The king chortled and left it to his counselor to respond.
“Hmm,” laughed Olivares, “I think His Majesty will want to sample them all.”
Don Felipe’s appetite was legendary. Virgins, widows, matrons all fell prey to his desires. He didn’t care if a woman was a duchess or a serving girl, a burgher or an artisan, an actress or a shepherdess, a water-seller or a nun, a princess or a prostitute. He didn’t even care if his quarry was the child of one of his most illustrious courtiers. It was an open secret that he had seduced the nubile daughter of the Count of Chirel, giving her father command of the galleys in Italy to get him out of the way.
“Of course! As His Majesty wishes. And what about the young painter?”
Naturally, Velázquez wasn’t the one who told me about this escapade. My informant was Cintia herself. I came to know her when she was an old woman. Gendarmes had closed down her house in the early 1630s acting on the official prohibition of prostitution, decreed in 1623, with the support of none other than the royal hypocrite himself, King Felipe IV.
Poor old Cintia had nowhere to go, but she did have plenty of money for a dowry, so she made her way to this convent and professed as a nun. “It’s no thanks to the king that I have a few ducats saved up,” she told me. “He was a stingy bastard, didn’t even leave a tip.” She didn’t tell me much about Velázquez—not so much out of discretion, but because he wasn’t high nobility. Her service to the king and his counselor was the real source of pride for her. She talked about it endlessly.
No wonder that later in life, Velázquez became obsessed with mirrors, reflections, and images within images. He must already have begun to grasp that Court was nothing but a game of doubles. The tatters the king wore to Cintia’s house that night were no more the king himself than the splendorous velvets and brocades he wore in public. The beggar-king and the jewel-bedecked king were both fantasies that masked a hungry boy who was perhaps more real, more authentic, when he tumbled Fabia than when he played the omniscient, omnipotent, semi-divine ruler at Court. At least at Cintia’s he could really assert power. In the palace, he was the pawn of Olivares, and of political circumstances not of his making. That night, Velázquez must have perceived the humanity beneath the image of the divine monarch.
Pacheco, Juana, and Paquita left for the Court early in April, after the worst of the winter snows. In December and January the mountain roads are nearly impassable, and blizzards turn the atmosphere into a frenzy of white and wetness. Drifts the size of men form and scatter like ghostly soldiers; they amass and then vanish into nothingness. The snow veils precipices over which intrepid riders tumble. They swathe fissures in the earth with a delicate white covering, which gives way to a void under pressure from a hoof. But by early spring, the treacherous weather has subsided. Most of the ice has melted, and a caravan of coaches, wagons, and mules can make its way northward through the narrow, rocky passages.
The first time Juana Pacheco de Velázquez talked back—really talked back—to her father was on February 3, 1624. Until that morning, preparations for the trip had gone smoothly. But it was time to make the final decision about who among the household staff would go and who would stay, and on this issue father and daughter did not see eye to eye.
Both agreed that Arabela would go, as she was needed to take care of little Francisca. Julia was Doña Juana’s personal maid, and so likewise was indispensible. Neither of the women resisted—Arabela wanted only to be with her darling Paquita, and Julia was anxious to see the Court. Juana argued for including Ángeles, but Pacheco thought she was too old. She should stay behind, he said, along with the two slave girls, in order to prepare meals for the students. Juana was disappointed, but gave in without a fight. On the subject of Lidia, however, she was adamant.
“She’s just a common housemaid!” she shouted, trembling with rage. “She can be easily replaced in Madrid.”
Pacheco was not used to being contradicted, especially by his daughter. Nevertheless, in view of her delicate health, he thought it best to take an enlightened approach.
“As you say, Juanita, she’s just a girl of no consequence, but she knows the household and she’d be useful.” Pacheco was proud of his self-restraint. He sounded calm and paternal, he thought. But to Juana, he sounded patronizing.
“I don’t like having her around,” she said. “She’s … sly.”
“Sly?” laughed Pacheco. “Whatever can you mean? She’s been with us for years and Don Diego is fond of her. I’m sure he’ll feel more comfortable handing his household over to Lidia than to some unknown Madrileña.”
