the floor beside me, resting her hands on the arms of my chair.
“The priest was sitting where you are now; only he was behind a little grille. His head was bowed, his chin resting on his hand. I couldn’t see his eyes; but I could smell what he’d had for lunch – garlic and rough wine. I knelt down as I’m kneeling now. I crossed myself and said, as the boys had taught me, ‘Bless me, Father, for I have sinned. It’s been a year since my last confession. I’ve done a lot of bad things since then.’ He asks what sort of things. ‘Oh, I’ve slept with a lot of men. The man I’m sleeping with now is married. Sometimes I do it for money and then, often, the clients want – well – strange kinds of acts.’ Then I had my big surprise. He asked quite gently, ‘Have you no other way of earning a living? Do you have to prostitute yourself?’ I wasn’t prepared for this. I mumbled something about how difficult it was to find work. He said, ‘If you’re sincere about it, go to the Mater Misericordiae hospital. I know they’re looking for kitchen maids and cleaners for the wards. It’s rough work, but at least you’ll be independent.’ Then he read me a little lecture about reforming my life and trusting in God’s mercy. He told me to repeat the Act of Repentance, made the sign of the cross over me and told me to go in peace and mend my life. When I walked out of the church the boys crowded round me wanting to know what had happened. I tried to make a big joke of it; but the joke fell flat. I really wanted to believe it could happen: that someone just wiped out your past with a few magic words. Silly, isn’t it?”
She says it with a laugh; but she is very close to tears. I am tempted to take her face in my hands and kiss her on the lips to comfort her; but I dare not. I’ve been caught this way before. First, she wanted me to be Papa; now she wants me to play Father Confessor. It is very tempting to join the game; but I am her only anchor to reality; I cannot surrender my own hold on it. I help her to rise and tell her to be seated again. She pouts like a disappointed child and complains:
“You don’t like my story. Did I tell it badly? It really did happen.”
This little girl act is so alien to her normal persona that I fear for a moment that she may be unconsciously regressing to avoid an unpleasant reality that lies ahead in her narrative. I apply the old remedy, a sound scolding.
“For God’s sake, don’t try these tricks with me! You’re a mature woman. Your story is fascinating – but you don’t have to dress it up like a nursery tale for your dollies!”
As I hope, she is furious and storms at me:
“God damn you! Don’t talk to me like that. You don’t know how hard I’m working to give you what you want!”
“That’s the point! You’re working too hard. And I don’t want anything. What we both need is the truth – and the more simply it is told, the better. Don’t try to guess how I will react to it, or why. That’s my business. How would you feel if a patient of yours wasn’t content with telling you his symptoms but insisted on making the diagnosis as well? Do you understand?”
Yes! Yes! She understands; but I have to understand too. Never before has she revealed so much of herself to anyone. When she falls into acting, it is out of panic, not because she wants to make an exhibition of herself. So again we have a truce. I remind her that she has mentioned another story. Something with an element of magic in it.
“Magic? Oh yes, I remember now.” She begins to take on another character, the bluestocking scholar, possessor of curious learning. I wait, respectfully. “Have you ever drunk Caffè alla Borgia?”
“To the best of my knowledge, never. What is it?”
“It’s coffee, apricot brandy, cream and cinnamon. It was the ritual drink at the monthly meeting of the Scotus Society.”
So we are in for another game. I tell her I have never heard of the Scotus Society. She is delighted with her small victory.
“But you do know the man it was named for.”
“I do?”
“You have his works on your shelves.”
“Have I?”
“Indeed! It’s Michael the Scot, thirteenth century. He translated Aristotle from the Arabic version of Averröes and taught the text in Toledo, Salamanca and Padua. He was supposed to be a wizard. He wrote three works that have survived: On Physiognomy, On Generation . . .”
“On Alchemy!” I leap to supply the answer, and so am sucked into the game. “Of course! And Padua was always known as a centre for the alchemical arts and for necromancy.”
“Bravo!” She applauds me and hurries to embellish the story. “Did you know that there is even a version of the Faust legend in which a scholar of Cambridge named Ashbourner sold his soul to the devil in return for a doctorate of divinity at Padua. When he tried to welsh on the bargain, he was found drowned in the Cam!”
