"The saint's art?" said Gulielmi.

"Forgive me, I was distracted. I was thinking of the putting off of self and the striving to live inside other beings. St Francis of Assisi perhaps was such a saint-artist. And Signor Belli perhaps," he smiled now, "has the makings possibly of a kind of saint. He worries enough to be a saint. I must go home," he coda'd. "You will forgive my unseasonable tiredness. It has been a long day. But a pleasant one, an instructive one," he quickly added.

"Perhaps you walked too much. If so it is my fault." Gulielmi was, it seemed, in a mood to be guilty about everything. "Tomorrow I go north," he said gloomily. "A matter of some small property near Pisa." He seemed prepared to dredge guilt out of owning a small property, out of the prospect of travel on its behoof. "I may see your friend Mr Shelley there. We have had some correspondence about his play The Cenci. It may or may not be translatable. It is about incest." He reached the bottom of gloom and began to rise. "We shall meet again," he said. "In the new year. And crack something together."

"Crack?" Llanos said.

"A bottle. You too, Don Valentino. If you are still to be here."

"Oh yes, I shall be here. The times are not yet auspicious for my return to Spain. There is a certain – It is repressive in Spain just now. It is not very liberal. I will come to see you," he said to John, "on, ha, appropriate, the Spanish Steps, if I may. There is much interest in Spain," he added, "in the poets of England."

"In England we all love Don Quixote."

So, very amicable together, separating, they separated. John walked home, thinking. Tomorrow he must make a start, must. Heroic couplets perhaps, after all. And personal, a personal beginning. Here I am in Rome and a boy called Mario came, and I thought, the eternal Roman. And my mind went back to, and I do in my own way what Shakespeare did, the murder of Julius Caesar, and Marius saw it and ran home, afraid. And. It was not really what he had in mind, though. Something carved, not flowing. He would write anyway, he would make a beginning.

Beneath an ilex on a hill of Rome

At sunset I gazed down upon the dome

Of Buonarroti crowning Peter's fane -

This will never do, back to your gallipots. Thinking, frowning, arms behind him, hands tight clasped, hat pushed back from brow, he came to with a great start crossing the Corso. His heart leaped, fell, thudded. Eight hooves stumbled and clattered recovering, two bay horses' heads were reined back, there was a double whinneying, the horses' bull-eyes looked down in horror surely exaggerated. The Roman coachman was very loud with dirty words, his whip raised as if to lash John. The flames in the coachlamps danced, the coach rocked, the liveried tiger at the rear booed and made tearing gestures. "Mi displace," John said. A lady put her head out.

"Che succede?"

John realised that he was, thank Bacchus, not untipsy. He swept off his hat and bowed courtlily low, saying:

"Alma Venus."

Pauline Bonaparte, the Princess Borghese, pallidly beautiful under the faint moon that Horace and Vergil had known, only a little engulesed by the capering lampflame, rested one delicate hand on the crest of the coat of arms that was gilded on the coach door. She was in a ballgown of turquoise, her hair flashed with gems, her kashmir wrap had fallen some way back off her glowing shoulders. Her perfume was heavy and somewhat spicy, as if she were to be eaten. She recognised John. She said something in rapid Corsican Italian which, for all John knew, could be about his being a wretched wight alone and palely loitering. But she smiled, her eyes smiled. "Votre ami," she said more slowly. "Votre bel ami."

"Parti, madame. Je le regrette. Hélas, hélas, parti."

"Qui êtes-vous, monsieur?"

"Un poète anglais, madame. Le nom n'importe rien. Le nom ne vivra guère. Scritto," he added, "in acqua."

"Voulez-vous profiter de mon carrosse, monsieur?"

What was that word? Did it mean caress? Did he wish to profit from her caress? What was she saying?

"Merci bien, madame, vous êtes gentille. Mais -" And, for lack of the right words, he gestured that he lived near and was well able to walk thither. He bowed, she inclined her beautiful smiling gemmed head, she nodded to the coachman to proceed. John stood, watching. Carrosse meant coach. The coach proceeded.

He awoke that night much disturbed. Healthy, even strong, the strength of grilled veal in his arteries. He awoke to physical desire from a dream in which he was on the point of fulfilling it. His dear girl, F.B., leered at him naked in some tent of blue satin reeking of hyacinths, her breasts bigger naked than he had known them clothed, her rounded arms seeking him as though blindly, though her eyes were open, dilated, full of lust. His main aim in the dream, it appeared, was to shut those eyes, which he did, with kiss after kiss, so that his head went into the clickclock of the Haydn slow movement Severn had once played. The eyelids accepted the kisses but were quick to open again after each, and his kisses engaged fluttering lashes before lids. He closed his own eyes then and put his lips to hers and seemed to start to tumble towards a dark hyacinth-reeking membranous pit. John Florio read aloud from his World of Words as from a bible. He cackled "Fica" in the imagined voice of Robert Burton. "A figge. Also used for a woman's quaint." So that explained the Marvell line about her quaint honour turning to dust. Shakespeare was there, picking it seemed fig-seeds from bad teeth with a new-cut swan-quill. He nodded. It was a signal to spend seed, and John cried no no, hurtling himself back to waking. The church clock chimed a quarter.

He lay nursing a rod gone flaccid, listening to the song of the fountain in the piazza. He thought he knew now why Belli was angry and ashamed to have written that sonnet. The danger of play. One offended the gods at one's peril. The caress was a carrosse to the dark world.

Stabat mater dolorosa

Apud lignum lachrymosa

Dum pendebat filius.

He had touched nothing of poetry, nothing, save in odd single lines he did not well understand. Pretty tales, gods and nymphs stolen from the marbles Elgin stole. Meanwhile a body hung on a cross and a mother wept. Play. Sonnet competitions over the teacups in Leigh Hunt's untidy house. Crowning each other with laurels: play. Apollo was not amused, was not mocked. John sweated in fear and prayed: "Whoever presides over poetry, spare me to dare the darkness. Everything is an allegory of the unknown. Teach me the way of the reading of the signs. Give me time to grow. I promise faithful service. No more play." Then he fell into heavy sleep.