“No. Sorry. May I introduce Mr. Stone? I have newly made his acquaintance.”
I held out a hand. Macintyre ignored it, gave me a cursory nod and renewed his assault on poor Cort, who stood there wanly.
“I’m conducting an important test this morning. And I postponed it, just to assist you. I would have thought the very least you could do would be…”
“Stop complaining,” I interjected suddenly, “or the rest of your morning will be lost as well.”
Very rude of me, but not half as offensive as Macintyre was being. I calculated that he simply liked bullying people when he was in a foul mood, and that matching him, rude for rude, was the best way of dealing with the situation. Poor Cort was too cowed to do much to protect himself, and that was his choice, but I did not see why I had to endure it as well.
Macintyre’s flow of eloquence dried up immediately. His mouth snapped shut and he turned his gaze—remarkably blue eyes, I noted, clear and large—on me. There was a heavy pause, and then he let out a loud “Pfah!” and thrust his hands back into his pockets again. “Very well,” he grumbled. “Let us get on.”
Everything about him suggested a man of strength and character. Certainly he was uncouth, but England owns an excessive supply of the well-bred and polite. Macintyre was a man to get things done, and they are much harder to find. He was not one to waste time on flattery, or to cover over awkward situations with a finely turned phrase. A man to avoid at a soirée, but invaluable in a battle—or a factory.
Cort, meanwhile, had fished out a huge key from his pocket and had unlocked the great and ancient door, pushing it open by leaning his whole frame against it. It gave way with a screech that sounded like the dead in torment, and Macintyre and I followed him in.
As in many Venetian palazzi (so I discovered), the entranceway gave onto a small courtyard; this was where the domestic business of the place had been conducted. On the other façade, giving directly onto the rio di Cannaregio, was all the architectural finery to impress the passerby. What that looked like I did not as yet know. But the sight from the courtyard was terrifying. I could just see that it was a building, of a sort, although it looked as though it had been hit by several cannon shells. Rubble lay all around, piles of brick and stone, lumps of wood. A rickety frame of wood had been erected around the structure, presumably to allow the workmen access, but it hardly looked capable of supporting the weight of more than one or two at a time. Half a dozen cats eyed us suspiciously from atop a pile of wood; that was the only sign of life.
Cort surveyed the mess sadly, I looked astonished, Macintyre paid it no attention whatsoever. He marched straight over to the scaffolding, scooping up a ladder as he went, and began climbing. Cort reluctantly followed, and I watched from the ground.
Macintyre was remarkably agile and fearless, some sixty or seventy feet in the air, skipping over crumbling masonry, occasionally bending down or kicking a lump of brickwork with his boot, sending fragments cascading down to the ground. I was about to go up and join them when he returned back to earth, looking only a little less grumpy than when he started. Cort followed a few moments later, somewhat more gingerly.
“Well?” asked Cort.
“Knock it down.”
“What?”
“The whole thing. Flatten it. Start again. Never seen such rubbish in my life. I’m surprised it’s still standing.”
Cort looked alarmed. “I’m commissioned to restore it, not demolish it,” he said. “The owners bought a sixteenth-century palazzo, and that is what they want when I am finished.”
“They’re idiots, then.”
“Maybe so. But the customer is always right.”
Macintyre snorted. “The customer is never right. Ignore them, give them what they need, not what they think they want.”
“Nobody needs a palazzo in Venice,” Cort said a little pettishly, “and when I am well-enough established, I might take your advice. For the moment, I have one client only and cannot afford to lose him by demolishing his house.”
“Wait then. And it will fall down anyway. Or if you prefer I could come back this evening.” He paused and surveyed the scene carefully. “One small charge, in that corner where the two central load-bearing walls meet”—he pointed—“and there would be nothing left in the morning at all. Then you could show what sort of architect you really are.”
Cort blanched at the idea, then looked at him carefully. “I never realised you had a sense of humour.”
“I don’t. It’s the most sensible course of action,” Macintyre said gruffly, as though offended at the very idea of whimsy. “But if you are resolved to waste your clients’ money for them…”
“I am quite determined.”
“Then what you need is a supporting framework of girders. Three by six should do it. Inches, I mean. Tapering to two and a half by four on the upper floors. Perhaps less; I’ll have to do the calculations. Extending up the back and side walls to form a framework inside the structure. That will take the weight of the roof, not the walls, which are too weak to support it. You’ll have to build down to dissipate the weight under the level of the foundations…”
He paused and looked thoughtful. “I suppose it does have foundations?”
Cort shook his head. “Doubt it,” he replied. “For the most part these buildings rest on wooden piles and mud. That’s why the walls are so thin. If they were too heavy they’d sink.”
Macintyre pursed his lips and rocked forwards and backwards in thought. He was enjoying himself, I observed. “In that case, you’ll need to sink some, but at an angle to the vertical, to take the weight of the girders and roof and spread it outwards. Otherwise you’ll just push the walls out instead. What you need, y’see, is an internal frame, so that the walls can be little more than a curtain covering the real business.”
“Will it be strong enough?”
