Chapter 30 Chapter Twenty Nine

The old servants welcomed us as if I were a prodigal son returning home.Needless to say, the house became even colder after I left.Maybe I was a troublemaker, but I also added life to the family after all.Everyone who saw me said my appearance had changed, I thought maybe it was because of my illness, my face was thinner.I suspect Papa might say that his youngest daughter no longer has a girl's face and looks like a woman. Mom and Dad are off to the hot springs, though, and won't be back for at least a few weeks.I have to send someone to let them know my Gui Ning. In the house, I feel very strange, as if this is just a place I have been to in a dream.I walked to the door of the restaurant and Luca was eating his food with his face buried in a plate.If he is an angel, it is also very scary.His face looked like a huge porous rock, and the acne marks on his face were the tiny water holes in the surface of the stone.He gulped, making obscene noises from his mouth.

I walked across the table and sat down beside him. "Hello, brother," I said with a smile. "You changed. I don't think gray suits you." He frowned. "This is the uniform, Alexandra. You should know I'm in God's Army." "Oh, that's very nice. But I think you should wash it if you have time, because white clothes turn black if they get too dirty." He turned his head and thought for a long time before he figured out what I meant. "What do you know, Alexandra? You're so talkative, you'll be damned. Did your husband come back with you?"

I shake my head. "Then you shouldn't come. You are as clear as I am about the new laws of our holy country. If a woman is not accompanied by her husband, she is a seductive and depraved skin, and she should stay behind closed doors." "Oh, Luca," I said, "if only you had the brains to remember what you should remember." "Be careful with your words, sister. Your false knowledge is the devil, and you will be tormented by it more than poor women who know nothing but the Gospel. Your precious ancient sages, who are now The law made it illegal." I had never heard my brother speak so articulately before.Not only that, but he was eager to do what he said, and I saw his fists balled on the table.Tommaso is right, he has always been a thug.The only difference is that he is less grateful to his brother now.But if he defected, we'd all be in trouble.

When I asked about the painter, Maria seemed flustered. "We haven't seen him for a long time, I... I mean he lives in the chapel all day and never comes out." "How about the mural? Has he finished it?" "No one knows. He sent those apprentices away last month," she said after a pause. "They don't seem to want to stay." "I'm going to see him," I said. "Where's the key?" "The key is useless. He locked the door." "What about the other entrance, from the sacristy?" "It was also locked."

"Then what does he eat?" "We set out a plate every day." "Outside the gate or outside the sacristy?" "The sacristy." "How did he know the food was delivered?" "We knock." "And he came out?" "No, he doesn't come out when people are around. The cook waited for him once, but he didn't come out." "So no one has seen him?" "No, but he makes some noises sometimes at night." "What's the meaning?" "Well, I don't know either. But Ludovika says she heard him crying."

"Crying?" She shrugged as if there was nothing more she could say. In the attic kitchen the cook was indifferent to this.If the person doesn't want to eat, he really doesn't want to eat.For the past four days, the food sent has been intact, maybe God feeds him. "I bet it's not as good as your pigeon pie," I said. "You've always been a gourmet, Miss Alexandra." He grinned. "It's much quieter here after you're gone." I sat on the sidelines and watched him deftly split the garlic cloves with his fingers faster than the number of moneylenders.My childhood was filled with the smells of this kitchen: black and red pepper, ginger, cloves, saffron, cardamom, and the rich aroma of our own shiso ground up. "Get him a special plate," I said, "something that makes him drool at the smell. He might be hungry today."

"Maybe he'll die." His tone was harmless, more like telling a fact.I think of the spring night when the painter first came, and the scene where my father respected him very much, but now I think of it very far away.I remember all of us being excited: to have a real artist living under our roof, painting my family's flourishes.Everyone regards it as a symbol of family prestige, as a symbol of our identity and future.It now appears that all this is in the past. I left Ilila and the other servants in the kitchen to chat with the cook, and I went down the stairs, across the backyard, to the painter's sitting room.I don't know what I'm looking for.If I met her now, what would I say?I don't know what exactly went wrong that made the whole thing go wrong.

The door of his room was ajar, and there was a musty smell inside, exuding the smell of no one living there for a long time.The extraordinary portraits of angels and the Virgin are still on the outer wall, and the unfinished plaster is somewhat peeling off, like ancient relics.The table where he laid out his sketches was empty, and the wooden crucifix on the wall was gone. If I hadn't seen the smoking drum, I might not have been bothered.The iron barrel was in the corner of the room. When I turned to leave, I saw a rough picture at first sight: some curved black shadows climbed up the wall and reached the ceiling.But as I approached, and reached out to touch it, my hand jerked back in a scorching heat; only then did I turn my attention to the iron bucket half buried in the earth.

