Threshold of Fire Page 11

  He who has never seen Serena reading or playing the zither, leaning back in her chair amidst flowering oleanders, the asymmetrical folds of her gown — in crocus yellow and violet — flowing from shoulder to hip, from knee to foot; with cameos at her throat and in her hair — he who has never seen Serena thus will never be able to appreciate the inordinate grace of a Roman noblewoman. However one could not call her amiable in the usual sense of that word. She was royally generous to her favorites, royally harsh toward those who no longer pleased her, royally capricious and royally self-willed about those whims, as if she were the only person in the world.

  Some of her friends, after they had become Christians, decided to convert their property to cash and give it to the poor. Without hesitation, Serena offered a fortune for their palaces, parks and art treasures. But at that moment Stilicho did not have the requisite amount of money; he was forced to break the bargain. It was he who was blamed, while Serena was forgiven in advance.

  Then there was the affair of the Magna Mater. Did I plant that outrageous notion in Serena’s head? Once, half in jest, half from a desire to flatter her, I said she was the only woman on earth worthy of wearing the priceless necklace which, on ceremonial days, decorated the neck of the goddess.

  At that time there were many who, influenced by the bishops, openly voiced their suspicions of Stilicho — he was suspected of being in league with Eugenius, the candidate for emperor of the non-Christian party — and conspired to destroy him. After Eugenius was defeated in a brief campaign (Theodosius’s last), Stilicho had to prove his loyalty to the Christian party. Serena, who from childhood had stayed on friendly terms with the families of non-Christian Senators, received her customary invitation to attend the annual festival of the Magna Mater as honored guest.

  She went there and sat in the front row, wearing a rich garment; it was noted that she wore no jewels. At the highest point of the ceremonies, she stood up, took the five-strand golden necklace from the statue of the goddess and hung it around her own neck. Those who were present said later that all the women were paralyzed with terror and remained frozen in their places. Serena walked out of the temple, followed by her companions.

  I saw her coming from where I was waiting with the rest of the retinue of Stilicho’s household. She was white as chalk; her eyes were glassy; she was propping up the necklace with both hands to ease the weight of those rows of heavy golden beads. What could one read in her face? Pride, defiance, understandable excitement, perhaps even the awareness that she was more beautiful than ever with this ornament which no mortal woman before her had ever worn. But she looked like a corpse, like her own ghost. Her face resembled the face that I recognized in horror many years later, in the bloody debris nailed to the Aurelian wall.

  At the time I heard some worshippers of the gods say that in perpetrating that shameless theft, she had drawn the executioner’s axe to her own neck. What is certain is that from that day forward many very influential Senators nourished a deadly hatred toward her; others, who were not attracted to any particular form of religion and who understood her secret motivation nevertheless openly deplored her lack of tact. All the blame was flung at Stilicho, although it was said that he had not known what she was going to do. But the result of that bizarre act was the opposite from what she had intended: the Christians mistrusted Stilicho more than ever.

  Nearly some ten years later, with her sharp feminine intuition, she had a presentiment which no one — I least of all — had even dreamt of: that my luck had changed; that I had become a millstone around Stilicho’s neck.

  I was known far and wide as Stilicho’s poet. Anything that put me in an unfavorable light had to hit him twice as hard. His attempt to come to an accord with the neighboring Goths (he knew that Rome stood no chance in a war) had shocked both Honorius’s Christian and non-Christian advisors into frantic opposition. Serena understood that at that moment Stilicho could ill afford a scandal centering around his eulogist. With the resourcefulness and energy that was characteristic of her, she succeeded in recruiting a bride for me in Libya (a respectable distance from Rome) along with a position there: the first was a guarantee that I would not abandon the second.