“Of course it will be strong enough. I could balance a battleship on top of a properly strutted framework.”
“That won’t be necessary.”
Macintyre grunted once more and drifted off into his own train of thought, muttering periodically as he whipped a pad of paper from his pocket and began jotting down hieroglyphics.
“Look,” he said eventually, thrusting the notes under Cort’s nose. “What do you think?”
The architect studied it carefully, desperate to understand what the older man was proposing. Eventually his face cleared and he smiled. “That’s very clever,” he said appreciatively. “You want me to build another building inside the existing one.”
“Precisely. Lightweight, efficient and fifty times as strong. You won’t knock down the old one, but you do get to build a new one. Best of both worlds.”
“Expensive?”
“Iron’s not expensive, even here. Sottini’s in Mestre will supply it. Putting it up won’t be cheap. And you won’t be able to rely on the halfwits you employ at the moment. Best get rid of them and find a new team. Again, I can make suggestions, if you wish…”
Cort’s look of gratitude was overwhelming. Macintyre pretended not to notice. “Thought I’d suggest it. That’s the trouble with architects. Know everything about the right sort of Gothic window, nothing about load-bearing walls. Pathetic. Good day to you.”
And he marched off, not responding to our farewells.
“Goodness,” I said. “Something of a force of nature there.”
Cort wasn’t listening. He was glancing up at the crumbling walls, and back down to the notes Macintyre had thrust into his hand before leaving. Back and forth went his eyes, which narrowed as he calculated.
“This is clever,” he said. “Really clever. It’ll be cheaper, stronger and quicker. In principle. Oh dear.”
“What?”
“I wish I could claim it was my own idea. That would really make my uncle take notice of me.”
I noted the remark, the wistfulness of it. “In my experience,” I commented, “it is finding the best advice and using it which cou
nts. Not coming up with the ideas yourself.”
“Not in architecture,” he replied. “Or with my uncle.” He sighed. “I just hope Macintyre can keep his mind on it. Once he’s solved a problem in his head he tends to lose interest. Besides, he does tend to drink a little.”
He was rapidly adopting the air of someone who wanted to be left alone, although what he had to do was unclear. Not wanting to impose myself any further, I thanked him for his company, and the unusual introduction to Venice he had afforded. After requesting directions I left him standing in the rubble and made my way back to my hotel.
CHAPTER 3
I slept for many hours, a dreamless sleep, although it was far from my habit to be so idle during the day. I put my head on my pillow at around ten in the morning and did not awake until early evening, which annoyed me greatly. I had missed an entire day, and now faced a bad night’s sleep into the bargain.
I forgot completely Cort’s invitation to join him and his friends for dinner, which didn’t matter too much. I had neglected to discover where the event was to take place and, in any case, had no desire that evening for company. Rather, I wanted to view the place I had travelled so far to visit, for I had as yet seen little except the railway station, a few streets and a pile of rubble pretending to be a house.
So I walked. And was captivated, as never before or since in my life. I am not, by nature, a romantic person—considering my small reputation in the world it is surprising I even bother to say this. I do not skip a heartbeat over a sunset, however striking it may be; rather I see the light of a star refracting in particular ways through the atmosphere and giving off predictable, if pleasing, light effects. Cities have even less impact. They are machines for generating money; that is their entire function. Created for the exchange of goods and labour, they either work or do not work well. London was, and still is, the most perfect city the world has ever seen, efficient and directed to this one aim, not diverting unnecessary energy or resources into public finery as Paris does. Even London, though, may soon surrender its crown to one even more single-minded and ruthless in its pursuit of wealth, if my impressions of New York are accurate.
Venice, in contrast, is without purpose. There is no exchange of goods there, no generation of capital. What remains is a shell of a past manufactory which has long since become obsolete. It too was created by trade; it is nothing more than capital petrified. But the capital had fled, leaving only a corpse whose soul has departed. It should have been abandoned, left to rot into picturesque ruin, as the Venetians themselves abandoned Torcello, cathedral and all, once they had no further use for it.
So I believe, and I have argued my case with many a sentimentalist who waxes eloquent about the glories of the past, and how human life has degenerated under the impact of the modern age. Nonsense. We are living at the highest point human civilisation has ever reached, and it is people like me who are responsible for it.
Yet I still have my Venice problem. Everything I say about it is true, and yet that first evening I walked without a break for food or drink or rest for near seven hours, forgetting my map, not caring where I was or what I was looking at. I was hypnotised, overwhelmed. Nor did I understand why. It was not what most people find attractive, the vistas and palaces, churches and works of art. These I appreciate well enough, but not to the point of passion. I would talk of the spirit of the place, although to do so would risk seeming foolish and, as I have indicated, the most obvious examples of its spirit were degenerate and corrupt. Nor was it the light, as for much of the time I marched in darkness, nor the sound, as it is the quietest habitation I have ever visited. The average English village of a few hundred people is a noisier place. I cannot offer a convincing explanation of my own, although when I told Elizabeth of my reaction she suggested that it was because I did not wish to resist its charms; that, having been disappointed by Florence and Naples and all the other places I visited, I wished to be seduced, that I fell not for what it was but what I needed it to be, at that particular moment. And that having generated such feelings in me, it became associated with that feeling forever after. I had tried to be dissipated and failed, tried to be an aesthete and failed, and now I was attempting no project at all, and succeeding beyond my expectations. It is as good an explanation as any other, although had I given her a more detailed account, she might have come up with a different interpretation.
