Stone Virgin

by Barry Unsworth

  ‘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 out
stretched 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 …’

  He came to the end of this one and I thought he would begin another; but there was a silence and then he began to pray on his own account and in more halting tones.

  ‘Blessed Mary,’ we heard him say, ‘Virgin and mother, please help me, Holy Virgin turn my wife towards me …’

  As soon as she heard this Francesca began kissing me hastily and rubbing her hand down the front of my breeches. She was in a great hurry, she wanted to do it while he was praying. She went down on her back there and then among the bushes and pulled me down with her. I wasn’t ready and besides I felt some compunction and this constrained me, but she was determined, she wrapped her legs round me and squeezed me in somehow. Then I began to stiffen inside her and I felt excited. I put my mouth on Francesca’s to prevent her from making a noise.

  Boccadoro was praying still: ‘Holy Virgin, help me to win my wife’s affections, I will honour you for ever, not only that, Blessed Madonna, I will vote a yearly sum of one hundred zecchini, I promise it. Make her love me and I will vote a sum of one hundred and twenty zecchini for the rest of my life …’

  Francesca was terribly excited. I clasped her round the buttocks and raised her a little so as to penetrate deeply. My own pleasure was mounting. All the same, even then, I could not help thinking how typical it was of old Boccadoro to bargain with the Madonna.

  ‘Make her love me,’ we heard him say again and then we came together and I kept my mouth on hers to stifle the sounds. We lay there while he said some more Hail Marys. Then he took himself slowly off with his lantern.

  He could have taken it into his head that same night to go to her room; he would have found her bed empty and known something was wrong. It was only a question of time before some such thing happened. We were set on a course that could only end in disaster. Though apprehensive, I must admit that I viewed this as a prospect of relief: my eyes were beginning to sink into my head rather; Francesca was insatiable.

  In fact our luck ran out three nights later. As usual I had given him time to retire, seen his light extinguished, waited until I thought he would be sleeping, then made my way to Francesca’s room, which as I have said was not so far from his.

  The time was around midnight. She was waiting for me eagerly. We embraced and kissed. It was hot and in our ardour we cast aside the sheets. We were naked. I turned Francesca over. Coquettishly she pressed her body against the mattress while I stroked her beautiful arse and persuaded the portals to part. She soon grew impatient for my prick and raised herself, enabling me to enter. We were in this position, possibly of all positions the most blatant, in the middle of the bed, without covering or concealment, when the door suddenly opened, Boccadoro’s voice said, ‘Are you awake, my love?’ and the next moment his face, surmounted by a nightcap, illuminated by the lantern he was holding up, came peering round the door.

  What had driven him – loneliness, suspicion, desperation – I do not know. Perhaps he was hoping his prayers had taken effect. He stood there for perhaps ten seconds gaping at us, slack-jawed, the light ghastly on his features. Then he let out a roar of terrifying volume, and rushed towards the bed. Francesca sprang out on one side, I on the other. But it was I who was his object. He came rapidly round the bed, shouting like a man possessed. He seized me by the throat but the lantern impeded him and I struggled free. He was coming at me again. I saw Battistella in his nightshirt half-way into the room and Maria at the door. Francesca had put on her nightgown but I was naked still, having had no time. Boccadoro swung the lantern as if he would strike me with it. He had the face of one demented – congested and staring in the swinging light. Then an idea seemed to strike him. He shouted that he would kill me – his first coherent words – and rushed out of the room.

  I could not see my nightshirt so I wrapped a sheet around me and made for the door. My first idea was to get back to my room but I met Battistella in the passage and he told me that Boccadoro was coming back with a sword he had taken from its place on the wall on the first landing. I could hear him shouting still. Francesca came out into the passage at this moment and together we ran down the back stairs and out into the garden.

  There was a strange light out here, a sort of luminescence, though there was no moon. Even in my concern to escape Boccadoro’s sword I noticed it. It was one of those summer nights that never get really dark. The Madonna was clearly visible in her arbour, glimmering there with this strange light upon her, a radiance that seemed to come from nowhere.

  Boccadoro was in the garden now, sword in one hand, lantern in the other, calling on me to show myself. This I declined to do. The whole household was out here, our white nightclothes were conspicuous but it was hard to tell who was wearing them: a fortunate circumstance for me, I think, as Boccadoro pursued now one, now another, tiring himself, while I kept down behind a hedge. He was threatening death still, but there was a tearful quality now in his rage.

