by Rice, Anne
A light startled me. It fell down upon me in bright yellow seams. I saw the first, a thin line of brilliance. It cut across her figure, and then there came another, illuminating the alley-like street beyond us, and I realized that the lamps had been lighted within Fra Filippo’s shop.
I turned just as the bolts inside were made to slide back with a low, grating noise. The noise echoed up the dark walls. No light shone above, behind the barred windows.
Suddenly the doors were opened and slapped back softly, soundlessly almost, against the wall, and I saw the deep rectangle of the interior, a wide shallow room filled with brilliant canvases all blazing above candles enough to light a Bishop’s Mass.
My breath left me. I clutched her tightly, my hand on the back of her head as I pointed.
“There they are, both of them, the Annunciations!” I whispered. “Do you see the angels, the angels who kneel, there, and there, the angels who kneel before the Virgins!”
“I see them,” she said reverently. “Ah, they are more lovely even than I supposed.” She shook my arm. “Don’t cry, Vittorio, unless it’s for beauty’s sake, only for that.”
“Is that a command, Ursula?” I asked. My eyes were so clouded I could scarce see the poised flat kneeling figures of Ramiel and Setheus.
But as I tried to clear my vision, as I tried to gather my wits and swallow the ache in my throat, the miracle I feared more than anything in this world, yet craved, yet hungered for—that miracle commenced.
Out of the very fabric of the canvas, they appeared simultaneously, my silk-clad blond-haired angels, my haloed angels, to unravel from the tight weave itself. They turned, gazing at me first and then moving so that they were no longer flat profiles but full robust figures, and then they stepped out and onto the stones of the shop.
I knew by Ursula’s gasp that she had seen the same vivid series of miraculous gestures. Her hand went to her lips.
Their faces bore no wrath, no sadness. They merely looked at me, and in their sweet soft looks was all the condemnation I have ever understood.
“Punish me,” I whispered. “Punish me by taking away my eyes that I can never see your beauty again.”
Very slowly, Ramiel shook his head to answer no. And Setheus followed with the same negation. They stood side by side in their bare feet, as always, their abundant garments too light for movement on the heavy air, as they merely continued to gaze.
“What then?” I said. “What do I deserve from you? How is it that I can see you and see your glory even still?” I was a wreck of childish tears again, no matter how Ursula stared at me, no matter how she tried with her silent reproach to make the man of me.
I couldn’t stop myself.
“What then? How can I see you still?”
“You’ll always see us,” Ramiel said softly, tonelessly.
“Every time you ever look at one of his paintings, you will see us,” said Setheus, “or you will see our like.”
There was no judgment in it. There was merely the same lovely serenity and kindness that they had always bestowed on me.
But it was not finished. I saw behind them, taking dark shape, my own guardians, that solemn ivory pair, draped in their robes of shadowy blue.
How hard were their eyes, how knowing, how disdainful yet without the edge which men lend to such passions. How glacial and remote.
My lips parted. A cry was there. A terrible cry. But I dared not rouse the night around me, the infinite night that moved out over the thousands of slanted red-tile rooftops, out over the hills and the country, out under the numberless stars.
Suddenly the entire building began to move. It trembled, and the canvases, brilliant and shimmering in their bath of burning light, were glittering as if shaken by a tremor of the very earth itself.
Mastema appeared suddenly before me, and the room was swept backward, broadened, deepened, and all those lesser angels were swept back from him as if by a soundless wind that cannot be defied.
The flood of light ignited his immense gold wings as they spread out, crowding the very corners of the vastness and pushing it even to greater breadth, and the red of his helmet glared as if it were molten, and out of his sheath, he drew his sword.
I backed up. I forced Ursula behind me. I pushed her back against the damp cold wall and imprisoned her there, behind me, as safe as I could make her on the face of the earth, with my arms stretched back to hold her so that she could not, must not, be taken away.
“Ah,” said Mastema, nodding, smiling. The sword was uplifted. “So even now you would go into Hell rather than see her die!”
“I would!” I cried. “I have no choice.”
“Oh, yes, you have a choice.”
“No, not her, don’t kill her. Kill me, and send me there, yes, but give her one more chance …”
Ursula cried against my shoulders, her hands clinging to my hair, catching hold of it, as if by means of it she’d be safe.
“Send me now,” I said. “Go ahead, strike off my head and send me to my judgment before the Lord that I may beg for her! Please, Mastema, do it, but do not strike her. She does not know how to ask to be forgiven. Not yet!”
Holding the sword aloft, he reached out and grabbed my collar and jerked me towards him. I felt her fly against me. He held me beneath his face, and glowered down at me with his beaming eyes.
“And when will she learn, and when will you?”
What could I say? What could I do?
“I will teach you, Vittorio,” said Mastema in a low, seething whisper. “I will teach you so that you know how to beg forgiveness every night of your life. I will teach you.”
I felt myself lifted, I felt my garments blown by the wind, I felt her tiny hands clinging to me, and the weight of her head on my back.
Through the streets we were being dragged, and suddenly there appeared before us a great crowd of idle mortals issuing from a wine shop, drunken and laughing, a great jumble of swollen, natural faces and dark breeze-tossed clothes.
