leaned over with his hands firmly placed on the table before Tonio, Tonio thought for the first time: I despise you! Yes, it is true now I despise you!
But there was no smile now. There was no pretense. The face was sharpened as if by some new perception.
Tonio lifted the silver goblet, felt the bit of stone that adorned it. He let his eyes shift slowly to the water again. To the sky’s last gleam of silver.
“Tell him,” said his brother.
Tonio looked up slowly.
His mother was staring at Carlo as if with deliberate outrage.
“Tell him!” said Carlo again. And she turned to go out of the room, but Carlo, moving faster than she, had caught her by the wrist. “Tell him.”
She shook her head. She was staring at Carlo as if she could not believe he was doing this to her.
Tonio rose slowly from the table, out of the glare of the candlelight to look more closely at her, at the way that her face was being slowly infused with anger.
“Tell him now before me!” Carlo roared.
But as if infected by that very rage, she cried out:
“I will do no such thing, not now, not ever.” She commenced to tremble. Her face was crumpling like that of a small child. And suddenly grabbing her in both hands Carlo started to shake her.
Tonio didn’t move. He knew that if he moved he could not control what would happen. And that his mother belonged to this man was now beyond doubt.
But Carlo had stopped.
Marianna stood with her hands over her ears. And then she looked up at Carlo again and said No with her lips, her face so twisted that she was almost unrecognizable.
It seemed that roar was rising out of Carlo again, that awful roar like that of a man bewailing a death he could never accept, and with the full force of his right hand he struck her.
She fell several steps backwards.
“Carlo, if you strike her again,” Tonio said, “it will be resolved between us, forever.”
It was the first time that Tonio had ever called him by name, but it was impossible to tell if Carlo realized it.
He was staring straight forward. He did not seem to hear Marianna crying. Her tremors were becoming more and more violent and suddenly she began to scream:
“I will not, I will not choose between you!”
“Tell him the truth before God and me now!” Carlo roared.
“Enough!” Tonio said. “Do not torture her. She is helpless as I am. What can she tell me that will make any difference? That you are her lover?”
Tonio looked at her. He could not bear to see her in this pain. It seemed infinitely greater than all those years and years of appalling loneliness.
He wished somehow he could let her know, silently, with his eyes, with the color of his voice, that he loved her. And that now he expected nothing more from her.
He looked away, and then again, he looked up at the man who had turned to him.
“It is no use,” Tonio said. “Not for both of you can I go against my father.”
“Your father?” Carlo whispered. “Your father!” He spat the words, and then he seemed on the verge of some hysteria.
“Look at me, Marc Antonio.” He bore down on Tonio. “Look at me. I am your father!”
Tonio shut his eyes.
But the voice went on louder, thinner, on the edge of breaking:
“She was carrying you in her body when she came into this house, you are the child of my love for her! I am your father, and I stand here with my bastard son placed before me! Do you hear me? Does God hear me? You are my son and you have been placed before me. That is what she can and must tell you!”
He stopped, the voice strangled in his throat.
And as Tonio opened his eyes, he saw through the glimmer of his tears that Carlo’s face was a mask of pain, and that Marianna stood beside him, putting up her frantic hands to cover his mouth. With a great shove, Carlo sent her backwards.
“He stole my wife from me,” Carlo cried. “He stole my son from me, this house he stole from me, Venice he took, and my youth, and I tell you he shall not prevail any longer! Look at me, Tonio, look at me! Yield to me! Or so help me God, I declare I cannot be held to account for what happens to you!”