Sophie and the Sibyl (35 page)

But now, in Venice, away from home for the first time in years, and confident that the child, who shook off every illness with energetic rapidity, was happy and safe, she dared to leave him for a few hours and arranged to meet Max in the Accademia. Whoever passed through the floating paradise without inspecting the pictures? She stepped briskly into their gondola, arranging her creamy veils and shawls against the sharp wind gusting across the lagoon. Sophie did not care to negotiate the hordes of vendors and beggars who clustered round the doors of the hotels and the Basilica. One importunate woman had dared to stroke Leo’s head. Sophie poked her savagely with the point of her parasol, but immediately thereafter, horribly penitent at her own lack of charity, had given the shrivelled creature a coin. The Countess von Hahn developed a metaphysical repulsion for poverty and grovelling abjection; a quality directly related to the fact that she had been born into a wealthy household and lacked for nothing. The beggars disgusted her, especially those who claimed to be abandoned soldiers, and who displayed their sabre scars and pink stumps, all that remained of their amputated limbs. The world settled back into beauty, light and distance from the rocking, dipping roll of the black gondola. The appalling beggars remained on shore and the distant domes,
palazzi
and
campanili
, which, if inspected closely, appeared dilapidated, speckled with fungi and rogue weeds, glowed once more, as alluring as their reputations, exotic, ravishing.

Sophie tramped into the Stygian shades of the Accademia and tried hard, in the half-light and dingy caverns, to make out what she was supposedly admiring on the walls. The rooms were dense with tourists, clutching guidebooks and parasols. Some traipsed faithfully after a licensed
cicerone
who explained the gloomy beauties high above them. Sophie attached herself to one such party for a moment, but rapidly concluded that the guide, assuming the idiocy of everyone clustered before him, simply handed out a basic Bible lesson. He explained who everyone was in the frozen scenes from Scripture, and tried to guess what they might be doing. She loitered near the group to hear his explanation of the vast painting by Paolo Veronese of
The Last Supper
. This gigantic work, apparently filled with heretical elements, got the artist into trouble. When he was ordered to alter the painting at his own expense Veronese simply changed the title. And wrote in Latin at the top of a pillar: ‘
fecit D. Covi Magnum Levi-Luca Cap. 5
’ – Luke’s Gospel Chapter 5, Levi held a great banquet for the Lord. And so the painting became known as
Feast in the House of Levi
. Sophie gazed at two young black men on the far left of the painting, their faces oddly modern and familiar. It’s more interesting to look at the margins, she thought, and set about peering into the corners of the giant tableaux, ignoring the dim murk far above.

Eventually she found herself seated before a little row of three tender virgins by Giovanni Bellini, which glowed, small, luminous, and pleasantly within reach. Still no sign of Max! One of the Madonnas sported a floating row of six bright red bodiless cherubs, wedged on clouds, with dwarf wings sprouting from their puffy necks. All three women, dressed in red and blue, clutched their tiny doomed sons with long gentle fingers. What would it be like to love your son, as I love Leo, and know that you would see him die?

A shiver ran down the back of her neck. She pulled her ivory skirts close around her knees and bit her lip. Then she heard a woman’s low voice, speaking English, almost whispering.

‘The motif of the red cherubs comes from the Pesaro
Coronation
of 1474; they symbolise the divine passion, but also earthly love. And if, my dearest, you come a little closer, for the light is really not very good, you will see the Madonna’s particular symbols worked into the landscape behind her. There, that little fortified city symbolises her virginity. She is the fortress that is never taken. This is an exquisite piece, as is the
Madonna degli Alberetti
,
the Madonna of the Small Trees
, sadly in need of cleaning. The painting was destined for private devotion and almost certainly had candles burning before it. Hence the darkened background. The trees, you can just see them, symbolise the Old and New Testament.’

Sophie froze as the couple passed before her, the elderly woman still slender and upright, her magnificent mane of hair thick and glossy, although streaked with grey. She leaned upon the arm of a much younger man, pale, but robust, his face covered with a thick, reddish-brown beard.

