Sophie and the Sibyl

by Patricia Duncker

  ‘Ah, the beloved boy,’ said the Sibyl, walking round the statue, her eyes at the level of the genitals. ‘It is extraordinary, is it not, how Hadrian’s cult of his lost love spread throughout the Empire? Antinous had cities named for him, temples built, an entire religious sensibility thrived upon Hadrian’s grief. Antinous surpassed his destiny as just one more lost boy, and became a Hermes of the Underworld. He never grew old.’

  Max stared at the statue’s proud nakedness, the reared arm cresting the world. The blank eyes interrogated posterity. Max decided that the beloved boy looked arrogant and sulky, and had he lived would surely have developed an enormous double chin. The signs were there. This glossy Antinous will run to fat. Max decided to pay attention to his diet and the amount of port wine he consumed at dinner. But the Sibyl had begun to moralise. He stood to attention. Duty called. His function, on that October morning, was to incline his head devotedly, and keep his views to himself.

  ‘Hadrian lost that classical poise, so typical of wise rulers in the ancient world. He fell victim to quacks and charlatans, and sank into credulous absorption, giving ear to any cult which proclaimed eternal life. He could not accept that his beloved boy had chosen to leave him and that they would never embrace one another again. For Antinous was found drowned in strange, indeed inexplicable circumstances. Some say he gave his life for Hadrian, a bizarre, primitive sacrifice on the banks of the Nile. At that time Egypt bristled with mystery and resurrection cults, including that of Isis and Osiris.’

  The Sibyl, clearly used to addressing a rapt audience, usually consisting of one spellbound individual, and clearly possessed of a pedagogical streak, treated Max as if he were in urgent need of instruction. Max dared to question the Sibyl’s patronising dismissal of all Egyptian spiritual quests.

  ‘But seekers after truth might well have been adherents of those cults.’

  ‘Of course, and I do not despise them. Nor do I disparage Hadrian’s noble grief. He made his Antinous a god.’

  Max gazed dubiously at the naked marble foot, inches from his nose. He could not imagine loving a man with the unmeasured passion Hadrian had poured out over Antinous. The Sibyl continued.

  ‘But our relationship to those belief systems has been transformed by the serious scholarly challenges, led by German writers and thinkers, to our own common faith. Nothing has seemed more remarkable to me than the spread of scepticism, or rationalism if you will, during the latter part of my life. Any person who has no assured and ever-present belief in the existence of a personal god, or of a future existence with retribution and reward, can have for his rule of life only those impulses and instincts which are strongest or which seem to be the best. We have the power of reflection and our highest intelligence commands us to act for the good of others. This is undoubtedly the deepest pleasure on this earth: to deserve the love of those close to us, and to see that diffusive goodness spreading ever outwards.’

  Max did not share this Olympian perspective of universal benevolence, which bore little relation to the deep-rooted iniquity he observed all about him, and often perceived, to his alarm, within himself, but he decided not to argue, and, while giving every impression of complete attention, he guided her towards the Hall of Classical Roman Portraiture.

  The marble faces, which had, until then, appeared unchanging and remote in their abstract loveliness, suddenly aged, creased, and frowned. The blind gaze of their still features shifted, intensified, and became disturbingly real, concentrated and intent. Eternity, which had left Antinous untouched, notched lines around these eyes and mouths. Death and Time held hands with the Romans. Here stood the Emperor Augustus in marble relief, and here a bust of Caracalla, his naked chest crossed with his sword belt, and his cloak wrenched aside for battle. They paused before the tomb relief of Publius Aiedius and his wife Aiedia: two aged faces peered forth from their monument, as if it were a window carved in the wall of their final home. The figures turned a little towards each other, their shoulders touching, their hands clasped. The Sibyl gazed at the shrunken mouth and chicken neck of the old man, and murmured, almost to herself:

  ‘That long, late afternoon of love. To be desired above all else.’

