08 Blood and Gold by Anne Rice

Author:Anne Rice
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Tags: Vampires
ISBN: 9780099271499
Publisher: Arrow
Published: 2001-01-01T06:00:00+00:00

The blood hunger was raging but I had control of it. I was pushing it deep inside me. I loved him too much to do it. I could not do it. I could not endure the result if it were to be done.

As for my remarks, he nodded. He was miserable. A man divided wanting to paint his goddesses on the one hand, and the sacred paintings as well.

“Marius,” he said. “I don’t want to do what’s sinful. I don’t want to do what’s evil, or what will make another person, simply by looking at a painting, commit a sin.”

“You’re very far from ever doing that, Sandro,” I said. “That’s my view of it - that your goddesses are glorious as are your gods. In Rome, your frescoes of Christ were filled with light and beauty.

Why journey into the darkness as you have done here?”

I took out the purse and put it on the table. I would leave now, and he would never know what true evil had come close to him. He would never dream of what I was and what I had meant, perhaps, perhaps to do.

He came to me and picked up the purse and tried to give it back.

“No, you keep it,” I said. “You deserve it. You do what you believe you should do.”

“Marius, I have to do what is right,” he said simply. “Now look at this, I want to show you.” He took me to another part of the workshop away from the large paintings.

Here was a table and on it were several pages of parchment covered with tiny drawings.

“These are illustrations for Dante’s Inferno” he told me. “Surely you’ve read it. I want to do an illustrated version of the entire book.”

My heart sank when I heard this, but what could I say? I looked down at the drawings of die twisted and suffering bodies! How could one defend such an enterprise on the part of the painter who had rendered Venus and the Virgin with miraculous skill?

Dante’s Inferno. How I had despised the work while recognizing its brilliance.

“Sandro, how can you want to do this?” I asked. I was shaking. I didn’t want him to see my face.

“I find glory,” I said, “in those paintings that are filled with the light of paradise, whether it is Christian or pagan. I find no delight in the illustrations of those who suffer in Hell.”

He was plainly confused and perhaps he always would be.

It was his fate. I had only stepped into it, and perhaps fed a fire that was already top weak to survive.

I had to go now. I had to leave him now forever. I knew it. I could not come again to this house. I could not trust myself with him. I had to get out of Florence or my resolve would break. “I won’t be seeing you again, Sandro,” I said. “But why?” he said. “I’ve been looking forward to seeing you.

Oh, it’s not because of the purse, believe me.”

“I know, but I must leave.

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