Sophie could not believe the apparition that had appeared before her: the Sibyl. But it was indeed the Sibyl, well out of widow’s weeds.

The young woman pulled her veil discreetly over her face and bowed her head in careful homage to the
Madonna degli Alberetti
. But if this was the Sibyl, who was the man? She quizzed his profile, certain that she had never seen him before. The couple paused before the fourth small picture, not signed by Bellini, but attributed to him, his atelier and his collaborators. This discreet square portrait represented three figures in an arid landscape. Sophie buried her nose in the guide: Saint Mark, Saint Jerome and unknown devotee, oil on wood panel, acquired by donation, 1838, from Girolamo Contarini. She heard the man’s deep tones, despite the fact that the couple had their backs to her. Two other tourists, a mother and daughter, lined up in front of the Madonnas. Sophie ducked behind them, still seated, her guidebook on her lap.

‘And this one, my love? This is the very picture you spoke of?’

‘It is indeed.’

Sophie leaned forwards, trying to catch every word as the low whisper flowed on.

‘The subject is disputed and has caused many debates. It is in fact a representation of Lucian, the atheist poet and philosopher, whose works were rediscovered and attacked by the ecclesiastical authorities during the fifteenth century. The unknown devotee represents the Jewish maiden, Myriam. This is Saint Mark, who appears to be sharing his lion with the figure that is described in the catalogue as Saint Jerome. But you see, there is no cardinal’s hat. Instead there are books, tablets and scrolls. It would be very unusual to have a young woman, albeit one that is richly dressed, as the devotee. The story goes that Myriam escaped from Jerusalem with Saint Mark as her companion after the Crucifixion; they wandered the Mediterranean, preaching the Gospel of Christ. Myriam entered Lucian’s household as a slave, and despite being very young, proved remarkable for her knowledge of languages and powers of healing. I often thought of her when I created Dinah in
Adam Bede
. Look at the way the philosopher inclines towards her. She became his adopted daughter. But he never converted to her faith.’

‘The picture seems to suggest otherwise,’ ventured the young man. Sophie noted how tenderly he clasped the Sibyl’s hand, still encased in black lace mittens, despite the heat. ‘He is pointing to Saint Mark.’

‘And with the other hand he is indicating his own writing. The Jewish maid faced a choice: the passionate disciple or the Stoic philosopher. The painting depicts that moment of choice.’

Now she could see the Sibyl’s long jaw, huge nose and terrifying smile. A wave of rage and repulsion, very similar to the rush of disgust she felt upon being accosted by stinking beggars, knocked Sophie into the shadows. Something indefinable and disturbing looked out from the Sibyl’s grave eyes, and lurked in the fleeting smile. A fragile veil was lifted away from her forehead, magnifying the long, thin countenance, the massive jaw and the vast, expressive eyes. The lady is old. The lady is ugly. The lady has wonderful eyes.

‘Ah, my dear, we know that he never became a Christian. He died a Roman, and a Roman’s courageous death.’

The strange couple turned to continue their tour. Sophie, now transfixed with curiosity, slid stealthily after them, missing nothing, neither the loving pressure of the mittened hand, nor the gentle weight pressed upon the young man’s arm. The last words she caught before they turned into the sculpture gallery clinched all her suspicions.

‘To see these lovely things with you, my dearest, is a happiness beyond imagining. My joy is now complete.’ The Sibyl delivered this declaration in seductive, lowered tones.

Sophie flattened herself against a priapic satyr on a plinth. ‘My dearest’? ‘Joy’? The Sibyl was childless. This man was young enough to be her son, yet there was no mistaking the sensual tenderness of her tones, or the enthralled devotion of her companion. This cannot be. And yet it is so – her husband hardly cold, and she has already taken another lover! She has hypnotised this young man, like a snake swallowing a toad. La belle dame sans merci hath thee in thrall. Sophie scudded through the galleries, racing for the exit. So that’s what she was after when she wrote that loving little letter to my husband. She had her eye on Max! She wanted a younger man. The sexual triangle of
Middlemarch
and the entire scenario of Dorothea, Casaubon and Ladislaw shifted and warped in Sophie’s racing speculations. The hideous Sibyl metamorphosed into a witch-like ancient scholar, a Morgana of the Black Arts, armed with her enchantments, predatory, concupiscent. The red-beard is her next chosen victim. Does Max know that she is in Venice? And what would he do if he did?