  She caught me off-balance with these accomplished facts. Her attitude was affable but relentless. Stilicho was with the court in Ravenna; I have never known whether he was aware of this plan of Serena’s. In a final attempt to soften her, I dedicated a poem to her in which I thanked her for all the favors she had shown me and pleaded for the opportunity to return to the city. Something must have leaked out about my imminent departure: not long after that, I was arrested. While I write, I am struck by the form of this essay: I am writing it as if it were a letter (as I presently write so many letters in the names of others — relating experiences, arguing, explaining) to a reader whom I do not know. Is this perhaps myself? What do I have in common with the man who vanished ten years ago in the dungeons of the prefecture? Who was Claudius Claudianus?

  Claudius Claudianus: who, what? An exceptional mastery of the poetic art. A mind steeped in the exercises of the Progymnasmata of Libanius. An imagination which accepts confinement to stated themes and prescribed forms. A luxuriant vocabulary, a striking ability to improvise. An ideal product of the schools of rhetoric in Alexandria.

  Claudius Claudianus: ten whole years — no more — reckoned from the moment I set foot on the shore at Ostia to the moment at which I was condemned to vanish from society. An existence by the grace of those whose praises I sang. I myself not to be found in any of these verses, unless in the personages of Stilicho, Serena, Honorius, Rufinus, Eutropius, Gildo, heroes and villains into whom I blew the breath of life; or behind the allegorical figures, the gods and goddesses, the whole mythological puppet show which I gathered around my human subjects in order to elevate them above a drab, unheroic reality.

  Claudius Claudianus: A moment of awakening, once, on the Alpine slopes, at the first dazzling sight of ice. A frozen mountain stream, crystal fringes hanging from the rocks, chains of cold lace — this made me aware of what poetry really is: living emotion, rendered in a form allied to ice; flowing, elusive, imprisoned in something hard but transparent, colorless but reflecting all the colors in the rainbow. Before this shimmering display, I stood as if I were nailed to the earth. From that moment, I no longer believed in what I did whenever I put pen to paper.

  Claudius Claudianus: he who, despite all this, continued to write verses. Betrayal of the ice crystal of poetry. At the same time betrayal of something else: of the bright inner lucidity from which poetry springs. From the ice cold clear light, I turned back to Milan-on-the-plain. I forgot what I had discovered — worse still, I repudiated it.

  Claudius Claudianus: the ambitious, zealous architect of a composition in black and white about the power struggle between the western and the eastern parts of the Empire, Stilicho against Rufinus. I put my imagination at the service of politics. In order to justify Stilicho’s angry aversion to the praefectus praetorio Orientis, I inflated Rufinus’s hatred for Stilicho to the dimensions of a natural catastrophe. I convinced myself as I wrote. Once convinced, I set out to win over others. The verses, recited in the Senate and the court, copied and disseminated, had a great success. On the authority of Claudius Claudianus, Rufinus was referred to far and wide as a monster.

  Claudius Claudianus: when, far away in Constantinople, Rufinus was murdered by a handful of soldiers, torn apart and the pieces carried through the streets for the edification and amusement of the populace — the head here, a hand there — I used this nasty story in order to praise Stilicho once more. The result was a storm of rumors: Stilicho had had his most dangerous rival in the Empire put out of the way.

  Precisely because I did not believe for a moment that Stilicho was really involved in the murder, and because I was convinced (by whispers among some insiders) that other enemies of Rufinus had cleverly exploited the prevailing mood, I decided to make a virtue of necessity and give Stilicho the full re
sponsibility for the assassination. I considered it an audacious move. In order to present that act as acceptable, necessary — even righteous — I needed only to paint in the blackest colors the abyss of depravity which had engulfed the late Rufinus and others — still living, no less dangerous rulers — in the Eastern Empire and elsewhere.

  Claudius Claudianus: he who had taken a step on the road from which there was no turning back. When gods fall from their pedestals, those who have created those gods cannot watch with impunity. The day would have to come when I would realize that Stilicho was a man like other men, not the Apollonian upholder of justice and order which I had made him seem, the hero without fear or blemish; that he could make mistakes, sometimes had unclean hands and often remained silent when frankness would complicate the situation.

