‘Well, he does have something to be conceited about.’
‘A good painter is not necessarily an admirable man.’
‘And do we only love admirable men?’ asked Graziella, whose cicisbeo, the cavaliere Sodano, not only had bow legs but was generally considered a fool.
‘I would not be posing for Monsieur Ringel as Venus,’ said Paola firmly. ‘I shall be wearing a dress and I shall remain wearing a dress. And one does not fall in love with a man of that kind.’
*
Paola had decided in her own mind to accept the invitation of Armand Ringel, but knew she had to think carefully about how she would persuade her husband to give his consent. Already, Scarpia had been annoyed that she had gone to the Duchess Braschi’s ball, and had noticed the trouble she had taken with her appearance. ‘If you are fortunate,’ he said with a sour smile, ‘you may dance with the man who tried to kill your husband at Faenza.’
‘I don’t imagine that there will be cuirassiers among the guests,’ said Paola.
‘Just the officers who issued the orders,’ said Scarpia.
‘As you gave such orders to your men.’
The problem Paola faced with Scarpia was that he was not a Roman. A Roman nobleman had in his blood millennia of placating their conquerors, whether they be Goths or Germans or French. They had been conquered before. They would be conquered again. They had survived by bending with the wind and, remaining true to the precepts of the religion of which they were the custodians, forgiving their enemies even as they loaded carts with their finest works of art.
Scarpia was a Sicilian. He was possessed by the spirit of vendetta. In this he had much in common with the Roman people who were baffled by their pontiff’s courtesy towards the atheist Jacobins, and seethed with fury at the sight of bumptious Frenchmen touring the palaces and galleries choosing which artistic treasures to plunder. Scarpia, had he not been an officer in the pontifical army, would have joined the demonstrations that every now and then erupted in the city. His frustration was palpable, made all the more acute by the passivity and acquiescence of the Marcisanos. Paola could see this, and realised that the question of the portrait might ignite an explosion. Not that there was much he could do if she chose to defy him. As Paola had told Spoletta, Rome was her city, and she would do as she pleased.
However, her pride too came into play. Having defied her parents to marry Scarpia, she did not want her marriage to fail. Scarpia’s impetuousness had been clear from the start; it had once been part of his attraction. He therefore had to be brought round to the idea of the portrait – but how? Paola was used to having her way without resorting to subterfuge; not for moral reasons, but from pride, deceit went against the grain; but since it was the view of the committee of matrons that she should accept Ringel’s offer, and since she could not but feel a certain exhilaration at being chosen, Scarpia must be persuaded one way or another to give his consent.
*
Two days after the ball in the Palazzo Braschi, she was sitting with Scarpia in their garden in the late afternoon, watching their children play with a ball. She saw the look of pride in their father’s eyes. ‘Aren’t they beautiful?’ she said to Scarpia. ‘They are both at such a delightful age.’
‘Of course they are beautiful,’ said Scarpia. ‘They have a beautiful mother.’
‘And a handsome father.’
‘Perhaps.’
‘Would it be an idea to find someone to paint them – or perhaps just a pencil sketch – so that we could always be reminded of how lovely they were at this age?’
‘Yes,’ said Scarpia. ‘But who?’
‘Did you ever see the family group of those cousins of mine, the di Pratas?’
‘I don’t think so.’
‘It is exquisite – so delicate and true to life.’
‘Who was the artist?’
‘That Frenchman, Ringel. He has since become famous.’
Scarpia frowned. ‘And a Jacobin.’
‘Oh, you have to be a Jacobin in France if you want to get on. Look at David.’
‘And isn’t Ringel in Rome?’
‘Yes, he’s here at the Villa Corsini. I met him at the ball. He is not unpleasant.’
Scarpia was silent. Paola could see him looking at his children and considering the idea of a great artist capturing their innocence and beauty in a work of art.
‘I would not sit for a Jacobin,’ said Scarpia.
‘It would just be of the children,’ said Paola. ‘Perhaps with their mother.’
