by Rice, Anne
I proceeded to create another painting, and this time I chose the Crucifixion—an approved theme for any artist—and I rendered it with tender care—and once again I used the backdrop of the ruins of Rome. Was it sacrilege? I couldn’t guess. Once again, I was sure of my colors. Indeed, this time I was sure of my proportions, and of the sympathetic expression on Christ’s face. But was the composition itself somehow something that should not be?
How was I to know? I had all this knowledge, all this seeming power. Yet I didn’t know. Was I creating something blasphemous and monstrous?
I returned to the subject of the Magi. I knew the conventions. Three kings, the stable, Mary, Joseph, the Infant, Jesus, and this time I did them freely, imputing to Mary the beauty of Zenobia, and glorying in the colors as before.
Soon my giant workroom was full of paintings. Some were correctly hung. Others were simply propped against the wall.
Then one night, at supper to which I’d invited the boys’ more refined instructors, one of them, the Greek teacher, happened to mention that he had seen into my workshop through an open door.
“Oh, please, tell me,” I said, “what did you think of my paintings?”
“Most remarkable!” he said frankly. “I’ve never seen anything like them! Why, all of the figures in the painting of the Magi …” He broke off, afraid.
“Please go on,” I said instantly. “Tell me. I want to know.”
“All of the figures are looking out at us, including Mary, and Joseph, and the three kings. I have never seen it done in that way.”
“But is it wrong?” I asked.
“I don’t think so,” he said quickly. “But who’s to say? You paint for yourself, don’t you?”
“Yes, I do,” I answered. “But your opinion matters to me. I find at moments I’m as fragile as glass.”
We laughed. Only the older boys were interested in this exchange, and I saw that the very oldest, Piero, had something to say. He too had seen the paintings. He had gone inside the room.
“Tell me everything, Piero,” I said, winking at him, and smiling. “Come on. What do you think?”
“The colors, Master, they were beautiful! When will it be time for us to work with you? I’m more skilled than you might think.”
“I remember, Piero,” I said, referring to the shop from which he’d come. “I’ll call upon you soon enough.”
In fact, I called upon them the very next night.
Having severe doubts about subject matter more than anything else, I resolved to follow Botticelli in that regard.
I chose the Lamentation for my subject matter. And I made my Christ as tender and vulnerable as I could conceivably do it, and I surrounded him with countless mourners. Pagan that I was, I didn’t know who was supposed to be there! And so I created an immense and varied crowd of weeping mortals—all in Florentine dress—to lament the dead Jesus, and angels in the sky torn with anguish much like the angels of the painter Giotto whose work I had seen in some Italian city the name of which I could not recall.
My apprentices were quite astonished by the work and so were the teachers, whom I invited into the huge workroom for the initial view. Once again the faces I painted elicited special comment but so did the bizarre qualities of the painting—the inordinate amount of color and gold—and small touches I had added, such as insects here and there.
I realized something. I was free. I could paint what I wanted. Nobody was going to be the wiser. But then again, I thought, perhaps that’s not true.
It was desperately important for me to remain in the middle of Venice. I did not want to lose my foothold in the warm, loving world.
I drifted out in the following weeks to all the churches once more in search of inspiration for my paintings, and I studied many a grotesque and bizarre picture which amazed me almost as much as my own work.
An artist by the name of Carpaccio had created a work called Meditation on the Passion which revealed the body of the dead Christ enthroned against a fantastical landscape, and flanked by two white-haired saints who peered at the viewer as if Christ were not there!
In the work of a painter named Crivelli, I found a truly grotesque picture of the dead Savior, flanked by two angels who looked like monsters. And the same painter had done a Madonna almost as lovely and lifelike as Botticelli’s goddesses or nymphs.
I arose night after night hungry not for blood, though I certainly fed when I had to feed, but for my time in the workshop, and soon my paintings, all of them on large wooden panels, were propped all over the enormous house.
Finally, because I could keep track of them no longer, and went on to things new, rather than to perfect the old, I gave in to Vincenzo that he might have these works properly mounted as he wished.
Meanwhile our whole palazzo, though it had become famous in Venice as “a strange place,” remained somewhat closed to the world.
Undoubtedly my hired teachers spoke of their days and evenings in the company of Marius de Romanus, and all our servants gossiped, no question of it, and I did not seek to put an end to such talk.
But I did not admit the true citizens of Venice. I did not lay out the banquet table as I had done in the old nights. I did not open the doors.
Yet all the while I was longing to do it. I wanted the fashionable world of the city to be received under my roof.
What I did instead of extending invitations was to accept those I received.
Often in the early evening, when I didn’t want to dine with my children, and long before I needed to begin painting furiously, I went to other palaces where feasting was in progress, and I entered, whispering my name when asked, but more often being received without question and discovering that the guests were eager to have me among them and had heard of my paintings and of my famous little school where the apprentices hardly did any work at all.
Of course I kept to the shadows, spoke in vague but gentle words, read minds well enough to make the most clever conversation and in general almost lost my wits so great was this love to me, this convivial reception of me which was nothing more than most of the noblemen of Venice took for granted every night of their lives.