“Do you see them, Vittorio? Do you see those upon whom you feed?” Mastema demanded.
“I see them, Mastema!” I said. I groped for her hand, trying to find her, hold her, shield her. “I do see them, I do.”
“In each and every one of them, Vittorio, there is what I see in you, and in her—a human soul. Do you know what that is, Vittorio? Can you imagine?”
I didn’t dare to answer.
The crowd spread out over the moonlighted piazza, and drew closer to us, even as it loosened.
“A spark of the power that made all of us is within each of them,” cried Mastema, “a spark of the invisible, of the subtle, of the sacred, of the mystery—a spark of that which created all things.”
“Ah, God!” I cried out. “Look at them, Ursula, look!”
For each and every one of them, man, woman, it did not matter old or young, had taken on a powerful hazy golden glow. A light emanated from and surrounded and embraced each figure, a subtle body of light shaped to the very form of the human being who walked in it, unheeding of it, and the entire square was full of such golden light.
I looked down at my own hands, and they too were surrounded by this subtle, etheric body, this lovely gleaming and numinous presence, this precious and unquenchable fire.
I pivoted, my garments snagging around me, and I saw this flame envelop Ursula. I saw her living and breathing within it, and, turning back to the crowd, I saw again that each and every one of them lived and breathed in it, and I knew suddenly, understood perfectly—I would always see it. I would never see living human beings, be they monstrous or righteous, without this expanding, blinding, fire of the soul.
“Yes,” Mastema whispered in my ear. “Yes. Forever, and every time you feed, every time you raise one of their tender throats to your cursed fangs, every time you drink from them the lurid blood you would have, like the worst of God’s beasts, you will see that light flicker and struggle, and when the heart stops at the will of your hunger, you will see
that light go out!”
I broke away from him. He let me go.
With her hand only, I ran. I ran and ran towards the Arno, towards the bridge, towards the taverns that might still be open, but long before I saw the blazing flames of the souls there, I saw the glow of the souls from hundreds of windows, I saw the glow of souls from beneath the bottoms of bolted doors.
I saw it, and I knew that he spoke the truth. I would always see it. I would see the spark of the Creator in every human life I ever encountered, and in every human life I took.
Reaching the river, I leant over the stone railing. I cried out and cried out and let my cries echo over the water and up the walls on either side. I was mad with grief, and then through the darkness there came a toddling child towards me, a beggar, already versed in words to speak for bread or coins or any bit of charity that any man would vouchsafe him, and he glowed and sputtered and glittered and danced with brilliant and priceless light.
16
AND THE DARKNESS GRASPED IT NOT
Over the years, every time I saw one of Fra Filippo’s magnificent creations, the angels came alive for me. It was only for an instant, only enough to prick the heart and draw the blood, as if with a needle, to the core.
Mastema himself did not appear in Fra Filippo’s work until some years later, when Fra Filippo, struggling and arguing as always, was working for Piero, the son of Cosimo, who had gone to his grave.
Fra Filippo never did give up his precious nun, Lucrezia Buti, and it was said of Filippo that every Virgin he ever painted—and there were many—bore Lucrezia’s beautiful face. Lucrezia gave Fra Filippo a son, and that painter took the name Filippino, and his work too was rich in magnificence and rich in angels, and those angels too have always for one instant met my eyes when I came to worship before those canvases, sad and brokenhearted and full of love and afraid.
In 1469, Filippo died in the town of Spoleto, and there ended the life of one of the greatest painters the world has ever known. This was the man who was put on the rack for fraud, and who had debauched a convent; this was a man who painted Mary as the frightened Virgin, as the Madonna of Christmas Night, as the Queen of Heaven, as the Queen of All Saints.
And I, five hundred years after, have never strayed too far from that city which gave birth to Filippo and to that time we call the Age of Gold.
Gold. That is what I see when I look at you.
That is what I see when I look at any man, woman, child.
I see the flaming celestial gold that Mastema revealed to me. I see it surrounding you, and holding you, encasing you and dancing with you, though you yourself may not behold it, or even care.
From this tower tonight in Tuscany, I look out over the land, and far away, deep in the valleys, I see the gold of human beings, I see the glowing vitality of beating souls.
So you have my story.
What do you think?
Do you not see a strange conflict here? Do you see a dilemma?
Let me put it to you this way.
Think back to when I told you about how my father and I rode through the woods together and we spoke of Fra Filippo, and my father asked me what it was that drew me to this monk. I said that it was struggle and a divided nature in Filippo which so attracted me to him, and that from this divided nature, this conflict, there came a torment to the faces which Filippo rendered in paint.
Filippo was a storm unto himself. So am I.
My father, a man of calm spirits and simpler thoughts, smiled at this.
But what does it mean in relationship to this tale?
Yes, I am a vampire, as I told you; I am a thing that feeds on mortal life. I exist quietly, contentedly in my homeland, in the dark shadows of my home castle, and Ursula is with me as always, and five hundred years is not so long for a love as strong as ours.
