Farewell to the Flesh Read Free Page B

for her fear that it might draw even more notice—or that the woman would turn her ill will on her. Her heart went out to the photographer. He might be good at pretending to be strong, but she sensed that he was almost as vulnerable as she was to an unkind word.
    â€œAh, but Signora Campi,” Gibbon said as he turned to the woman, “surely you know that there are cooks and there are chefs, there are holiday picture takers and there are photographers—just as surely as there are Luna Park frauds and whatever might be the opposite in your own profession. You see that I am kind enough to call it a profession.”
    Xenia Campi’s eyes widened but she said nothing. One of the boys at the far end of the table started to laugh loudly and was soon joined by the other two. They began to sing a song in Italian. Dora couldn’t understand the song but Xenia Campi frowned in their direction, and the boy she had glanced at earlier stopped singing.
    Poor Val Gibbon held his head high but Dora could see his bruised heart. It was just as exposed for her as was the Flaming Heart of Jesus that graced the wall of her room upstairs.
    The serving woman came in from the corridor with a tureen of steaming soup. Dora sighed. Another meal at the Casa Crispina was about to begin.

2
    Urbino looked down from the window of the Palazzo Uccello straight into the eyes of Death.
    Only a few moments earlier, Urbino had put aside the volume of Remembrance of Things Past and gone to the window. Someone is in the calle , he had said to himself, even though he had heard nothing.
    He had been right. The Palazzo Uccello had been visited on this February evening by Death and the Lady of Veils.
    Death was tall, dressed almost all in black. Black boots, black leggings and gloves, a black steeple of a hat pulled down over a mad jumble of black crepe Medusa locks. The eyelets of the white oval mask were trimmed in black. Hundreds of featherlike ebony scraps had been sewn together to form a cape that its wearer hugged close.
    The Lady of Veils was a vision in white. In fact, with her cascade of short veils framing a delicate mask, her gauze robe, gloves, feathered fan, and slippers—all ghostly white—she seemed to be an emanation of the fog that was curling over the bridge from the canal and drifting into the alley.
    Death, conscious of his audience, extended his arms, and suddenly became a burst of color, exposing long tatters of crimson, indigo, yellow, jade, and pink cloth sewn to the torso of the garment beneath. It was like seeing someone eviscerated. The beauty was perversely enhanced for Urbino by the horror of the association.
    The Lady of Veils moved closer to Death and let herself be enclosed in the blossom of his embrace.
    Was the Lady a woman and Death a man? There was no way of knowing. They carried their secret away with them as they broke their embrace and seemed to glide over the humpbacked bridge. The calle was empty once again of everything except the drifting, curling fog.
    Serena, the cat he had rescued from the Public Gardens, jumped up on the sill to get Urbino’s attention. He turned back into the room and took Schumann’s Carnaval from the shelf. The Contessa had given him the recording to help him through his recuperation from a bout of the flu that had kept him housebound for almost a week.
    â€œIt should more than make up for whatever of Carnevale you think you’re missing, caro.” She had sighed and shaken her well-coiffed head. “Why can’t our celebration be sane and romantic like Schumann’s?”
    â€œBut it wouldn’t be the Venetian Carnival then, would it?” He did not remind her of the sad suicidal end that Schumann had come to. “I wish it were two months long the way it used to be,” he said playfully. “Just imagine if it began the day after Christmas!”
    â€œEven after ten years, you’re as much of a perplexity as when I first met you!