  There did indeed come a time when I could no longer swallow this behavior of his because it cast a shadow on the image which I had shaped in my poems and in which I actually believed. In the epic climate of my verses he might be the avenger who had saved the world from Rufinus: but in reality I could not bear the idea that he had most probably given the order for the murder when he learned that others were plotting to do it. There was no certainty of this, all suppositions were possible, but especially those unfavorable to him. However, he still elicited admiration; he could not be accused of deceit, even under the surface. Everything was different from what one believed. This put my occupation in a different light. He appeared to shake off these dark questions with ease; they clung to me.

  I could not in fact forgive him for that, any more than I could forgive Serena for the coldness at her core, her calculating nature — this was the creature whom I had once glorified in an ode: “O maxima rerum gloria! O glory of the world!” I doubted Stilicho and Serena, but I went on putting my work at their service. I did not succeed in detaching myself from them with the ease with which they later rid themselves of me. My statue had already been erected in the Forum of Trajan.

  Claudius Claudianus: This marble doll, a symbol of the poetic spirit, bore only a surface resemblance to the crystal of poetry; in substance it was colder and harder than the Alpine ice.

  The condemned man who was taken under military guard beyond the hundred-mile marker outside Rome, was no longer Claudius Claudianus — nor was the tramp who, under cover of the chaos created by the Gothic occupation, returned to his beloved City.

  And after that? After that I (the unknown, the nameless, born on the banks of the Nile) began to learn what life is. No theory, no convention, not the formality of court life where (as any keen observer can see) anarchy prevails. Ordinary people: men who practice their trade in the workplace as long as it is light, who make good use of years spent in their youth learning to earn their bread: tanning hides, woodworking, beating copper, painting, firing pots, boiling garum from fish, weaving cloth. Women who bear children in the caves and cellars where they live, suckle and feed them and do household tasks until the children in their turn stand in the workplace. That is daily reality for the people of Rome.

  Since I wanted to make use of the veneer of culture which I had been able to acquire, I opened a school to serve these people. I offered them my ability to set thoughts on paper. I have not been unhappy — on the contrary — but perhaps I should have been because I realized that one man, by himself, cannot alleviate the ignorance — occasionally amusing but nearly always distressing and sometimes even frightful — of thousands of people.

  Whenever I emerge from the Subura, I see the villas of rich Christians and I come across a procession led by a priest who is transporting the recently exhumed remains of another holy martyr to one of the basilicas or to a hastily constructed chapel. I can hardly believe my eyes. I ask myself, why this feverish pursuit of the bones of idealists when one could, day after day, hour after hour, make practical application of that idealism by helping to bring about a decent existence for those ragged fellow-creatures huddled in the rat’s nest of the Subura? Of course the very poor can be recruited as converts, not by giving them food, but by tricking them into believing that if they pray to the earthly remains shut up in a sarcophagus or shrine (whether these are actually the remains of real martyrs is another question), they can bring about miracles.

  I am well acquainted with a handful of Christians here in the quarter who condemn this abuse of credibility (pointing out that it is no different from the most blatant superstitions of the past). These are people whom I respect: they don’t make a display of their convictions, but they live their faith. Nothing human is alien to them, and they are unusually cheerful and self-disciplined. I believe that they are much more concerned with examining their own souls than with converting their neighbors. I have no access to their religious life: they do not volunteer any information. It’s possible that they are Arians and therefore prudent out of self-protection. But they do not hide: in case of need, they never refuse a call for help.

  The Church, with its impressive rituals and clouds of incense, plays no role here in the Subura; no more than the practices of the anchorite, that other emblem of sanctity which is becoming more popular every day. If by chance a monk strays from his cloister or a hermit from his cave, and finds his way to this part of the City, he is jeered at and spat upon because he has fled from the world and has chosen to live in wanton filth.

