air, picnics on the grass, riding horseback, fencing for sport, great spacious gardens hung with lanterns.
Tonio packed all the old music, wondering vaguely how it would feel to sing for a room full of people. And Marianna, with a nervous laugh, reminded him of his fears on her account (“My bad behavior!”). Nevertheless it startled him to see her roaming about her room in corset and chemise with Alessandro sitting by with a cup of chocolate.
But on the morning they were to leave, Signore Lemmo came pounding at Tonio’s door.
“Your father…” he stammered “Is he with you?”
“With me, why no. Whatever made you think he would be?” Tonio asked.
“I can’t find him,” Signore Lemmo whispered. “No one can find him.”
“But that’s ridiculous,” Tonio said.
Yet within minutes Tonio realized the household was in a turmoil.
Everyone was engaged in the search. Marianna and Alessandro, who had been waiting with the trunks near the front door, rose immediately when he told them.
“Have you been in the archive downstairs?” Tonio demanded.
Signore Lemmo went there at once, only to report the lower floor was, as always, deserted.
“And the roof?” Tonio said. But this time he did not wait for anyone else; he had the strong feeling that was precisely where he might find his father. He did not know why, but all the way up the steps he was sure of it.
Yet when he came to the attic floor he stopped, because at the far end of the passage light streamed through an empty doorway. Tonio knew these rooms. He knew where all the servants slept, where Angelo and Beppo slept, and that room had always been bolted. As a little boy, he’d glimpsed furnishings through the keyhole. He’d tried the lock. But he’d never managed to get into it.
And now a dim suspicion came to him. He went quickly down the passage, vaguely conscious that Signore Lemmo followed him.
Andrea was in the room. He was standing at the front windows above the water, clad only in a flannel dressing gown. His shoulder bones poked through the flimsy cloth, and there came from him some low sound as though he were talking. Or praying.
But for a long moment Tonio waited, and his eyes passed over the walls, over the pictures and mirrors that still hung here. Long ago, it seemed, the roof had broken, and deep stains poured to the floor. There was everywhere the smell of mold and neglect; and he realized the bed was still covered by a damp and ruined coverlet. The curtains had never been removed; one panel had fallen away. And on a small table near a damask chair there stood a glass with a dark residue in it. A book lay open, face-down, and others on the shelves had swollen to burst their leather bindings.
No one had to tell him this was Carlo’s room. No one had to tell him it had been left hastily and never again entered.
With a shock, he saw the slippers by the bed. He saw the candles in their holders eaten down by rats; and askew against a chest as if it had been tossed there stood a portrait. It was fixed in the familiar oval and square of gold that lined the galleria below and the Grand Salon from which it had obviously been taken.
And there was his brother’s face, more skillfully articulated than anywhere else, with those wide-set black eyes peering into this ruined chamber with perfect equanimity.
“Wait outside,” Tonio said softly to Signore Lemmo.
The window was wide open over a vista of red-tiled roofs, slanting this way and that, cut here and there by little gardens and steeples, and the distant domes of San Marco.
There came a whistling sound from Andrea’s lips. Tonio felt a sharp pain in his temples.
“Father?” he said as he drew close.
Andrea’s head turned unwillingly. The hazel eyes showed no recognition. The face was more gaunt than ever and possessed the shimmer of a fever. Those eyes, ever so quick, if not severe, were vague as if covered with a blinding film.
Then slowly Andrea’s face brightened. “I mean…I mean, I detest it….” he whispered.
“What, Father?” Tonio asked. He was terrified. Something was happening, something dreadful.
“The carnival, the carnival,” Andrea stammered, his lips trembling. He rested his hand on Tonio’s shoulder, “I am…I am…I must…”
“Father, will you come down?” Tonio said tentatively.
Then before his eyes, the most hideous change in his father was taking place. He saw the eyes widen; he saw the mouth twist.