Juana remembered the smirk on Lidia’s face the day she’d interrupted Velázquez painting her as the Virgin.
“She’s crafty and ambitious,” hissed Juana. She was certain the girl would turn the lax atmosphere that reputedly reigned in Madrid to her advantage. “And she’s a troublemaker! Besides, Diego already has a staff. We don’t need her.”
It was a gamble. Juana didn’t actually know if Diego had need of a housemaid or not.
“Don’t be silly, child,” tutted Pacheco.
“I’m not a child!” exploded Juana. “I’m the woman of the house and I’m telling you that we don’t require her services!”
Pacheco looked at his daughter long and hard, and then took a step toward her. He had never struck her, but his stance was menacing. They stood there staring at each other a moment, she with her lips pursed, he with his jaw set. Then he softened his gaze and smiled.
Two months later, when they set off for Madrid, Lidia, along with Arabela and Julia, rode in Pacheco’s carriage with the family.
Madrid was nothing like Juana had imagined. She had expected wide, tree-lined avenues, palatial buildings, elegant coaches, stylish gentlemen, and fashionable ladies. But as the coach rolled into the city that morning, the odor of chamber pots still fouled the air, and the streets that radiated from the plaza were strewn with drunken soldiers sleeping off their hangovers. Clusters of poor wretches swarmed around alleys begging or scavenging for food. A ragged mother dragging a ragged child flashed a toothless smile at Juana through the window of the carriage. Her skin was pocked and furrowed, yet she had the firm, slight figure of a young girl. She could have been eighteen or eighty. Juana couldn’t tell for sure. The woman thrust an open palm toward the curtain and Juana could see that her fingernails were broken and grimy.
“Oh, God,” she whispered. “Why do You permit such suffering?”
“You know why God puts these creatures on Earth, Juana,” said Pacheco matter-of-factly. “It’s to permit the rest of us to earn salvation through acts of charity.”
“Then why didn’t you give that poor woman something?” snapped Juana. But by then the carriage had left the pitiful being and her ragamuffin little girl far behind.
“Don’t be sanctimonious, Juana. Who knows if she’s even a true beggar.” Throughout Spain municipalities granted permits to certain poor souls, usually the blind, to beg in the streets and join the beggars’ guild, but hundreds of uncertified wretches roamed the city with their hands out.
“Whether she is or not, she needs help.”
Juana closed her eyes and clutched Francisca to her. In her mind she held the memory of the desperate woman stretching out her hand for a miserable coin, her shabby little daughter by her side. Had they eaten that morning? Had they foraged in the gutter for a piece of rotting fruit or a crust of bread? Would that poor mother ever abandon her daughter as she, Juana, had nearly abandoned Paquita? Juana pressed Paquita’s little hand to her breast with such force that the child squirmed and pulled away.
Juana had seen poverty before. In the recent past, droughts had forced thousands of peasants off the land and into the cities. In Seville, countless beggars, impelled by starvation and plague, dragged their sore-infested bodies onto the cathedral steps to importune good Christians with cries of “¡Por Dios, señora! ¡Por el amor a Dios, señor! A penny for my starving baby!” But in Madrid, it was worse. In fr
ont of every church, stinking, festering throngs crowded around parishioners on their way to Mass. In the side streets, gangs of thugs congregated around pillars, ready to knock passersby to the ground and steal their bundles. Juana peered out of the carriage window at the shady-looking characters and shuddered. By the time they reached Velázquez’s quarters on Calle de Convalecientes, she had decided that she didn’t like the capital.
Juana entered her new house with her head bowed, then looked around with the startled eyes of a trapped fox. Velázquez smiled at her politely, as though she were a stranger, and perhaps she was. She had grown thin and wan since the loss of her baby.
“Doña Juana,” he murmured. He held out his hand with what seemed like contrived gallantry, as though he were asking her to dance.
“Don Diego,” she said, taking it. She curtsied awkwardly. “Paquita, greet your papá.”
The child peered out from behind Arabela’s skirts.
