little dreamer,’ he jokes.
‘I wasn’t dreaming. I was just thinking. Is it not allowed?’ she answers, thrown by his intimate manner.
‘If it takes you away from us, then no, my dear, it isn’t. You must remain here. Propriety imposes this on us.’
Bianca looks at Innes in confusion. It’s something Donna Clara would say. She wonders whether Innes is mocking the mistress.
Don Titta intervenes.
‘Personally, I don’t mind. You are free to go where your heart and mind take you, on the condition that you will come back and join us here on earth occasionally. I
understand.’
‘Of course you do! You love to visit that secret place that Miss Bianca disappears to, isn’t that right?’ laughs Donna Julie. ‘Far away from here, from us, from our
incessant voices, the buzzing disturbance that we are.’
‘But I love my crazy bees, too, and you know it,’ he says, smiling. ‘And love has the right to disturb me whenever it feels like it.’
He said, ‘Whenever
it
feels like it.’ He should have said, ‘Whenever
I
feel like it.’ If she hadn’t heard him with her own ears
and seen how pleasant and serene he is, Bianca would never have identified this as the man who walks indifferently past his children while they call out for his attention, eager to show him their
recently finished drawings. At other times, he shuts himself in his studio for days, refusing trays of food placed at the door. He won’t even open the window of his study. Donna Clara paces
beneath it, looking up, waiting for a nod, for some sign of life. Sometimes the poet has nightmares and calls out during his sleep. She has heard him. It isn’t a dog or a local drunk, Minna
tells her. It is him.
‘He does that sometimes when he is writing,’ she says.
Bianca begins to understand why the children are always so insecure in front of him. They are stuck between shyness and the urge to reclaim his other, kinder side, the side that sends the
gardener to plough the grounds at the confines of the estate into five parcels so that each child can have their own garden. Each area is labelled with a wooden tag and the children have their own
set of miniature hoes and spades and tiny bags of seeds to plant. Don Titta is a complicated man, this much is certain. One moment he is there and the next he is gone. He isolates himself for weeks
so that he can pursue, capture and tame his muses. And then, all of a sudden, he resurfaces: a pale and serene convalescent. He becomes that other self then, the man who joyfully goes out on a limb
for everyone. The man who kneels down next to Pietro and Enrico, fascinated, as they watch a watermill churn over the brook. Who admires the girls as they dance to the rhythm of Pia’s drum,
smiling so sweetly he looks almost foolish.
If their father is either fully present or fully absent, their mother, delicate and devout Donna Julie, is a constant source of love. It bubbles up from deep inside her. Precisely because of her
uninterrupted presence, though, she runs the risk of going unnoticed. It is her daily devotion that watches over the children’s health and their metamorphoses, providing woolly sweaters,
poultices, decoctions or mush as needed. She offers them all the nurturing that they require. But the children, observes Bianca, are no longer so young that they need such doting attention. They
are at a point when they desire something else: games, friendships, stories and laughter. Kisses and hugs are excessive. They reciprocate with swift pecks on the cheek and then wriggle free, the
same way they do from unwanted scarves and sweaters. Although when Donna Clara offers herself to them, they greedily take everything they can get their hands on. They adore Innes too, like little
puppies. He is the only one who can get respect from the two boys, and the girls love him unconditionally – maybe because he is as tall as their father but not as distant; maybe because he
swings them around him as if
‘I wasn’t dreaming. I was just thinking. Is it not allowed?’ she answers, thrown by his intimate manner.
‘If it takes you away from us, then no, my dear, it isn’t. You must remain here. Propriety imposes this on us.’
Bianca looks at Innes in confusion. It’s something Donna Clara would say. She wonders whether Innes is mocking the mistress.
Don Titta intervenes.
‘Personally, I don’t mind. You are free to go where your heart and mind take you, on the condition that you will come back and join us here on earth occasionally. I
understand.’
‘Of course you do! You love to visit that secret place that Miss Bianca disappears to, isn’t that right?’ laughs Donna Julie. ‘Far away from here, from us, from our
incessant voices, the buzzing disturbance that we are.’
‘But I love my crazy bees, too, and you know it,’ he says, smiling. ‘And love has the right to disturb me whenever it feels like it.’
He said, ‘Whenever
it
feels like it.’ He should have said, ‘Whenever
I
feel like it.’ If she hadn’t heard him with her own ears
and seen how pleasant and serene he is, Bianca would never have identified this as the man who walks indifferently past his children while they call out for his attention, eager to show him their
recently finished drawings. At other times, he shuts himself in his studio for days, refusing trays of food placed at the door. He won’t even open the window of his study. Donna Clara paces
beneath it, looking up, waiting for a nod, for some sign of life. Sometimes the poet has nightmares and calls out during his sleep. She has heard him. It isn’t a dog or a local drunk, Minna
tells her. It is him.
‘He does that sometimes when he is writing,’ she says.
Bianca begins to understand why the children are always so insecure in front of him. They are stuck between shyness and the urge to reclaim his other, kinder side, the side that sends the
gardener to plough the grounds at the confines of the estate into five parcels so that each child can have their own garden. Each area is labelled with a wooden tag and the children have their own
set of miniature hoes and spades and tiny bags of seeds to plant. Don Titta is a complicated man, this much is certain. One moment he is there and the next he is gone. He isolates himself for weeks
so that he can pursue, capture and tame his muses. And then, all of a sudden, he resurfaces: a pale and serene convalescent. He becomes that other self then, the man who joyfully goes out on a limb
for everyone. The man who kneels down next to Pietro and Enrico, fascinated, as they watch a watermill churn over the brook. Who admires the girls as they dance to the rhythm of Pia’s drum,
smiling so sweetly he looks almost foolish.
If their father is either fully present or fully absent, their mother, delicate and devout Donna Julie, is a constant source of love. It bubbles up from deep inside her. Precisely because of her
uninterrupted presence, though, she runs the risk of going unnoticed. It is her daily devotion that watches over the children’s health and their metamorphoses, providing woolly sweaters,
poultices, decoctions or mush as needed. She offers them all the nurturing that they require. But the children, observes Bianca, are no longer so young that they need such doting attention. They
are at a point when they desire something else: games, friendships, stories and laughter. Kisses and hugs are excessive. They reciprocate with swift pecks on the cheek and then wriggle free, the
same way they do from unwanted scarves and sweaters. Although when Donna Clara offers herself to them, they greedily take everything they can get their hands on. They adore Innes too, like little
puppies. He is the only one who can get respect from the two boys, and the girls love him unconditionally – maybe because he is as tall as their father but not as distant; maybe because he
swings them around him as if
Similar Books
