The Birth of Venus Read Online Free PDF Page B

water. There were children everywhere, half naked, splattered with mud and streaked with color from stirring the vats. The foreman of my father’s work looked like the Devil, parts of his face and upper arms wizened from where boiling water had scalded him. Others, I remember, had scratched patterns into their skins, then rubbed different dyes into the wounds so their bodies were marked with bright signs. They were like a tribe from a pagan land. Though their work kept the city alive with color, they were the poorest people I had ever seen. Even the monastery that gave the district its name, Santa Croce, was home to the Franciscans, who chose the most destitute areas in which to build their churches.
    What my father felt about them I never knew. Though he might be stern enough with my brothers, he was not a hard man. The ledgers of his company included an account in God’s name through which he gave generous alms to charity, and in recent years he had paid for two stained-glass windows in our church of Sant’ Ambrogio. Certainly his wages were no worse than any other merchant’s. But it was not his job to alleviate poverty. In our great Republic, man made his fortune by the grace of God and his own hard work. If others were less fortunate that was their business, not my father’s.
    Still, something of their desperation must have infected me during that visit, because while I grew up yearning for the colors of the warehouse, I also remembered the cauldrons, their steamy heat like the pots of hell where they boil sinners. And I did not ask to go again.
    My sister, however, had no such pictures to cloud the pleasure of the cloth and was at this moment more interested in how the blue might complement the swell of her breasts. Sometimes I think that when it comes to her wedding night she will enjoy her nightdress more than her husband’s body. I wondered how much that would bother Maurizio. I had only met him once. He seemed a sturdy enough fellow, with some laughter and force, but there was not much sign of the thinker in him. That might make it better, of course. What did I know? They seemed satisfied with each other.
    “Plautilla. Why don’t we leave this for now?” my mother said quietly, pushing back the fabrics and sighing slightly. “The afternoon is particularly warm today, and some sun on your hair might further develop its fairness admirably. Why don’t you go out onto the roof with your embroidery?”
    My sister was taken aback. While it was well known that fashionable young women regularly addled their brains with sun in a futile attempt to turn dark into light, it was a vanity their mothers were not supposed to know about.
    “Oh, don’t look so surprised. Since you will do it regardless of what I think, it seems easier to give you my blessing. You will not find much time for such fripperies soon anyway.”
    My mother had recently gained the habit of saying things like this, as if somehow all natural life for Plautilla would end with her marriage. Plautilla herself seemed to find this prospect rather exciting, though I must say it put the fear of hellfire into me. She gave a small squeak of delight and flapped around the room in search of her sun hat. When she found it, she took an interminable time to fit it, pulling her hair out through the central hole to make sure that while her face was in shade every strand would be exposed to the sun. Then she gathered up her skirts and went swooping out. If you had tried to paint her exit, you would have had to fling swaths of silk or gauze cloth around her body to suggest the wind in her speed, as I had seen some artists do. Either that or give her bird wings.
    We watched her go. I got the impression it made my mother rather sad. She sat for a moment before she turned to me, which meant I caught the glint in her eyes too late.
    “I think I’ll join her.” I got up from my chair.
    “Don’t be ridiculous. You hate the sun, Alessandra, and anyway your hair is