Julia unpacked Juana’s trunks and aired out her dresses. Arabela transformed a room near Juana’s suite into a nursery with two low beds, one with a feather mattress for Paquita and one with a straw mattress for herself.
Thanks to the demands of his position, Velázquez was away from home most of the time, so Juana had time to explore her husband’s latest acquisitions—the Murano goblets and dishes with gold leaf and blue enamel, the Venetian beaker with applied decorations of pink and yellow, the brownish-red footed bowl of chalcedony glass, and the double-handled filigree vase. She wondered whether the man had come into a fortune, or if these treasures were gifts from the count-duke. She took charge of the staff and gave orders to her new cook. She hired a washerwoman and had her boil all the sheets. She kept Lidia so busy that the girl complained to the other servants that the señora was trying to work her into an early grave.
Velázquez was too busy to pay attention to the cleanliness of the sheets because the king required one portrait after the other. He had himself painted bedecked in armor, clothed in black and gold, standing, seated, on horseback. He sent paintings to friends and foes to make sure they knew who he was—the most powerful man on Earth. He had them hung in municipal buildings to inspire awe and respect in his subjects, and in private palaces to cement alliances. I saw some of these paintings when I was at Court. I especially remember one equestrian that I really liked. It showed Felipe on an elegant black horse with its forelegs raised. It was as if Velázquez had caught the animal in motion, in mid-gallop, just before its hooves hit the ground. It was not an unusual pose for a royal portrait, but Velázquez gave it such life, such drama.
In Velázquez’s portraits, the king was always regal, serious, and aloof in his elaborate robes. These paintings were not meant to capture the essence of the king’s personality, but instead to show him as a great monarch. He was the master, and the horse was the unruly masses, which the king controlled with a loving but firm hand. Portraits of the king are supposed to communicate power, superiority, heroism, and authority, not tell you what the king actually looks like.
But it wasn’t only the king who took up Velázquez’s time. Olivares also required portraits. The count-duke had acquired a mountainous figure, made even bulkier by his brocades and enormous capes. His face had grown squarish, and his upturned mustache resembled an angry, somber, inverted crescent moon, or else the horns of a mad bull. Even though Velázquez posed his subject at an angle to reduce his bulk, Olivares no longer cut the dashing figure of his youth, and there was no way to disguise it. He looked supercilious and antipático.
During all this time, Velázquez never painted a portrait of me. Even though I was right there at Court, he hardly noticed me. Perhaps he was just too busy to pay attention to the young brunette with the silky hair—the woman who worshipped him. When he wasn’t painting, Velázquez attended Court functions—hunting parties, banquets, that sort of thing. And when he did have a free moment, he made his way to the mentidero, or gossip corner, on the steps of the Church of San Felipe, at the intersection of Esparteros, Correo, and Calle Mayor.
As an aspiring courtier, Velázquez had to know what was going on both in and outside of Court. From the top of the steps of San Felipe, there was an excellent view of the surrounding districts, and thus the day’s scandals. Without too much squinting, anyone who had time to kill—dukes and pickpockets alike—could see who was sneaking out of his house, and who was meeting whom. The local gossips knew what was going on abroad, as well. Velázquez learned, for example, about Charles Stuart, now king of England, and his constant fights with his new wife, the Frenchwoman Henrietta Maria of France, whom he’d married after the fiasco of his courtship to Princess María Ana here in Spain. The artist needed to hear such tidbits, so that he could bring them up at Court. Knowing the latest gossip cemented his position as an insider—but it was also beginning to produce resentment among the other Court painters, who weren’t paid nearly as well—or as regularly—as Velázquez and who, unlike their rival, weren’t at the center of things.
By fall Juana had settled into her routine in the house on Calle de Convalescientes. One day in the early winter, as Velázquez was painting the final flourishes on the ruff of one of the Court secretaries, threads of paint began to undulate before his eyes. He took a deep breath and blinked hard, but the lace wouldn’t lie still. Velázquez wiped his forehead with the back of his hand. His brow felt clammy.
