“The Novel is a death; it transforms life into destiny, a memory into a useful act, duration into an oriented and meaningful time.”
Bayard asks Simon why Foucault is talking about the novel.
Simon replies that it must be a quotation but he is wondering the same thing, and it is making him decidedly anxious.
79
Leaning over the bridge, Searle can barely make out the water at the bottom of the gorge, but he can hear it flowing in the darkness. It is night in Ithaca and the wind snakes through the corridor of vegetation formed by Cascadilla Creek. Pouring over its bed of stones and moss, the creek follows its course through the steep-sided valley, indifferent to the tragedies of humankind.
A pair of students holds hands as they cross the bridge. There are not many people around at this time of night. No one pays Searle any notice.
If only he’d known. If only he could have …
But it’s too late now to rewrite history.
Without a word, the philosopher steps over the railing, gets his balance on the parapet, glances down into the void, looks up at the stars one last time, lets go, and falls.
Barely even a spray of water: just a small splash. The brief sparkle of foam in the blackness.
The creek is not deep enough to cushion the impact, but the rapids take the body toward the falls and Cayuga Lake, where a long time ago fish were caught by Native Americans who probably—though who knows?—knew very little about the illocutionary and the perlocutionary.
PART IV
VENICE
80
“I am forty-four years old. That means I have outlived Alexander, dead at thirty-two, Mozart, dead at thirty-five, Jarry, thirty-four, Lautréamont, twenty-four, Lord Byron, thirty-six, Rimbaud, thirty-seven, and throughout the long life that remains to me, I will overtake all the great dead men, all the giants who dominated their eras, and so, if God spares me, I will pass Napoleon, Caesar, Georges Bataille, Raymond Roussel … But no!… I will die young … I can feel it … I won’t be around for long … I won’t end up like Roland … sixty-four years old … Pathetic … When it comes down to it, we did him a favor … No, no … I wouldn’t make a good retiree … Not that such a thing is even possible … I’d rather burn up … The flame that burns twice as bright…”
81
Sollers does not like the Lido, but he has fled the Carnival crowds and, in memory of Thomas Mann and Visconti, taken refuge at the Grand Hôtel des Bains, where Death in Venice’s highly languorous action takes place. He imagined he’d be able to meditate at his ease there, facing the Adriatic, but for now he is at the bar, hitting on the waitress as he knocks back a whiskey. At the far end of the empty room, a pianist plays Ravel halfheartedly. It should be pointed out that it is midafternoon in midwinter and, while there is no cholera outbreak, the weather is not particularly conducive for swimming.
“And what is your name, my dear child? No, don’t tell me! I am going to baptize you Margherita, like Lord Byron’s mistress. She was married to a baker, did you know that? La Fornarina … fiery temperament and marble thighs … She had your eyes, of course. They went horse-riding on the beach: madly romantic, don’t you think? A little kitsch perhaps, yes, you’re right … Would you like me to teach you to ride later?”
Sollers thinks of that passage in Childe Harold: “The spouseless Adriatic mourns her lord…” The doge can no longer marry the sea, the lion no longer inspires fear: it’s about castration, he thinks. “And the Bucentaur lies rotting unrestored, neglected garment of her widowhood!” But he immediately drives away these dark thoughts. He shakes his empty glass to order a second whiskey. “On the rocks.” The waitress smiles politely. “Prego.”
Sollers sighs cheerfully. “Ah, how I wish I could say, like Goethe: ‘I am perhaps known only to one man in Venice, and he won’t be meeting me anytime soon.’ But I’m very well known in my country, my dear child, that is my misfortune. Do you know France? I’ll take you. What a great writer he was, that Goethe. But what’s the matter? You’re blushing. Ah, Julia, there you are! Margherita, allow me to present my wife.”
Kristeva entered the bar discreetly, like a cat. “You’re exhausting yourself in vain, darling. This young woman doesn’t understand a quarter of what you’re saying. Isn’t that right, miss?”
The young woman smiles again. “Prego?”