It never occurred to Sophie that the Sibyl could actually have married Mr. John Walter Cross.

Max saw his wife leaving the galleries, veils flying, boots banging on the pavement, as if the Devil himself tickled her heels. He whirled down the steps after her, but lost her on the wharf, where the gondoliers jostled for customers and tourists thronged the entrance. Karl reappeared at his elbow and informed him that the Countess had taken their private gondola, and was, even now, being rowed back to the Danieli at speed. Max panicked. Leo must have suffered an attack or vomited. Somehow Sophie had received the message, abandoned their planned tour of the paintings, and hurtled back to her son’s bedside. This was the only explanation!

‘The child’s ill, Karl! It must be the heat. Have me rowed across the Canal and we’ll run to the hotel through the back streets. I’ll never get a gondola.’

They tore across the Piazza San Marco, neck and neck, sweating profusely, sending clouds of pigeons into the air, disturbing the orchestra and jostling the tourists. Max stormed the little nursery on his way up to their apartments, and discovered Leo astride his rocking horse, shouting ‘
Schnuh! Schnuh!
’ and charging directly into the first lines of the enemy host. No, he’s not sick, exclaimed the nursemaid in alarm, scrutinising Leo at close range, in case she had missed the first symptoms.

Sophie had reached the hotel well before them. Max found her pacing the balcony, high above the bustle of the lagoon and the smoky little steamers that now chugged up and down the Grand Canal. She had discarded her hat and veils; she barely glanced at Max.

‘But nothing’s wrong with Leo!’ cried Max, catching his wife in his arms.

‘Of course not.’ She shrugged him off. ‘Why should there be?’

Then she stopped and turned, leaning on the stone balcony, and fixed Max with a peculiar glare. He felt the prostitute’s hands on his body. I washed carefully. She can’t know. Was I being watched? Who could have told her? It is impossible that she could know. Max blanched, then flushed red from forehead to moustache, the colour of a red-brick Gothic church.

‘What is the matter, my dearest Sophie?’

He awaited judgement.

‘Did you know that Mrs. Lewes is here? Here in Venice?’

‘Mrs. Lewes?’ Max stared at her.

The last conversation concerning the Sibyl that he could recall was with Wolfgang, who was desperately engaged in protracted negotiations to buy both the Continental reprint and the German translation rights to the
Impressions of Theophrastus Such
, as a single package. ‘Lewes was a tight-fisted bastard, but at least you knew where you were. Now I’ve written to Charles Lewes and finally had a muddled reply from her. She’ll get on top of things in the end. She always had a good head for figures. But it’s all damnably inconvenient.’ Wolfgang’s voice receded into the distance, like a passing procession.

Sophie’s green eyes snapped, accusing. Max told the truth.

‘No, I didn’t know. Wolfgang told me that she was sequestered in her summer residence at Witley, somewhere south of London.’

‘Well, she isn’t. She’s here. And she’s not alone.’

‘Is she with Charles? You know, Lewes’s eldest son. And his family?’

‘She’s with a young man. And it’s clear, very clear, for I saw them in the gallery, that he’s her
cavalier servente
. Isn’t that what they call it in Venice? He’s at least three decades younger than she is!’

Max froze, dumbfounded.

‘Did you speak to her?’ He now realised that he had no idea whether Sophie had ever set eyes upon the Sibyl. But perhaps the writer was famous enough to be recognised everywhere.

‘Of course not. She didn’t see me. And whoever that man was, he cannot have been Charles Lewes. She wouldn’t kill off the father and then take up with the son. Even she wouldn’t be that outrageous. She called him “dearest” and clutched his hand.’

But to Max, even in his state of sexual shock and relief that Sophie appeared not to know about his encounter with the black prostitute, this didn’t seem decisive.