“And how did you stumble on all this?”
“I didn’t stumble on it. I read up on it. The whole point about studying in Padua was that one was grounded in the liberal arts as well as physical medicine and surgery. The Scotus Society was founded in my father’s time. It purported to be an association of scholars interested in occult phenomena. In fact, it was a cover for anti-Habsburg and anti-clerical activities. In my time it was still anti-clerical but rather more frivolous. Its members played at black magic, diabolism, the revival of ancient rites and cults. You’ve probably forgotten how fashionable all that was in its time. Remember what a big stir Huysmans made with Là bas?”
I am suddenly aware that she is not simply acting the bluestocking. She has read widely. She knows what she has read in its social frame. I am still not clear, however, where this story is leading. She continues:
“But I always felt uneasy with it. I wasn’t an unwilling participant. As an unbeliever I had to agree that it was all mummery anway; and most of the time it was an opportunity for some fairly theatrical sex. We used to meet at a country house near Abano, and hold our ceremonies in an abandoned chapel in the grounds. The only role I boggled at was being the naked woman lying on the altar slab during the Black Mass. First, I didn’t like the man who was playing Satan, and second, I felt vaguely that we were dealing with something dangerous. I didn’t realise that the danger was in me, not outside.”
She hesitates. I wait. If she can break through this block without prompting, it means we have made great progress. Finally, in a roundabout fashion, she does it.
“You said this morning that my story contradicted itself . . . a happy childhood, a happy marriage and then what you called ‘a promiscuous sex life, sado-masochist in character’. Remember?”
I do remember. I was not aware that she had taken the question so much to heart.
“So I kept asking myself, where did it begin? How did it begin? It sounds exaggerated, but I think it began with the Scotus Society.”
“With the Black Mass?”
“No, with something else. Do you have any reference here on the excavations at Pompeii – pictorial reference, I mean?”
I am sure I have. My interest in archaeology has never waned. I find the volume. We leaf through it. Finally she stops me at the pages dealing with the Villa dei Misteri, where it is believed the frescoes depict the celebration of the Isis cult. One of the most notable of the paintings is that of a young woman stripped and bowed over the knee of a priestess, being flagellated by an attendant. I glance at my patient. She is pale and upset. Her voice is unsteady.
“That’s it! We acted out that whole ceremony at one of our sessions in Abano. I was the one who did the scourging. I – I was surprised how much the victim and I enjoyed it. She was studying sculpture at the School of Fine Arts. It was the beginning of an affair between us that lasted nearly a year. I didn’t try to extend the experience at the time. We found other games to play. But later, when the big crisis came in my life, I suppose I was already prepared. Strange though, that it should be associated with a religious act!”
“Not so strange.” I feel very gentle towards her at this moment. She is working with me and not against me as so many patients do in the early stages of analysis. So, I try to share with her some observations and insights. “Religion, sex and suffering make, perhaps, the most constant trinity of human experiences. Think about it for a moment. Religion, which we have already defined together, treats of mystery, the mystery of our origins, our ends, our relationship with the cosmos, with the mystery of pain itself. What is the symbol that confronts you in every Christian church? The crucifix: the body of a tortured man nailed to a wooden cross. Sex is an act both godlike and animal. It is the beginning of life. It is also the little death. The fury of lovers is not far from the fury of rape and slaughter. The first impulse of the disappointed lover is to inflict pain upon the once beloved. Look at the pictures of Hieronymus Bosch and you will see the pleasure-pain principle contorted into a sexual vision of hell.”
“That’s exactly how I have felt lately: as if hell is a madhouse and I’m locked up in it.”
It is the simplest and most poignant admission she has made since we began our session. I decide to continue this way for a little while, setting conversational lures and watching how she responds to them.
“Let me ask you a question. It may sound insulting. It is not meant to be so. You’ve spoken several times, quite calmly and openly, of your sexual attachments to women. They are non-violent. You find great satisfaction in them. Your relations with men on the other hand are aggressive and violent. Do you feel split between the two sexes? Do you feel yourself part woman, part man?”
