his feet until he stood at the door and saw his brother moving among the ruined things, the bed a scaffold of dust and rags, a book in Carlo’s hand, swollen from the rain, its pages heavy and damp still as he turned them. He was reading in a whisper, the blue sky behind him obscured by the grimed windows, and it seemed the sound of his whisper belonged to this place, and with a dull rhythm he spoke the words now, louder, yet to himself, his right hand moving in the air ever so slightly.
He saw Tonio. And that warmth came to his face, the eyes crinkled gently with his smile, and closing the book he laid his right hand open on it.
“Come in, little brother,” he said. “You see I am…well, at a loss. I cannot invite you to sit here with me in my old apartments.”
There was no irony in his tone, yet the blood rushed to Tonio’s face, and sick with shame he looked down, unable to form an answer.
Why hadn’t he sent the servants here at once to prepare this room? Why hadn’t he thought of it? Lord God, he had been master of this house for just that little while, had he not? And if not he, who, then, might have given the order? He stared at the stained and peeling walls, at the ruined carpet.
“Ah, but you see the love for me that was lavished here,” Carlo sighed. He laid the book down, his eyes moving over the fractured ceiling. “You see how my treasures were put away for me, my clothing saved from the moths, my books in dry and safe places.”
“Forgive me, Signore!”
“And for what?” Carlo extended his hand, and as Tonio drew near, Carlo gathered him to himself, and again Tonio felt that kindling warmth, that strength. And in some recess of his mind, untroubled, he thought, I shall look like this when I am a man; I see the future as few ever see it. His brother kissed him gently on the forehead.
“What could you have done, little brother?”
He did not wait for the answer. He had opened the book again, and his hand moved over the decaying letters, The Tempest, written in English and beneath it the twin columns of print, his voice dropping again, into that rhythmic whisper:
“Full fathom five thy father lies…” And as he looked up again, he seemed positively distracted by the vision of Tonio.
What is it, what do you see? Do you despise me, Tonio was thinking. And the ruin of the room seemed to press in on him, the dust suffocating him, and he could for the first time breathe in the stench of all that was spoiled and rotting here.
But his brother had not looked away, and his black eyes had lost all consciousness of their own expression.
“First child of the union,” Carlo whispered. “Child born at the height of passion. Blessed with everything, so the saying goes, the first child.” And now his brows knit and his mouth showed the smallest tightening at the edges.
“But then I was the last of my parents’ brood,” he went on, “and we two are so alike. There is no rule, then, is there? First child, last child, save the father’s feeling for the first child!”
“Please, Signore, I don’t understand what you are saying.”
“No, and why should you?” Carlo said, the tone as even as before, as gentle and without malice. Wondering, he looked at Tonio as if he liked looking at him. And Tonio beneath his gaze was wilting inside and miserable.
“Do you understand this, then?” Carlo asked. “Look around you.” It was that roar threatening again, that roaring nudging at the edge of language.
“Signore, please, let me have the servants clean this place…”
“Oh, will you do that? You are the master here, are you not?” And the voice was stretched ever thinner.
Tonio looked into his eyes. It wasn’t anger, it was outrage. And shaking his head helplessly, Tonio looked away.
“No, little brother, it is not your doing,” said Carlo. “And what a princeling you are,” he said with the gentlest sincerity. “How he must have loved you. But I dare say, I would love you too if I were your father.”
“Signore, show us the way now to love each other!”
“But I do love you,” Carlo whispered. “But leave me in this place before I say what I will regret. You see, I am not myself here yet, but rather I have come