The Marriage Portrait(105)
Perhaps it is this feeling of incorporeality, of displacement, but it is as if her perception is suddenly heightened, or perhaps as if she is already dead, has already passed over into another realm, as if her soul has brimmed up and over, flooding everything in the vicinity. She can hear the squeak of Alfonso’s boots as he paces the floor; she can sense the air taken in and expelled by Baldassare’s chest. She can feel the boredom of the servants, at the far end of the room, the spiralling monotony of their thoughts. And she can look at Jacopo and know that it was he who painted this portrait.
It was him. She knows it. He mixed the pigments, prepared the canvas, stretching and smoothing its surface, he applied the coats of the imprimitura, deciding where the shade would fall, and also the light, then arranged the composition so that the perspectives and the colours all agreed with each other, like nouns and verbs and participles in a sentence of translation. He painted her hair like that, shining and unbound, he placed the painted quill upon the painted books, he put a paintbrush into her painted hand and that gleam and spirit into her eye. It was him. Il Bastianino might have added a stroke here and there, might have said, Like this, no, and this; Maurizio might have painted those orchards and hillocks, seen far behind her. But it was Jacopo who did this, who made this work.
As if he read her thoughts, as if he and Lucrezia are, after all this time, still connected by the strange event they went through together, in the corridor of the delizia last summer, he looks at her.
So much is taking place in the room around them, albeit in silence, for no one would dare to venture an opinion before the Duke has spoken. Il Bastianino is wondering if he will be paid, if he will be asked to do the work again, if he will continue to have the Duke’s patronage. Baldassare is trying to ascertain Alfonso’s mood, which has been erratic of late, what Alfonso might expect of him, and whether he will be required to dismiss this artist and his boys, and what form this dismissal will take. Maurizio is thinking that he would like to leave, to ride back to Ferrara, to get away from this gloomy place.
Lucrezia and Jacopo regard each other. She turns her eyes towards the portrait, then back to him, as if asking the question. He gazes back, utterly still, his hands gripping the edge of the painting, as if he will never let it go.
“It is,” the Duke’s voice cuts into the thin silence, “a wonder.”
Il Bastianino almost collapses with relief, his shoulders dropping, his knees buckling as he makes a deep bow, saying that he is so pleased the Duke is happy, he is overjoyed, Her Ladyship was such a gift of a subject, every moment of the work was pleasure, pure pleasure.
The Duke is nodding, saying that it is, he thinks, the artist’s finest work to date, the effect so lifelike, the interplay of colour and light, the expression on the Duchess’s face—the depth and earnestness are so like her—that it is evident, clearly evident, that Il Bastianino was influenced by Michelangelo. The comparison is one that will be noticed by others, the Duke is sure.
Il Bastianino bows, again and again, beaming. It has been an honour, he is assuring the Duke, perhaps the greatest of his life; he is most grateful, always, for His Grace’s patronage, and if there is anything else, anything at all, His Grace should not hesitate to ask.
One by one, the men begin to leave the room. First, Alfonso, still talking about Michelangelo and brushwork, then the artist, who snaps his fingers behind his back, which makes the apprentices place the portrait on the floor, leaning against the wall, then Baldassare, then the servants. They file out through the door, Il Bastianino dropping back to ask Baldassare if it would be possible, if it wouldn’t inconvenience His Grace at all, for him to receive payment, an advance on payment, a partial payment, anything at all would be most gratefully met, and he, Il Bastianino, is only ever too happy to put himself at His Grace’s disposal in the future.
Lucrezia, alone in the hall, feels suddenly weak; she staggers to a chair and sits down, just before her legs give way. She grips the chair arms, feeling the sawdust spring of its stuffing, aware of the poison from last night still slinking through her blood, like a pack of wolves with muzzles close to the ground. Above her head rows and rows of stone bricks are arranged in arches that curve over her solitary figure. Or, rather, she is not alone. Across the room, propped against the wall, is herself—another self, a former self. A self who, when she is dead and buried in her tomb, will endure, will outlive her, who will always be smiling from the wall, one hand poised to begin a painting.
The sound of footsteps makes her turn her head. And here, coming through the open doorway, accompanied by a snatch of Maurizio’s voice saying, “We must have left it in the hall, we’ll fetch it,” are the two apprentices. Maurizio hurries towards the portrait and begins to lift the linen covering off the floor, shaking it in the air, then folding it, corner to corner. Lucrezia is watching this, mesmerised, still gripping the chair arms, when she realises that Jacopo is standing next to her.
“You are in danger,” he says to her.
The sound of the dialect, Sofia’s dialect, makes her want to weep. She looks up at him wonderingly—the aquatic eyes, the heavy brow, the frayed edges of his jerkin—but it is her, this time, who has no words, who cannot bring herself to speak.
“I…” she begins, but what she needs to say dies in her throat. She attempts a gesture in the direction of the door, and Alfonso, but a terrible lethargy has seized her arm, and her hand falters, falling into her lap.