The Watercolourist (23 page)

‘And what makes you think you’ll end up in heaven to hear the singing?’

‘Me? I wasn’t talking about me. I wouldn’t mind a little atonement, actually: virtue is so boring . . .’

In the city, the family receive more guests, and in addition to the usual ones there is a whole host of new characters. Tommaso, surrounded by these people, retreats into his shell like an
irritated hermit crab, although he remains kind to Bianca, to the point of irritation. Once, he stopped to admire a drawing she had done of the girls – the one she started on her first day in
Brusuglio, and which she then finished upon Donna Clara’s insistence.

‘You have style and personality, Miss Bianca. But be careful not to lose yourself in fashion.’

Bianca actually wishes she could spend some of her money on clothes, but she is set on increasing her savings, which are growing ever so slowly, month after month. Soon she comes to the
realization, though, that it is one thing to be in the country, where her somewhat outdated but nonetheless refined outfits give a decent impression, and another to be in the city where ladies are
elegant and proud.
We are avant-garde. We might look to Paris, but Paris looks to us, too
, their clothes seem to say.

Even Donna Clara and Donna Julie, who are so at ease in the country in their uniforms of ordinance – black for one and a lighter colour for the other – are more worried about their
appearance in Milan. They correct – or perhaps pollute – their usual sobriety with certain bold touches that make them stick out. All they need to do is put on a turban wrapped in a
complicated way or wear a waterfall of frills on their sleeves to set the children off in giggles. They stare at the two women, puzzled, and then make their inevitable remarks.

‘Where’s the rest of the bird?’ Enrico asks when his grandmother comes down to dinner in a feathered headdress.

All the credit goes to Gandini, the seamstress, who has been summoned to the confused household and put to work. Bianca is unable to hide her dismay when the ladies appear wearing the
craftswoman’s most recent creations. It seems as though elephant sleeves are the latest trend, puffy at the top and narrow at the wrist, like a trunk, in the Kalmuk style. On the delicate
arms of Donna Julie the styles derived from the Russian steppes look graciously frivolous, but on Donna Clara they look comical, though no one smiles when they see her. And in fact, her
guests’ compliments are futile. It is clear that neither of the two ladies are emblems of avant-garde fashion. They let themselves be convinced by the skill of the seamstress and are only
vaguely aware that her adaptations of French fashion aren’t perhaps all that successful.

When Carola Visconti makes an entrance into the living room one day wearing a light green spencer with egg-yellow braided decorations, a long, fitted, dark green dress, and a nocked bow and
heron on her head, Donna Clara suddenly looks like grey wattle. And Donna Julie, wearing a fichu over the square neckline of an old emperor-style dress, appears no more than a provincial girl who
has just left the convent in her dead mother’s clothes.

Bianca discovers with a mix of delight and chagrin that the city is full of things to buy. Many of the generous guests to the house offer her gifts with a joy that appears
authentic. She receives a small crystal phial containing the essence of fraghe by Giuseppe Hagy – three drops to be sprinkled inside the folds of one’s handkerchief, like the three
distilled droplets of the queen’s blood. She accepts many
boutonni
è
res
of greenhouse violets too to decorate her jackets. She enjoys the desserts of the Galli –
dates sliced vertically and filled with bits of pink and green marzipan, and pralines from Marchesi wrapped in brown paper and entirely delectable. And finally, she receives four brand-new outfits
sewn by Signora Gandini. These come as a complete surprise. They are carried into the house for a fitting and then taken in accordingly. Bianca’s face lights up when she sees them arrive.

When the time comes for the fitting, the smell of the new fabric is intoxicating and their rustling sounds are music to her ears. As she looks at her reflection, she discovers details about
herself that she didn’t even know existed. Her
décolletage
and her tiny waist are prominent in the two evening gowns. The seamstress has to fold and take in the fabric.

‘You know, my dear, that your hourglass figure is most esteemed,’ she says.

She also has a round and svelte
derrière.
It is strange how the French language can make any word sound pretty. A charcoal-blue outfit in ‘a colour made for you’
wraps around her waist and draws attention to her curves, thanks to a short blazer that ends just above her lower back. Naturally, Donna Clara and Donna Julie are privy to the entire fitting
– front-row audience members – muttering comments under their breath that Bianca chooses to ignore.

A few days later, in addition to the new outfits, she also finds three complete sets of undergarments from Ghidoli, everything from long underwear
à l’anglaise
, which
combines modesty and elegance, to exquisite lace undershirts. Bianca puts her pride aside and is overcome by vanity and pure joy. She thanks the ladies with her heart, her eyes, and with words,
too.

‘Go and get changed. Seeing you well dressed will be the greatest thanks of all,’ Donna Clara says.

That evening, she comes down to dinner in her favourite outfit: a pinstriped dress of white and light green silk that reminds her of daffodil stems and makes her feel just as delicate. In the
large and somewhat cavernous living room it feels cold, despite the lit fireplace, and Donna Julie runs upstairs to fetch her a white cashmere shawl. At times, the house still feels like an invaded
fortress, leading Bianca to think that it was happier before they arrived – sealed, empty, and alone.

Bianca’s room has a floor made from irregular red tiles. She often trips over them, and it feels as if the whole floor is waiting for her to fall. The pale wallpaper with a pattern of
rhombi does nothing to brighten the room, and even with the tall window, the light that seeps in is always greyish and dirty. Pigeons coo on the windowsill, which Bianca does not like. They look
like rats with wings, stolid and insistent. They are everywhere here, she soon finds out.