“No I don’t.” She is emphatic but quite calm. “I perceive myself as a whole person, a woman. My tastes are not everybody’s; but they are mine and I am me.”
“Are you satisfied with yourself?”
“You know I’m not. I’m deathly afraid.”
“Of what?”
“That this me is an incurable accident. You’ve seen monster births. We all have in medicine. There is no hope for them at all. They are beyond reason, beyond love, even beyond care. I feel like that about myself.”
“And this is why you are grasping at various religious ideas, because admission into any religious society is associated with rebirth. Put off the old Adam, put on the new Christ. Eve, who brought about man’s downfall, is now Mary, the mother of God, who carried the Saviour in her womb.”
There is a long moment of silence, then she gets up from her chair, comes to me and kisses me on the forehead. I touch her cheek in acknowledgment and ask:
“What was that for?”
“To thank you for being so understanding. I’m sorry I’ve been rude to you.”
A little cautionary bell begins to chime in my head. I tell her that I understand some of it but not all. We have still a long way to go. Neither of us can afford to be complacent.
“For instance, this sculptress with whom you shared the flagellation scene and then embarked on a love affair, could you tell me more about her?”
“Her name was Alma de Angelis. She was twenty-five. She came from the South – Capua if I remember rightly. She was small and dark with long, lustrous black hair and wonderful eyes that seemed too big for her face. Sculpture, you know, is the most laborious of the arts. You’re working either in stone or wood or bronze, and the sheer physical labour is enormous. One vivid memory I have is of her hands. They were hard and chapped like a labourer’s. I remember asking Alma why she wanted to do such work. She told me her father was a stone carver who worked in marble for funerary monuments. She was the only child. He desperately wanted a son to whom he could pass on his skill and see him do something better than carve crying angels on gravestones. So he scraped together enough money to send Alma to Padua for study. In that respect she was very much like me; except that, a true Southerner, she was desperately afraid of having to go home and confess that she had lost her virginity. So she was ripe for the kind of affair we had; and I promised that, before she went home, I would do the traditional surgical restoration of her maidenhead! However, we broke up long before that and lost touch with each other.”
“Were you happy, while the affair lasted?”
“I think so. It was one of those things that went by fits and starts: high drama one day, boredom the next. Great scenes of jealousy. Much pouting and sulking. Very Italian! There were elements of calculation for both of us. She took me into the bohemia of painters, sculptors and craftsmen of all kinds. I gave her a taste of luxury she had never known and could never have afforded. Lily coddled her and – I found later – used to send her money long after our affair was over.”
“I notice, if you’ll forgive my saying so, that you seem to be telling all this with considerable detachment. It’s not at all like your narratives about your childhood. Why is that?”
“Because I do feel differently – very differently – about this period. After that terrible scene with Papa, I was resolved that nobody, ever again, would be able to manipulate me through my emotions. So, in a sense I became an actress. I could laugh, cry, make love, enjoy myself in every conceivable way; but the only time I took off the make-up and became the real me was at home with Lily. I knew everything about her; she knew everything about me; and we still loved each other. If ever I had any doubts, they were always stilled by that vision of Lily with her nightdress hauled up, rushing across the floor to kick Papa in the balls!”
The word comes out with such singular relish that we both laugh. I take advantage of this relaxed moment to feed in another suggestion.
“Has it ever occurred to you that in Padua you were trying to live exactly the same life as you had enjoyed at Schloss Silbersee? Your apartment was still a private Eden where very few outsiders were allowed to penetrate. True or not?”
“True, of course.” She makes no demur; she goes even further. “You see, children who grow up in a big family and go to school with their peers are very lucky. By the time they’re adults they’re accepted as part of the group. Even their follies are open and shared; their adventures are part of tribal folklore. For me it was totally different. I was the odd girl out. I knew very early, because Lily and Papa so taught me, that all my privileges depended on secrecy. I began with one guilty secret; a Mamma who ran away and never came back. Later, of course, I had many: my sexual relations at home, my adventures at school and the whole hothouse life that I felt more and more guilty about because I couldn’t share it with anyone.”
