had been Philippo, whose childless wife had gone home after his death to her own people. But if any of those shades had lived long enough to produce a son of the Treschi name, Tonio would not be here! His father would never have taken a second wife. Tonio would not even exist. And so the very price of life for him was that they were swept away without issue.
He couldn’t grasp it at first; but after a while, it was an old truth; he and those brothers, they had never been meant to know each other.
Yet he played his fantasy out; he saw these yawning rooms brilliantly lit, heard music, pictured soft-spoken men and women who were his own kin, a swarm of nameless cousins.
And always his father was about, at supper, on the ballroom floor, turning to catch his youngest son in his arms with a wealth of spontaneous kisses.
As it was, Tonio seldom saw his father.
But on those occasions when Lena came for him, whispering anxiously that Andrea had sent for his son, it was absolutely marvelous. She would outfit him in his best, a coat of rustcolored velvet he loved, or maybe the darker blue that was his mother’s favorite. And brushing his hair to a lively luster, she let it fall softly without a ribbon. He looked like a baby, he would protest. Then out would come the jeweled rings, the furlined cloak, and his own little sword, studded with rubies. He was ready now. His heels made that delicious click on the marble.
The Grand Salon of the main floor was always the setting. It was an immense room, the largest in a house of large rooms, furnished only with a long heavily carved table. Three men could have lain end to end on that table. The floor was a pattern of tinted marble that made up a map of the world, while the ceiling was an endless vista of blue where angels hung suspended, unfurling a great winding ribbon of Latin lettering. The light was uneven, coming as it did through open doors from other chambers. But it was often full of morning warmth as it fell on the slight, almost wraithlike figure of Andrea Treschi.
Tonio would make his bow. And as he looked up, never once had he failed to see the awesome vitality of his father’s gaze, eyes so young they appeared disconnected from the skeletal face, and brimming with irrepressible pride and affection.
Andrea bent to kiss his son. His lips were powdery soft and soundless, and they lingered on Tonio’s cheek, and once in a while, even as Tonio grew taller and heavier with every year, Andrea would sweep him up in his arms and crush him for a moment to his chest whispering his name as if the word, Tonio, were a little blessing.
His attendants stood about. They smiled, they winked. There seemed in the room a ripple of soft excitement. Then it was over. Rushing to his mother’s window upstairs, Tonio watched his father’s gondola move down the canal towards the piazzetta.
No one had to tell Tonio he was the last of them. Death had worked such a devastation on all branches of this great house that not even a cousin remained who bore the name. Tonio “would marry young,” he must be prepared for a life of duty. And on those few nights when he was ill, he shuddered to see his father’s face at the door; the Treschi lay with him on the pillow.
It thrilled him; it frightened him. And he would never remember the precise moment he perceived the full dimensions of his universe. All the world, it seemed, rode the broad green waters of the Grand Canal at his doorstep. Regattas all year long with hundreds of sleek black gondolas gliding by, lavish Saturday evening parades in summer when the great families decked their peotti with garlands and gilded gods and goddesses; the day-to-day procession of patricians on their way to affairs of state, their boats lined with richly colored carpets. If Tonio stood on the small wooden balcony over the front door, he might see the lagoon itself, with the distant ships at anchor. He could hear the soft thunder of their salutes, the blare of trumpets outside the Palazzo Ducale.
There were the endless songs of the gondoliers, lilting tenors echoing up the olive-green and rose-colored walls, the rich sweet strum of floating orchestras. At night lovers cruised under the stars. Serenades carried on