  Various neighbours, roused by Boccadoro’s shouts, had joined us, also in states of undress; and a boatload of people, out late on the canal, had come in to see what was happening. The garden was suddenly full of forms and shadows and shifting lamplight, with this strange pallid radiance hanging over all.

  ‘Come out, you coward!’ Boccadoro shouted. His voice was hoarse.

  ‘Have you thieves here?’ somebody asked, and it was this that gave me my idea, and the strange luminous quality of the summer night which made her seem to shine with her own radiance and perhaps too my memories of other light on her, moonlight, lantern light, and the way she seemed always to attend, to be intensely present, though no doubt this was the genius of her maker. Besides, he was after my blood and this sharpens invention, as is well known. Then I thought of that wretched carver and how some had believed they saw light shine from him.

  I stepped out into the lantern light, only the bedsheet to cover my nakedness. Boccadoro raised his sword and began to make a rush. ‘Stop!’ I shouted. ‘I am not a thief, I am your secretary Ziani.’ I pointed at the Madonna. ‘We are witnessing a miracle,’ I said.

  It was sufficient to stop him. They crowded round full of questions. ‘Can you not see it?’ I said. ‘That heavenly light she is clothed in? It is a little dimmer now. Before, when I saw her from my window, she was radiant, there was a bright halo of light round her head.’

  ‘I saw her too,’ Francesca said. ‘She was gleaming with unearthly radiance. I could not sleep, that is how I came to see her. I was intended to see her – else why could I not sleep? I usually sleep well enough.’ She looked at her husband. ‘Don’t I, caro?’ she said.

  ‘Yes,’ Boccadoro said. ‘Yes.’ He was panting from his exertions.

  ‘My mistress rang for me,’ Maria said. ‘I went to her room and then I saw it too. A light on her such as you never saw in your life before.’

  ‘I heard the shouts,’ Battistella said. ‘I came out and I saw her. She was shining like a thousand candles.’

  Booby Bobbino helped me more than anyone; in common with most brutish persons, he was highly suggestible. ‘I see it, I see it,’ he burst out suddenly, and he fell to crossing himself and mumbling prayers.

  Boccadoro hesitated a long moment, the sword held down by his side. He had had time to think. There was a crowd of witnesses. Should they witness a miracle or should they witness his horns?

  ‘I thought it was thieves,’ he said at last. ‘Then I saw the Madonna shining.’

  ‘Put out your lamps,’ I said. ‘You will see her better.’

  They did so. It is true she was shining; there was a glow on the stone like very pale fire, like the edge of flame where it whitens into air. Trick of the light, effect of the pale stone of which she was made – fortunate for me, in any case.

  We looked at her, the raised head, faint dreaming
smile, the half-unwilling turn of the body. There was a scent of roses. Bobbino’s mutterings continued somewhere behind me. On an inspired impulse I sank to my knees. One by one they followed suit – every single person there in the garden, Boccadoro included. It was a triumph: in forestalling the vengeance of that cornuto, I had saved my skin and created a miracle at the same time.

  It was a miracle that became official. Francesca’s uncle on her mother’s side was Piero Fornarini, Bishop of Venice at that time, a man of extravagant habits. Partly no doubt for the sake of protecting the family, but more for the sake of Boccadoro’s money, he agreed that the event should be accepted as miraculous. That is how the Madonna came to be sanctified, that is how she came to be installed on the façade of the Carità.

  With feelings of triumphant self-satisfaction Ziani picked up his handbell and gave it a prolonged ring. He was coming to the end of this episode now; not long afterwards he and Battistella had left for Naples. A couple of paragraphs remained to be done; in these he would enlarge a little on his own ingenuity and resource.

  ‘I have nearly finished,’ he said, when Battistella appeared. ‘Tomorrow I hope to make a start on that Naples business. All the same, it has a beautiful symmetry, this affair. Perhaps you don’t know the meaning of that word?’

  Battistella made no reply, merely stood staring, breathing heavily.

  ‘Think of it,’ Ziani said. ‘The Fornarini family, for reasons of their own, prosecute the sculptor and cause the Madonna to be suppressed; three hundred years later a Fornarini sanctifies and elevates her. The friars who reject her because of the sculptor’s unsavoury life are themselves expelled in an odour even worse. The archdupe Boccadoro, to conceal his horns, erects a monument to cuckoldry that will last for centuries. The Madonna, symbol of all that is chaste and virtuous in women, is rescued from obscurity for her services to adultery.’