Stone Virgin (2 page)

It was still with smiles that they left. The third wretch, who had said nothing, was smiling too. Reverence and awe is what they should have felt, seeing me left alone there, understanding what a guest I was left with. They were men after all, though thieves. But they departed grinning.

When they had gone I examined the stone again. There were the bruises from the quarrying but the grain was perfect and I knew that I had chosen well and I gave thanks to God who had whitened this stone in the darkness for my use and His greater glory and I repented of my sin of rage and crossed myself as I do now again. Anger that is past leaves a mood of vacancy sometimes and so it was now and in this vacancy I stood at the window and I looked round the room as if seeing it for the first time – the block made everything else seem unfamiliar. It was warm, though still only March, and there was sunshine in the room and dust moving slowly in it and reflections from the canal also moving slowly – over the walls and my work bench and the pallet in the corner and the rat tracks in the dust of the floor. Light moved freely inside the room, having passed without damage through the membrane of the glass. So the Holy Ghost entered the chamber of Mary’s womb as it is explained in the teachings of the blessed San Bernardo where he says that as the brilliance of the sun fills and penetrates a glass window and pierces it
con una sottigliezza impercettibile
so the Word of God, the splendour of the Father, penetrated the virgin chamber without hurt,
senza ferirla
. But there was more, my lord, because into the chamber of my room I realized that God’s seed had entered, the stone was God’s seed waiting to be transformed into an image that would glorify His Incarnation and it seemed that I could hear this dumb stone crying for its form and with a cry that was everywhere in the room like the light and inside the walls of my being and it was loud and silent. Then my body lost its weight and my mind became mingled with the light that was inside and outside and the pleading of the stone.

When I came to myself again the Angelus was ringing and there was the
fondamenta
and the bridge and the older Marsuppini outside his workshop, bald head lowered over his work. Cutting and stitching all day long, who needs horses in Venice? But now that our new Doge is leading us to glorious acquisitions on the terraferma people will have estates and so horses – I hear his step, he comes for the papers now the light is fading and he takes them at once not giving me time to finish I will ask for a lamp

I could not stay longer there with the mute stone, in the dying light, but it was my misfortune to meet Fiammetta as I came out on to the street and at a moment when she was already heated by an altercation with the fishmonger (I call this crone Fiammetta as a joke because it is a name much used in love songs. Her real name is Maria Nevi.)

We met at the corner of the Marsuppini
bottega
just a few yards short of the
sotoportego
that leads off into Campo Sant’Angelo, five paces more and I would have been under the archway and missed the hag altogether, as it was we met face to face on the corner and she at once began raising her voice. Five liras, eight soldi, she screeched at me – it is her usual practice to utter the exact amount of my debt loudly and repeatedly like a parrot, not listening at all to anything I might say in reply and in this way she achieves several of the triumphs to which her hag’s life is devoted, for example causing others to overhear and thus offending my dignity and also by showing such an exact knowledge of the amount she puts herself in a commanding position or so she thinks but she is mistaken,
io me ne frego
, and God has justified this through the gifts He subsequently made me, which I am not at present free to reveal, not even to you, noble lord. And the poverty is not my fault but caused by the unfair practice of closed guilds here in Venice so it is impossible for anyone not native to the place to set up his own
bottega
.

So I merely felt sorry for her as she stood ranting there clutching the mullet to her breast and her face working, she is a hysteric also, I mention this to show that her evidence is not to be trusted. Five liras, eight soldi, she shouted again. He thinks a poor widow can live on promises but promises will not put sausages into my mouth. (Marsuppini has said in his deposition that I answered her lewdly and obscenely at this point but that is lies.)

Still she railed on. This great maestro, she said, when will he pay it? She put this question to the sky, it seemed, looking upwards, her jaws working and her eyes blinking but she gets just as excited talking with the fishmonger and I paid no special attention. Here is a great fuss, I said, but she was not listening she was laughing falsely up at the sky exposing the interior of her mouth in which many teeth are lacking, clutching the fish as if I was threatening to despoil her of it. Here is a great fuss to make out of a few paltry liras, I said, speaking calmly but again the demon rage was climbing up, my face had become suffused with blood. Have I not told you about this new commission? I said. The block has come. I shall have money when the Madonna is finished. (I did not mention the advance they had paid, I needed all of it.) What is five liras? I said, and I tried to get past her into the
sotoportego
. Five liras,
eight soldi
, she screeched straight into my face with her breath of sour milk, the
capomaestro
is a great man, he can forget about the soldi, but I am only Signora Nevi.

Go and fuck your fish, I said. Imagine my feelings, confronted by this detestable crone upbraiding me in full hearing of others though of course I am indifferent to the opinion of others, as I have said, but she was raising her voice more and more and I was trapped there, once again base talk of soldi dinning into my ears, the block of stone in the workshop, my great task all before me, my first independent commission in Venice after seven years – yes my lord seven years of servile work at others’ bidding, trimming stone, labouring over obscure details of decoration, jobs no one else wanted to do. It was from this you rescued me, thanks to your good offices I had the commission from the friars of the Supplicanti, a Madonna Annunciata for their new church soon to be consecrated, destined for a prominent place on the façade, a work of high and holy importance and one in which I should express my veneration for the Santissima Vergine, the Mother of God, and through her the respect due to all women and here was this hysteric hag with her mummified cunt and her withered tits in their black fustian of a fictitious widow, the husband never existed, she is a poxed-out
puttana
. Go and fuck your fish, I said to her, I have no more time to waste here, and I got round her into the
sotoportego
. Scum of Piedmont, I heard her shout after me but I took no notice. Other things too she shouted, threats. She has said I told her to go and fuck her fish, and that is true, but I did not push her aside and I did not invoke the devil against her by making the sign of the horns. However, it is true that I told her to go and fuck her fish, which profanity I regretted when my anger had cooled.