  Max decided not to hear, obscurely jealous of each solicitous reflection directed towards her husband. The Sibyl’s strange gift of being wholly present in her listening never was withdrawn. But her absorption in Lewes covered every thought with a patina of wifely devotion. They lived each other’s lives, and from that claustrophobic intimacy all else remained excluded. No one could be admitted to the Presence, except as a converted worshipper, and Lewes, as gatekeeper, checked out all the applicants. How odd, thought Max, to find himself within the walls, without the aid of a Trojan horse. They paced the gallery slowly, arm in arm. Max kept an eye on the other visitors, but no one approached them, or attempted to accost the Sibyl.

  ‘Here it is at last,’ she exclaimed, ‘the face I have come to see.’

  And before them, next to an animated struggle, which represented Theseus dealing with the Minotaur, a bust on a plinth gazed away out of the window. The temporary handwritten label peeled slowly off the polished oak stand: Der Dichter Lucian, Erworben 1871. The Poet Lucian. The face, reflective, absent, was that of a bored sitter forced to remain still, while the clay mould of his features took shape beneath the sculptor’s hands. Was this a noble, scrupulous face? Max had expected Lucian to resemble the Sibyl, and found to his surprise that he did not. Shrewd rather than handsome, austere rather than generous, and that kind gentleness which so often animated the Sibyl’s glance formed no part of this man’s character, concluded Max. But like the Sibyl, he was no beauty. The hawked nose loomed from his lined face. Beneath his folded hands, apparently written on a tablet, emerged the words: ‘SUAVE MARI MAGNO’. Max didn’t recognise the lines, but the Sibyl gently indicated the text and completed the verse, first in Latin, then in English. Pleasant it is, when on the wide sea the winds stir up the waters, to gaze from dry land at the great troubles of another.

  ‘Those are the first three words of the second book of Lucretius’s De rerum natura. Lucian and Lucretius were not contemporaries, for Lucretius died in 55 BC, and while we are not certain of Lucian’s dates, we think that he was born in Southern Gaul a hundred years later, perhaps around AD 50. But Lucian is known to have admired the poem, although he considered its contents subversive, and possibly damaging to the state. Many of his comments seem hostile to the philosophy of Epicurus, whom Lucretius revered. The Epicureans seem so modern to me now. But Lucian knew all his predecessor’s poetry well, and that verse, which if the sculpture is genuinely a portrait, and we believe that it is so, must be one that he chose, for it describes what Lucian did. He retired from public service to his country estates by the sea, and concentrated on farming and writing. So far as I know, apart from that early period when he studied in Athens, he never travelled for pleasure. He lived in quiet retirement and gazed upon the sea and other people’s troubles.’

  ‘But if the Fragment is authentic,’ said Max, intrigued by the face of the ancient atheist, ‘then he had enough close contact with the changing mores of the Empire, even when he ceased to be Governor of Bithynia and Phrygia, to write what he did with authority.’

  ‘Indeed.’ The Sibyl never ceased to gaze upon the pensive countenance before them, lost in the wastes of nearly two thousand years, and now polished and gleaming amidst Caesars and famous gladiators. Like the Sibyl, Lucian had transformed himself into a celebrity. ‘He lived close to a busy Mediterranean port. Christianity spread rapidly across the waters.’

  She gazed critically at the portrait; then walked round it twice.

  ‘This bust was created for a public building, to honour the man. I think he must have been past fifty when the likeness was taken. The provenance of the sculpture must be secure. The archaeologists seem entirely confident that this is the poet philosopher Lucian. That unique voice, contemplating his own times and the future of all peoples, rings as c
lear and truthful as if he were speaking to us now. His extraordinary organic theory of societies and religions influenced Herder, I believe. He thought that, like plants, a society may be born, grow, flourish, blossom and mature, but that it will then inevitably fade, decay and die away, so that new worlds and new ways of thinking may be discovered and reborn. Do you know the story of Lucian and the slave girl? She was a Palestinian woman, possessed of extraordinary healing powers, whom he purchased at the very moment when, unbeknown to him, as master of the house, the new religion had already crossed his threshold.’

  She turned to face Max, who shook his head. And there, standing in the gallery, the Sibyl told the story of the first meeting between Lucian and Myriam.

