The Passion of Artemisia Read Online Free PDF Page A

della Croce, a woman I didn’t know stood waiting near our house. She was as stiff as a Vatican guard, dressed in deep green with a black sash. As I came abreast of her, she said in a hoarse whisper, “Do not love him.”
    Another scandalmonger. I turned my shoulder to her and she followed me to my door. I walked with a straight back, looking ahead only.
    â€œI am Agostino’s sister,” she said behind me. “Listen to me.”
    I stopped.
    She came up next to me. “I saw what they did to you today in court. I’m sorry.”
    I looked around to see if anyone heard.
    â€œDo not love him,” she said again.
    â€œ Love him!”
    â€œHe’s been a scoundrel since the day he was born. He raped a woman in Lucca so that she was forced to marry him.”
    â€œHe’s married?”
    â€œThat didn’t stop him from making a mistress of his wife’s sister. And now he’s hired two murderers to kill that same wife so he could marry you. As one woman to another, do not believe a word from him.”

3
Agostino
    O ne night when Papa was out, our neighbor Giovanni Stiattesi and I left the house after dark. We traveled without a torch and took only small streets, avoiding Piazza Navona and any torchlit doorways where music poured out. Papa might be in any of them.
    Giovanni and Porzia had convinced me to see Agostino in the prison of Corte Savella. I thought maybe I could find out whether what his sister said was true. “You could tell him to his face,” Giovanni had said with narrowed eyes, “he’s a son of a whore.” That was exactly what I needed to do, to see if I had the strength to kill him with words. Then I could trust myself to paint Judith killing with a sword.
    We crossed the Tiber at Ponte Sisto in utter blackness, smelling the river beneath us. Giovanni held onto my wrist so as not to hurt my hands, which I’d left uncovered for Agostino to see, and with his other hand, Giovanni felt the stone balustrade.
    â€œWhy are you doing this for me?” I asked. Papa had told me once that Giovanni himself was a jilted lover of Agostinoand his anger would serve our cause. He meant in pleading our case in court, though, not in a clandestine errand like this.
    â€œI have no love for that man. You’ve been wronged. Reasons enough.”
    He led me through streets he knew to the back of the prison, and slipped the guard a coin. I waited in a stone corridor under a torch. The dank passageway smelled of burning tar. No one came for a long time and I began to pace. Finally, Agostino ducked through the door at the far end and swaggered toward me with his broad shoulders, open arms and exaggerated smile, like a warm host greeting an old friend.
    â€œArtemisia, you’ve finally come! I’ve been waiting, dying for you a little every day.” His voice echoed in the corridor with false sweetness. “ Amore , I will marry you if you recant. I promised you then, and I will do it now.”
    â€œYou think I came here for that? To marry a man who dishonored me?”
    His dark eyes widened in arrogant surprise. “There would be no dishonor if you marry me. It will save you.”
    â€œYou mean it will save you . Do you think I want to be married to a lecher? A scoundrel? A reprobate?”
    â€œYou know I love you. Remember all I taught you? You owe me something.”
    â€œDon’t deceive yourself. I learned nothing from you I couldn’t learn with my own eyes.”
    â€œHow can you say that?”
    â€œBecause you can’t paint people. You’ll never last. You’ll be forgotten the day you die, which won’t be soon enough.”
    That got him. He was searching for what to say. “Then at least blame someone else. Say I wasn’t the first so they’ll drop the charges.”
    â€œI could slice your neck in two and the Holy Virgin would clap her hands.”
    â€œSay it was Quorli. He’s