Chapter 29 Chapter Twenty Eight

After that night, I was sick for a while.Ilila was very worried, and took my knife and brush, and did not get them back until I regained my senses.I was lethargic most of the day, lost interest in life and lost my appetite for food.The wound swelled and cracked, and I got a fever from it.Elila applied the ointment for me, and the wound healed slowly, and the condition improved a bit.But there was a scar on my arm that faded from scarlet to white and remains to this day.She was at my door like a ghost from hell; my husband came in late the first day to check on my health, and when he was out I heard them arguing outside the door.But make no mistake, the two of them will never win over each other.

Before long, I regained my composure.I started asking her what was going on between them, and she amused me with her vivid descriptions. "He wanted a baby. Now he's starting to understand that he's not going to have a baby by poking your brother." "but……" "No but. Like you said, he made a deal with you, and you allowed him to get his way. Tommaso is just a part-time whore, and you're the mistress of the house. He'd better treat him like a mistress." Treat you." She shrugged. "You should listen to what they say about you. They want you to be a virgin or a slut. I don't know which one they like."

We both know that fighting him is no shortcut to freedom. "Well," I said, "I think God will see what's going on in your heart, and He'll know you're a good man, and He'll see you kindly." She stared at me and said, "Which God? Yours, or that monk's?" She is right.When I was a child, everything was simple and there was only one God; and though his voice was like thunder when he was angry, his love warmed me up when I spoke to him late at night.The more I learned, the more complicated and abnormal the world became, and he became more tolerant, accepting my knowledge, and being happy with me.Because no matter what people achieve, the most direct and deepest reason lies with God.But that doesn't seem to be true anymore.Now, he who achieves the most seems to be the most antithetical to God, or the God who ruled Florence.This God is caught up with the devil, has no time for beauty or wonder, and all our knowledge and art is accused of being a hiding place for the devil.Now I don't know which god is real, only which god is louder.

"There are some things you should see. I've been waiting for this moment for a long time." She pulled me out of my cavernous dark room, feeling the walls to a small room that was planned to be a nursery. She took a key out of her pocket, unlocked it, and pushed the door open. What appeared in front of me was a trendy studio: a desk, a stone sink, and several kegs beside it; a row of labeled bottles, boxes, and packages on a table by the window; Brushes of various sizes.Next to it is a porphyry inkstone, two rows of wooden boards of various sizes, painted and ready to start painting on.

"He laid out these things when you were sick. I'll get those out of your trunk." She pointed to my rolled-up copy of Chenini's journal. "That's it, right?" I nodded silently, went to the table, tore off the stickers on several boxes, and dipped my fingers into the powder: dark black, golden yellow from Tuscan saffron, and a deep yellow lead Tin ore, with which the green pigments needed to paint hundreds of trees and other vegetation can be formulated.I was shocked by so many pigments, like the first ray of sunshine after a snowstorm, shining on this frozen city.I smiled with tears in my eyes.

If there is no love between my husband and I, at least I can have so much painting material. The outdoor ice and snow melted, and the earth returned to spring. I made a feast of colors, and my fingers were calloused, and they were also stained black by the paint.There is so much to learn.Elila helped me with everything from mixing the paint to polishing the boards.No one bothered us.I spent the better part of five weeks getting my own Annunciation onto the board.My energies went into the Madonna's swirling skirt pleats, painting the floor dark ochre, and giving Gabriel a gold-leaf crown that stood out brilliantly against the black frame.In this way, I forgot the pain caused by my husband and brother and healed myself.

Still, the first time we went out, I was taken aback.It was late spring, and the pious city seemed very dull.The clacking heels of whores replaced the clacking of rosary beads, and the only boys in the streets were doing their best to save people's souls.We met a group of boys like this in the square, and they were doing a drill: a group of boys who were only eight or nine years old were acting as the army of God, and their parents were cheering them on; Come bundles of white cloth.Even the rich dress very plainly, so the colorfulness of the city is bleached and monotonous.The foreign traders who came and went in and out of the city were amazed by the change, but they couldn't be sure if they were witnessing a paradise on earth or if something was getting more sinister.

The Pope seems to have no similar doubts.The rumors brought back by Ilila said that the Pope canonized his mistress in the Vatican, and distributed the hats of cardinals from all over the world to his illegitimate children like candy.The king of France, having swept his army through Naples, returned north instead of to Jerusalem.But Alexander IV was not a weak pope who could not bear the insult of a second occupation; he summoned a combined army of city-states and beat them out with their tails between their legs. But there is one exception.From the pulpit of the cathedral, Savonarola declared that Florence was not bound to take part in the war.What is the Vatican?The Vatican was nothing more than a richer and more corrupt monastery, and it was also a place waiting to be cleared by him.

During those long nights when the city was frozen, Cristoforo and I discussed the war in depth.Savonarola's hostile piety threatened not only the Pope's way of life, but the entire fabric of the Church.This is the only mystery that can stop him.For the past few months, the resistance to Savonarola in Florence has collapsed like a mud hut in a flood.When a government is firmly established, only the savage and the foolish will rise up against it directly.He believes that maintaining dissent is the best art in opposition. But now, those who are not in power have also been silent.The Platonic Academy, once the pride and joy of new knowledge, has been closed.One of its biggest supporters openly joined Savonarola and was about to take an oath to the Dominican Church.

These rumors remind me of my own family. A penchant for white would cause a drastic drop in the dyeing vats at the Church of the Holy Cross.I remember those scrawny children by the river, their skins stained with color.Removing the color from clothing is equivalent to taking away the jobs of those workers.For all his talk of equality, Savonarola had no idea how the poor could become self-reliant and rich.My husband thought so too.I have to admit, many times during our conversations, I was amazed how many times better it would be for him to run the country than those brats if he had an interest in politics.

But in the end, the harm done to the dyer is also the harm done to my father. Although he is far richer than those workers, no matter how rich his family is, he will end up sitting on nothing. When I think of them, of course I immediately think of the painter.Now I can also use the brush proficiently. If we are together, how much common language should we have...