I did not notice which way I walked at first owing to the disturbance of my feelings but there was a strong light everywhere, I remember that evening for the brightness of the light on everything, on the water and on the buildings and yet the sunset bells had rung some time before, I had heard them while still in my room and so there is something difficult to understand about these memories of light, but I cannot be mistaken. I think now that I was bestowing this light on things, that it was in me, this evening was the beginning of God’s gift of light to me which remained with me all the time I was carving the Madonna and accompanies me still even here in this prison. (When I close my eyes I can feel the sweetness of this light within me and sometimes, in certain conditions, I see it on the surface of my skin.)

So I walked for some time at random. Campo Sant’Angelo then over the rio but by the long bridge, Ponte dei Mercatori, I must have wandered south a little. They were working on the façade of San Zaccaria, hammers and bells and the booming of the cannon as the ships coming into the Bacinto saluted the image of the Virgin on the Basilica of San Marco. The city was crowded with visitors come for the Spring Fair – more than a hundred thousand it was said. It was Wednesday, the market was open, sausages and cockles and the smell of sawdust and wet fish.
Pan buffeto
. I remember everything about this evening on which I met Bianca, even the prices of things – prices are nostalgic for men in captivity my lord. Ten snails, four soldi, a secchio of wine, thirty-five soldi. I had the friars’ money in my pocket that day and I had hopes.

In one corner of the Campo Santa Maria Formosa there were actors performing on a platform hung with lamps and I stopped to watch. They were good, especially the Pantalone, he was a good tumbler, dressed all in red with a fierce mud-coloured mask and he had Turkish slippers too large for him which he kept tripping over and falling on to the platform with a great clash of bells, he had bells inside his clothes somewhere. He wanted to creep up and spy on two behind a screen who wore the masks of lovers, the one with the male mask was trying to put his hand up the skirts of the other and just as he succeeded every time a crash of bells and they sprang apart. The people in the crowd were laughing and some were shouting advice of an obscene nature.

After this I began crossing the square towards the north side. For no particular reason I turned down that street about midway across which is called after the church and leads into the warren of the San Severo district. As I was thinking to retrace my steps I heard a woman singing somewhere above me not very loudly but distinctly enough in a voice low in register but very sweet and the notes lingering, a haunting song, not Venetian by the sound of it.

Tu m’hai promiso quater

O mocatura o mocatura

I looked up but the street was narrow and the balconies were high and I could see no one. I had to go to the end and then turn to look, before I saw her. She was sitting at the edge of the balcony, looking over the street and she was in a red dress with her shoulders bare her hair dyed gold and her face painted. She was smiling a little as if she had pleasing thoughts. But this was the habit of her face, as I learned later, she had few thoughts. This was my first sight of Bianca. I knew she was for sale, how else could it be, alone there, in that exposed position and singing to draw the gaze? But that was not important in my mind. Also she was very beautiful but it was not that. She seemed pleased and self-conscious like a child dressed up. My lord I had never seen her before but I knew her – it was that which kept me there, I stayed gazing but she did not look towards me. People were passing, they stared at me, a thing I hate, and still she did not look, she was lost in some dream. I had to move away but her face stayed in my mind. There was a tavern on the corner with a sign of crossed silver keys and so I entered, not to go too far away, not expecting trouble of any kind – it was chance that I went there. It is true that a man came in who was known to me but after seven years it would be strange indeed if I had no acquaintance in Venice. This was Rodrigo Nofri who used to be a painter of masks, a bad one, and now is in the silk trade and making money the dog has made money out of this business, he has testified that I uttered treasonable sayings against the state of Venice and in support of her enemies, particularly Francesco Bussone, Count of Carmagnola, and that I caused an affray. My lord this was in March it was before the arrest of Carmagnola I said nothing against Venice and as for the fighting it was the Florentines who began it. There is a web of false evidence against me, I am enmeshed in it. I beg you to find Nofri and question him privately. I know he has been bribed. Not only that, he has been frightened. With him there was another man and his name I think was Bechine, from Murano. I did not discover his occupation but if from Murano almost certainly to do with glass, a big man, rather taciturn but not quarrelsome, none of us was quarrelsome, it was the Florentines who began it all. I will tell you what happened.

I had fish pie and radishes and a

Conversations with him have always the same form. He does not speak of his own accord but he makes responses, always the same, so it is like a litany, he is my congregation of one. I remind him that we have our agreement and I watch his large head nod slowly and I wait for him to say yes it is so – he has a harsh voice and a thick accent of the Veneto. I ask him if it is certain that these papers of mine are being placed directly into your hands and he says it is certain. And without the knowledge of anyone else? Yes, without the knowledge of anyone else. And no reply? No, not yet. But he will bring it to me when it comes? You have my promise, he says. Once I give my word to a man it is sacred with me. Yes, I say, you are a man whose promises one can trust. Besides, you will be well paid. Sometimes it comes into my mind to try to overpower him and attempt an escape but I am enfeebled by these weeks in prison and the brute is strong. He is an ox and cannot read therefore I can abuse him at least.

This time I surprised him by asking for a light, explaining that if I had a small lamp or perhaps candles I could continue my writing after dark. His first response was not favourable. It seems that it is no small thing that I have asked for. He says that he cannot give a man light without permission otherwise he will be out of the job on his arse but he will see what can be done and meanwhile I should make good use of the daylight. So I do my lord though it comes late into this pit and leaves early.

When I was dragged out of there and thrown on to the cobbles that coward Nofri was nowhere about, it was the Muranese who helped me and he told me afterwards that the girl saw it and felt sorry for me and called to bring me up off the street before the
signori di notte
arrived on the scene but he did not do it. It was the same girl.