Chapter 46 Chapter Forty-Five

For the next few days, my heart was filled with love, and I fell in love with her deeply, truly, and without hesitation.I'm sure my husband would do the same to her if he saw her.Her nails are amazingly beautiful, her gaze is solemn, and she has a divine light radiating from her body. I love my baby girl with all my heart, without regard for the history being made outside.Savonarola was listening on the gallows to the sound of his own tendons snapping while the new life was struggling to come out of me.that morning Riots outside St. Mark's convent brought an end to his New Jerusalem.He was hanged first, then hanged.He was tortured beyond human form and confessed to the charges against him, a false prophet, a heretic, and a traitor.

In this way, Florence was liberated from the tyranny of one man.The man who had promised to bring Florence to God found himself abandoned by God.But while there are many reasons to hate him, I just find him pathetic.Two days have passed and there is still no news from my husband. On the third morning, I woke up in the bright sunshine and saw my mother and Ilila discussing something nervously at the door. "What is it?" I said on the bed. "My dear boy... there is news. You must be strong now." This is what I've been looking forward to for a long time. "About Cristoforo, isn't it?"

She came up and took my hand in her palm.It was a legend in our day: in the days following the Riot of San Marco, the city was plunged into bloody battles, old accounts were settled, and former enemies were hunted down.In the early morning light, people found a bloody body, and someone recognized the expensive clothes and handsome face. I sat as still as his sculpture, my body growing cold with her words. "You must be strong, Alexandra," my mother said again, her voice reminding me of my childhood, when she taught us many times how to talk to God as our Father and Master. "These are the wills of God, and we shouldn't have any doubts." She hugged me tightly, and after she was sure that I was not frightened by the sudden news, she said softly: "My dear, your husband has no other Family. If you are strong enough, the body needs you to claim it."

If childbirth softens feelings, it also unravels memories, making certain moments last forever and others slipping away as if they never happened. We still couldn't find a wet nurse, so we took the baby with me because I couldn't bear to part with her. So many people died of the plague that people had to build a temporary morgue on the river and occupied some wards of the Holy Spirit Church Hospital.We were led along the winding porch to the back of the church, and I thought of my painter, who had spent many nights here painting the mutilated bodies.I held the baby tighter and walked like a child again, with my mother and my maid following.

The official standing at the door was a rude man, reeking of alcohol.He took out a crude account book, in which the bodies were numbered, and some had their names written on them, in very rough handwriting.Mom told him about us, as elegantly and clearly as she always did.After she finished speaking, he put his hands on the table, stood up, and led us into a room. My husband's body lay on straw mats near the inner end of the room. We stand firm.He looked up at me: "Are you ready?" I handed the baby to Mom and she smiled at me. "Don't be afraid, my child," she said.

He leaned over and pulled the veil off the corpse. I closed my eyes, then opened them—the bloody face belonged to a middle-aged man I had never seen before. Elila burst into tears beside me.When I turned around, she jumped up and hugged me, and continued to wail... "Oh, my poor lady. Don't look, don't look, it's terrible. What shall we do now?" I tried to push her away, but she sucked at me like a leech. "Are you crazy?" I whispered, terrified. "That's not Cristoforo." But she was still wailing.The man looked at us with pity, and, needless to say, it seemed to him that he was seeing a couple of distraught women.

I stood there, dumbstruck with horror, my weak womanly heart began to help, and I sobbed, big big tears that once started falling, could never stop.And all this fuss woke the baby up, and she started crying too.We stood there, forming a picture of several women mourning.The man took his pen and crossed my husband's name. Back in the uncomfortable and uncomfortable drawing room, the baby in my arms blinked and looked at me, and I looked at my mother. I said dumbly, "Where is he?" "Going to the country, with Tommaso. He came to me the morning you gave birth and told me everything between you. Then he decided to leave and arranged for a dead body with a letter written in his own hand. A note, after the body is found in this way, the authorities will ask us to claim it. I didn’t tell you in advance because I was afraid that you would not be able to make a fake show if you are weak.” She spoke calmly, like a politician dealing with a serious situation, to the frightened public Explain how things happened.

