down, concentrating, and putting pen to paper. An almost physical itch came over him, and the need to jump up and go off and do something—check some detail, verify some fact—became overwhelming.
Bottando's picture was the perfect distraction. So perfect that even Argyll knew that his feeble attempts at resistance would be dismissed by the overwhelming, primary urge to delay, dither, and hesitate on the subject of the art collection as work of art.
In fact, he got down scarcely more than a sentence before giving way: 'The study of collecting has a long history, but the collection itself has never, to my knowledge, been analyzed as an aesthetic object in its own right. In this paper I intend to ...”
A good start, he thought to himself, leaning back and reading it over once more.
Definite. Say what you mean, then get on with saying it. But, as with all good starts, it was important that the next sentence be just as effective. No letdown; no bathos. That would be disastrous. Suddenly grasping that such second sentences need to be crafted with precision, he threw down his pen, and decided that long reflection was required to get it just right. And he reflected best when walking. And he could justify walking only if he was doing something.
So why not just spend some time—only half an hour—having another little stab at the Virgin? Having thus convinced himself that stopping work entirely was by far the best way of getting his paper done, he brought his mind to bear on the problem of approaching the old Englishman Tancred Bulovius, perhaps the only person left alive who could tell him about the events at the Villa Buonaterra in 1962. He was not entirely enthusiastic, and, if writing his paper hadn't been the only alternative, he might well have recoiled from the prospect. There is something about the Grand Old Men of connoisseurship that, if not actually repellent, is at least a touch offputting. Few are wholly agreeable; most have ideas of their own importance far in excess of the normal human tendency for self- aggrandizement. Many, in other words, are ticklish characters to deal with.
But there was no escape. It was Bulovius or hard graft. After many hesitations, he picked up the telephone and held his breath. An hour later, he was on his way to meet the last great Titan of Italian Renaissance studies. It would, no doubt, have been more polite to have waited, and to have made a proper appointment for the following day, or following week, but that would have given him time to write the paper. Besides, he reasoned, Bulovius was at least ninety-two. And with people like that you really can't afford to wait. Even an hour might make a difference. He could pop off at any moment.
Also, the person who answered the phone seemed quite happy to have him come around.
How did these people manage it? he wondered as he arrived. Maybe it was just their age, their good fortune to have been born when sterling was a giant among currencies and modest means by English standards meant you could live en grand seigneur almost anywhere in Europe. Happy days, indeed, if you had the right passport, but those days were now long since gone. Even though he lived in it only a few months of the year, just after the war Bulovius had taken over the piano nobile of a sizable palazzo a stone's throw from the Piazza Navona. The city's notorious rent control saw to the rest. Unfair.
A palace is a palace, even if it clearly needs a bit of rewiring, the windows look as though they might fall out at any moment because of rot, the plumbing leaves more than a little to be desired, and the whole thing has the air of not having been lived in properly since Rome was ruled by a pope. You always have to make a choice between elegance and comfort; the Palazzo Agnello perhaps erred a little on the side of elegance, but in Argyll's opinion the sacrifices would have been worth it. Except in winter, when the lack of heating might have been a disadvantage.
In spring, late on a warm afternoon, few of these problems were obvious, except the fact that the old Roman aristocracy's distaste for fresh air meant that there were no balconies or terraces to sit out on. Turns the skin brown, makes you look common; no noble would have been seen dead looking anything other than pasty-white. Times change, palaces don't; Bulovius received Argyll in the grand salon, in semidarkness, and it was nearly ten minutes before his eyes adjusted fully to the gloom.
He could barely make out some of the renowned Bulovius collection hanging on the walls, and much of it wasn't that interesting; most had been spirited back to England over the years and now rested in Bulovius's house (less grand, more practical) in Queen Anne's Gate, where it awaited its owner's death: Bulovius had long ago done a deal with the British government for his collection to go to the National Gallery in exchange for a forgiving approach in the matter of death duties on the rest of his fortune. Argyll suspected from what he had heard over the years that the government probably wouldn't do so well out of the deal; Bulovius's fondness for money and for art were equal, and both matched his antipathy toward paying taxes of any sort.
Either way, it looked very much as though the National Gallery should be busying itself clearing out a room or two in preparation for receiving its legacy, for Bulovius did not seem long for this world. In fact, Argyll thought after he sat down opposite the old man, he looked as though he'd died several years ago. Not the picture of health: shriveled, gray, tiny, and hunched up in his chair, wrapped up despite the balmy afternoon heat in a thick tartan rug, with watery eyes and hands that shook uncontrollably. Argyll was surprised; it was not what he'd been expecting, and when Bulovius spoke he understood why.
'And how can I help you, young man?' Instead of a thin weedy voice to match, Bulovius positively boomed across the room at him, speaking with a firmness that was astonishing given his decrepit frame. Argyll paused before saying anything, uncertain whether he should speak according to what he saw, or what he heard. He decided it would be more polite to address the voice.
'Well,' he said, 'I wanted to ask ...”
He got no farther. Bulovius shook his head, grimaced, then looked around him. 'Is the door closed?”
Argyll said it was.
'Good. In the cupboard over there. Quickly. There's a bottle. Bring it to me.”
Alarmed and convinced that without his medicine the old man would conk out on him and ruin his afternoon, Argyll leapt out of his chair and hurried across the room in the direction indicated. He could find no pills or potions.
Bulovius clicked his teeth in a clatter of impatience. 'Whiskey, man. Whiskey. There must be a bottle there.”
'No. Nothing.”
'Damnable woman, she must have found it.”
'Pardon?”
'My nurse. She keeps on confiscating it. Says it's bad for me. Of course it's bad for me. But, good heavens, what does that matter? Go to the kitchen. It must be there.”
'What if she won't give it to me?”
'She should have gone out. Quickly, quickly. Bring yourself a glass as well.”
Very doubtful about the wisdom of all this, but taking the old man's point about the futility of a keep-fit regime, Argyll walked in the direction indicated, and spent the next ten minutes wandering around the vast apartment looking for the kitchen, and even more time rummaging in kitchen cupboards looking for the bottle Bulovius so ardently wanted.
'Where have you been? I could have died of old age waiting for you,' he said when Argyll finally got back. Argyll looked at him uncertainly. 'A joke,' he continued. 'Don't worry. I can make them at my age. I'm ninety-three. Don't look it, do I?”
'Ah ...”
'Of course I do. That's what you're thinking. And you're right. I could drop dead at any moment. Right in front of you. What would you do then, eh?”
'I don't know,' Argyll said. 'It's never happened before.”
'I'd take that drawing, if I were you.”
'Pardon?”
'That one. Very valuable.' Bulovius pointed to a small sketch by the fireplace, in such a dark and dingy corner Argyll could barely see it. 'You could grab it, walk out, and who'd ever know, eh? Go on. Take a look. What do you think?”
Oh, dear. Games. Argyll did hate them. The little examinations these old buffers like to set. It's no longer considered good behavior to ask who your parents are, what school you went to, never has been to ask how much money you have, but for some reason it is still acceptable to set these little tests. Can you spot a hand? Ascribe a subject? Argyll reluctantly heaved himself out of his chair, and took up the challenge.
