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"Tell me what to lay out on my tables," I said to Bianca. "Tell me what wines to serve. My servants shall be your servants. I shall do everything as you say. "
"It's too lovely," she answered. "All of Venice will be there, I promise you, you'll discover the most wonderful company. People are so curious about you. Oh, how they whisper. You can't imagine what a supreme delight this will be. "
It came about as she described.
Within the month I opened the palazzo to the whole city. But how different it was from those drunken nights in old Rome when people laid about on my couches and vomited in my gardens and I painted madly away on the walls.
Oh, yes, when I arrived, how proper were my finely clad Venetian guests. Of course I was asked a thousand questions. I let my eyes mist over. I heard the mortal voices around me as if they were kisses. I thought; You are among them; it is truly as if you were one of them. It is truly as if you are alive.
What did it matter their little criticisms of the paintings? I would strive to make my work the finest, yes, truly, but what counted was the vitality, the momentum!
And here amid my best work stood my lovely fair-haired Bianca, free for the moment from those who put her up to her wrongdoings, recognized by all as the Mistress of my house.
Amadeo watched this with silent grudging eyes. The memories inside him tormented him like a cancer, yet he could not see them and know them for what they were.
Not a month after, at sunset, I found him sick in the grand church on the nearby island of Torcello to which he had wandered, apparently on his own. I picked him up from the cold damp floor and took him home.
Of course I understood the reason. There he had found ikons of the very style he had once painted. There he had found old mosaics from centuries past, similar to those he had seen in Russian churches as a child. He had not remembered. He had merely come upon some old truth in his wanderings¡ªthe brittle, stark Byzantine paintings¡ªand now the heat of the place had left him with a fever, and I could taste it on his lips and see it in his eyes.
He was no better at sunrise when, half mad, I left him in the care of Vincenzo, only to rise again at sunset and hurry back to the side of his bed.
It was his mind that stoked the fever. Bundling him like a child I took him into a Venetian church to see the wondrous paintings of robust and natural figures that had been done in these last few years.
But I could see now it was hopeless. His mind would never be opened, never truly changed. I brought him home, and laid him down on the pillows once more.
I sought to better understand what I could.
His had been a punitive world of austere devotion. Painting for him had been joyless. And indeed all of life itself in far-away Russia had been so rigorous that he could not give himself over to the pleasure that awaited him now at every turn.
Beset by the memories, yet not understanding them, he was moving slowly towards death.
I would not have it. I paced the floor, I turned to those who attended him. I walked about, whispering to myself in my anger. I would not have it. I would not let him die.
Sternly, I banished others from the bedchamber.
I bent over him, and biting into my tongue I filled my mouth with blood and then I loosed a thin stream of it into his mouth.
He quickened, and licked his lips after it, and then he breathed more easily and the flush came to his cheeks. I felt of his forehead. It was cooler. He opened his eyes and he looked at me, and he said as he did so often, "Master," and then gently, without memories, without terrible dreams, he slept.
It was enough. I left the bed. I wrote in my thick diary, the quill scratching as
I quickly inscribed the words:
"He is irresistible, but what am I to do? I claimed him once, declaring him my very own, and now I treat his misery with the blood I wish that I could give him. Yet in treating his misery, I hope to cure him not for me but for the wide world. "
I closed the book, in disgust with myself for the blood I'd given him. But it had healed him. I knew it. And were he ill, I would give him blood again.
Time was moving too swiftly.
Things were happening too fast. My earlier judgments were shaken, and the beauty of Amadeo increased with every passing night.
The teachers took the boys to Florence that they might see the paintings there. And all came home more truly inspired to study than before.
Yes, they had seen the work of Botticelli, and how splendid it was. Was the Master painting? Indeed, so, but his work had become almost entirely religious. It was due to the preaching of Savonarola, a stringent monk who condemned the Florentines for their worldliness. Savonarola had great power over the people of Florence. Botticelli believed in him, and was thought to be one of his followers.
This saddened me greatly. Indeed it damn near maddened me. But then I knew that whatever Botticelli painted it would be magnificent. And in Amadeo's progress I was comforted, or rather pleasantly confused as before.
Amadeo was now the most brilliant of all my little academy. New teachers were required for him in philosophy and law. He was outgrowing his clothes at a marvelous rate, he had become quick and charming in conversation, and he was the beloved of all the younger boys.
