— Yes, why I was listening to the bells out there one morning, the campanula, and he showed up and tried to raise his voice above them to tell me how beautiful they were. He's up and about early, isn't he. Why, he was showing me a chalice of some sort and he got so excited about it I thought he was going to jump on my shoulders. I couldn't appreciate it properly after that, of course. I wonder if they know what a nuisance he makes of himself, just because he speaks English, if you can call it that, prying around everywhere. Smoking, í didn't think that was right at all, a monk smoking cigarettes in my room. I almost reported him. Prying around… I suppose he's been through all your belongings too? Waving them in the air and spitting on the floor. .
— That's how he found the pistol.
— The what? Found what, did you say?
— In the drawer. I had a pistol in the drawer, and he found it that way.
— A pistol?. . Well, that. . that must have put him off, a… a gun?
— He looked cjuite disappointed.
— Scared him, yes a… a gun like that… in a monastery.
— Oh no, no. He just looked shy, and then he looked at me and closed the drawer. He didn't say anything. He just looked disappointed.
— Yes. . yes, I… I see. Ludy cleared his throat, and looked up so sharply at the profile before him that the impact of his glance seemed to knock the long curve of ash from the cigarette, for nothing else moved there. Then he looked down at the painting, and asked who it was.
— Navarrete. . Juan Fernandez.
— Oh. . yes. Stephen had leaned back from it, to spit the cigarette on the floor and reach for the bread on the table. He sat there chewing the bread with no more apparent sense of what he was eating than showed in his eyes for what he was looking at, though the half-loaf was gone quickly, and he was back at the picture with the blade.
— Navaretty, he was a monk too, was he? Ludy showed his interest in this religious by bringing his weight from his hams forward on his toes.
— He studied with Titian, the man bent over the painting muttered, working the blade more busily now. — Titian's paintings in the Escorial, he saw them when he went there to paint for the king, and his whole style changed. He learned from Titian. That's the way we learn, you understand.
— And you, you're. . restoring this work? Ludy bent closer, got no answer, and went back on his heels against the stone wall. — You ought to have better light for such delicate artistic work, he said. — Especially if you can't see very well.
— Yes, ver-ry careful, it's very delicate. . Stephen hunched more closely over the picture with his blade. — But that's all right. That's what they say about Leonardo now. Doctors say it, eye doctors. You'd be surprised. That's the secret of her enigmatic smile.
— What? Whose?
— The Mona Lisa, the Mona Lisa. . whose! he muttered impatiently, without looking up. — Science explains it to us now. The man who painted her picture couldn't see what he was doing. She didn't really have an enigmatic smile, that woman. But he couldn't see what he was doing. Leonardo had eye trouble.
Ludy watched the blade approach a bare sandaled foot.
— Art couldn't explain it, the voice went on clearly, but low as though he were talking to himself, as he worked the blade. — But now we're safe, since science can explain it. Maybe Milton wrote Paradise Lost because he was blind? And Beethoven wrote the Ninth Symphony because he was deaf. He didn't even know they were clapping for him at the first performance. They didn't have an applause-meter, you understand. Somebody had to turn him around to the audience so he could see them clapping for him. Then Stephen turned his face up abruptly. — I have passed all the scientific tests, you understand, he said earnestly, his voice taking tone for the first time. But when he repeated, — You understand. . stopping his work to reach down another of the small loaves of bread, he spoke with the same dull voice. Though the loaf was hard-crusted, it broke easily between his fingers. The bread crumbled because of its fine gray texture. He crammed half of it into his mouth, offered the other half to Ludy, who shook his head quickly, and then threw it back up on the table. As he chewed, a thoughtful expression came to his face for the first time. Though he may only have appeared thoughtful because his eyes, directed at the painting, were focused far beyond it. He chewed on.
— There was a Beethoven Street in my home town, said Ludy. — We pronounce it just like it's spelled. Beeth-oven.
— If you're going to make loaded dice, you have to make them perfect first. You can't just load ordinary dice, they have to be perfectly true, to start with.
— Ahm. . yes, what I meant to ask you. .
— I've passed all the scientific tests, Stephen murmured, picking up the blade again and bending over the picture. — With science you take things apart and then we all understand them, then we can all do them. Get things nice and separated. Then you can be reasonable. Leonardo just needed glasses. That's the enigma. He got busy with the scraping again.
— I meant to ask, who's this a picture of?
— This is Saint Dominic. He thrashed himself three times a day.
— What?
— He invented Rosaries. Our Lady revealed the Rosary to him.
— You're Catholic, then?
— Once a possessed person confessed that anyone who's constant to the Devotion of the Rosary will surely be rewarded with life eternal. But you've probably read Ganssenio's Vita Dominici Ordinis Praedicatorum Fundatoris.
— Why no, I… I'm afraid I haven't. . run across it.
— You may have forgotten it, Stephen reassured him, going on busily. — It's all in chapter five, De auctore Sanctissimi Rosarii, ejusque efficacia. Now do you remember?
— Ahm. . vaguely, but…
— He enclosed nuns too, he went on without looking up. — Strictly cloistered. Most of the Inquisitors were Dominicans.
— Ahm. . this, Ludy commenced, bringing his weight forward again to inspect the picture, — this little figure of… the figure on the cross here is interesting, isn't it.
— That's Jesus Christ.
— Why. . yes, yes of course. What I meant was. . Ludy cleared his throat. Stephen straightened up, and held the blade before him as though it were a brush, and he was sighting some line along its tip before adding another touch to the canvas. Ludy sniffed helpfully. — This crucifix, what I meant was, the figure isn't… it looks alive. . He sounded embarrassed, at having got into this, but he went on, — A little. . almost a live little mannequin. . ahm, responding to… ahm. . you see a great variety of ahm in paintings of the Crucifixion, the expressions on the face, don't you, some of them show an agony that is downright ahm. . you can hardly say human, but. . and then some of them… I mean to say, others. .
The man sitting on the floor brought out another yellow paper cigarette and lit it. — In some of the cheap prints He just looks bored, Stephen said, and got back to work with the blade. — Have you seen El Greco's?
— I… I don't think I've come across it. Ahm. There's an El Greco painting here, isn't there. Here in the monastery, up in the…. one of those rooms, a picture of ahm. . there's a white bird coming down. .
The blade stopped. Stephen darted a look at him, an instant in which the same leer Ludy thought he had seen on his face reappeared, but he got immediately back to work, even more busily, the cigarette smoke clinging to his face. — The Descent of the Holy Spirit, he said, a suddenly hungry tone in his voice. — He studied with Titian too. We all study with Titian.
For almost a minute, there was nothing but the rapid scraping of the blade, and Ludy came forward further and further until he almost went off balance. — But… he finally brought out, — the foot here, it's almost gone. You. . why are you taking it away, it. . this whole part of the picture here, it's not damaged.