But I can't be as calm as she is. "I... I don't understand. Why? Does it matter that the child isn't his? Because..." "Don't worry, Alexandra. I know all about it. I'm not trying to judge you here. That's a matter for another court, and I doubt that one day you and I will find us sitting in the same bench." ’” She sighed, “That had nothing to do with the baby. He felt… well, I shouldn’t defend him. He told me to give this to you once the truth came out. But I Think you'd better tear it up after you read it." She took out a letter from her close pocket, and I took it with trembling hands.

for you.The future is up to you.But I think your mother must have thought about it, and you'd better listen to her. I clutched the key tightly, and read the letter again, and a third time, the ink blotted by my tears.Now it seems that I have to raise the child alone, she has no father or even a family of her own. "Do you know the contents of the letter?" I asked. "Those directly related to your future and my past, he had discussed with me before writing the letter. The rest is your own privacy." She still didn't look away.All my life, she's always been that poised whenever she's caught a storm of rebellion or doubt in me.Perhaps she had weathered such a storm herself, and perhaps had hesitated before she accepted God's will and believed in His infinite mercy, but I was ignorant of that.All I know now is how wrong, as a daughter, to think of my mother as someone else without all my passions and desires.But I believe my mother will forgive me for such mistakes, just as I will forgive my daughter for similar mistakes.She should be, because she didn't dodge my questions or lie to me that day.

"So," I said at last, "Lorenzo de' Medici sent a book to my husband, dated 1478, the year you conceived me. But you were not at court then, yes. Is it? Your brother's official career is good enough for you to marry a good husband. You always told us so in the past." "Yes," she said quietly, "I was married then. It brought me three healthy children. I am truly blessed by God. But you speak of that year, Alexandra, That's not the whole truth. I was in the court before, and I went back to stay for a few days, but it was hidden from the eyes and ears of the public."

"My brother has these great friends," she said at last, with a forced smile, "and the men at court are so bright and so deep. For a girl who's well-read, it's pre-Armageddon Paradise. Although we women are not allowed to intervene when they talk about Plato's concepts, they are Florentine Platonists, so of course even the greatest of them can be tempted by beauty, not to mention that the girl is very intelligent .Like you, I was very clever. But like your intelligence, it is both my honor and my burden. "Of course my brother knew the dangers of such perfect purity, and he contrived to marry me, so as to avoid possible contamination. But even he had no right to prevent me from being summoned to the palace. "Lorenzo and his staff spent the early summer of 1478 at the Villa Calecchi. I was one of several invitees... that was a long time ago." She paused again, "that garden is simply Like an earthly paradise. People talk about the beauty of the mind as well as the beauty of the body. They are both regarded as the cornerstones on the road to the love of God. Like you, I am fascinated by intelligence, learning and art. Although I have been Turned it down once, but by that summer, I'd been in love for years and didn't know how to stop." I seem to see the tears she shed in front of Lorenzo's body in the small chapel of San Marco many years ago.I sighed and looked down at the peaceful little face in my arms.It's hard to tell how big her nose will get when she grows up, or how pointed her chin will be.But it also has to do with who her own father is. "I won't remarry," I said firmly. "Remarrying would put the children out of favor, and I wouldn't do that." "That's true," she said quietly. "I'm not going home either. I've got to have my own life now. So I guess I'm going to have to run the house alone." "Alexandra, I don't think it's the best thing to do. Our city treats widows very harshly. You'll find yourself and your children isolated and alone." "Then what can I do?" She said firmly, "Marry yourself to God." "Marrying myself to God? Me? A widow with a paintbrush and a nigger and a child. What convent do you think we'll take us, Mother?" As she sat there, I saw a sly smile slide across her face. "Oh, this is what you've always dreamed of, Alexandra."