“Do you feel ill, Maestro?” Melgar asked nervously, approaching Velázquez as if to steady him.
“I’m not sure … do I look ill?”
“You look feverish. Would you like me to bring you some water?”
Velázquez swallowed saliva and realized that this throat was burning. “Yes,” he said hoarsely. “Bring me some water.”
The slave poured him a cup from a pitcher. As Velázquez brought the water to his lips, his hand trembled and his fingers shot outward. The cup crashed against the floor tiles, exploding like a fire grenade. Velázquez watched the spectacle as though it were happening elsewhere.
“The floor is dirty,” he said finally.
“Maestro,” murmured Melgar, “you’re shivering. I’ll take you home.”
“I don’t want to go home. I have to finish this while the light is good.”
When Velázquez opened his eyes, he was lying in his own bed, bathed in sweat and smelling fetid. As if at a great distance he heard voices and recognized one of them as Juana’s.
“Don’t go in there again! You’re disturbing him with your constant running in and out.”
“I’m not disturbing him, señora. He’s sound asleep.”
“I order you to stay out of that room!”
“I just wanted to bring in this holly, señora, so that when Don Diego wakes up the room will look cheerful, not gloomy.”
Juana glared at the maid as if trying to obliterate her with her gaze. “The vases are already bursting with holly, Lidia.”
“It’s just that I’m so worried, señora. He has been asleep for nearly three days. I pray and pray to the holy Virgin Mother, but …” Lidia gulped and opened her eyes imploringly, as if expecting sympathy for all her suffering.
Juana took a step backward and appraised the situation. She took a long, hard look at the maid: her alabaster complexion, her perfect brow, the mischievous wisps of chestnut hair peeking out from under her toque, her slim waist unthickened by childbearing, her dainty feet. She knew then what she had to do.
“Lidia,” she said softly. “I appreciate your prayers. But I forbid you to enter Don Diego’s room again.”
Then, without waiting for a response or a curtsy, she turned and left the room.
8
RIVALS AND PLOTS
1626–1627
JUANA STOOD IN THE LIBRARY, FEET PLANTED FIRMLY, ARMS crossed, eyes hurling lightning bolts. “I insist! It’s time! You have to attend to this!”
“I’m busy, Doña Juana! I’m writing a letter to Venturo Almedina to ask him to come take care of your dear husband.”
&nbs
p; “The count-duke sent his private physician to attend to my dear husband this very afternoon. Velázquez doesn’t need Don Venturo.”
Pacheco pretended to be very interested in sharpening his quill. He ran his knife smoothly down the nib. “I see …” he said after a long pause. “Why wasn’t I told?”
“You were locked up in your apartments, father, perhaps reading Plato or doing something else similarly useful. You must take care of this. It’s irresponsible to keep putting it off, and it’s unfair to her!”
Francisco Pacheco was a mild-mannered man, but his daughter Juana was pushing him over the edge. She had always been somewhat strong-willed, and during her illness, she had gotten used to always getting her own way. Now she wouldn’t take no for an answer.
“I’m sorry. This is not a good time. I have many things on my mind, what with Velázquez trying to get me an appointment as a Court painter …”
“Velázquez can’t do anything for you now. He’s lying on his bed with his back covered with leeches, under the supervision of the royal physician.”
Pacheco grimaced. When had his homely, meek little daughter become such an imposing woman? She was still plain, but in Madrid she’d begun to treat her hair with a combination of black sulphur, alum, and honey to give it a soft, textured look. Back in Seville, Pacheco had forbidden the practice because Church moralists constantly inveighed against the evils of artificial hair color (so fashionable among the aristocracy), but he had to admit it looked quite pretty, really. Anyway, no matter how many times he forbade it, she ignored him. And now her maid Julia was coloring her hair, too. Juana had also taken to rubbing her hands with grease to soften them and lightening her skin with a powder made of egg whites, carbonate, and he couldn’t imagine what else. Pacheco knew that all the Court ladies used makeup, but Juana? It was bad enough she’d become opinionated, but now she wanted to be stylish, too!
I am Venus Page 9