It is on the tip of my tongue to remind her that in our morning session, she was most emphatic that she had never experienced guilt, could not define the sentiment. Fortunately I remain silent. She reverts to our earlier discussion of faith and forgiveness. She asks flatly:
“Do you think there is any possibility of a religious solution for me?”
“If you want one, there probably is.”
“I don’t understand that.”
“Let me try to explain. You can go to any one of the religious groups in the world – Muslim, Buddhist, Calvinist, Roman Catholic, Lutheran, Quaker; the list is endless. You present yourself to a minister, as people came to my father, for instance. You say, ‘Please, I am lost and in darkness. I am told you have the light. Will you share it with me? I am unclean, I wish to be cleansed.’ The answer will be the same from everyone: “Yes, we have the light. We are willing to share it. There is always forgiveness and a new life for the penitent. Come in! Let us instruct you. Then, when you are ready and disposed to grace, we will receive you into the community of the elect.’”
“But which community do I choose? Which way is the right one? Whose god is the true one?”
“Exactly! If any. But I have seen people calm and happy and totally at peace in religious convictions.”
“I’d like to hear about the ones who impressed you most.”
“Are you laughing at me?”
“God forbid! But in this kind of analysis the small facts are very important.”
“Very well! Here’s an example. All the time we were in Padua we used to get calls from mendicant monks and nuns collecting for various charities: hospitals, orphanages, refuges for fallen women. The monks came alone. The nuns always came in pairs, one young, one older. My favourites were a pair of Poor Clares from a foundling home near the centre of the city. The elder one was a big woman with a round smiling face who looked and talked like a village washerwoman. The younger was singularly beautiful. Her skin was white as milk. She looked as though she had just stepped out from a della Robbia ceramic.
“Lily and I would always have these two in for coffee and apple cake. They were glad to rest their feet after a long tramp round the city; so we got to know them quite well. The elder one was exactly what she looked like, the daughter of a peasant farmer near Ferrara. The other was the daughter of a judge from Siena. Her name in religion was Sister Damiana. She was highly educated, spoke English, French and German, and played the piano beautifully.
“When I asked what had made her enter the convent, she gave me a very strange answer. ‘I was called. I answered.’ When I asked her how she was called – by voice or trumpet or heavenly post horn – she laughed and said: ‘It’s like falling in love. There are no words to describe it.’ When I asked her if she’d ever fallen in love, she said yes, she had even become engaged, but her fiance had died a month before the wedding.
“She used to call me Dottoressa, and when the big typhoid epidemic hit Padua, she asked Lily and me to help with nursing the children in the institute. All of us senior medical students were recruited for public health duty; so by the time I got to the orphanage, I had often been on my feet for eight or ten hours. But the devotion of those women, especially my young friend, shamed me and kept me going. Come to think of it, she was the only one who ever could shame me, without saying a word!”
“Did you ever share any confidences with her?”
“About my own life? Never. Damiana never asked; and what I had to tell was hardly convent talk. However, there was one strange day, just before the epidemic began to subside. I was sitting on a bed in one of the dormitories, trying to spoon liquid into a frail little mite who I knew was terminal. I was raging inside about the stupidity and ignorance that caused this kind of outbreak to happen. Damiana came and laid her hand on my forehead and said softly: ‘Such stormy thoughts! So much anger! Such a hungry heart! Be calm! Love will come to you in his own time.’ I burst into tears. She held me against her until I was quiet again. I remember thinking that I couldn’t feel her breasts through the coarse cloth of her habit.”
“Did you keep in touch with her afterwards?”
“She died the year before I left Padua. She had T.B. but she could have been saved. I’ve hated those primitive conventual orders ever since. They may be better now; but in Italy in those days they’d set out to save the poor and ignorant for Christ – and kill off their own people with malnutrition, overwork and sheer inhuman neglect.”
It is the first time I have seen her angry about anyone but herself. I content myself with a quiet comment.
“It’s plain you were very fond of her.”
“I loved her. I loved her in a way I’ve never known before or since. Thank God she never knew the kind of woman I was!”
“Perhaps she did.”
“She couldn’t have. She died too soon. I should be glad of that, I suppose.”
She is very near to tears. I note how hard she tries to hold them back. Finally she manages an unsteady smile and demands to change the subject.
