walls, festooned with
gold foliage and rams’ heads, making a background for Longhi caricatures,
savants and punchinellos with huge spectacles and bulbous noses.
‘How
much they resemble our fellow members of the Conference. The ante-room should
be at the far end here.’
We
entered a small almost square apartment, high ceilinged, with tall windows set
in embrasures.
‘Here
we are.’
She
pointed upward. Miraculous volumes of colour billowed, gleamed, vibrated, above
us. Dr Brightman clasped her hands.
‘Look – Candaules and Gyges .’
At
our immediate entry the room had seemed empty. A second later, the presence of
two other persons was revealed. The unconventional position both had chosen to
assume, for a brief moment concealed, as it were camouflaged, their supine
bodies, one male, the other female. In order the better to gaze straight ahead
at the Tiepolo in a maximum of comfort, they were lying face upwards, feet
towards each other, on two of the stone console seats, set on either side of
the recess of a high pedimented window. The brightness of the sun flowing in
had helped to make this couple invisible. At first sight, the pair seemed to
have fainted away; alternatively, met not long before with sudden death in the
vicinity, its abruptness requiring they should be laid out in that place as a
kind of emergency mortuary, just to get the bodies out of the way pending final
removal. Dr Brightman, noticing these recumbent figures too, gave a quick
disapproving glance, but, without comment on their posture, began to speak
aloud her exposition on the ceiling.
‘As
Russell Gwinnett said, one is a little reminded of Iphigenia in the Villa
Valmarana, or the Mars and Venus there. The usual consummate skill in handling
aerial perspectives. The wife of Candaules – Gautier calls her Nyssia, but I
suspect the name invented by him – is obviously the same model as Pharaoh’s
daughter in
Moses saved from the water
at Edinburgh, also the lady in all the Antony and Cleopatra sequences, such as
those at the Labia Palace, which I was once lucky enough to see.’
To
make no mistake, I took another swift look at the couple lying on the ledges
under the window. There was no mistake. They were sufficiently far away to convey
quietly to Dr Brightman that we were in the presence of her ‘very bedworthy gentlewoman’,
heroine, by implication, of ‘L’après-midi d’un monstre’. The horizontal figure
on the left was certainly Pamela Widmerpool; the man on the right, lying like
an effigy of exceptional length on a tomb, was not known to me. Dr Brightman as
usual kept her head. Adjusting her spectacles, so as to make a more thorough
survey of Pamela when the moment came, she continued to gaze for a few seconds
upwards, her tone, at the same time, showing the keen interest she felt in this
disclosure.
‘Lady
Widmerpool? Indeed? I’ll curb my aesthetic enthusiasms in a moment in order to
scan her surreptitiously.’
She
concentrated for at least a minute on the Tiepolo, before making an inspection
in her own time and manner. Leaving her to do that, I crossed the floor to
where Pamela had brought her body into almost upright position in order to cast
a disdainful glance on whoever had entered the room. As I advanced she gave one
of her furious looks, then, without smiling, accepted that we knew each other.
‘Hullo,
Pamela.’
‘Hullo.’
Much
of the beauty of her younger days remained in her late thirties. She had
allowed her hair to go grey, perhaps deliberately engineered the process,
silver tinted, with faint highlights of strawberry pink that glistened when
caught by sunlight. She looked harder, more angular in appearance, undiminished
in capacity for putting less aggressive beauties in the shade. Apart from the
instant warning of general hostility to all comers that her personality
automatically projected, an unspoken declaration that no man or woman could
gold foliage and rams’ heads, making a background for Longhi caricatures,
savants and punchinellos with huge spectacles and bulbous noses.
‘How
much they resemble our fellow members of the Conference. The ante-room should
be at the far end here.’
We
entered a small almost square apartment, high ceilinged, with tall windows set
in embrasures.
‘Here
we are.’
She
pointed upward. Miraculous volumes of colour billowed, gleamed, vibrated, above
us. Dr Brightman clasped her hands.
‘Look – Candaules and Gyges .’
At
our immediate entry the room had seemed empty. A second later, the presence of
two other persons was revealed. The unconventional position both had chosen to
assume, for a brief moment concealed, as it were camouflaged, their supine
bodies, one male, the other female. In order the better to gaze straight ahead
at the Tiepolo in a maximum of comfort, they were lying face upwards, feet
towards each other, on two of the stone console seats, set on either side of
the recess of a high pedimented window. The brightness of the sun flowing in
had helped to make this couple invisible. At first sight, the pair seemed to
have fainted away; alternatively, met not long before with sudden death in the
vicinity, its abruptness requiring they should be laid out in that place as a
kind of emergency mortuary, just to get the bodies out of the way pending final
removal. Dr Brightman, noticing these recumbent figures too, gave a quick
disapproving glance, but, without comment on their posture, began to speak
aloud her exposition on the ceiling.
‘As
Russell Gwinnett said, one is a little reminded of Iphigenia in the Villa
Valmarana, or the Mars and Venus there. The usual consummate skill in handling
aerial perspectives. The wife of Candaules – Gautier calls her Nyssia, but I
suspect the name invented by him – is obviously the same model as Pharaoh’s
daughter in
Moses saved from the water
at Edinburgh, also the lady in all the Antony and Cleopatra sequences, such as
those at the Labia Palace, which I was once lucky enough to see.’
To
make no mistake, I took another swift look at the couple lying on the ledges
under the window. There was no mistake. They were sufficiently far away to convey
quietly to Dr Brightman that we were in the presence of her ‘very bedworthy gentlewoman’,
heroine, by implication, of ‘L’après-midi d’un monstre’. The horizontal figure
on the left was certainly Pamela Widmerpool; the man on the right, lying like
an effigy of exceptional length on a tomb, was not known to me. Dr Brightman as
usual kept her head. Adjusting her spectacles, so as to make a more thorough
survey of Pamela when the moment came, she continued to gaze for a few seconds
upwards, her tone, at the same time, showing the keen interest she felt in this
disclosure.
‘Lady
Widmerpool? Indeed? I’ll curb my aesthetic enthusiasms in a moment in order to
scan her surreptitiously.’
She
concentrated for at least a minute on the Tiepolo, before making an inspection
in her own time and manner. Leaving her to do that, I crossed the floor to
where Pamela had brought her body into almost upright position in order to cast
a disdainful glance on whoever had entered the room. As I advanced she gave one
of her furious looks, then, without smiling, accepted that we knew each other.
‘Hullo,
Pamela.’
‘Hullo.’
Much
of the beauty of her younger days remained in her late thirties. She had
allowed her hair to go grey, perhaps deliberately engineered the process,
silver tinted, with faint highlights of strawberry pink that glistened when
caught by sunlight. She looked harder, more angular in appearance, undiminished
in capacity for putting less aggressive beauties in the shade. Apart from the
instant warning of general hostility to all comers that her personality
automatically projected, an unspoken declaration that no man or woman could
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