Beneath M.R.’s ivory hammer, an entire art-lover’s world would vanish; artefacts have no master.
Only the Tiepolos would remain, their fate bound to that of the walls of the empty building: The Negro with a Strawberry, The White Horse, The Musicians’ Gallery; The Embarkation of Antony and Cleopatra, The Greyhound with Centurions, the famous perspective of The Silver Dish. Above them was the throng of goddesses, painted as permanent frescoes, and who were now mistresses of a deserted Palazzo Labia, laughing for all eternity, like the Rhinemaidens.
Detached from their supports, in whose arms would these beautiful women now lie? Where would these Bacchuses parade their drunkenness, or these Ceres their harvests? Casting a dark glance at their bidders, ermine-cloaked doges on bituminous canvases no longer ascended the Giants’ staircase, but that of the auction house. Marshals clutching their batons, ordered the assault, but the voices of the auctioneers were louder. Removal men lolled about on sinuous settees, intended for voluptuous siestas; light from the chandeliers beamed down on the buyers; floating upon this ocean of highly-valued objects were squadrons of Chinese vases, candelabra, girandola, jugs and pots. To the highest bidder for prows of ships that would never see battle again would go the coats of arms, destined for the hallways of Greek shipowners.
“At a hundred thousand lire, no further bids?” Beneath the naked vaults, hewn from Istrian marble, the words echoed: No further bids…
These were the last rites for the life, not of a great collector, but of a great art lover… Italy has one camposanto fewer…
1964
JUST AS IN 1917 I had observed Venice cast its shadow over my exiled life, similarly, as I left that auction sale, the Venice of the 1960s was to open up a gulf between my mature years and old age. Something, or someone, leads me, has always led me, whenever I believed I was paving my own path.
I look upon that world of yesteryear without resentment, nor regret; quite simply, it no longer exists; for me, at least, since it continues, without any bother or fuss, in a universe that is a little more brutal, a little more doomed, and in which the average level of virtues and vices must have remained more or less constant. It is merely that its ways are no longer mine; the barber cuts my hair with a pair of clippers; at the restaurant I am obliged to sit opposite my guest, not next to him, on a stool; hotels refuse my dog; when I arrive, the porter no longer takes the keys of my car in order to park it; at restaurants it is only in Greece that I am allowed to go and choose what I want from the stove; in Paris there is no longer any difference between the pavement and the road; at parties, I don’t recognise people behind their beards and wigs, and I can’t keep pace with so many first names. In the old days, the Mediterranean was my swimming-pool; nowadays, if I want to swim in it, I need the permission of the Russian or American fleets. Rheumatism confines me to drinking Vittel; can one go out in the evening without a glass in one’s hand? It casts a chill on the evening and offends one’s hostess, who feels that her dinner party is thereby undermined. Paintings used to make me happy; today’s art is the painting of iconoclasts. “You’re a painter, why haven’t you continued painting?” I asked Robert Bresson. “Because I would have committed suicide,” he answered. As for dodecaphonic music, I only have to think of it to prefer death.
Awkward to look after, there’s nothing left for me to do down here except make way; I shall never accustom myself to electronic gadgetry, nor to living in a country whose fate is being determined six thousand kilometres from where I live.
Everything sets one’s teeth on edge in this world where it is always rush-hour and where children want to be Einsteins; the couples who go off to market clasping one another, as they see in the films, get on one’s nerves; their kisses in public, it’s no longer kissing, but eating; women’s flesh is treated like meat. To crown it all, the young are far better looking than we were.
Yesterday, during mass in a little Canadian chapel, I was handed a cardboard box which everyone dipped into: it contained the hosts; as a child I was taught that to touch a host, even if it was not consecrated, was a sacrilege; I excused myself, saying that I could not take communion, not having been to confession in the morning; they smiled; it was quite customary to receive God without going to confession.
I have been away for too long; at home they speak a foreign language I no longer understand; besides, no dictionary exists.
Old age is governed by the minus sign: one is less and less intelligent, less and less foolish.
Autumn; lying fallow until now, the dead leaves begin to stir, clinging to the rim, rolling on towards winter.
1963
SERENATA A TRE 196…
THIS PIAZZETTA reminds me of something… An earlier disappointment, some misadventure that lay dormant here, unperturbed by memory for years… I allude to it only because after such a long time it seems to me to take on a symbolic value.
Cats in Venice never disturb themselves either, having nothing to fear from cars; the only criticism I have of cats is that they never say good morning. Venetian cats look as if they are a part of the ground; they don’t wear collars; their bellies are like deflated bagpipes, and in this treeless city they no longer know how to climb; they are weary of life, for there are too many mice, too many pigeons.
Here is one of them, painted on the outside of this little house. I am reminded of Tintoretto and of Giorgione, who both began life as house painters…
Here I am… so many years ago…
Beguiling C—. Even her ghost makes a fool of me! Who would not be led astray, beyond the grave? When she enraptured me, C— certainly did not corrupt my innocence, but how often did I leave her, raging at the confusion she brought to my emotions; and I was even more furious when her reappearance was enough to crush all resentment.
How to explain it? That insolent way she held her head, her enigmatic eyes, defiant and yellow as the deepest agate, her nose with its quivering nostrils, her unruly hair hat was like a fire no hat could extinguish. The centuries blended in her, she was proud like the Renaissance, as frivolous as the Baroque. A queen and a rag-and-bone woman; a sibyl and a little girl.
She travelled throughout her life, even within Venice, staying one year with aristocrats, another living among the women who threaded pearls or the boatmen on the Giudecca. She, who never opened a book, where did she gain a general knowledge that was often erudite? The key to that beautiful, fleshly enigma is not one to be unlocked easily.
She was so delectable that her mere presence was a veritable assault on one’s morals. Very tall, she would examine you thoroughly and with expertise from on high; you felt that even if you lay her on her back she would still pinch you, like a crab, that she would never ask for mercy, always consenting, but never giving of herself.
That was what I was suddenly reminded of by the little house in the Piazzetta, and the cat painted a tempera on the cartouche.
“Come this evening, after dinner… Don’t come in by the door to the canal, you’d be seen too easily. Go by the back door, the campo is always deserted.”
That evening, the door was ajar. The drawing-room was empty…