The Honeymoon (8 page)

Now, in the Piazza, Johnnie ordered the crowd gathered around the platform, “Could you step aside please?” as if he were Mr. Bunney’s personal guard.

The people began moving away. Bunney climbed up on his platform, gingerly handed his canvas down to Johnnie, and they stood looking at it. “Isn’t it wonderful?” said Johnnie.

It showed the facade of the Basilica, each column carefully articulated, the mosaic figures above the entryways exactly rendered, even the planes and girders of the dome. Not wonderful, she thought, mechanical. No romance in the light, the sky dull, the whole thing devoid of life. Indeed, there wasn’t a human being in sight.

“Very nice indeed,” she said politely. She couldn’t be unkind.

“Have you been at it long?” Johnnie asked Bunney eagerly. People were watching the curious scene from a distance now, afraid, because of Johnnie’s peremptory manner, to come closer.

“I’m here every morning at five o’clock, weather permitting. I’m in my fourth year now,” Bunney said. “I’ve done four hundred sessions so far.”

“My goodness,” she said. “Do you know when you’ll finish?”

“Before I die, I hope. As I said, Mr. Ruskin is very exacting. Well, I better get back to work while the light’s good.” He turned to climb up his ladder. “Oh, before I do, I can’t let
you leave without giving me your promise you’ll come to the studio. Mr. Ruskin has sworn me to give you his pamphlets about Venice. He wants you to see everything through his eyes. He’s so obsessed with this restoration.” Then he pulled the ladder up behind him and seated himself at his easel.

Taking up his brush again, he called down to them over the platform, “It’s number 2413 San Biagio!”

They left him at his labors.

As they walked away, Johnnie began humming, “Mr. Bunney, Mr. Bunney, Mr. Bunney.”

“It’s a wonderful name, isn’t it?” she said.

“Yes,” he said, then resumed in a little song, “Oh, Mr. Bunney, Mr. Bunney …”

“Yes,” she echoed, “ ‘Mr. Bunney.’ A fine name.”

“Yes, indeed.” He kept going, singing brightly now. “Oh, Mr. Bunney, Mr. Bunney,” over and over again.

“I think perhaps that’s enough,” she said. “It’s not fair to make fun of him because of his name.”

He stopped. “Oh, I am fair!” he cried. “Fair, fair, fair,” he said.

He looked out across the Piazza, his brow knit. “We should go to the Accademia,” he said. “It closes at three. Better hurry.” He laughed. “There I am, going too fast for you again. Take your time.”

The heat was rising now from the stone, and inside the Accademia the coolness and silence were a relief.

When they reached the entrance to the Sala dell’Assunta, Johnnie cried, “Look! Look!” At the far end of the gallery was Titian’s immense
Assumption
, covering the entire wall,
the Virgin ascending toward God on a cloud supported by cherubs, the Apostles beneath her gazing up at her adoringly. The expression on the Madonna’s face was rapturous, dazed, fearful, yet curious.

“The Virgin looks just like you,” he said.

She laughed. “That’s sacrilegious.”

Titian’s Virgin wasn’t like the traditional Madonnas. She wasn’t delicate and girlish. She was androgynous, square-jawed, with a thick neck, flat-chested with broad shoulders.

“No, no,” he insisted. “You are ‘the Madonna.’ George called you that.”

“He was joking,” she said.

“But I mean it. Why can’t I say it? I can say it.”

“Don’t be silly. I’m not the Madonna.”

“Yes. You are. Pure and wise and —”

“Not so pure. And wise — I wish it were so …”

Just then, a man and woman entered the gallery carrying their guidebooks. She lowered her voice. “Please, Johnnie. Let’s go back now. Here —” She took his arm. “Come.”

“No. I want to stay and look at the Madonna.”

“Come,” she said again, pulling him away.

“Let me be,” he said irritably. It was a tone she’d never heard from him before.

“I think we should go, Johnnie. I really do. I’m tired. I’d like to rest.”

“I thought you were rested. I want to stay. I want to look. It’s my wife.”

The other two had noticed them.

She whispered urgently, “It’s not your wife.” She tried to drag him away, but he was bigger than she, immovable.

“Johnnie, let’s go,” she commanded, raising her voice.

He scowled and abruptly walked away across the gallery ahead of her.

On the way back to the hotel, he was silent, his mouth clamped shut. He didn’t look at her, his eyes were fixed ahead. She’d never seen him angry. It was new and startling.

“Johnnie, what’s wrong with you?”

“Nothing.”

She was afraid to speak.

When they reached the
appartement
, he sat down at the dining table and stared out the window, biting his nails.

“I’m going in to rest awhile,” she said. He ignored her.