“Very well. What else can you tell me that was significant about your life in Padua?”
“Significant? That’s a loaded word if ever I heard one. Significant. Let me think. Well, for one thing I became a good physician. I understood what the trade was about. I was deft in surgery and accurate in diagnosis. Professor Lello used to say I had everything a great doctor needs – except heart. He was right. I was always plagued by the idea that medicine is a profession dedicated to futility. All our patients die in the end. We bury our successes and our failures in the same grave.”
There is something odd about the last phrase, but I cannot for the life of me think what it is. It is like hearing a distant bell with a tiny crack in it. I ask one of the questions I have on my list.
“Why did you finally give up medicine?”
She looks at me in mild surprise.
“Oh! I thought I’d explained that. I nursed my husband during his final illness. That was one failure too many. I quit the game for good.”
I am still interested in how she buried successes and failures in the same grave; but no matter, I make a note and hope that it will clarify itself later. I ask whether there is any more useful material to be mined out of the Padua period.
“What else? Oh yes! Lily had a big, big love affair. It lasted only a year – less than that even! – but it was the most extraordinary thing that had ever happened to her. One weekend Lily and I were riding in the hills when we came to a tiny village called Arqua. Lily, who carried a Baedeker even to bed, announced that this was the place where Petrarch had lived during the last years of his life and that the signatures of Lord Byron and Teresa Guiccioli were to be found in the visitors’ book.
“We found Petrarch’s house, perched high on a hilltop with the poet’s cat, mummified, in a glass case over the lintel. We found Byron’s signature – and Teresa’s, too. We strolled in the tiny garden overlooking the hills and the vineyards. Then, just as we were mounting up for the ride home, Lily’s great love came ambling up the road on a big bay hunter.”
She is obviously enjoying this part of the story, so I let her savour the drama of it.
“A beautiful horse and a most extraordinary rider! He was not young. We discovered later that he was in his late sixties; but he carried himself like a prince in the saddle, ramrod straight, with his great arrogant head held high, like Donatello’s Gattamelata outside the duomo in Padua. His face was lean, with a long beard and heavy drooping moustache. He had a great hooked nose like an eagle’s beak, a pair of dark piercing eyes and a thin slash of a mouth which rarely smiled and always carried a hint of cruelty. He reined in and saluted us in Italian. Lily gaped at him for a moment, then in purest Lancashire announced:
“‘My God! I know you!’
“The stranger grinned – and the dark eyes softened into a boyish twinkle.
“‘You do Madame? Then for the love of God tell me who I am. I should hate to perish in ignorance.’
“‘You’re – you’re that explorer fellow. Richard . . . I’m sorry, Sir Richard Burton. I’ve seen your picture in The Times.’
“He swept off his hat and made extravagant thanks.
“‘Madame, you have saved my day from utter disaster! I am indeed the explorer fellow, presently Her Britannic Majesty’s consul in Trieste. You find me on vacation from my post, unchained from my desk and mercifully on leave from a wife I love dearly but cannot tolerate for more than a month at a stretch. That’s not her fault. I am myself a quite intolerable spouse.’
“After that Lily made a breathless introduction of herself and of me. We did a second tour of Petrarch’s house and garden, stood respectfully under the fig trees while our new acquaintance declaimed two of the Sonnets to Laura and then rode back with him to the club to return our horses and pick up our coachman. The obvious move was to invite Burton to dinner. He accepted. Over the meal, he was charming and outrageous and full of splendid stories about his early days in the Sind, his ill fated exploration with Speke and so much more that by the time he left, Lily and I were floating all over the map.
“On the next visit – only forty-eight hours later – he was taken ill with a violent attack of malaria. We put him to bed in Papa’s room. I examined him. It was clearly a chronic case. His liver and spleen were grossly enlarged. I prescribed for him; Lily nursed him. By the time he was well enough to travel again they were lovers. When I remonstrated with Lily, she retorted: ‘What did you expect? He’s an urgent man. I’m a ready woman. As for his lady wife, she must have had a lot worse competition than me. He’s done everything and seen everything – and thank God I was practised enough to be ready for him!’
