It was clear to him now that he had brought a sinister conspiracy into being through a sheer act of will. He'd stretched the facts to fit his case and disregarded those that didn't—crimes he'd often been accused of in the past by Professor Leonard. Standing there before the altar, it also became clear to him why he'd allowed his imagination to run away with him. The memorial garden had denied him any further taste of intrigue, so he'd searched for it elsewhere— he'd manufactured it from his own frustration.
This recognition of his foolhardiness wasn't without its consolations. He was liberated, relieved of duties, no longer required to speculate about who and how and why, endlessly playing out imaginary scenarios in his mind, searching for the worst wherever he turned. He was free to enjoy the company of a man who had shown himself to be nothing but charming and civil.
Harry had always scrubbed up well, which was fortunate, because when Adam went to wake him before lunch he was sprawled facedown on top of the covers, still in his clothes. He was also dribbling. Remarkably, only twenty minutes later he sashayed onto the terrace fresh-faced, clean-shaven and sparkle-eyed. His hair even bore the traces of a halfhearted stab at a side-parting.
He arrived as the rest of them were taking their places at the table on the terrace.
'Hi, hello, I'm Harry.' Maurizio and Chiara both seemed a little overwhelmed by the violence of the handshake, Signora Docci not entirely displeased with the kiss he planted on her cheek.
Chiara remarked on their close physical resemblance—the same dark coloring, the same jaw lines, same wide mouths.
'Adam hates it when people say that. He thinks he's better- looking—taller and better-looking.'
'He
'I slouch.'
Harry straightened in his chair to make the point. Maurizio looked skeptical.
'Okay, I also have bandy little legs. But at least they're not skinny. You won't ever catch Adam in a pair of shorts like these.'
'I can't deny it,' said Adam, 'I wouldn't be seen dead in a pair of shorts like those.'
The laughter set the tone for the meal. It was a pleasant affair, the conversation tripping along quite merrily, until Signora Docci asked Harry what he had thought of Florence.
'Disappointing.'
'Disappointing?'
'If I'm honest.'
'Don't feel you have to be,' said Adam.
Harry ignored him. 'I don't know what I was expecting, something more romantic, I suppose. It's so bloody'—he searched for the word—'masculine.'
'Masculine?' From Chiara, this time.
'Big, bold, brash . . . hard. I mean, take that cathedral. . .'
'The Duomo,' said Adam tightly, meaning 'Shut up right now.'
'That's the one. Let's face it, it doesn't exactly have you reaching for a pen to scribble poetry.'
Adam noticed that Maurizio was smiling. Signora Docci and Chiara bristled defensively.
'Many poets have written about Il Duomo,' said Chiara.
'Short poems, right?'
Maurizio laughed, drawing a sharp look from his mother. 'I know what Harry means,' he said. 'Florence is not like Siena, or Venice, or Padua. It is much more robust. I can imagine being disappointed.'
It was unfortunate that Chiara retaliated with mention of Florence's unrivaled artistic heritage, because on that subject Harry showed even less diplomacy. He had found the art a bit of a letdown too.
'Really?' Signora Docci asked incredulously.
'A bit.'
This proved to be something of an understatement. In Harry's humble opinion, the Renaissance marked a low point in the history of Western art. As with most of Harry's theories, the originality of the hypothesis coupled with his passionate conviction almost made up for the glaring flaws in his argument.
He didn't deny that the painters and sculptors of the Renaissance had made great leaps in terms of representational realism, but he questioned whether this was progress, whether it made for better art. You could argue—and he did—that medieval art, with its distortions and disproportions and stylizations, was more real because it wasn't trying to trick the eye. Renaissance art, on the other hand, was devotedly illusionistic. In fact, the illusion had almost become an end in itself. The technical prowess of faking a sense of depth on a flat picture plane or rendering a human figure with near-photographic precision sometimes seemed more important to the artists than the subjects themselves, than the higher, sacred purpose their works were intended to serve. With a few notable exceptions, much of what he'd seen in the galleries and museums of Florence had left him cold. One of the exceptions was Michelangelo's statue of David in the Accademia.
That, he had hated.
A towering monument to man's mawkish fascination with himself, a triumph of form over content, style over substance, was how Harry described it. Where was the terror of a young shepherd boy about to take on the enemy's champion in single combat? The only sign of it Harry had been able to detect lay between David's legs. Fear, like cold, could do that to your penis, Harry explained considerately, for the benefit of the ladies. No, the 'snake-hipped Narcissus' looked more like 'some dim-witted teenager primping himself in front of a mirror before a big night out.'
Harry's views sparked a lively debate, just as he'd intended. There weren't many things he enjoyed as much