I ended back near the Campo San Stin, which contained Cort’s palazzo, and there had a most unusual experience. I had what I took to be an hallucination, brought on by tiredness and irregular food. I am minded to mention it—at some risk of arousing amusement in any who might read this—because it has a bearing on the rest of my stay in the city.
I hope it is clear already that I am not of an hysterical disposition; I am not susceptible to delusions, and have never had any time for the mystical or supernatural. Even in this particular case, I was sure, both before and after, that I was witnessing only a phantasm. Nonetheless I could not fault it; could not discover any proof that it was merely an illusion playing out before me.
In brief, it was this: at (I believe) somewhere after midnight, I was on a bridge over what I later discovered to be the rio di Cannaregio. It was handsome enough; the canal curving away to my left, the looming shapes of the buildings rising up and reflected on the still surface of the water. It was very dark, as there was no lighting at all, not even from the windows of the houses which, for the most part, were shuttered. I stopped to admire the scene, and to consider, yet again, whether I was going in the right direction to get back to my hotel—which, in fact, I was not. As I wondered I stared idly back towards the Grand Canal, leaning on the iron balustrade.
Then I heard a noise, a sound of laughter, and sensed at the same time an immensely powerful feeling of not being alone. I turned around swiftly (Venice is an exceptionally safe city, but I did not know that at the time) and saw a most peculiar sight. There was a torch burning in a socket on the wall of a palazzo some thirty yards away from me, although I swear it had not been there before. And underneath, there was a small boat, which contained one man standing amidships, and singing. I could not see clearly in the flickering light, but he seemed short, wiry and almost ethereal, as though you could see the stucco of the building through his dress coat and breeches. His song was not one I had ever heard before, but it sounded, at one and the same time, like a lullaby, a lament and a love song, delivered in a soft but slightly reedy voice. Extraordinarily beautiful and affecting, although circumstance perhaps made it seem more so than it was.
I did not know to whom he was singing; one window, I now noticed, was unshuttered and slightly open, but there was no light within, and no figure to be discerned. The only human being in sight was this man, who was dressed in a manner more suited to the eighteenth century than to the present age. I saw this without any sense of it being unusual or strange. All I knew was that I desperately wanted to know what the song was, who was the singer, and whether the woman being so serenaded—surely that was what was taking place—was receptive to his song. Who was she? Was she young and beautiful? She must be, to produce such a wistful sadness in the man’s voice.
I moved to get a better view, making enough noise to carry over the water. The man stopped singing—not abruptly, but rather as though he had finished his tune—and turned to look at me, making the slightest of bows in my direction. My first impression of age was correct; he had no beauty. His features were not horrible, but they were terribly old. He seemed as old as the city itself.
I watched, immobile, as he settled down in the boat, picked up the oars and began to row away from me, and then the spell broke. I walked, then ran after him, over the bridge, and left, up an alleyway which ran parallel to the canal, hoping to overtake him—he was not rowing very fast—and get a better look. After a hundred feet or so, another turn took me down to a small jetty, and I ran there, and began looking up and down. There was nothing. The boat had vanished. And as I stood there, wondering
where he had gone, I heard faint laughter echoing over the water.
I was shaken by this, by my own reaction as much as anything, and turned round to retrace my steps. When I got back to the bridge, the windows of the palace were now firmly shuttered, and looked as though they had not been opened for years.
There was nothing else to do but to leave, and make my way back to my hotel, which I reached (after many false turns) about an hour later. I slept, finally, at about four in the morning, and slumbered until ten. But it was not an easy sleep. The atmosphere of that place had suffused my mind, and like some childish and irritating tune that lodges itself and will not be shaken out, the images of those few moments repeated themselves in my head all night.
CHAPTER 4
Why do I write this? I have spent many an hour, many an evening, at these notes now. It has no real purpose, and I am not used to doing anything without a purpose. Only Elizabeth can manage to make me waste time, although with her nothing is a waste. It is worth any sort of nonsense or frivolity to make her happy, see her smile, to have her turn and say—thank you for putting up with that. For her I even learned to dance, although never well; but I am content to behave like an elephant to see her graceful, to feel her body move as I hold her in my arms. I am not even aware of others. I can honestly say that not once have I thought of how others might admire her and envy me, although surely they do.
But my happiness with her has been different from the sort I found in Venice. We have never experienced together the sort of irresponsible carelessness that I tasted that one time. Inevitably, I am sure; when I met her I was too old to make a fool of myself in the way that only the young can manage, and her life had been too hard, too much of a struggle, ever to be carefree. No; we have made something very different; a world that is safe and warm. We have done grand things, exciting things, pleasurable things together, but never foolish ones. Such things are not truly in my nature, and she knows too well the dangers of them.