The Creation Of Eve Read Online Free PDF Page A

stroll.
    With a puff, Papa blew a delicate green grasshopper from the sleeve of his gown. "Twelve is the proper age for an apprentice, Sofi. We shall find the right teacher for you."
    "I don't want to paint," I said. "I want to embroider, like everyone else," though the thought of pulling a needle through stiff cloth, day in, day out, only to produce a flat image of the Virgin Mary, made my head ache.
    "You are painting," said Papa. "No argument. Lucky are they who know their gift. Some people live their whole lives without learning it."
    "Everyone has a gift?"
    "Everyone. ThoUgh not all claim theirs. It takes great courage sometimes."
    I looked Up at Papa. In light of this new thought, his familiar tall figure, stooped from years of peering at books, became almost strange to me. "What is your gift?"
    Papa's lips had curved within the neat gray nest of his beard. "You."
    Papa, sweet Papa. He is completely oblivious of what I have done in Rome. He would never dream his good Sofi could do what I did.
    I had found him in the courtyard in the shade of the poplar trees, Upon my return yesterday from Rome. "Cara mia!" He put down his English copy of Sir Thomas More's Utopia and held open his arms.
    He pulled back to gaze at me after we embraced. "Your sisters and brother will be so glad to see you--they are with your mother at Mass. Why, Sofi! Look at your eyes. Are you Unwell?"
    "It was a long trip." I kissed his grizzled cheek and breathed in his dear peppery scent.
    "Sofi, are you crying?"
    "It is just dust from the road."
    "I do not believe you."
    My breath stopped. Had Michelangelo sent a damning letter before me?
    "You are completely exhausted, I can tell. That is it! I must put my foot down, you must rest at home. This trip was too much for you--first going to Milan to paint the Spanish Duke of Alba, then traveling on to Rome to study with Michelangelo. You've been gone for months! Now it is time to stay home and enjoy your gift. What is the Use of having one if you can't enjoy it?"
    I laughed, giddy with relief. "Oh, Papa, that is exactly what I wish to do."
    He promptly ordered me to rest. At my insistence, I took to an unused servants' room on the third floor, away from my family and attendants, where without Francesca's badgering, I slept the rest of the day and well into this morning. When I rose to make water, I found I was so weak that I had to return to bed, capable only of lifting this pen to paper. Now I lie looking through the open door and the crumbling arches of the gallery beyond, to the courtyard, where sparrows flit among the tops of the poplar trees; the smell of baking rosemary bread permeates the air.
    I had left without saying good-bye to Tiberio--our carriage had departed from Rome at earliest light. Will he write to Papa, asking my hand in marriage? What we had done amounted to a betrothal Under the law. Indeed, my family will be within their rights to press for damages from Tiberio's family should he not come forward with a marriage proposal, as poor Camilla's family had demanded from her lover. Tiberio has taken something of great value, a maiden's virginity--worse, he has taken it from a maiden whose virginity is so treasured that she signs her paintings "Virgin."
    Sofonisba Anguissola, Virgo --what a foolish idea it had been to sign my work thus. I was seventeen and full of myself when I'd begun that practice. Although I claimed it was because I wished to renounce physical pleasure to dedicate myself fully to art, in truth it was out of pride, sheer pride, that I styled myself so. Look, my signature proclaimed, see what I have done that no other mere maiden has done before me! I can paint like a man!
    It seems now that I rut as well as one, too.
ITEM : The frame upon which a canvas is stretched should never be made of green wood. It will change shape as it ages, leaving the canvas creased and the painting damaged.
    EVENING, SAME DAY

    No letter yet from Tiberio. I am still hiding out in my aerie on