‘Isn’t he a notorious seducer?’ asked Scarpia.
Paola smiled. ‘So they say. But I think I would be safe with the children.’
‘And without the children?’
‘Even then. If you saw him . . .’
‘Not another Bonaparte?’
‘Not at all. Terrible teeth, an ugly nose, absurd curly hair. His father was a wigmaker.’
‘Do you think he would accept the commission?’
‘It’s worth a try. Graziella says he has already been approached by Prince Paducci to do a sketch of Letizia.’
Scarpia scowled. ‘Paducci can afford his fees.’
‘Oh, I don’t think it’s a matter of money.’
They went on to talk of other things. Paola let the idea germinate in her husband’s mind. Two days later, over breakfast, Scarpia said: ‘How would one approach this Frenchman, Ringel?’
‘I don’t know. I could ask Graziella.’
‘I would not want to have anything to do with it.’
‘No, of course not. Don’t worry. Leave it to me.’
3
Negotiations between Paola and Ringel were conducted by the Marchesa Attavanti. It was agreed that Ringel should undertake a pencil sketch of Paola with her children, and at the same time an unofficial painting of Paola alone. To save the baron, her husband, from the humiliation of having a French Jacobin under his roof, Paola and her children would go to the French Academy, where Ringel had been allotted the best and largest studio. After the session with the children, Paola’s maid Nunzi would take them to eat ice creams on the Corso, or for a walk in the Borghese Gardens, while their mother sat for her portrait. Domenica Attavanti and Graziella di Pozzo had advised Paola on what to wear. But rejecting their choice of something low-cut and revealing, Paola chose a simple blue dress, with bunched sleeves, a raised waist and a diaphanous gauze covering her bust. Little Francesca wore a long dress that, like her mother’s, went down to the ankles, and Pietro a beautiful red tunic with breeches, stockings and shoes with silver buckles.
The three, with Nunzi in attendance, were accompanied by Domenica Attavanti on their first visit to the Palazzo Mancini. They rode not in the coach with the family’s coat of arms but in a modest barouche, and little attention was paid to them when they arrived. Ringel was sent for and came down with a preoccupied look on his face as if his mind was on other things, but he welcomed them in a friendly way, nodding towards Paola, then the maid Nunzi, bending down to greet the children, then turning away to say something to the Marchesa Attavanti as, with a wave to the three Scarpias, she took her leave.
Ringel led his models up the shallow stairs to the first floor of the Palazzo Mancini, then to the end of a long corridor and into a cavernous studio with a large window that faced north over the garden. The room was filled with plaster casts of statues from antiquity, huge frames without pictures, easels of different sizes stacked against the walls, faux-marble pedestals, Grecian urns, even two spears and an old shield – props for paintings of classical heroes. In the centre of the room there was a platform with a dark brown backcloth suspended between two poles, and on the platform a sofa with carved walnut borders and hard red-striped upholstery.
Ringel now directed the party towards a room that led off the studio where, he said, they could leave what would not be required for the sitting and arrange their clothes. The room seemed small because of its low ceiling and the kind of clutter one might expect to find in th
e green room of a theatre – more props stacked against the wall and, in a painted armoire, racks of togas and tunics to go with the wooden shields and spears. There was a large gilt-framed mirror and also a sofa – deeper, wider and more softly upholstered than that on the platform. Involuntarily, at the sight of this sofa, Nunzi directed a quick look at her mistress. Paola ignored the look but nonetheless blushed. She took off her cape and threw it on the sofa, as if it could serve no other purpose than this. Nunzi took the rag doll that Francesca had brought with her and propped it against the arm of the sofa, as if this too would somehow ensure its innocent purpose. Then the three models, starting with Francesca and ending with Paola, passed in front of the mirror and adjusted their clothes and hair before returning to the studio.