I don’t know how many months passed in this way. Two of my students went on to Padua. I went out into the city and found four more. Vincenzo showed no signs of ill health. I hired new and better teachers from time to time. I painted fiercely. So on it went.
Let me say a year or two had gone by before I was told of a very lovely and brilliant young woman who maintained a house always open to poets and playwrights and clever philosophers who could make their visits worth her while.
Understand the payment in question was not a manner of money; it was that one had to be interesting to be admitted to this woman’s company; poems had to be lyrical and meaningful; there had to be wit in conversation; one could play the virginal or the lute only if one knew how.
I was fiercely curious as to the identity of this creature, and the general sweetness of the reports of her.
And so passing her house, I listened, and I heard her voice threading through the voices of those around her, and I knew her to be a mere child, but one filled with anguish and secrets, all of which she concealed with immense skill behind a graceful manner and a beautiful face.
How beautiful, I had no idea, until I mounted the steps, entered her rooms boldly and saw her for myself.
When I came into the room, she had her back to me, and turned as if my arrival had made some noise which it had not. I saw her in profile and then completely as she rose to greet me, and I could not speak for a moment, so great was the impression on my mind of her form and face.
That Botticelli hadn’t painted her was a mere accident. Indeed he might well have done so. She looked so very like his women that all other thoughts left my mind. I saw her oval face, her oval eyes, and her thick wavy blond hair, interwound with long strings of tiny pearls, and the fine shape of her body with exquisitely molded arms and breasts.
“Yes, like Botticelli,”
she said, smiling as if I’d spoken it.
Again, I could say nothing. I was the one who read minds, and yet this child, this woman of nineteen or twenty years seemed to have read mine. But did she know how much I loved Botticelli? That she could not know.
She went on gaily, reaching out for my hand with both of hers.
“Everyone says it,” she said, “and I’m honored. You might say I dress my hair this way on account of Botticelli. You know I was born in Florence, but that’s not worth talking about here in Venice, is it? You’re Marius de Romanus. I was wondering how long it would be before you came.”
“Thank you for receiving me,” I said. “I fear I come with nothing.” I was still shocked by her beauty, shocked by the sound of her voice. “What have I to offer you?” I asked. “I have no poems, nor clever stories about the state of things. Tomorrow, I shall have my servants bring you the best wine I have in my house. But what is that to you?”
“Wine?” she repeated. “I don’t want gifts of wine from you, Marius. Paint my picture. Paint the pearls interwound in my hair, I should love it.”
There was soft laughter all around the room. I gazed musingly at the others. The candlelight was dim even for me. How rich it all seemed, these naive poets and students of the classics, this indescribably beautiful woman, and the room itself with all the usual splendid trappings, and time passing slowly as though the moments had some meaning and were not a sentence of penitence and grief.
I was in my glory. I realized it quite suddenly and then something else struck me.
This young woman was in her glory too.
Something sordid and evil lay behind her recent fortunes here, yet she displayed nothing of the desperation she must surely feel.
I tried to read her mind and then I chose not to do it! I didn’t want anything but this moment.
I wanted to see this woman as she wanted me to see her—young, infinitely kind, yet utterly well defended—a companion for the night’s cheerful gatherings, mysterious mistress of her own house.
Indeed, I saw another great drawing room adjacent to this one, and beyond it a marvelously decorated bedroom with a bed made of golden swans and gold-threaded silk.
Why this display if not to tell everyone that in that bed, this woman slept alone? No one was ever to presume to cross that threshold, but all might see where the maiden retired of her own accord.
“Why do you stare at me?” she asked me. “Why do you look about yourself as if this is a strange place to you when surely it’s not?”
“All of Venice is lovely to me,” I answered, making my voice soft and confidential so that it would not be for the whole room.
“Yes, isn’t it?” she said, smiling exquisitely. “I too love it. I’ll never return to Florence. But will you paint a picture of me?”
“Perhaps I will,” I answered. “I don’t know your name.”
“You’re not serious,” she said, smiling again. I realized suddenly how very worldly she was. “You didn’t come here not knowing my name. How could you want me to believe such a thing?”
“Oh, but I don’t know it,” I said, because I had never asked her name, and had learnt of her through vague images and impressions and fragments of conversation overheard by me as a blood drinker, and I stood at a loss because I wouldn’t read her mind.
“Bianca,” she said. “And my rooms are always open to you. And if you paint my picture, I’ll be in your debt.”
There were more guests coming. I knew that she meant to receive them. I backed away from her and took a station, so to speak, in the shadows well away from the candles, and from there I watched her, watched her infallibly graceful movements and heard her clever, ringing voice.
Over the years, I had beheld a thousand mortals who meant nothing to me, and now, gazing at this one creature I felt my heart tripping as it had when I had entered Botticelli’s workshop, when I had seen his paintings and seen him, Botticelli, the man. Oh, yes, the man.
I stayed in her rooms only for a short time that night.
But I returned within the week with a portrait of her. I had painted it on a small panel and had it framed with gold and jewels.
I saw her shock when she received it. She had not expected something so exact. But then I feared she might see something wrong.
