I even did my duty by the famous Venus Anadyomene in Room Nine, which the guide assured me was remarkable for “its anatomical realism” which is a polite way of dealing with the more vulgar aspects of its style. Haunchwise, as they would say in New York, she is anything but kallipygous. She is softer than cellulitis and her languorous pose feels debased in a fruity sort of way. She could have gone back into stock without the world needing to feel too deprived. The fame of this insipid lady is due not to the poets but to the historians.
There were indeed one or two fine smaller pieces but truth to tell it was the cathedral which was nagging at me and I could not resist slipping away for another quick look round in it. The service was over but there were still candles burning in the side chapels with their characteristic odor of waxen soot. A fly flew into the flame of one and was burnt up — it expired with the noise of a match being struck. What was it that was really intriguing me? It was the successful harmonization of so many dissimilar elements into a perfected work of art. It didn’t ought to be a work of art but it was. It is true that the builders of the great cathedrals did not live to see their work completed but they were operating to an agreed ground plan; here the miracle had been achieved by several sheer accidents. And with such unlikely ingredients, too. Start with a Greek temple, embed the whole in a Christian edifice to which you later add a Norman facade which gets knocked down by the great earthquake of 1693. Undaunted by this, you get busy once more and, completely changing direction, replace the old facade with a devilish graceful Baroque composition dated around 1728–1754. And the whole thing, battered as it is, still smiles and breathes and manifests its virtue for all the world as if it had been thought out by a Leonardo or a Michelangelo. I caught them up in a side street wending their desultory way to the point of rendezvous with Mario.
Not many had taken advantage of the pause which we had devoted to culture; the French ladies had bought thousands of postcards, and were clucking with pleasure like hens because they were so cheap. The Bishop — where was the Bishop? I had not noticed him in the museum, and I wondered if he had really stroked the haunches of Venus in passing. Beddoes swore that he had seen him do it, but then he was not really to be trusted. But when we got down to the little square where the fountain stands we found that they were all already there, hanging over the railings. It was here that tragedy was to overtake them. The Bishop, like a sensible man, had brought along a tiny pair of opera glasses with which he examined architectural details with scrupulous attention—”standing off,” as he would put it, from them, and taking up a special stance, as he gazed up at the gargoyles and saints in remote corners of the edifices we visited. It was really sensible; how else, for example, can one really take in places like Chartres? I regretted my own heavy binoculars as being too big and clumsy for this function; they were good on landscape, yes, but too unwieldy for niceties.
His meek wife had already been down to touch the waters of the fountain and proclaim them rather cold; for my part I had lively regrets that the Italians were in danger of turning the place into a rubbish tip — I exaggerate, but there was a Coke bottle and a newspaper floating about in the swirl of the fountain, which had quite a strong central jet and must obviously have been rather pretty when kept in better trim. I leave aside all the nympholeptic legends concerning it for they can be found in all the guidebooks. But there were some large darkish fish with speckles — they looked rather like trout — which sported with the brisk current, turning and twisting and taking it on their flanks with obvious pleasure. There were also clumps of healthy papyrus growing in the fountain. The site was also charming, being as low as a reef at the sea level, which suggested that the slightest wave would bounce into the fountain and disturb the peace of Arethusa, if indeed she still lived there. But leaning over the parapet in a trance of pleasant sunlight the poor wife of the Bishop suddenly let slip the little opera glasses and, stiff with horror, saw them roll down the stairs and tumble into the fountain. No one spoke. She turned pale and the Bishop had a look of uncomprehending rage — as if this injustice had been wished upon him by the Gods, perhaps by Arethusa herself. His wife had simply been a passive instrument of the Nymphs. (Perhaps it was a punishment for stroking the amenities of Anadyomene?)
The silence of doom fell over us. It was clear that here was a matter for at least a divorce. The poor lady, her face worked, as they say in the popular press: she opened her mouth to speak but nothing came save a terrified smile of pure fright and idiocy.
Our hearts went out to her as we turned our gaze upon the Bishop and saw his own grim expression. All this, which takes so long to describe, passed in a second. Then came Mario to the rescue with a whoop of joy — as if he had waited for a half-century for the event. He clattered down the steps and, tucking up his trousers, shed shoes and socks and waded into the place, wincing with cold but grinning with pleasure. He restored the glasses to the Bishop who thanked him warmly and declared that they would have to be dried out, and even then one could not be sure (a glare at his wife) whether they would ever work again without being completely taken down and cleaned. It remained to be seen.
And on that note Mario whiffled and we straggled back to the bus which was drawn up in a shady corner — the heat had really begun. We made a slow circuit of the little island, which reminded me a little of the circuit one can make round the town and battlements of Corfu. The sea glittered and winked and here and there in a shady nook there was a sudden blaze of bougainvillea or oleander to temper the stone. But everything seemed deserted — all the raffish lower life of the town centered upon the Apollo square; up here the buildings opened inwards; they were full of the inner reserve which is expressed in courtyards and patios. The answer of course is the sea with its salt which rots everything. I am thinking among other things of the huge Castello Maniace which offered a total contrast in epoch and style to all the Greek remains we had been concentrating upon. It was, according to Roberto, only one of many such features on the island, and if people were not so damned obstinate about Greek remains they would really profit by having a good look at the palazzi of Ortygia. We only got a glimpse of two of them but they certainly bore out his contention by their reserved nobility. And so through a network of narrow streets which Mario navigated with an effortless skill which was quite astonishing: in places his outside mirror passed within a couple of centimeters of the street wall without ever grazing it. Presumably long practice was responsible for this. I wondered how many carousels a season fell to his lot. We rolled back across the causeway into fairly dense traffic and bore steadily right, gradually emerging from the press of buildings until we reached the sea, and a pleasant-looking fish restaurant placed right on the beach; with its own little jetty too, and wooden diving pontoons floating off shore. A swim in that blueness would cure all rumples, I felt, and indeed most of the party must have felt the same to judge by the alacrity with which they alighted and sought the terrace where, while sorting out where to change, we all profited by a shrewdly aimed aperitif which the good Roberto paid for out of his own pocket, though he swore, without much conviction, that he would get it back from the Company. He was so happy; our behavior had been decorous; there had been no scenes and no bad blood. Lunch stretched before us, and it was one of the better and more characteristic Italian meals — mixed grilled fish of every variety with fresh lemon followed by an eggplant pie which reminded me more of Greece and Anatolia than Italy. And then the wine was potable red with a slight “nose”—it avoided fruitiness, that besetting sin in lands where people seem to adore drinking pure diluted sugar with just a sniff of alcohol in it. We hailed the wine and behaved like masterful Sileni, smacking lips, holding it up to the light. Vino! Not all of us bathed, so that we had to wait for the general assembly of all before the hot food could be served; amuse-gueules of cucumber and radish staved off that caving-in feeling. The light was prodigious, the light wind off the lustrous sea made everything throb with importance. Whatever we might forget about Sicily we would remember this newly minted day.