Free The Passion of Artemisia by Susan Vreeland

bed where he had laid his cloak, there was a small, thingoatskin on the floor, but not on the other side. I wished I had brought more of my mother’s things, particularly her foot rug and her Roman-style folding camp chair. It had a cushion. Nothing here did.
    Throughout the house the plastered walls were covered with unframed paintings—Holy Families, the Annunciation, Saint Teresa in Ecstasy—all of them voluptuous women with extravagant drapery in rich, strong colors. In one painting of the Annunciation, the eyes of Mary when she was told of the birth of the Savior had no specific emotion. I would have given her eyes astonishment by having them a bit more round and the irises lighter to call attention to them. His blending of color would be improved with the amber varnish, but I’d said too much about that already.
    His paintings covered every wall, sometimes two paintings high. Where would there be room for mine? If I were fortunate, if I were skilled enough in this city of artists, mine wouldn’t stay on our own walls.
    â€œFlorentine models?” I asked when he came in bringing the last of the bags.
    â€œOf course.”
    â€œAll right. I admit. They’re beautiful.”
    Although he only smiled, I could tell I had pleased him. I had meant the women more than the paintings. Who were they? Was I looking at a history of his—should I call them associations? The women looked back at me holding secrets I doubted I would ever know. For the time being at least, Pietro’s mystery made him alluring.
    He opened the shutters in all three rooms and the double doors onto a narrow balcony overlooking the Arno. We stepped outside. A scant row of working people’s low dwellings huddled against green hills on the other side. The gurgling of the river pouring over a low diagonal stone dam was soothing.
    â€œJust think. That water will be in the sea one day, and then it could go anywhere in the world, and we’re seeing it right now. It’s a beautiful view.”
    â€œYou may not say so when the river stinks. It helps to keep a little sugar or cinnamon burning over the fire.”
    His little housewifely hint was sweet.
    We looked down at couples arm in arm making an early evening passeggiata on the street separating our building from the river bank. The embarrassment of how I came to be married crept over me again, and I wished that Pietro and I could have chosen each other out of love like other men and women were beginning to do. That wistfulness must have shown on my face. He drew me back inside as if he’d read my mind, through the main room into the bedchamber, tipped me backward under the low ceiling, and lowered me onto the bed. With that amused sideways grin, he untied my bodice laces and quickly solved the mystery of my skirt hooks. Our lovemaking was wordless, swift, only a momentary closeness.
    We fell asleep together, without a cover. When he changed positions, I woke up, startled, remembering where I was. My eyes traveled over his body silhouetted by a shaft of moonlight through the window. The straight ridge of his backbone, the rolling landscape of his back, the hollow in his buttock—all of him was surprisingly, painfully, unutterably desirable. I dared to touch his side. His skin was cool. It couldn’t be love I felt so soon, but an admiration for the beauty of his form which made me tremble and lie sleepless. If I were to be granted love on top of all the rest, I thought my heart would split.

    I learned in the weeks that followed that he was either hot or cold, with me fully, or someplace distant and unreachable. Atthose times, I trembled between sheets lest I seem a fool if he did not want me after I had made a gesture offering myself to him. His changeableness made me afraid to enjoy freely the times when he was fully mine.
    Graziela had said I must not believe in illusion. In my first letter to her, I wrote,
    I am trusting him only day by day and am