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Authors: Antonio Tabucchi
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Copyist stubbed out his cigarette on the floor and said: That’s how it all
began. I don’t understand, I said, how does the story go on? It’s simple, he said,
the Texan started commissioning more paintings from me, details, what he wanted were enormous
copies of details from
The Temptations
, like I said, the Texan has a house full of
them, all six feet across, last summer I went there, you know, he invited me over and paid my
fare, you can’t imagine what it’s like, the house is huge, there’s a tennis
court, two swimming pools and the house itself has got thirty rooms which are almost full now
of these vast paintings of details from
The Temptations
. And what about you?, I
asked, what will you do now? Well, said the Copyist, I’ve asked the town hall if I can
take early retirement, I’m fifty-five now and I don’t enjoy administrative work,
the Texan pays me enough to live on and I reckon I’ve got another good ten years of work
to do, he wants details from the panels on the back as well, so I’ve still got a lot to
paint. So you know everything there is to know about this painting, I said. I know this
painting like the back of my hand, he said, for example, you see what I’m painting now?,
well, all the critics have always said that this fish is a sea bass, but it isn’t at
all, it’s a tench. A tench, I said, that’s a freshwater fish, isn’t it? It
is indeed, he said, it lives in swamps and ditches, it loves mud, it’s the greasiest
fish I’ve eaten in my life, where I come from they cook a rice dish made with tench
which is just swimming in grease, it’s a bit like eels and rice only even greasier, it
takes a whole day to digest. The Copyist paused briefly. Anyway, he said, these two characters
are off to meet the devil mounted on this greasiest of fish, do you see, they’ve
obviously got some devilish rendezvous, they’re certainly up to no good. The Copyist
opened a small bottle of turpentine and began carefully cleaning his hands. Bosch had a
perverse imagination, he said, he attributes that imagination to poor old St Anthony, but in
fact it’s the painter’s imagination, he was the one who thought up all those ugly
things, I don’t think St Anthony would ever have imagined them, he was a simple soul.
But he was tempted, I pointed out, it’s the Devil feeding his imagination with all those
perversions, Bosch painted the storm in the saint’s soul, what he painted was the
saint’s delirium. There’s something else too, said the Copyist, in the old days
this painting was thought to have magical powers, sick people would file past it hoping that
some miraculous intervention would put an end to their suffering. The Copyist saw the surprise
on my face and asked: Didn’t you know that? No, I said, I didn’t actually. Well,
he said, the painting was on show at the hospital run by the order of St Anthony in Lisbon, it
was a hospital that cared for people with skin diseases, mostly venereal in origin, and a
ghastly affliction, a sort of epidemic erysipelas, which they used to call St Anthony’s
Fire, in fact people in the country still call it that, it’s a really terrible disease
because it appears cyclically and the area it affects becomes covered in horrible blisters,
which are really painful, but it has a more scientific name now, it’s a virus,
it’s called herpes zoster. My heart began to beat faster, I became aware I was sweating
and I asked: How do you know all this? Don’t forget I’ve been working on this
painting for the last ten years, he said, it holds no secrets for me now. Then tell me about
this virus, I said, what do you know about it? It’s a very strange virus, said the
Copyist, it seems that we all harbour it inside us in its larval state, but it only manifests
itself when the organism’s defences are low, then it attacks with a vengeance, only to
go into a dormant state again
began. I don’t understand, I said, how does the story go on? It’s simple, he said,
the Texan started commissioning more paintings from me, details, what he wanted were enormous
copies of details from
The Temptations
, like I said, the Texan has a house full of
them, all six feet across, last summer I went there, you know, he invited me over and paid my
fare, you can’t imagine what it’s like, the house is huge, there’s a tennis
court, two swimming pools and the house itself has got thirty rooms which are almost full now
of these vast paintings of details from
The Temptations
. And what about you?, I
asked, what will you do now? Well, said the Copyist, I’ve asked the town hall if I can
take early retirement, I’m fifty-five now and I don’t enjoy administrative work,
the Texan pays me enough to live on and I reckon I’ve got another good ten years of work
to do, he wants details from the panels on the back as well, so I’ve still got a lot to
paint. So you know everything there is to know about this painting, I said. I know this
painting like the back of my hand, he said, for example, you see what I’m painting now?,
well, all the critics have always said that this fish is a sea bass, but it isn’t at
all, it’s a tench. A tench, I said, that’s a freshwater fish, isn’t it? It
is indeed, he said, it lives in swamps and ditches, it loves mud, it’s the greasiest
fish I’ve eaten in my life, where I come from they cook a rice dish made with tench
which is just swimming in grease, it’s a bit like eels and rice only even greasier, it
takes a whole day to digest. The Copyist paused briefly. Anyway, he said, these two characters
are off to meet the devil mounted on this greasiest of fish, do you see, they’ve
obviously got some devilish rendezvous, they’re certainly up to no good. The Copyist
opened a small bottle of turpentine and began carefully cleaning his hands. Bosch had a
perverse imagination, he said, he attributes that imagination to poor old St Anthony, but in
fact it’s the painter’s imagination, he was the one who thought up all those ugly
things, I don’t think St Anthony would ever have imagined them, he was a simple soul.
But he was tempted, I pointed out, it’s the Devil feeding his imagination with all those
perversions, Bosch painted the storm in the saint’s soul, what he painted was the
saint’s delirium. There’s something else too, said the Copyist, in the old days
this painting was thought to have magical powers, sick people would file past it hoping that
some miraculous intervention would put an end to their suffering. The Copyist saw the surprise
on my face and asked: Didn’t you know that? No, I said, I didn’t actually. Well,
he said, the painting was on show at the hospital run by the order of St Anthony in Lisbon, it
was a hospital that cared for people with skin diseases, mostly venereal in origin, and a
ghastly affliction, a sort of epidemic erysipelas, which they used to call St Anthony’s
Fire, in fact people in the country still call it that, it’s a really terrible disease
because it appears cyclically and the area it affects becomes covered in horrible blisters,
which are really painful, but it has a more scientific name now, it’s a virus,
it’s called herpes zoster. My heart began to beat faster, I became aware I was sweating
and I asked: How do you know all this? Don’t forget I’ve been working on this
painting for the last ten years, he said, it holds no secrets for me now. Then tell me about
this virus, I said, what do you know about it? It’s a very strange virus, said the
Copyist, it seems that we all harbour it inside us in its larval state, but it only manifests
itself when the organism’s defences are low, then it attacks with a vengeance, only to
go into a dormant state again
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