Ringel had a large sheet of thick paper pinned to an easel, and on the ledge four or five sticks of graphite. He looked at his subjects, but said nothing about the clothes they had chosen to wear. He helped first Paola and then her children onto the platform and seated them on the sofa. He asked Paola to lean back in an informal pose, and the children, one on each side, to lean against her while looking straight ahead. ‘Can you stay still like this?’ he asked, adding a promise of biscuits and lemonade at the end of their ordeal.
Both Pietro and Francesca had gathered from the conversations they had overheard, if not understood, and the excitement shown by Nunzi, their mother and her two friends, that sitting for the strange-looking Frenchman to sketch their portraits was something very grand and important, and so they did not need the bribe of biscuits and lemonade to behave well. As he was sketching, Ringel spoke pleasantly about this and that – his deep voice was more attractive than his appearance – and every now and then, when he had said something amusing – or simply said something that sounded amusing to the children because of his French accent – he said, ‘No, you must not smile. Simply think pleasant thoughts, about how lovely the weather is today and how lucky you are to have such a beautiful mama.’ Then to Paola: ‘Please don’t frown, Principessa. It makes it look as if you are annoyed with your children.’
Paola smoothed her brow. She kept her eyes not on Ringel but on the back of his easel, glancing only occasionally towards Nunzi, who was sitting on a papier mâché sarcophagus set against the wall. After a while, Ringel stopped talking, absorbed in his work, and his models became imbued with the same concentration, remaining silent and still. Then, after around fifty minutes, he said: ‘There, that is enough for today. Now for the biscuits and lemonade.’
The two children clambered off the sofa, stretched the limbs that had remained still for so long, jumped off the platform and, at Ringel’s instructions, pulled a long thick rope with a tassel that rang a bell. A few moments later, a servant came in with a tray on which were the promised refreshments. It was placed on a plinth. The glasses were filled. Paola and Nunzi declined the glasses offered by the servant. They waited while, behind them, Ringel set aside the paper on which he had been sketching and adjusted the easel to take a larger canvas. The glasses emptied, the biscuits eaten, the servant withdrew with the tray. Nunzi took Francesca to the side room to recover her cape and rag doll.
‘Now,’ said Paola to her children, ‘Nunzi will take you for a walk and if you are very good she will buy you an ice cream, but better make it a secret from Papa because you know he doesn’t like you to eat so many sweet things.’ The children exchanged delighted, conspiratorial looks and then departed with Nunzi.
*
Paola and Ringel were now alone. The painter, again like a doctor directing a patient, asked his subject to return to the platform and resume her place on the sofa. He followed her onto the platform, stood back to study her pose, took hold of her right arm, placed it along the back of the sofa, then placed the left on her lap. He smelt of sweat and paint.
‘May I?’ he asked, and, without waiting for her to answer, adjusted a lock of her hair. ‘Are you happy with that?’
‘With what?’
‘With what you are wearing, the way you are placed.’
‘You are the painter,’ she said. ‘I am merely the model.’
Ringel returned to his easel and, as he started to sketch on the canvas with a piece of charcoal, spoke of the charm of her children.
‘You have a daughter, I am told,’ said Paola.
‘Yes.’
‘How old?’
‘Ten. Perhaps eleven years old.’
‘Do you see her?’
‘No.’
‘Why not?’
‘Her mother is insufferable, and has another husband.’
‘How is she insufferable?’
‘She is dull.’
‘Did she become dull?’
‘No, she was always dull. But I did not notice it.’
‘Because she was pretty?’
‘She was pretty and I was young.’
‘Many of us make mistakes when we are young,’ said Paola, ‘but we live with the consequences.’
‘For me the consequence would have meant abandoning my art.’
‘May artists take liberties that are forbidden to others?’
‘All should be free, but, for an artist, freedom of spirit is life itself, a life that is suffocated by a whingeing, petit bourgeois wife.’
‘And with the Bastille there fell some of those conventions that bound men to their wives?’
‘In a republic liberty is not merely political.’
