The Marriage Portrait(104)
“No need.” Lucrezia raises her chin to look him in the eye. “I am quite recovered.” She permits her hand to lie in his for a moment, then removes it and advances into the room, away from Baldassare, only a little unsteadily.
“I would prefer the physician to make that judgement. I was this moment about to visit you in your rooms as I was wondering why you had not come down this morning, but then Il Bastianino arrived unexpectedly and, look…” he points towards what the apprentices are holding “…he has brought your portrait.”
Lucrezia regards first Maurizio—his amiable smile, his broken front tooth—then allows her eyes to rest on Jacopo. She is aware, to an almost unbearable degree, of the different gazes in this room, and the way they stream towards her, like the sticky, silken threads of a spider’s web. That of her husband, somewhere to the left of her, standing just behind her; that of the artist, no doubt comparing her appearance today, haggard and ill, with that of the woman he rendered into paint only a few weeks ago; that of Baldassare, boring into her back, where the criss-crossing ties of her bodice cover her spine; that of Maurizio, which is filled with kind sympathy; and that of Jacopo. His is unlike any of the others. It is a beam of comprehension, from his eyes to hers. It draws up awareness and knowledge as a thirsty plant will water. Does he see that she will die? Can he understand that her time on this earth is now so limited, so short? Can he glean all that from her face, from the way her husband looks at her, from Baldassare’s posture, there, as he balances, poised like a hawk awaiting the right wind, on the edge of the table, watching, watching, always watching.
“Let us see the portrait,” Alfonso says, “now that the muse herself is here.”
Il Bastianino claps his hands together, as if nothing at all is amiss or peculiar in this dank and lonely fortress, and gestures impatiently at his apprentices.
Maurizio and Jacopo hoist the painting, still covered, to a table, where they balance it between them, turning their heads to their master, waiting for his signal.
Il Bastianino, never one to miss a dramatic moment, steps forward and, with one final glance over his shoulder at Alfonso, rips away the covering.
“There,” he announces breathily, arm aloft, the cloth billowing to the floor around his feet. “Behold the Duchess.”
Before her, held up on each side by Jacopo and Maurizio, is an image so arresting she almost gasps. In the painting is a woman who looks like her, or a version of her, or an ideal—she cannot tell which. This is her, yet not her; it is so disturbingly like her, while being completely unlike her. It is Lucrezia, but it is also someone else. This girl is a duchess it is clear to see from the jewels that adorn her ears and neck, wrists and head, from the gold-and-pearl cintura around her waist, from the ornaments on her bodice, from the pleating and embroidery of her gown. Here before you, the portrait shouts, is no commoner, but someone high-born and exalted. She stands, looking out at the viewer, with the green fields and valleys of her province behind her. But there is something else lurking here, in this picture, almost as if another person hovers there. Lucrezia, standing in the fortezza’s hall, can sense it, like the scent of a fire. The girl stands next to a table, where a pile of books is stacked, a quill resting on the top. Her hand is next to them—she can tell it is hers because there is the ring Alfonso gave her, and her fingernails, and there is the thumb that slants to the left, the very digit that she is, at this moment, clutching in the opposite hand—but it is not like hands in other portraits, languid and still. This hand is flexed, tendons visible, something gripped between thumb and finger: a paintbrush. A slender one, with a narrow tip, designed for detailed work, for fine rendering. It is held in a sure, definite grasp. A hand with a purpose, a hand filled with intent. And, she now sees, the look in the girl’s eye is lucid and charged. She stares out at the viewer with frankness close to defiance, her head high, her lips showing the hint of a smile. The dress, with its voluminous dark red folds, and its pattern that either imprisons or cringes behind the colour, seems tame and insignificant, utterly overshadowed by the boldness of the girl’s expression, the way she seems to pose questions to the viewer: what do you want from me, why have you interrupted me, whatever do you mean by gazing at me like that?
Lucrezia regards the portrait; she stares; she cannot look away. It is at once scaldingly public and deeply private. It displays her body, her face, her hands, the mass of her once-long hair, which ripples down either side of the dress, with a brand of insolent indifference to its geometric pattern, but it also excavates that which she keeps hidden inside her. She loves it, she loathes it; she is dumbstruck with admiration; she is shocked by its acuity. She wants the world to see it; she wishes to run and cover it again with the cloth at the artist’s feet.
She turns to Il Bastianino, as if to say, How did you know, how did you see all that, but she finds that his attention, and that of everyone else in the room, is fixed on one person only: the Duke of Ferrara.
Alfonso is considering the portrait, tapping a finger against his teeth. He walks one way, his head tilted, he walks the other. He advances towards it, he retreats.
Lucrezia watches him, out of the corner of her eye; she sees the anxiety rising in Il Bastianino, with every passing moment of the Duke’s silence, a muscle in his cheek beginning to spasm; she sees that he has come here, to the fortezza, pursuing them out of the city, because he needs money. He must be in debt or need to buy materials for a new work—something like that. She sees Baldassare push himself away from the table and come to stand near Alfonso, less for the purpose of seeing the painting—he gives it a cursory glance—but more because he scents possible displeasure from Alfonso, and knows that he must be present if words are to be said, that he must be the one to speak them. She feels, she realises, as if she is suddenly absent from this room, or disappearing from it, evaporating into the air. The Duchess is present, in the painting. There she stands. Lucrezia is unnecessary; she can go now. Her place is filled; the portrait will take up her role in life.