The crucifix was not completely destroyed by the fire, it was broken in two pieces, so it is difficult to say whether he broke it first and threw it into the furnace, or whether he, irritated by the feeble flames, took it out against the wall and broke it before throwing it into the fire. went in.The cross has been reduced to pieces, and Christ's legs are broken, but the nails are still in the feet.His upper body hangs in agony from fragments of the cross.I hold it carefully, even though it has been destroyed, this statue still looks passionate. I reached in and pulled out the part that wasn't burnt.Only part of the above paper has been burned, and some are only margins

Just burnt.I took them to a brighter outside room and placed them lightly on the table. They can be divided into two categories, one is my portrait, the other is the portrait of those corpses. My portrait is ubiquitous, my face is repeated ten, twenty times on the sketches of the Madonna, in different poses, but without exception it looks dignified and slightly wry.He struggled to find the right angle for my head, and by the way he drew a man looking straight at the picture.Although this is just a small trick of moving the eyes at a few angles, the effect is very good.The young woman looked so aggressive, she seemed to be defiant to those looking at her, rather than welcoming them.

And then there are those bodies.Originally the gutless man I had seen, with dozens of sketches of his exposed viscera.Then there was another man: this man had died by hanging, his body lying flat on the ground, as if he had just been let down from the noose, with a strangle mark on his neck, a bruised face, and signs of fecal incontinence between his legs. Then there are some portraits of women.There was an old woman lying on her side, still naked, her belly muscles slack and one hand raised over her head, as if trying to protect herself from being killed.She has cuts all over her body, the other hand is at an odd angle, the arm is pointing in the wrong direction and seems to be broken.But what surprised me the most was a younger woman. I've seen her too, naked, lying on her back with her limbs sprawled.She was the girl in the drawing for the chapel fresco, lying flat on her stretcher, waiting for God to bring her back to life.But now there is no such possibility of recovery.Because in the sketch, not only was she dead, but her body was also cut open.Her face was contorted with pain and fear, her lower abdomen was cut and torn, and in the mass of blood and flesh there was a small but clear shape, a newly formed fetus. "The cook says the meal is ready, Miss Alexandra." Maria's voice startled me. "I... I'll be right out," I said, grabbing the sketches in a hurry and stuffing them into my skirt. "What did you find there?" Ilila asked as we climbed the narrow stairs leading to the sacristy. "Uh... there are only a few sketches." "I hope you know what you're doing," she said gruffly. "Most of the servants think he's gone mad. They say he spends the winter drawing carcasses they throw away. The kitchen people think he's been murdered by the devil. Possessed." "Maybe that's true," I said, "but we can't just let him starve to death." "Okay, but you know, you can't be there alone." "It's okay, he won't hurt me." "What if you're wrong? What if he's out of his mind for a while? It's none of your business. You have your own family now, and you've got troubles that an army can't solve. Leave that to others, and he Just a painter." She still remembers that night I went crazy and painted with my own blood, and she still has lingering fears about me.The pain and fear on the young woman's face were of course still in my mind.There is no doubt that she and others were painted as they were dying.It was painful and sweet to think of him.I think of my taunts at him on the first day, and his angry, clumsy retaliation; I think of the day he painted me, when he slowly and shyly opened up to me about how his paintbrush works like a child. .Somehow, I feel like no matter how crazy he gets, he won't hurt me. As for my own family?Let's put it this way, there is no longer any warmth worthy of nostalgia.I am an outsider. For me, looking for a close partner in pain may be a good way to cure loneliness. Irilah placed the tray by the door so that the smell of freshly cooked meat would come in from under the door.What will happen to a person who has been hungry for a few days and smells this fragrance?I can't imagine. "Here is your food." She shouted loudly. "The cook said that if you don't eat these, he won't deliver the food. Here are roast pigeons, delicious vegetables, and a bottle of red wine." She knocked on the door again, "Last chance, painter." Then her feet thumped on the stone steps and thumped down the stairs.She stopped below and looked up at me. I am waiting.After a while it was still quiet.Finally, there was a rustling sound from behind the door.He unbolted the door, opened the door a crack, staggered out, and stooped to pick up the tray. I jumped out of the shadows.Startled by me, he walked back into the room and tried to close the door, but he was holding the tray crookedly in his hand and his movements were out of coordination.I put my foot in the crack of the door and squeezed myself in.He stumbled back, the tray and the food inside fell off, and the red wine splashed on the wall, drawing an arch.The door slammed shut behind me. Both of us are in it.