"I don't care what others think of me," she was explaining. "I've been married. I was obedient. I did what I was told."
"But to a man too old to remember his rights or privileges, I gather," Tonio answered, "and you are young and you're an heiress, and you can marry again."
"I am not going to marry again," she said, her eyes narrowing just a little as the sunlight flickered through the overhanging leaves. "Why must you say these things to me?" she asked with genuine curiosity. "Why is it difficult for you to understand that I want to be free and to paint, to have my studio, to have my life as I please?"
"Ah, you say this now," he said, "but you may not say it later, and nothing will harm you more than indiscretion."
"No." She touched his lips with her fingers. "This is not indiscretion," she said. "I love you. I have always loved you. I loved you from the first moment I saw you years ago, and you knew it. You knew it even then."
"No." He shook his head. "You loved what you saw on the stage, in the choir loft...."
She almost laughed. "I loved you, Tonio, and I love you now," she said. "And there is no indiscretion in loving you, and it would not matter to me if there were."
He bent forward to kiss her, believing her for the moment, the sweetness of her youth and innocence alchemized into something stronger and finer that he could feel when he held her.
But still he said softly, "I'm afraid for you. I don't completely understand."
"But what is there to understand?" she whispered in his ear. "Those years in Naples, didn't you see out of the corner of your eye my unhappiness? You were forever watching me." She kissed him and laid her head against him.
"What can I tell you about my life? That I paint from dawn till dark. I paint at night by poor light. I dream of commissions, chapel walls, the walls of great churches. But ever more I find that faces are what I want to paint, the rich and the poor, all those who are making such a fashion of me, and others I find sometimes in the street. Is that so hard to understand? A life like that?"
His hands could not stop touching her, stroking her, drawing back her rippling yellow curls only to have them tumble gently down again.
"Do you know what I am?" she said with the most lovely smile. "I have known such happiness in the Piazza di Spagna, that I have become a simpleton."
He laughed.
But very quickly his expression altered as he became absorbed. "A simpleton," he whispered.
"Yes, an idiot of sorts." She frowned. "I mean that rising I think of painting, and going to sleep I think of painting, and for me there is only the slight difficulty of getting enough hours in the day...."
He understood. In his worst moments, when he could not stop thinking of Carlo and Venice, when it seemed the very walls of the Palazzo Treschi had descended upon him and the light was Venetian light, he longed for that simplicity of which she spoke. And it would have been his, save for all that. Guido had it, a divine simplicity because music was his consuming passion, his work, his dreams. And in the last seven days as Guido had worked night and day beyond the point of exhaustion, his face, in that simplicity, had been curiously blank.
"But for love and loneliness," she was saying now and her voice had become distant and poignant, "...but for love and loneliness, my life as it is would be a gift from God."
"Is love all it takes, then?" he whispered. "Is my love all it takes to make it God's gift?"
She rose up, slipping her arms about his neck and the light flickered behind her, golden and green and then dark, and he shut his eyes, clasping her, holding her all over with his long broad hands and he felt her smallness and her softness and it seemed to him that if he had ever known such happiness before he'd forgotten it, and would never forget this no matter what came after it.
*
There was a lightness and a swiftness to all they did as the morning moved towards noon.
To a series of shops they went, Christina in search of old paintings for which she bargained as fiercely as any man. She knew the proprietors and in some instances they were expecting her, and through a clutter of dusty treasures she made her way confidently as if she'd forgotten for the moment that Tonio was there.
He was delighted with these dark and crowded places. He looked at old manuscripts, maps, swords. He found a sheaf of Vivaldi's music and other more ancient folios which he purchased at once.
But most of the time, he watched Christina in abject fascination as the art dealers haggled and pleaded with her only to give in finally to her price. She bought fragments of Roman sculpture, which Tonio helped the coachman wrap carefully in old bedding and secure to the carriage, as she explained she would paint from these models. She bought portraits, cracked and darkening, but still full of rich and lively detail.
There was an ease to being with her. Her self-possession excited him; and without realizing it, he loved this sense of her life as full of substance; he listened to her talk of her treasures, how she must learn better to paint hands and feet, how she must study the flowers, the drapery, how this was good and that was poor.
He had that wondrous sense of having always known her, been with her, enjoying this gentle companionship with her, and yet she was new to him so that every gesture, every toss of her yellow hair, quietly astonished him.
The carriage moved out of Rome, going south through the open country full of ruins, a great aqueduct here swallowed in vines, and now and then a column standing erect to mark some moldering sight. She talked softly of the beauty of Italy and how it had been the landscape of her dreams when she discovered it, and her husband, ever gentle with her, had taken her everywhere, letting her sketch and paint as she pleased.
For a while Tonio knew where they were, not far from the Contessa's villa, but then they moved on, farther south and towards the sea, and were soon passing down a long avenue of barren poplars that lifted their thin spikes to the blue sky.
A house lay ahead, stretching its long rectangular facade straight to the right and the left, its surface variegated with weather and deep cracks, all of the ocher paint that had once covered it soft now and peeling so that here and there it fluttered like the petals of a vine. Yet it gleamed in the drenching sun, blind windows gaping dark as they neared it. And Christina, taking Tonio's hand, led him through the open front door.