When she looked at me, I felt her gratitude and her affection and something greater collecting inside her, an emotion she denied in dealing with others.
“Who are you … really?” she asked me in a soft, lilting whisper.
“Who are you … really?” I repeated, and I smiled.
She looked at me gravely. Then she smiled too but she didn’t answer, and all her secrets folded inside her—the sordid things, things to do with blood and gold.
For a moment, I thought my powerful self-control would be lost. I would embrace her, whether or not she would have it, and take her rapidly by force from the very middle of her warm and safe rooms to the cold and fatal domain of my soul.
I saw her, positively saw her as if the Christian Satan were giving me visions once more—I saw her transformed by the Dark Blood. I saw her as if she were mine, and all her youth burnt out in sacrifice to immortality, and the only warmth or riches known to her those which came from me.
I left her rooms. I couldn’t remain there. For nights, no, months I did not return. In that time a letter came to me from her. I was quite astonished to receive it and I read it over and over and then put it in a pocket inside my tunic next to my heart.
My dear Marius,
Why leave me with only a brilliant painting when I would have your companionship as well? We are always seeking for amusement here, and there is much kind talk of you. Do come back to me. Your painting occupies a position of honor on the wall of my salon so that I might share the pleasure of it with all who come.
How had this happened, this craving to make a mortal my companion? After so many centuries, what had I done to bring it on?
I had thought that, with Botticelli, it had to do with his remarkable talent, and that I, with eyes so sharp and heart so hungry, had wanted to mingle the Blood with his inexplicable gift.
But this child, Bianca, was no such seeming miracle, no matter how precious I found her to be. Oh, yes, she was to my taste as if I’d made her—the daughter of Pandora—it was as if Botticelli had created her, even to the somewhat dreamy expression of her face. And she did have a seemingly impossible mingling of fire and poise.
But I had in my long miserable years seen many beautiful humans, rich and poor, younger and older, and I had not felt this sharp, near uncontrollable desire to bring her to me, to take her to the shrine with me, to spill out to her whatever wisdom I possessed.
What was I to do with this pain? How should I be rid of it? How long would it torment me right here in the city of Venice where I had chosen to seek comfort from mortals and give back to the world in secret payment my blessed and well-educated boys?
On rising, I found myself shaking loose light dreams of Bianca, dreams in which she and I were sitting in my bedroom and talking together as I told her of all the long lonely paths I’d trod, talking together as she told me of how she had drawn from common and filthy pain her immeasurable strength.
Even as I attended the feast with my students I couldn’t shake off these dreams. They broke in on me as if I were falling asleep over the wine and meats. The boys vied for my attention. They thought they had failed the Master.
When I went to my rooms to paint, I was equally confused. I painted a large picture of Bianca as the Virgin Mary with a chubby Infant Jesus. I laid down the brushes. I wasn’t content. I couldn’t be content.
I went out of Venice into the countryside. I searched for the Evil Doer. I drank blood until I was glutted. And then I returned to my rooms, and I lay down on my bed and I dreamt of Bianca again.
At last before dawn I wrote my admonitions down in my diary:
This desire to make an immortal companion is no more justified here than it
was in Florence. You have survived all your long life without ever taking this evil step, though you know well how to do it—the Druid priest taught you how to do it—and not doing it, you will continue to survive. You cannot bring over this child to you, no matter how you envision it. Imagine her to be a statue. Imagine your evil to be a force that would shatter that statue. See her then in fragments. Know that that is what you would do.
I went back to her rooms.
It was as if I’d never seen her before, so great was her impression upon me, so soft and compelling her voice, so radiant her face and her worldly eyes. It was an agony and also an immeasurable consolation to be near her.
For months I came to her rooms, pretending to listen to the poems recited, sometimes forced to answer in the gentle discussions regarding the theories of aesthetics or philosophy, but all the while simply wanting to be near her, studying the minutia of her beauty, closing my eyes now and then as I listened to the song of her voice.
Visitors came and went from her famous gatherings. No one dared question her supremacy within her own domain. But as I sat, as I observed, as I let myself dream in the candlelight, there came to my observation something subtle and dreadful as ever I had beheld.
Certain men who came into these rooms were marked for a dark and specific purpose. Certain men, well known to the divinely alluring mistress, received in their wine a poison which would follow them as they left the genial company and soon accomplish their deaths!
At first, when I with my preternatural senses had smelled this subtle but certain poison I thought I had imagined such a thing. But then with the Mind Gift, I saw into the heart of this enchantress, and how she lured those whom she must poison, knowing little or nothing of why they had been condemned to death.
This was the sordid lie I had first perceived in her. A kinsman, a Florentine banker, kept her in terror. Indeed it was he who had brought her here, provided her with her nest of lovely chambers and ever playing music. It was he who demanded of her that the poison be placed in the proper cup to do away with those he chose.
How calmly her blue eyes passed over those who drank the fatal potion. How calmly she watched as the poetry was read to her. How calmly she smiled at me when her eyes happened to fall upon the tall blond-haired man who observed her from the corner. And how deep her despair!