“Then – this was tender and rather sad – she took my hands and held them against her breast and begged me, ‘Please, Magda, love! You won’t try to steal him from me, will you?’ I swore I wouldn’t and I meant it. He was too old for-me and – I know this will sound strange – he frightened me. He knew too much about everything. He had made the pilgrimage to Mecca, disguised as an Arab doctor. He had entered the forbidden city of Harar in Ethiopia. He had spied for Napier in the Sind, and written a scandalous account of male and female prostitution in Karachi which dogged him for the rest of his career. He had no morals to speak of. He had killed men. He was engaged in translating the two erotic classics of the Arab world, The Thousand and One Nights and The Scented Garden. I always had the feeling that he was looking into my head and laughing at what he saw.
“His attitude to Lily was quite different. He loved her earthiness and her spit-in-the-eye vulgarities. When he got too boisterous or too angry drunk, she could scold him into submission. He came at all hours and went away without warning; but his pockets were always full of odd gifts: a bracelet of elephant hair, an amulet of carved amber, a bezel ring from some Balkan goldsmith.
“One day he arrived just before noon. Lily was out with the maid buying fruit and vegetables. I sat down with him to have coffee. He took me by the shoulders and turned me to face him. His grip was like iron. His dark eyes were hypnotic. He spoke very quietly, almost in a whisper, ‘You’re a wild one, Magda. I used to tame falcons in India, so I know what you need. The only reason I haven’t touched you is because I’m too tired to care. Lily’s just right for me. She knows what I want and when I want it and when I just need to curl up and sleep. Problem is I’m not going to be around much longer. You know it. You were punching around at my liver during that last malaria attack. I’ve got all sorts of other bugs that I’ve picked up from Salt Lake in Utah to Jeddah in Arabia. I’d like to leave something for Lily; but I’m a poor man and whatever I have goes to my wife Elizabeth. She’s a good woman, with the heart of a lion; but I’ve always needed a string of fillies and sometimes a colt or two for a change. So I’ve brought something I want you to hold for Lily and give to her when I’m gone. She’ll get a laugh out of it. And if I leave it to Elizabeth, I know she’ll burn it.’
“He handed me a small, flat bundle sewn in canvas with a sailmaker’s stitch. He begged, ‘You won’t open it, will you? That’s Lily’s privilege.’ Then he gave me a long appraising look. I knew he was deciding whether to kiss me or not. Finally he shook his head and grinned at me. ‘No, no, no! It’s too early for you and too late for me. I’d like to be young enough to enjoy you. I’d hate to be the man who failed you.’ He died three months later. Lily was broken hearted. It took her a long time to recover. She kept the package for weeks before she could bring herself to open it. Inside, written in Burton’s own hand, was a translation of The Scented Garden. We used to sit up in bed reading it to each other. Later, I heard that Elizabeth Arundell Burton was accused of burning this and a number of other Burton’s erotica. Perhaps she did and this was a copy which he made specially for Lily. I don’t know. I presume Lily still has it. I wonder what the parson will say when he finds it after her death among her belongings. I understand she’s become such a prim old lady!”
She ends the story on this odd elegiac note; so I am almost sure we have done with Padua. She herself is weary of the tale. I suggest a few moments’ break and offer her a brandy or a cordial. We both settle for the brandy. By way of a diversion we rummage together through my books and come up with more snippets of useless information on Michael the Scot. We find that Dante has him in the fourth circle of hell, that Boccaccio rates him among the great masters of necromancy and that he crops up in a fresco in Florence – a small, slight fellow with a pointed beard, dressed like an Arab. I also learn a little more about my client. She knows very well how to use research material. She does read Latin and Greek – but then so did Messalina, who was a very bawdy and a very dangerous lady!
I must have poured an over-large dose of brandy. I can feel it going to my head. Normally I like the first wave of relaxation that comes with a noggin of liquor; but not now. We are coming up to the moment which the old Greek healers called the “experience of the god”. It is an instant of great danger in which the patient will either submit to the Presence or run berserk in a destructive fury. So, dear Madame, if you’re ready, let’s recollect ourselves and begin our consideration of the last things, your private Escha-ton, the day of judgment and dissolution, when the scales fall from your eyes and you will see everything plain!