“Ma, that is the identity of Venice: an eternal agony. The eighteenth century is Venice.”
Simon senses that he is losing ground, that he cannot maintain this paradox of solid, straight-lined Venice much longer, but he refuses to give up: “No, the Venice of strength, glory, dominance, is the Venice of the sixteenth century, before its disappearance, its decomposition. The Baroque that you defend is what is killing it.”
The Italian sees his chance and takes it: “But decomposition is Venice! Its identity is precisely its inevitable advancement toward death.”
“But Venice must have a future! The Baroque that you describe is the rope that supports the hanged man.”
“Another baroque image. First you argue, then you condemn, but everything brings you back to the Baroque. Which proves that it is the spirit of the Baroque that forms the grandeur of the city.”
In terms of purely logical demonstration, Simon senses that he has begun an argument where his opponent has the upper hand. But, thankfully, rhetoric is not all about logic, so he plays the pathos card: Venice must live.
“Perhaps the Baroque is that poison that kills her but renders her more beautiful in death.” (Avoid making concessions, Simon thinks.) “But take The Merchant of Venice: where does salvation come from? Women who live on an island: on earth!”
The Italian exclaims triumphantly: “Portia? Who disguises herself as a man? Ma, that’s totalmente barocco! It is even the triumph of the Baroque over the obtuse rationalism of Shylock, over law, behind which Shylock shelters to claim his pound of flesh. That inflexible interpretation of the letter of the law is the very expression, dare I say, of a proto-classical neurosis.”
Simon can feel that the audience appreciates the audacity of this phrase, but at the same time he can see that his adversary is rambling a bit about Shylock, and this is a good thing because he is beginning to be seriously perturbed by the theme under discussion: his doubts and paranoia about the solidity of his own existence are returning to haunt his mind when he needs all his concentration. He rushes to move his pawns toward Shakespeare (“life is a poor player that struts and frets his hour upon the stage”: Why does this line from Macbeth come to him now? Where does it come from? Simon forces himself to push the question away for later consideration): “Portia is precisely that mélange of baroque madness and classical genius that enables her to defeat Shylock not, like the other characters, by recourse to feelings but with firm, unassailable legal arguments, with an exemplary rationality, founded on Shylock’s own demonstration, which she throws back at him: ‘A pound of that same merchant’s flesh is thine; the court awards it, and the law doth give it … [but] this bond doth give thee here no jot of blood.’ At this moment, Antonio is saved by a piece of legal trickery: a baroque gesture, admittedly, but a classical baroque.”
Simon can feel the public’s approval. The Italian knows he has lost the initiative again, so he strives to dismantle what he calls Simon’s “specious and pathetic convolutions” and, in doing so, makes a small mistake of his own. To denounce Simon’s dubious leaps of logic, he asks: “Ma, who decided that the law was a classical value?,” when it was he himself who had presupposed it in his previous argument. But Simon, too tired or too distracted, misses his opportunity to point out the contradiction and the Italian is able to go on: “Are we not reaching the limits of my opponent’s system?”
And he puts his boot on Simon’s neck: “What my honorable adversary is doing is very simple: he is forcing his analogies.”
So Simon is attacked where he normally excels—in the area of metadiscourse—and he feels that if he lets that happen, he risks being beaten at his own game, so he clings to his argument: “Your defense of Venice is booby-trapped. You had to reinvent it with an alliance, and that alliance is Portia: that cocktail of trickery and pragmatism. When Venice risks losing itself behind its masks, Portia brings from her island her baroque madness and her classical common sense.”
Simon is finding it harder and harder to concentrate; he thinks about the “prestiges” of the seventeenth century, of Cervantes fighting at Lepanto, of his course on James Bond at Vincennes, of the dissecting table at the anatomical theater in Bologna, of the cemetery in Ithaca and a thousand things at the same time, and he understands that he can only triumph if he overcomes, in a mise en abyme that he would savor in other circumstances, this baroque vertigo that is taking hold of him.
He decides to bring an end to the discussion of Shakespeare, which he thinks he has safely negotiated, and condense all his mental energy into changing the subject, to turn his adversary away from the metadiscursive approach he had begun, where, for the first time, Simon does not feel at ease.
“One word, again: Serenissima.”
With this, he obliges his opponent to react and by interrupting the rhetorical sequence that he was about to build, to wrestle the initiative away from him again. The Italian ripostes: “Repubblica e barocco!”
At this stage of the improvisation, Simon plays for time and says everything that comes to mind: “That depends. A thousand years of doges. Stable institutions. Firm authority. Churches everywhere: God is not baroque, as Einstein said. Napoleon, on the contrary [and Simon deliberately invokes the man who was the gravedigger of the Venetian Republic]: an absolute monarch, but he moved all the time. Very baroque, but also very classical, in his way.”
The Italian tries to respond, but Simon cuts in: “Ah, it’s true, I forgot: the Classical does not exist! In that case, what have we been talking about for the last half hour?” The audience stops breathing. His opponent reels slightly under the force of this uppercut.
Heads spinning from the effort and the nervous tension, the two men are now debating in a way that can only be described as anarchic. Behind them, the three judges, appreciating that they have each given the best of themselves, decide to put an end to the duel.
Simon suppresses a smile of relief and turns toward them. He realizes that these three judges must be sophists (because normally the jury is composed of members of higher ranks than the duelists). All three wear Venetian masks, like the men who attacked Simon, and he understands the advantage of organizing these meetings during Carnival: that way, one can preserve one’s anonymity with complete discretion.
The judges vote amid oppressive silence.
The first votes for Simon.
The second for his opponent.
So the verdict rests in the hands of the last judge. Simon stares at the sort of cutting board, stained red by the fingers of the previous competitors. He hears a murmur in the theater as the audience watches the third judge vote, and he dares not look up. For once, he is unable to interpret that murmur.
No one has picked up the machete lying on the table.
The third judge voted for him.
His opponent breaks down. He will not lose his finger, because Logos Club rules dictate that only the challenger risks his digital capital, but his rank was very important to him and he is clearly upset at the prospect of demotion.
The audience cheers as Simon is promoted to the rank of tribune. But above all, he is formally given an invitation for two people at the next day’s summit meeting. Simon verifies the time and the place, waves to the audience one last time, and joins Bayard in his box, while the theater begins to empty out.
In the box, Bayard reads the information on the invitation card and lights a cigarette, at least his twelfth of the evening. An Englishman pokes his head in to congratulate the victor: “Good game. That guy was tough.”
Simon looks at his hands, which are trembling slightly, and says: “I wonder if the sophists are much better.”
92