The Watercolourist Read Online Free PDF

pretty.’
    ‘And I have no dowry. My only asset is this,’ she said, waving her fingers in his face. He took hold of her hand, pretended to bite it, and then hugged her tightly.
    ‘You’re going to get yourself into a sticky situation, Bianca. You could always live with me, you know. You could be my manservant.’
    ‘Oh, sure,’ laughed Bianca. ‘I could cut my hair, wear boy’s clothing and sleep on a cot outside your room.’
    ‘When you were younger you could easily have passed for a boy. And you bossed us both around.’
    They smiled in recollection.
    Bartolomeo, on the other hand, seemed relieved at the prospect of her departure. Until then, he had been living in discomfort in his wife’s home and waiting for his inheritance. It was
evident that he now wanted to enjoy his new circumstances to the full, without any obstacles.
    ‘Come home whenever you want,’ he said, because he had to, because a brother should say that. She pursed her lips into a smile, trying to remember the boy with stars in his eyes, the
boy he was, before becoming the rotund dandy now standing in front of her.

    ‘There’s something I’d like to show you, if you’ll follow me?’
    Bianca wipes her hands on a rag. Donna Clara leads the way. She uses a highly varnished black cane, but is incredibly quick for a woman of her small stature. She crosses the lawn, goes into the
house, up the stairs, and down a hall that Bianca has not yet explored. As she moves, Donna Clara’s starched clothes crackle and whine. Bianca wonders whether she still wears a whalebone
corset, as was the vogue in her youth, and if so, who tightens it for her each morning.
    She stops in front of a small painting, near a row of nymph statuettes. It is a portrait of a mother and child. Positioned right in front of a window, it soaks up all the natural light. Bianca
studies the work with the eye of a professional. The dark background allows the two heads to float out of time and space. One has curly brown hair, while the other’s is straight and blond.
The mother has a frivolous, somewhat disquieting look, perhaps due to her curls or the glow in her eyes. Bianca notices a resemblance between the little boy and the girls who play outside: the same
curve in the cheek, round eyes and colouring. She understands.
    ‘I was pretty, wasn’t I?’ says Donna Clara, leaning on the pomegranate-shaped handle of her walking stick. ‘That’s my boy . . . he was five years old there. Then I
sent him to boarding school and left for Paris with my Carlo, and I didn’t see him for a long time. An eternity, it seemed. But when Titta grew older, our paths crossed again. He came to
Paris when he was twenty and we’ve never been apart since.’
    And then, as though fearing she has revealed too much, she wraps her shawl around her, turns around and walks away, leaving Bianca to contemplate the painting on her own. She notices other
details now: the boy’s gaze seems restrained and distracted, as if there is a dog somewhere beyond the picture frame, barking and inviting him to play. She notices his mother’s sharp
expression, like that of a fox, with her slight, coy smile. The pair are positioned closely within the frame, but it is clear that each one anxiously wants to be elsewhere.

    Bianca starts her work. Following the generous instructions of her master – it makes her smile to think of him as her master, and yet that is his role – she takes
all the time she needs. Each morning she carries out her box and easel and a large, somewhat frayed, straw hat. Soon, hampered by all the trappings, she decides to leave the more bulky props
behind. Feeling light and reckless, she goes off to where domesticated nature ends and wild nature begins. Wild is perhaps an exaggeration, for in fact, she and Minna – who follows her like a
shadow – are never entirely alone. There is always some gardener snipping, pruning, collecting and carrying away dry branches. The men don’t