Sollers puffs up his chest: “Well, what does it matter? When, like me, one inspires devotion at first sight, one does not need (thank God!) to be understood.”
Kristeva does not tell him about Bourdieu, whom he hates because the sociologist threatens his entire system of representation, with which he still manages to play the swaggering dandy. She doesn’t tell him either that he shouldn’t drink too much before this week’s meeting. For a long time, she has chosen to treat him simultaneously as a child and as an adult. She doesn’t bother explaining certain things to him, but expects him to raise himself to the level she believes she has a right to demand.
The pianist plays a particularly dissonant chord. A bad omen? But Sollers believes in his lucky star. Perhaps he will go for a swim? Kristeva notices that he has already put his sandals on.
82
Two hundred galleys, two dozen galliots (those half-galleys), and six gigantic galleasses (the B-52s of their age) speed across the Mediterranean in pursuit of the Turkish fleet.
Sebastiano Venier, the irascible captain of the Venetian fleet, rages to himself: among his Spanish, Genevan, Savoyard, Neapolitan, and papal allies he thinks he is the only one who wants this battle. But he is wrong.
While the Spanish crown, in the person of Philip II, is generally uninterested in the Mediterranean, fully occupied as it is by the conquest of the New World, young Don John of Austria, the hotheaded commander of the Holy League’s fleet, illegitimate son of Charles V, the Holy Roman Emperor, and hence half-brother to the king, is seeking in this war the honor that his bastardy denies him elsewhere.
Sebastiano Venier wants to preserve the vital interests of La Serenissima, but Don John of Austria, fighting for his own glory, is his best ally, and he doesn’t know it.
83
Sollers contemplates the portrait of Saint Anthony in the Gesuati church and thinks that he looks like him. (Does Sollers look like Saint Anthony or Saint Anthony look like Sollers? I don’t know which way around he considers it.) He lights a blessing candle to himself and goes out for a walk in the city’s Dorsoduro quarter, which he loves so much.
Outside the Accademia, he sees Simon Herzog and Superintendent Bayard in the line.
“Dear Superintendent, what a surprise to see you here! What brings you to Venice? Ah yes, I’ve heard about the exploits of your young protégé. I can’t wait to see the next round. Yes, yes, you see, no point in keeping secrets, is there? Is this your first time in Venice? And you’ll go to the museum for some culture, I suppose. Say hello to Giorgione’s Tempest from me; it’s the only painting there worth the hassle of all those Japanese tourists. Have you noticed how they snap at everything without even looking?”
Sollers points to two Japanese men in the line, and Simon makes an imperceptible gesture of surprise. He recognizes them from the Fuego that saved his life in Paris. They are indeed armed with the latest Minoltas and are photographing everything that moves.
“Forget the Piazza San Marco. Forget Harry’s Bar. Here, you are in the heart of the city; in other words, in the heart of the world: the Dorsoduro … Venice is a convenient scapegoat, don’t you think? Ha ha … Anyway, you must absolutely go to the Campo Santo Stefano; just cross the Grand Canal … You’ll see the statue of Niccolò Tommaseo there, a political writer, therefore not of interest, known to the Venetians as Cagalibri: the book-shitter. Because of the statue. It really looks like he’s shitting books. Ha. But above all you must see the Giudecca, on the other bank. You can admire the churches designed by the great Palladio, all in a row. You don’t know Palladio? A man who did not like things to be too easy … like you, perhaps? He was in charge of constructing an edifice opposite the Piazza San Marco. Can you imagine? What a challenge, as our American friends, who have never understood art, would say … they’ve never understood women either, for that matter, but that’s another story … Anyway, there you have it: rising up from the water, San Giorgio Maggiore. And, top of the list, the Redentore, a Neoclassical masterpiece: on one side, Byzantium and the flamboyant Gothic of the past; on the other, Ancient Greece resurrected eternally by the Renaissance and the Counter-Reformation. Go and see it, it’s only a hundred yards away! If you hurry, you’ll get there for the sunset…”