She went into her own room. It was quiet outside, all of Venice was cast into an afternoon torpor.

Suddenly, she felt the twinging sensation in her left side. She touched herself there. Please, no. She couldn’t survive it. What would she do if she had an attack here? Her doctor, Sir James Paget, was so far away across the sea. There were no good doctors in this foreign place.

She rinsed a flannel in cold water, lay down on the bed, and pressed it to her head. There was a foul, bitter taste in her mouth. She prayed, Please don’t let it happen. Not now. Relax, every part …

He’d never spoken angrily to her before. And she hadn’t had to raise her voice in years. She almost never exchanged cross words with anyone. No one ever challenged her. People were afraid of her. George had shielded her, babied her. For so many years, she’d been a loved woman, by George, by Charley, by all their friends and her admirers and
followers. With all the fame, she thought, she’d become spoiled, everyone around her trying to anticipate her needs, everyone in awe of The Great Talent. That was the price of celebrity, she knew.

No one told you the truth.

A
fter a brief nap she felt better. The sensation in her side had abated.

They were going to a concert at the Teatro Malibran. It was to be the highlight of their stay.

She began to get ready. She put on the green silk dress she’d bought at Madame La France’s in Battle Square just for this occasion and spread powder on her face. It gave her skin a thick, flat color, but it was better than having her naked wrinkles visible to the world. She dabbed on the Parfum Violette Johnnie had given her as a gift in Paris, and draped the mantilla over her head and shoulders.

She drew on her long, white kid gloves, took her gold lace fan with the mother-of-pearl handle from its silk-lined box, straightened her shoulders, and prepared to go out into the
sala
. At the bedroom door, she hesitated. What would she find?

She pushed open the double doors.

There he was, standing tall in the middle of the room, waiting for her, dressed in full evening regalia, black morning coat, black silk foulard, pearl stickpin, holding his top hat.

“Bella, bella,”
he said. He smiled broadly. “You look lovely. The dress is lovely.”

For a moment, she believed him. Perhaps the dress made him see her in a new way.

They descended the stairs to the lobby, he smiling proudly with her on his arm, and she, queenly, almost pretty.

The gondolier, Corradini, was there on the
riva
. She noticed again his pale blue eyes. They stood out against his tanned and oiled skin, his seamed face and sinewy arms. Again she noticed that his costume fit him too tightly. He was trying to look younger, showing off his body.

Once they were seated, he pulled the boat efficiently away from shore, working easily, unsmilingly, saying nothing, distant and skilled, his skin weathered by years in the sun rowing tourists around.

It was early evening, the night beginning. As they passed along the banks of the canal, the gaslights glowed, and the
riva
was filled with tourists out in all their finery for their evening promenade.

She gave Johnnie a little lecture on Vivaldi to prepare him for the concert. “He wrote
The Four Seasons
in Mantua at the court of Philip of Hesse-Darmstadt. There are four cantos representing each of the four seasons, sonnets that go with them which Vivaldi probably wrote himself —”

In the middle of her explanation, he bent forward, took her hands exuberantly between his own, and kissed them through her gloves. Then he squeezed them so tightly her knuckles ground together.

“Ouch! You hurt me!” She winced and pulled her hands away.

“Sorry. I’m too enthusiastic, I’m afraid,” he said, patting them.

She flexed her fingers. “You’ve got a powerful grip.”

He sat back in the gondola, smiling in anticipation of the concert.

The gondolier curved to the right and made his way through the maze of canals. The buildings loomed close together, a crack of dark blue sky just visible between the rooftops.

They came to a stop, and Johnnie told Corradini to wait for them. The man nodded, once again, she noted, just verging on rudeness.

Making their way along a dark
calle
, they came upon the Corte Sabbionera and the tiny, jewel-like Teatro Malibran, its warm lights beaming from the windows and the door, the concertgoers assembled on the
campo
waiting to go in.

Inside, everything was trimmed with gold. The boxes were held up by caryatids, the parapets decorated with crowns. There were two men already in their box, one older and gray-haired, the other much younger, clean-shaven, perhaps his son.

She scanned the program. The rustling around them quieted, and the curtain lifted to reveal the musicians and the conductor. The conductor lifted his arms, the musicians lifted their instruments, and the heraldic notes of “Spring” sounded. Immediately, the tight notes of the first violin, playing the
allegro
, possessed her. Then the other instruments joined in. In the excitement of the music, she forgot everything — Johnnie sitting beside her, the theater around her. There was the sweet call of a single violin, a spring bird, rising then calming into a
diminuendo
. The goatherd dozing
on the meadow, an intimation of love to come; nymphs and shepherds dancing. It flowed through her body, lifted her.