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The work drew us naturally, spontaneously There were dozens of unfinished canvases and walls within the palazzo, all so lifelike they seemed portals to another world

Gaetano, one of the youngest of us, was the ifted But any of the boys, except me, could match the apprentice painters of any man's workshop, even the boys of Bellini

So day Bianca was then jubilant as she would receive for the Master, and came with her servants to be lady of the house Men and women from the finest houses in Venice cas People were astonished at his powers Only fro to the, but filled his palazzo with his oork, and that he had his own versions of most famous subjects, from the school of Aristotle to the Crucifixion of Christ Christ This was the curly-haired, ruddy,Christ, their Christ The Christ as like Cupid or Zeus

I didn't mind that I couldn't paint as well as Riccardo and the others, that I was half the time content to hold the pots for them, to wash the brushes, to wipe clean the mistakes that had to be corrected I did not want to paint I did not want to I could feel ht of it, and there would coht of it

I preferred the conversation, the jokes, the speculation as to why our fabulous Master took no co him to compete for this or that mural to be painted in the Ducal Palace or in one or another of the thousand churches of the isle

I watched the color spreading out by the hour I breathed in the fragrance of varnishes, the pigments, the oils

Now and then a stuporous anger overcame me, but not at my lack of skill

So to do with the hulistening pink cheeks and the boiling sweep of cloudy sky behind them, or the fleecy branches of the dark trees

It seemed madness, this, this unbridled depiction of nature My head hurting, I walked alone and briskly along the quays until I found an old church, and a gilded altar with stiff, narrow-eyed saints, dark and drawn and rigid: the legacy of Byzantium, as I had seen it in San Marco on azed worshipfully at these old proprieties I cursed whento show that I knew they were there I covered hter of h in the hollow of the church where the tortured Christ bled tears like black beetles leaping fro hands and feet?

Now and then I fell asleep before antique altars I had escaped my companions I was solitary and happy on the damp cold stones I fancied I could hear the water beneath the floor

I took a gondola to Torcello and there sought out the great old Cathedral of Santa Maria Assunta, famous for its mosaics which some said were as splendid in the antique way as the mosaics of San Marco I crept about under the low arches, looking at the ancient gold Iconostasis and the h above, in the back curve of the apse there stood the great Virgin, the Theotokos, the bearer of God Her face was austere, allistened on her left cheek In her hands she held the infant Jesus, but also a napkin, the token of the Mater Dolorosa

I understood these ies, even as they froze my soul My head swam and the heat of the island and the quiet Cathedral made me sick in my stomach But I stayed there I drifted about the Iconostasis and prayed

I thought sure no one could find me here Towards dusk, I becaht a corner of the church and took coainst my face and my outstretched hands Beforescenes of the Last Judght

The Master came for me I don't remember the journey back to the palazzo It seemed that somehow in a matter of moments he had put me in bed The boys bathed my forehead with cool cloths I was made to drink water Someone said that I had "the fever" and someone else said, "Be quiet "

The Master kept watch withwithstate Before dawn, the Master kissed me and held me close to him I had never loved so much the chill hardness of his body as I did in this fever, wrapping ainst his