They continued to converse, but warily. Paola asked him about his earlier time in Rome; about how he had come to know the Marchesa Attavanti, Cesare Angelotti and Mario Cavaradossi. ‘Cavaradossi,’ said Ringel, ‘is a charming fellow, and a handsome young man, but his talent does not match his looks. Angelotti, on the other hand, has the potential to be a great statesman – a Roman Danton, perhaps – but he is inept.’
‘He wanted to assassinate the Pope,’ said Paola.
‘That is what I mean by his ineptitude. What difference would it make if he were to kill the octogenarian Braschi? They would simply elect someone else. You can depose a pope without killing him . . .’
‘We have lived happily under the popes for a thousand years,’ said Paola.
‘The nobility, perhaps,’ said Ringel, ‘but not the people.’
‘Bankers and doctors and lawyers are not the people.’
‘We must not argue,’ said Ringel. ‘It will distract me and distort your features.’
‘As you please.’
*
Later in the week, Paola returned to the Palazzo Mancini with her maid and her children for a second sitting. All went as before. Ringel, who now had a brush in his hand, answered her questions about Joseph Bonaparte and his wife Julie. ‘And tell me about General Bonaparte,’ asked Paola. ‘You painted his portrait, I believe?’
‘We had only a few sittings. He was very busy.’
‘Was he polite, amusing, or what?’
‘He was businesslike. But I knew him already. I had met him with the Clarys. He is a soldier, but holds artists in great esteem.’
‘Women find him attractive?’
‘Of course.’
‘Though they say he is small.’
‘He is small, but his face is intriguing. An acute intelligence, an inflexible will.’
‘And his wife, Mme de Beauharnais?’
‘An exceptional woman.’
‘I am told that she is older than he is?’
‘Yes, six years older.’
‘And was married before?’
‘Yes. Her husband was guillotined in ’94. She has two children.’
‘And they say . . .’ Paola blushed. ‘They say that she had a number of lovers before her marriage to Bonaparte.’
‘Barras was one of them, and there were others. Apparently a night with Josephine is like no other.’
‘But does not the general mind?’
‘About the lovers? No, he is no prude. But he would mind if he knew about Lieutenant Charles.’
Paola’s f
ace went an even deeper pink – blushing not so much because of the indelicacy of the subject as at the thrill of finding herself with someone privy to the secrets of the Bonaparte family. ‘Who is Lieutenant Charles?’ she asked.
‘An officer in the hussars. Ten years younger than Josephine. A buffoon, but handsome and amusing. He makes her laugh.’
Both were silent as Ringel worked on the portrait. Paola looked at the back of the easel, but could not avoid the face of the painter in her field of vision. Little by little the man whose eyes flitted between her and the canvas seemed to change shape, his features darkening, the eyes receding under his brows yet glowing, his nose growing longer and pointing at her whenever he looked up – pointing at her and hovering as if it were the brush in his hand.
The session ended. Ringel did not escort Paola down the wide staircase to the entrance of the Palazzo Mancini, which she at first thought was somewhat discourteous, but then accepted as an aspect of his disdain for convention. Nunzi and the coachman were waiting; the children were called from where they had been playing in the garden. They returned home.
At the third sitting, the following week, the children needed no prompting to find their positions on the podium, but after only half an hour Ringel let them go. He removed the parchment from the easel and replaced it with the canvas, put away his pencils and took up his brush. All seemed to be going as before, though there was less conversation. Paola’s odd questions about this and that received abrupt answers: she sensed that Ringel was in a poor mood. She remained motionless looking at the easel and slipped once again into a trance – the brush, the angry eyes, the bulbous nose.
Then, suddenly, the spell was broken. ‘Merde,’ said Ringel, throwing down his brush.
Paola was startled, not just by the gesture but by the use of such a crude word.
‘What is the matter?’
‘This is all hopeless.’ He pointed at his easel.
Paola abandoned her pose and leaned forward with a look of concern. ‘Hopeless? Why hopeless?’
‘Because here I am painting the frills and bows on your dress as if you were just another bourgeois wife whose husband has paid me a fat commission.’