We are demons. We are damned. But have we not seen and understood things, have I not written things here that are of value to you? Have I not rendered a conflict so full of torment that something looms here which is full of brilliance and color, not unlike Filippo’s work? Have I not embroidered, interwoven and gilded, have I not bled?
Look at my story and tell me that it gives you nothing. I don’t believe you if you say that.
And when I think back on Filippo, and his rape of Lucrezia, and all his other tempestuous sins, how can I separate them from the magnificence of his paintings? How can I separate the violation of his vows, and his deceits and his quarrels, from the splendor which Filippo gave to the world?
I am not saying I am a great painter. I am not such a fool. But I say that out of my pain, out of my folly, out of my passion there comes a vision—a vision which I carry with me eternally and which I offer to you.
It is a vision of every human being, bursting with fire and with mystery, a vision I cannot deny, nor blot out, nor ever turn away from, nor ever belittle nor ever escape.
Others write of doubt and darkness.
Others write of meaninglessness and quiet.
I write of indefinable and celestial gold that will forever burn bright.
I write of blood thirst that is never satisfied. I write of knowledge and its price.
Behold, I tell you, the light is there in you. I see it. I see it in each and every one of us, and will always. I see it when I hunger, when I struggle, when I slaughter. I see it sputter and die in my arms when I drink.
Can you imagine what it would be like for me to kill you?
Pray it never takes a slaughter or a rape for you to see this light in those around you. God forbid it that it should demand such a price. Let me pay the price for you instead.
THE END
DEDICATION BY ANNE RICE
This novel is dedicated to
Stan, Christopher, Michele and Howard;
to Rosario and Patrice;
to Pamela and Elaine;
and to Niccolo.
SELECTED AND ANNOTATED BIBLIOGRAPHY
I went to Florence to receive this manuscript directly from Vittorio di Raniari. It was my fourth visit to the city, and it was with Vittorio that I decided to list here a few books for those of you who might want to know more about the Age of Gold in Florence and about Florence itself.
Let me recommend first and foremost, and above all others, the brilliant Public Life in Renaissance Florence by Richard C. Trexler, published today by Cornell University Press.
Professor Trexler has also written other wonderful books on Italy, but this book is a particularly rich and inspiring one, especially for me, because Professor Trexler’s analyses and insights regarding Florence have helped me to understand my own city of New Orleans, Louisiana, better than anything directly written by anyone about New Orleans itself.
New Orleans, like Florence, is a city of public spectacles, rituals and feast days, of demonstrations of communal celebration and belief. It is almost impossible to realistically explain New Orleans, and its Mardi Gras, its St. Patrick’s Day and its annual Jazz Fest, to those who have not been here. Professor Trexler’s brilliant scholarship gave me tools to gather thoughts about and observations pertaining to those things I most love.
Other works by Professor Trexler include his Journey of the Magi: Meanings in History of a Christian Story, a work only recently discovered by me. Readers familiar with my previous novels might remember the intense and blasphemously fervent relationship between my character the vampire Armand and the Florentine painting The Procession of the Magi, created for Piero de’ Medici by Benozzo Gozzoli, which can be seen in all its glory in Florence today.
On the subject of the great painter Fra Filippo Lippi, let me first recommend his biography by the painter Vasari for its rich though unauthenticated details.
Also, there is the bright and shiny book Filippo Lippi, published by Scala, text by Gloria Fossi, which is for sale in numerous translations in Florence and other places in Italy as well. The only other book of which I know that is exclusively devoted to Filippo is the immense Fra Filippo Lippi by Jeffrey R
uda, subtitled Life and Work, with a Complete Catalogue. It is published by Phaidon Press in England and distributed in America by Harry N. Abrams.
The most enjoyable books for the general reader that I have read on Florence and on the Medici have been by Christopher Hibbert, including his Florence: The Biography of a City, published by Norton, and The House of Medici: Its Rise and Fall, published by Morrow.
There is also The Medici of Florence: A Family Portrait, by Emma Micheletti, published by Becocci Editore. The Medici by James Cleugh, published originally in 1975, is available now through Barnes & Noble.
Popular books on Florence and Tuscany—travelers’ observations, loving memoirs and tributes—abound. Primary sources in translation—that is, letters and diaries and histories written during the Renaissance in Florence—are everywhere on library and bookstore shelves.
In trying to render correctly Vittorio’s quotations from Aquinas, I used the translation of the Summa Theologica by Fathers of the English Dominican Province. In dealing with St. Augustine, I have used Henry Bettenson’s translation of The City of God, published by Penguin Books.
I caution readers to avoid abridged versions of Augustine’s works. Augustine lived in a pagan world where the most theologically scrupulous Christians still believed in the demonic existence of fallen pagan gods. To understand Florence and her fifteenth-century romance with the joys and freedoms of a classical heritage, one must read Augustine and Aquinas in their full context.
For those who would read more about the marvelous museum of San Marco, there are countless works on Fra Angelico, the monastery’s most famous painter, which include descriptions and details regarding the building, and there are many books available on the architecture of Florence entire. I owe a debt of gratitude not only to the museum of San Marco for having so beautifully preserved the architectural work of Michelozzo, so praised in this novel, but for the publications readily available in the shop there on the monastery’s architecture and art.