  The old philosopher had arranged for his agent to purchase several household slaves in the market at the local port, but before allowing them to enter his service he insisted that they should be inspected for vermin and disease. Then the new slaves were brought before the master who questioned them himself, concerning their origins and talents. The young woman from Palestine could read and write Latin as well as Greek; this was extremely unusual in a woman sold into bondage. The head cook vouched for her; he claimed she understood the medicinal qualities of plants, and that her power to heal wounds, agues and skin diseases was little short of miraculous. Intrigued, Lucian demanded to know where she had learned these things. The cook glared at her, but the woman stood mute, her head thrown back, defiant. Was she too frightened to speak in the presence of the master? Lucian called for a slate and chalk. Could she write? Would she be useful?

  ‘Let her write down the source of her power.’

  The woman snatched the slate, scrawled a single shape across the surface and handed the image back to Lucian. He found himself gazing, for the first time, at the secret Christian sign of the fish. The slaves grouped around him recoiled, frightened for their lives. For the new religion, widespread within the philosopher’s household, could never be safely acknowledged. Lucian simply nodded, and dismissed the group, stipulating that the woman should be treated well and brought to him again when she had regained her tongue. And so began that curious connection between the old Stoic philosopher and the Palestinian slave, the argument between classical antiquity and the new religion.

  ‘Lucian realised at once that Christianity could not be stopped. And he foresaw its power. The old religions managed their gods with a system of bribery and wheedling, and bloody offerings of sacrificed animals. The Christians claimed to love their god, and, despite the evident insanity of the proposition, argued that their god loved them in return. Lucian felt the full force of this argument. And I can never forget the poignancy of his words when he wrote: I returned to my sacred groves, only to discover that the nymphs had fled. The old religion could not evolve to confront this threat, and would therefore wither and die.’

  ‘But he thought that Christianity would vanish too,’ Max objected, shaken by the Sibyl’s fearlessness, and sensing that he was being challenged. ‘And paganism didn’t just fade away gracefully. The old religion was put down by force.’

  ‘Not many people were prepared to die rather than relinquish their faith in Aphrodite, Max. That made no sense. The old religion was distinguished by ritual. What you did mattered more than what you believed. The Christians were prepared to die for their hidden faith, for something unproven, unseen. Persecute and torment a people for their beliefs and some will certainly recant, but others, the most intensely fanatical, will prefer to die, however horribly, thus bearing witness. And I do not think that Christianity as a religious system will pass peacefully away in our lifetimes.’

  She smiled calmly at Max, concealing the fearful teeth.

  ‘The old religion continues to glimmer through the centuries, my dear. In the sixteenth century most people in England were hedging their bets by visiting sacred wells and attaching locks of their children’s hair to holy trees. We visited a little chapel in Brittany, which was once dedicated to St Venus. There she stood, emerging from the waters, surrounded by fishes, her lovely breasts uncovered. But in the Middle Ages the chapel was rededicated to St Agatha, who sacrificed her breasts for god. And so the beautiful naked breasts of the goddess simply changed sides, and the old religion metamorphosed into the new faith.’

  Max had never discussed the erotic and religious potential of breasts with anyone, even his fellow officers, and no woman of his acquaintance ever talked with such open frankness. He bowed slightly to Lucian and the Sibyl, a ploy devised to mask a faint but rising blush. The Sibyl took his arm, mightily amused.

  ‘Come. I have something else to show you that I noticed when we were last in Berlin.’ They approached a red sandstone tomb of a Crusader and his wife, laid side by side, their gloved hands clamped in prayer.

  ‘Look carefully, my dear. Do you notice anything odd about this dead, devoted couple?’

  Max didn’t. They were both fixed in carved stone, their blank eyes raised to heaven. At the knight’s feet lay a snarling lion, the long mailed shoes curved over the creature’s body, ending in neatly fettered points. Beneath her feet lay a greyhound, foetal and quiet, nestled in the final folds of her stone drapery. Nothing was amiss. The tombstone seemed remarkably well preserved and intact. Husband and wife had been dead for nearly five hundred years.

