a hill, little windows and rooftops thrown up against a paler sky.
Misery. Misery. And yet some terrible sense of triumph, some near intoxicating sense of the forbidden, as if it were a fragrance in the air. But when the Cardinal had turned back to him, the Cardinal was resolved. He laid his hands on Tonio’s neck, his thumbs touching the front of it gently, and in a half whisper he asked ever so gently would Tonio remove his clothes?
It was said with such courtesy, such simplicity, and the mere touch of the Cardinal seemed to carry with it some power to weaken Tonio, to make him feel he must comply.
But he had not complied. He had almost stumbled away. A multitude of thoughts came between him and the desire that was awakening inside him, more powerful even than the Cardinal’s soft command. He couldn’t look at the Cardinal. He begged, could he be allowed to go?
The Cardinal hesitated, and then he said so sincerely and so gently, “You must forgive me, Marc Antonio, and yes, yes, of course, you should go.”
What was left? That sense that somehow Tonio had willed it, that he had made it happen and inexplicably he had wronged this man.
Yet as he stood outside the Cardinal’s door, shaken and bruised from Guido’s angry words, he thought, For you, Guido, I do this, for you. The things he feared he always conquered for Guido, the things that humiliated him he somehow, for Guido, learned to endure.
But this, this was something altogether different and Guido didn’t fully understand that difference, Guido did not know what he was doing sending Tonio here!
Tonio knew, however, and he knew suddenly that he had desired the Cardinal from the first moment ever he saw him. He had wanted him as he had wanted no others before him, locked as he had been in the warmth and safety of Guido’s love. But the Cardinal, whole and powerful, yes, this was the man. It was as if he had an appointment with him towards which he had been moving for a long time.
The door gave when he knocked. It had never been bolted. And the Cardinal said, “Come in.”
* * *
The Cardinal was bent over his writing desk, the room unchanged save for the light of what appeared a small antique oil lamp. And there were illuminated letters in the book before him, tiny figures fitted into the capitals, the whole gleaming as he let his hand, quivering, turn the page.
“Ah, think of it,” he said, smiling as he saw Tonio, “written language the possession of those who took such pains to preserve it. I am forever entranced with the forms in which knowledge is given to us, not by nature, but by our fellow man.”
He was not in his loose black garments any longer. Rather he had put on his crimson robe. A silver crucifix lay on his breast, and his face had such a curious mixture of angularity and vital humor that Tonio merely stared at him for a long time.
“My dear Marc Antonio,” he said, wondering, his lips again lengthening into a smile, “why have you come back? Surely you must realize you were right to go?”
“Was I, my lord?” Tonio asked. He was trembling. Ah, it was a curious thing to tremble while giving no outward sign of it, merely to feel all the signals of panic sealed within. He drew near the desk; he looked down on the Latin phrases, lost in a schematic confusion, a wilderness of tiny beings living and dying amid curlicues of vermilion, crimson, and gold.
The Cardinal’s hand was open and outstretched.
Tonio moved towards it, allowing himself to be enfolded in the Cardinal’s arm. And at the touch of those fingers, he felt an undeniable awakening, though he fought it just as he had before. Free, he thought bitterly. He would even now run back and hide in Guido’s arms if he could. He had the sense of something being destroyed, something that had been guarded desperately for so long. Yet he did not move away. He was looking down into this man’s rapt face; he was looking into his eyes, and wanting to touch those smooth eyelids, and the colorless lips.
But the Cardinal was in quiet anguish, and his own passion was dividing him, though he could not push Tonio away.
“For me, the sins of the flesh have been too few to instruct,” he murmured, halfheartedly, as though he were reflecting. There was no