Leaves swept across the dark stones. Rustling came from the shadows as fleet little hens scurried out into the light. And the bleat of sheep could be heard rising hollow and haunting under the high ceilings, and here and there straw was thrown in stacks against painted walls, and a river the rain had made cascaded down through murals to the wreckage of old furniture.
"What house is this?" he asked her. She had wandered ahead of him, her height giving her a majesty as she lifted her skirts just above the floor, the ripples of her hair flowing down her back below her waist.
He stood still. Almost trembling he looked at this vision of ruin and it took him back, back over the years to some sunlit moment in Venice when he had stood in empty rooms such as these, his tambourine in his hand; and the music rose, rhythmic and fierce for the moment, only to die away as he shut his eyes and felt the sun on his eyelids in a melting warmth.
The air was stirring about him. He felt no sorrow, no regret. And when he opened his eyes again he saw the day cutting shafts through the windows, and the earth rising and tilting in the distance, and he felt this place like a great skeleton of a house thrown open to the rains and the breezes and the smell of green things and things growing in the earth.
She was beckoning him from the stairs.
"It's my house," she said as he followed her, her hand resting on his arm, "if I choose. Do you give it your blessing?" She gave him the most innocent and suddenly vulnerable look. "I can go all over Europe painting; I can do portraits everywhere, and maybe even the great church paintings of my dreams; but then I can come back, here, to this house, my home."
He followed her up the stairs, and into a vast salon from which he could look do
wn on the countryside below. The grass grew as high as wheat blowing away from the long gray lattice of the poplar trees. The low-hanging clouds were tinged with gold.
She was standing before him, very still, her face round and small, the cheeks so soft to look at he wanted to hold her face in both his hands.
But he felt her vitality in this moment; he had felt it keenly when only moments ago she had spoken of her dreams. And it struck him now that all around him were men and women, a great society of beings, who knew nothing of such vitality, such dreams. Guido knew, of course; Bettichino knew; all those who worked and lived for music knew. And she knew.
And it separated her from the contessas, the marchesas, from the counts, from all those exquisitely draped and ornamented humans who made up the audience that nightly cheered him and applauded him. And he felt himself on the verge of understanding her, the things she said, the things she did, the sheer force of her, and how she had always seemed so alone to him even when she was dancing years ago in those crowded rooms.
He was looking at her, staring into her darkening and troubled eyes.
And he wondered what he had thought she would be, some carnal loveliness that would give him a great lost strength? And here she stood, that shell of what she had seemed to him--mindless and beautiful and beyond reach--broken open to reveal her in her shuddering completeness. And now seeing what seemed sorrow in her face--what must be sorrow--he drew her near to him to take her in his arms.
He held her face; he smoothed the hair back from her eyes, and he gave himself over to her as she surrendered, so that on a bed of hay they made love, bringing to each other their own warmth.
He dreamed of snow.
Not since Venice had he seen snow, and never such heavy snow, blanketing snow, snow that so obliterated everything. Yet he dreamed that he awoke in this very place to find the land covered with it, pure and white for as far as he could see. The naked poplars were glistening with ice, and snow shone in the crooks of their spiked branches. And soft flakes fell, weightless and magnificent, down over the whole world and into those broken windows as well, so that even the floor around him was carpeted with this stunning whiteness.
She was here with him; but not so that he might touch her. And he realized that on the far wall there were a hundred figures drawn whom he had not seen before, archangels with huge wings and flaming swords, driving the damned below, and saints who looked to heaven in constricted agony. Black chalk had formed these impressions which now seemed so swollen with life it was as if her hand had brought them out of the wall where they had lain captive; and he saw their knotted brows, the clouds above their heads boiling in the sky as below the flames leapt up to consume the defeated sinners.
It terrified him, this picture, its immensity, and her small form before it, her hair spilling down her back, her skirt swaying softly as she moved from place to place, her hand outstretched to blur the form of what seemed inevitable and immutable.
But when she turned he saw that she too was touched by the snow, that it drifted through the open windows to bright flecks upon her skirt, her breasts, her sloping shoulders. Her hair was alive with snow, and it blew in gently to cover both of them.
What did it mean, this snow, falling on this unlikely place? Even in sleep, he wanted desperately to know the answer. Why this extraordinary peace, this shining beauty? And then looking out over the rolling land again that lay beneath a pearlescent sky, he thought he was not in Italy at all, but far away from all he loved and feared and counted upon for meaning. Venice, Carlo, the slow progression of his life towards chaos, these things did not exist! He was merely in the wide world and no particular place, and the thin fall of the snow grew thicker, whiter, more dazzling.
He felt her arms around him as he stood there. He felt the angels and saints glowering from the wall, and he loved her and he knew he was no longer afraid of her.
He awoke.
The sun was hot on his face, and he lay in the straw alone and it was the end of the afternoon, and for a long time he did not move, not even to reach for her. Slowly through the shadows he perceived that a great cartoon did cover the wall just as he had seen it in his dream and surely before he'd fallen asleep, though he did not remember it. And she was there too, standing before it.