  Life here does not rise above the level of the rooftops; it consists essentially of the pavements, the sewers, the stained and moldy walls, constant din of voices, peddling and squabbling, shrieks of pain and of laughter, stink and smoke, darkness behind the doorways, garbage and stray animals, swarms of adults and children. If this sort of existence changes at all, it changes very slowly. Disruption from outside too, has very little effect here. When the Goths were in Rome, they left the Subura alone. Here I am no longer in the present; I am outside time but up to my neck in material reality. I know so well the power of need; the all-consuming search for basic necessities.

  For the first time in many months, I left the labyrinth, impelled by curiosity. Honorius went by, a voice cried “Munera, Munera!” between the temples, and suddenly everything changed.

  6.

  Of course I was followed on the way back from Marcus Anicius’s house. Again and again something rustled behind me in the darkness and shot away at an angle whenever I looked back. At first I took it to be a stray dog, but it may well have been the dwarf. When I was leaving the bathhouse yesterday at noon, the fat wrestler popped up out of the crowd at me: I must go with him whether willingly or unwillingly; Pylades wanted to speak with me. I thanked him for the honor and escaped into the bustle of the streets.

  Then today the actor himself appeared at the shed next to the fruit market where I was teaching. I let him wait in the hope that he would soon tire of it, but an hour later he was still there, sauntering among the watermelons. In order to get rid of him, I offered him a drink. In the tavern he came out with a proposal: he was looking for an educated man capable of delivering introductory remarks and reciting poetry during his, Pylades’, solo performances as the blind Oedipus, Hercules in the burning shirt, the enraged Ajax, Achilles mourning the death of Patroclus.

  “I can dance and sing, but I am no intellectual,” he said, with false modesty (his eyes remained calculating). “What I need is a man of education and refinement, with the appearance of a philosopher. I’m certain that I’ve found him.”

  I reminded him that nowadays only jugglers performed in the theatres; I thought that he was making fun of me. But no.

  “In private houses, of course. The authorities allow it. There’s a great demand for it. We must manage somehow with whatever is possible: the pay is good.”

  “I do useful work in a literary area that brings me enough to live on.”

  “A select public, of literary connoisseurs, or just newly-rich ignoramuses, who are ready to pay for a grain of culture. But always grateful listeners, often in the long run valuable connections, more than ever now — if you see what I mean. In the works
of the great poets, the gods still live.”

  “It doesn’t appeal to me.”

  “You’re accustomed to quite a different life from this.”

  “I’m satisfied.”

  “I’m not,” he said, with sudden ferocity. He moved nearer to me and lowered his voice. From close by, I saw his wrinkled skin, the black smudges under his eyes. The odor of his pomade was so overpowering that I had to turn away from him.

  “I now have a company — what I call a company. The dwarf, the fat man, a girl I picked up in the street. You’ve seen me perform in the past …” He put his hand on my sleeve; there were tears in his eyes — a genuine reaction, for the first time. “Can you imagine what it means to me to have to work — when work of that kind is possible today — with a bunch of freaks that don’t know the first thing about any of it? I am a professional person and what I am doing now has nothing to do with my profession. I am betraying the artist I once was. It’s betrayal enough in my field to grow old, to become decrepit. I am a perfectionist; there is nothing I find so humiliating as being forced to give third-rate performances simply because my troupe doesn’t measure up. I spend hours working to prepare myself, I tune my instruments, swallow honey to make my vocal cords supple, do my exercises, paint a mask on my face. It is my practice to leave nothing to chance. But that monster, and the whore, and the fellow who’s only good for strong-arming people — they have no conception of finesse. This is eating me up.”

  “I wouldn’t be any better at it than they are, believe me.”

  “The great classic works, without vulgar sensationalism; the solo mime in the style of the golden age — that’s what I want to bring back. I’ll drop the troupe. If you lecture on the text, explaining and making connections —”