The witching hour - By Anne Rice Page 0,170

my pledges as to the woman’s beauty, you have yourself seen her likeness; as I have said before.

On to Amsterdam we went, she and I, posing now as the rich Dutch brother and sister, for all anyone might know; and as I had hoped and dreamed, our city waked her from her torpor, with its pretty tree-lined canals and all the handsome boats and the fine four and five-story houses which she did inspect with a new vigor.

And coming upon the grand Motherhouse, with the canal at its feet, and seeing that it was “my home,” and was to be hers, she could not conceal her wonder. For what had this child seen of the world but a miserable sheep-farming village and the dirty inns in which we’d lodged; so you can quite understand how it was when she saw a proper bedstead, in a clean Dutch bedroom. She spoke not a single word, but the bit of a smile on her lips spoke volumes.

I went directly to my superiors, to Roemer Franz and Petrus Lancaster, both of whom you fondly remember, and confessed all that I had done.

I broke down in tears and said the child was alone and so I had taken her, and I had no other excuse for spending so much money, except that I did it; and to my astonishment, they forgave me, but they also laughed because they knew my innermost secrets.

And Roemer said: “Petyr, you have done such penance between here and Scotland that surely you deserve an increase in your allowance, and perhaps a better room within the house.”

More laughter greeted these words. I had to smile to myself, for I was drenched in fantasies of Deborah’s beauty even then, but soon the good spirits had left me and I was again in pain.

Deborah would answer no questions put to her. But when the wife of Roemer, who lived with us all her life, went to Deborah and put the needle and the embroidery in her hands, Deborah did, with some skill, begin to sew.

By the end of week, Roemer’s wife and the other wives had taught her through example to make lace, and she was hard at work at it by the hour, acknowledging nothing said to her, but staring at those around her whenever she looked up and then returning to her work without a word.

To the female members, those who were not wives, but were scholars and had powers of their own, she seemed to possess an obvious aversion. To me she would say nothing, but she had stopped giving me hateful glances, and when I asked her to walk out with me, she accepted and was soon dazzled by the city, and allowed me to buy her a drink in the tavern, though the spectacle of respectable women drinking and eating there seemed to amaze her, as it amazes other foreigners who have traveled far more widely than she.

All the while I described our city to her, I told of its history and its tolerance, of how Jews had come here to escape persecution in Spain, and how Catholics even lived here in peace among the Protestants, and there were no more executions for such things as witchcraft here, and I took her to see the printers and the booksellers. And to the house of Rembrandt van Rijn we went for a brief visit, as he was always so very pleasant to visit, and there were always pupils about.

His beloved Hendrickje, of whom I was always fond, had been gone two years, but Titus, his son, was still living, and with him. And I for one preferred the paintings which he did at this time of his life, for their curious melancholy, to those he did earlier when he was all the fashion. We drank a glass of wine with the young painters who were always gathered there to study with the master and this is when Rembrandt first caught sight of Deborah, though it was later that he painted her.

All the while, my intention was to amuse her, and divert her out of her hellish thoughts, and show to her the wide world of which she could now be a part.

She kept her silence, but I could see that the painters delighted her, and the portraits of Rembrandt in particular drew her, and so did this kindly and genial man himself. We went on to other studios and spoke to other artists—to see Emmanuel de Witte and