shall need to consult it very carefully, since I shall have to get to the heart of the Maze in order to set up my easel there.”
“Don’t worry about that,” said Escott, with a mischievous sideways glance at Hope. “I’m sure that Miss Cecilia will be only too pleased to guide you, as she has previously consented to guide Hope and myself—not only into the heart of the maze, but out again, when you need release.”
CHAPTER FOUR
SIGNOR MONTICARLO AND THE CAPRICCI ENIGMATI
When the educational discussion of ghosts and the Langstrade Maze had concluded, Hope and Escott resumed their debate about progress almost seamlessly, as if the change of subject had been as good as a rest, giving them time to recharge their argumentative Voltaic piles.
Hope argued that any reasonable man ought to accept that technological and social progress were inextricably linked, marching forward in step, and cited as proof the fact that England, which had been in the forefront of technological progress for more than two centuries, had also maintained its position in the vanguard of social progress, having been the first major European nation to dispose of its monarchy. Indeed, he went further than that, arguing that the Glorious Revolution of 1642 could not have been wholly successful had it not been for the previous scientific and technological advances made by the members of John Dee’s secret college, nor maintained in their absence.
The emergence of the ruling triumvirate comprising the First Sea Lord, the President of the Academy and the Leader of the Commons was, Hope contended, entirely dependent on the technological advantages that Dee had been able to donate to the Navy and the transformation of the esoteric college into a publicly accountable and meritocratic Academy. Without such balancing factors in place, he suggested, Oliver Cromwell might easily have made himself king, or might have been deposed by a Restoration, rather than paving the way for True Democracy.
Escott, by contrast, maintained that the Revolution, whose gloriousness he begged leave to doubt, had been based in religion rather than politics, and that its true parents had been Protestantism and Puritanism. He did admit that John Dee had played a crucial role in laying its groundwork, but as a protestant rather than a mathematician. According to him, democracy had no advantages over monarchy, because the essential function of government—the extortion of the many for the benefit of the few—remained exactly the same, and always would. Technology, in this view, was merely an aspect of the instrumentality of this extortion; although it seemed to be improving continually, as the power and cleverness of machines advanced, all that really changed was the intricacy of methods of political exploitation, which were bound eventually to reach a genuinely revolutionary breaking-point.
Even if England’s apparent stranglehold on naval traffic—the Empire of the Oceans—were genuinely unbreakable, Escott claimed, the seeds of the nation’s destruction had already been sown in its native soil, where the First Sea Lord was nowadays no more than a figurehead. The only way the nation could be saved and perpetuated, in his view, was by a reversion to Medieval values and a system of craftsmen’s guilds, supported by a rigid imperial hierarchy.
Michael listened to all this intellectualizing rather diffidently, not caring much which of the two philosophical combatants might be right, if either of them were. It all seemed rather abstract to him, totally irrelevant to his personal concerns and problems—although he felt slightly ashamed of himself for thinking so, given that it made him seem a trifle small-minded. His eyes continually drifted to the window, in search of the peaceful green landscapes of rural England. Somewhat to his annoyance, though, his gaze was continually trapped by the telegraph poles that flitted past the fast-moving window with metronomic regularity—an effect that was curiously mesmeric.
Michael had only been subjected to intense mesmeric treatment once, at the age of thirteen, when his mother had summoned a Mesmerist in a desperate attempt to prevent him scarring himself by scratching the spots of a pox. The treatment had worked, after a fashion—he had, at least, avoided serious scarring—but the Mesmerist had pronounced him a difficult subject and recommended that he stick to Paracelsian therapies in future. He did not fall into a trance now, but he was annoyed by the fact that the poles, working in collaboration with their fellow symbol of the triumphs of modern technology, the Sir Richard Trevithick, seemed to be exerting a more tangible force on his resistant consciousness than the doctor had. Eventually, he had to redirect his gaze into the carriage again, settling it briefly on Signor Monticarlo because he feared catching the eye of the smiling Carmela.
Signor Monticarlo, who had been twiddling his moustache absent-mindedly, shifted uncomfortably when Michael looked directly at him, and attempted to join in with Hope and Escott’s debate, albeit rather tentatively. He offered the polite suggestion that art often flourished under tyranny, offering the Italian city states of the Renaissance as his primary examples. This opinion was hotly denied by both Hope and Escott, who both lamented what the Roman Empire had done to the intellectual legacy of the democratic Athenians, and proclaimed that the genius of men like John Milton and Jonathan Swift could never have thrived in England under a monarchy, in which political situation both men would undoubtedly have been summarily dispatched to the gallows.
In the meantime, Carmela Monticarlo continued smiling—particularly, it seemed to Michael, at him, to whose presence she seemed to have warmed, gradually but considerably, if only because the two mature Englishmen seemed so disagreeable.
In an attempt to calm things down, and also to deflect Carmela’s attention, Michael asked Signor Monticarlo what he intended to play during the recital arranged for the following night.
“Because I am compelled to set aside my usual program,” the violinist said, picking his words carefully, “I shall try something new—something no one has ever attempted before. Have you, by any chance, heard of my compatriot, Niccolò Paganini?”
“I’ve heard the name,” Michael admitted.
“I can’t understand why he’s so famous,” Lady Phythian put in, obligingly. “I heard him play once, but I didn’t like it at all. The scales and arpeggios were far too rapid, and his violin was out of tune. He’s overrated, in my opinion.”
If the dowager expected this dismissal to delight Signor Monticarlo, she was mistaken. “Paganini is a genius,” the violinist stated, flatly. “I cannot match him. He has extraordinarily long fingers, so he can play notes that no one else can. I cannot hope to emulate him, but I share his interest in scordatura, and I shall try to make a more modest demonstration of its virtues.”
“Scordatura involves unorthodox tunings of the violin,” supplied Hope, ever eager to show off his erudition.
“Si,” said Signor Monticarlo, curtly, evidently no more delighted to be interrupted while telling his story than Lady Phythian had been while telling hers. “Paganini’s Capriccio in A minor, which no one else can play, is based on one of the Rosary Sonatas of the Bohemian composer Heinrich von Biber. There are fifteen in all, each one employing a different tuning of the violin. Five celebrate the joyful mysteries, five the sorrowful mysteries, and a further six pieces—five sonatas and a passacaglia—celebrate the glorious mysteries. Paganini’s A-minor capriccio is based on von Biber’s A-minor sonata, celebrating The Coronation of the Virgin Mary as the Queen of Heaven.”
“And that’s what you’re going to play tomorrow?” Escott asked.
“No,” said the violinist. “What I shall play tomorrow, along with a solo violin piece by Bach, is two pieces by Pietro Locatelli, whose capricci enigmati were also inspired by von Biber’s sonatas, and are intermediate between them and Paganini’s capricci. They were published in 1730, but shunned by musicians of the day and forgotten until Paganini revived them, prior to composing his own adaptations. One I shall play as published,