3
EVERY NIGHT after the final curtain, he rushed out, slipping from his carriage in the Via del Corso so that he might hurry through a muddy tangle of streets to the Piazza di Spagna to meet her in secret, as Raffaele's bravos were still following him.
An old servant, withered and brown, was always scuttling about, dusting and arranging meaningless things, her tiny black eyes scorning Tonio as if he were "men," and at the sight of her he felt an instantaneous fury. But out of the smoky colors of the room, Christina would disentangle herself to slip forward and quiet him. She took his kisses like a drug, her lids half mast, and melted silently to be held for a long time, before she begged to be allowed to paint him.
He was trembling. It seemed his love was an agony. All the pure excitement of the stage fused to make him hungry and desperate.
But he would nod his head. He let her step back and away, and never had he wanted anything in all his life so much as he wanted her and he felt helpless.
The whole studio was soon ablaze with candles, the high windows turned to mirrors by the swelling light, and setting him down in front of her, she took out paper, tacked it to a board, and commenced to draw him in pastel, which she rapidly colored in as her fingertips became covered with it.
He was often lulled by the rhythmic scratching of the chalk while all around faces peered down on him, lush, magnificently fired, some men and women he knew, others spun to mythic size against massive skies and clouds so real they seemed on the very verge of predictable movement. From a distant frame the Cardinal Calvino towered gently over him, vibrant, unmistakably himself, and engraved there with a strength that vaguely tormented Tonio.
Her talent was beyond doubt. Her figures, robust, familiar or strange, closed in on him with irrepressible vigor.
And in the core of it all, she worked, her hair alive and writhing in the light, becoming more and more bizarre to him. He wondered would she be angry if she could guess his thoughts: that she seemed as exotic in this place as a white dove flown down from some lofty height to play with perfect time upon a harpsichord. So sensuous she was, so seemingly desire incarnate. How could her form contain wit and talent and such will? It was tantalizing to him beyond belief.
And feeling himself on the brink of trance, for his own sweet torment, he imagined her reading books, for surely she did all the time, or writing tomes of philosophy, for he wouldn't have put it past her, and then he came round again to her furiously working hand caked with chalk as she broke piece after piece in two to make a small disaster of her workcase. She must have freedom to lay on colors in frantic little strokes, her face shimmering with absorption as he watched dully, wanting only to ravish her.
But there was time enough for making love.
And he feared the moment after, he would feel the pain all the more.
Some dim memory hacked at him of being in a splendid place full of music, and the music suddenly stopped, and fear creeping up to take hold of him. It seemed Vivaldi's music, the racing violins of the Four Seasons. And he could feel the emptiness of the air when it was finished.
Finally she completed her picture. For ten whole days he had been in her thrall, given over to the opera and to her, and no one and nothing else.
It was near to dawn, and she held it up to him and he let out a small gasp.
Bland innocence she'd captured in that enameled miniature she'd sent through Guido. But in this he sensed a darkness, a brooding, even a coldness that he had never known he revealed.
Not wanting to disappoint her he murmured simple things. Yet he put it aside and came near her, sitting right beside her on the wooden bench and taking the chalk out of her hand.
Love her, love her, that was a
ll he could think or feel or propel himself to do, and once again he had hold of her, wondering on the thin membrane that separated cruelty from overpowering passion.
To love someone like this, it was to belong to that one. All freedom went the way of reason, and happiness had for itself a perfect place, a perfect moment. He held her close, unwilling to speak, and it seemed her soft hot bones, tumbled against him, told him only the most terrifying secrets.
Love, love, the having of her.
He took her to the bed, he unfolded her, and laid her down; he sought to lose himself in her.
And there came that time together he had known so often with Guido in the past, when the body was at last still and he wanted only to be near her.
The table had been draped. The candles brought in. She lifted a dressing gown to his shoulders, and led him there where the old woman had laid out wine, and plates of steaming pasta. They dined on roasted veal and hot bread, and finally when it was all done, and too much, he took her on his lap, and both of them, shutting their eyes, began a small game of hands and kisses.
Soon it worked into this: that while he blindly felt the bones of her small face, she would blindly feel the bones of his; and as he clutched her tiny shoulders, she would hold onto his, and so on until they knew all the parts of each other.
He began to laugh; and she as if given his assent then was laughing like a child, as all the parts of their bodies were contrasted. He felt that silken lower lip, her round smooth belly and the backs of her knees, and picking her up, carried her to the sheets again to find all those moist crevices, those downy folds, those warm and throbbing parts that were hers alone as the morning hovered at the windows.
It was dawn; the sun spilled in. He sat at the window, his hands folded on the sill, and he wondered that he thought silently of Domenico, or Raffaele, of the Cardinal Calvino, who still made pain in him and something like the zing of violins.
He had loved them all, that was the wonder. But nothing in this quiet time remained of those loves that could conceivably torment him. Guido, Guido he loved more now than ever, but that was full and quiet and no longer wanted passion.