  ‘Look,’ insisted the Sibyl.

  And then he saw it. Protruding from the folds of her gown, shrouded a little by the embroidered cord at her waist, lay a sword. The lady had carried her sword to the grave, and no ordinary sword; this was a broadsword, with jewels carved into the handle, a sword carried only by knights in battle. The lady lay for ever armed, like her husband; she too was a knight.

  ‘Good heavens,’ said Max. ‘How peculiar!’

  ‘I wonder,’ replied the Sibyl, satisfied by his surprise, ‘what story lies behind this curiosity, which is nowhere mentioned in the guidebooks.

  ‘Indeed,’ said Max, proffering his arm. He did not like to think that a wife, capable of decapitating her husband in life, would continue to take the precaution of retaining her weapon after death.

  The Sibyl possessed an odd knack of noticing disconcerting facts or objects; she was on the watch for the peculiar, and the graceful irony of her manner as she enjoyed sharing her visions of the freakish and the weird enchanted him utterly. He was granted an audience, standing before her inner world, a museum of observations, selections and judgements. Her public would have expected to view a noble array of sentiments, ranked like statues of the antique gods in the upper gallery. Instead he was privileged to view a cabinet of curiosities, where the bizarre triumphed over the moralistic and the beautiful. He had been granted permission to meet the Sibyl on her own ground.

  ‘No one but you would have seen the sword.’ He gazed at the Sibyl’s extraordinary profile. They paused before a gigantic Renaissance Madonna, startled by the arrival of a floating angel with rainbow wings.

  ‘I think that the sword has often been noticed, and then ignored. We tend to ignore the unaccountable. Look at this Madonna’s expression. What do you see? I see surprise, incredulity and disgust. The mother of Jesus of Nazareth would almost certainly have been illiterate. Yet now that we women have been allowed to learn how to read we are perpetually disturbed in that precious, silent meditation, rarely by angels, but sometimes by men.’

  She gleamed wickedly at Max, who reddened, remembering his intrusion at Homburg when the Sibyl sat reading Lucian.

  ‘Forgive me, I would never intentionally intrude –’

  ‘Don’t apologise! I only said that for the pleasure of seeing you blush again. You radiate such an endearing modest glow.’

  Max inclined his head to hers, flattered and trapped.

  ‘Shall we look in on the Byzantine sculptures? A second-century sarcophagus has been added to the collection. I didn’t see it in the spring, but Mrs. Harleth tells me that the frieze is in perfect condition.’

  As they left the Museum at the appointed hour the Sibyl th
anked him graciously.

  ‘We shall spend the rest of our time in Germany visiting Karlsruhe and Stuttgart, but I hope that we might see you there before we return to England. We have an affinity with what the world calls dull places and always prosper best in them.’

  She declared herself too tired to walk to the Dorotheenstraße, and so he hailed a cab. As he took her gloved hand to help her up the step she reached into her pocket and handed him a small note, with an air of conspiracy.

  ‘I have received a letter from the Countess Sophie von Hahn. As you are mentioned therein I think it perfectly correct to put the matter in your hands. You will give her an answer for me, Max. I would have been quite unable to avoid making mention of a certain necklace or moralising on the evils of the Spielsaal.’

  Max took the note. Ripples of alarm shivered down his arms and back. What had Sophie dared to say to Mrs. Lewes? The Sibyl, sharp as an owl on the hunt, noticed his discomfiture at once. The mischievous smile, which she delivered at the last, finally revealed her monstrous teeth, and abruptly transformed her from the Grandmother into the Wolf. Max, abandoned on the busy pavement, watched her cab rattle away down the wide streets. Then he swallowed hard and opened the letter Sophie von Hahn had written to Mrs. Lewes.

  END OF CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  builds to an Unfortunate Climax, leaving Our Hero in a Desperate State of Mind.

  Sophie wrote in German on headed notepaper filched from the Grand Continental. The letter, clearly dashed off in haste, for the handwriting flowed over the edges of the line and dipped downwards, had been composed on the very night of the Architect’s Ball, five days earlier.