The city is revealing itself to her little by little, like a bashful and discreet lady batting her eyelashes and playing coyly with her fan. At first she finds it hostile. It is too silent or
too noisy or just strange. She doesn’t know many other large cities. Verona, compared to this, is a village, with its semicircle of coloured
palazzi
surrounding the arena. London, as
seen from numerous carriages, is large and grey, white or red. There is nothing mysterious about it, nothing scary or miraculous. Not like this place, which reveals itself slowly, like the closed
hand of a child holding a secret, being pried open finger by finger.

When she applies herself, Bianca sees things she has never imagined. Everything is bigger here. The markets are more market-like. In Verziere, the green stalls are set up at the feet of the
statue of the tortured Christ. Apparently it is also the place where witches have been burned at the stake. When Bianca takes walks there, she observes the vendors as they hawk their goods with
full-blown obscenities, trying to detect traces of evil on their dishevelled faces. The streets are more street-like, with cracks engraved in the manure and the incessant traffic of public and
private carriages. They rumble by like a stormy sea, so loud they bring on headaches. Even the churches are more church-like. Guided more by instinct than piety, she discovers that there is an
infinite variety of them. The Duomo, with its lacy facade, reminds her of the evanescent play of sand when it seeps through her fingers. Santa Maria delle Grazie, with its firm, erect cupola and
mystical silence, relays the cold numbness of the monks – God’s dogs, as her father used to call them. She watches the monks there walking on the flagstones under which other monks
sleep in eternal rest, smiling remotely, their hands hidden under their elegant black-and-cream-coloured tunics. In the cloisters, bronze frogs spit streams of water onto the emerald stone of the
fountain. San Lorenzo, with its indoor and outdoor columns, reminds her of a peeling set design. It is like the travel writer, Lady Morgan, said: Milan is a city of bricks transformed into a city
of marble. And yet the cement and mud reappear so rapidly, just by turning a corner or crossing a piazza. It makes her think that the city’s transformation has been hasty, or interrupted.

Bianca wanders alone, relying on her shrewd independence where she can, knowing full well that her behaviour is at the limits of respectability and delighting in the thrill this gives her. She
keeps several coins inside the small green velvet purse that came with her new clothes and relies on these to get her out of sticky situations, such as when she gets lost and needs a carriage.
She’ll hail one, stare straight back at the suspicious driver and show him the coins in her palm. Bianca gets lost often because she daydreams as she walks. She looks at things without really
seeing them, and when she shakes off her daydreams, she no longer has a reference point, no street corner, palazzo or bell tower that she can refer back to. She is like Theseus without his string,
reawakened from a nap. She likes it that way. It reminds her of the adventures she had with her father, on foot in London, and the thrill of wandering into neighbourhoods like Soho or Bethnal
Green, knowing that, with her arm in his, she could go anywhere. Although now things are different; there is the thrill, but there is awareness too. The open road tempts her with the ambiguous lure
of adventure.

In the beginning, the family encourage her to go out for strolls, but when she starts venturing out more frequently, they begin to get suspicious.

‘Where has she gone to this time?’

‘To look for trouble, that’s what I say.’

This is the gossip from the kitchen. Donna Clara limits herself to open curiosity.

‘What wonderful things have you seen today, Miss Bianca?’

And when Bianca answers vaguely or simply describes a facade or street corner in her own approximate, particular and distracted way, the older lady just shakes her head and sighs.

‘My dear girl, are you sure? I don’t think I’ve ever encountered anything like that.’

Of course you haven’t
, Bianca wants to answer,
because you only travel in coaches
. Milan has surely changed a lot in the previous ten, twenty, even thirty years too, and
Donna Clara no doubt knows Paris better. It was the city of her second youth and the home of her most recent love, and it has a way of always insinuating itself into her conversations. Her tired
litany includes references to Carlo, Claude, Sophie, the
maisonnette
, and then Carlo once more, although any mention of them is quickly brushed away.

Bianca feels that she is on a mission. She wants to fully understand the city on foot, as a woman of the people. This goes hand in hand with her approach to drawing, as it has evolved over time
in the countryside and at the end of the autumn. The mission is made possible by their move to the city. She doesn’t speak of it to anyone, not even Innes, who in any case seems to be
preoccupied with his own activities.

‘Is he writing a novel as well?’ Donna Clara teases on many occasions, making Donna Julie giggle.

‘What are you saying, Mother? His novel is his life. He’s not writing it, he’s living it.’

The thought of Innes competing against the poet makes even Bianca smile. She has noticed a tacit understanding between the two men that she cannot quite fathom. Is it a simple masculine alliance
or some other serious passion that they hide under their waistcoats and living-room banter? She never dares ask, even if Innes does treat her with the sort of gentle familiarity that makes him feel
like her accomplice in the household that welcomes them with open arms. Arms that grip a little too tightly at times.

While Bianca is slowly learning about the city, several other fundamental insights come to her, thanks to the family itself. One night, the three ladies, accompanied by Innes, go to see a
performance by La Sallé at La Scala. Bianca is not as impressed by the gold and velvet decor as Donna Clara expects her to be. Actually Bianca watches the audience more than the dancers
themselves, observing their expressions and reactions. She has already been to La Fenice, Covent Garden and the Opéra, and has told them so, trying not to sound presumptuous. This theatre
definitely has a particular charm, but she enjoys spying on people, trying to understand their intentions and conversations – about couples, love and other scandals. Bianca wears her new
light blue velvet dress and the diamond necklace that her father gave her mother, which became hers after the inheritance was divided, despite predatory glances from her sister-in-law. A splendid
snowflake rests in the hollow of her neck and pulses with her every breath.