The Delicate Dependency: A Novel of the Vampire Life (52 page)

It was incredible to see the complete and utter transformation of character in Lodovico. Certain aspects of Hespeth—an occasional fragment of a gesture, a flash of the eyes—remained, but this ghost was no longer imbued with her presence. It merely rippled through the creature before me, an empty insect shell.

Even the way Lodovico moved was different. He no longer possessed the deportment of a woman. A myriad of subtle and distinct mannerisms were appearing that had not been present in either Lady Dunaway or Dr. von Neefe. His ambulation was actually transforming, becoming more fluid, like a pantomimist relaxing after a confining routine. Was it possible that he possessed so much self-control that for the months of our contact he had constantly monitored his every play of hands, his every minute twinge of muscle? It had to be, for the lordly gentleman before us possessed an entirely new vocabulary of movement.

We passed through another garden filled with arbors and potted trees. Fountains splashed melodiously amid the vegetation and there were a number of small zebralike creatures, reddish-brown above, blending into white on the legs and marked with dark brown stripes on the head and forepart. It was pure coincidence that I happened to know what they were. I had seen them on display, tattered and moth-eaten victims of the taxidermist’s art, at the British Museum. I was reasonably certain that they were quagga, a small South African desert horse that had been hunted by man into extinction. If they were, these were the only living remnants of their species left in the world.

This spurt of thought provoked my memory and I recalled where I had seen the comical and clumsy birds. It had been in
Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland.
Alice had just pulled herself out of the pool of tears and found herself standing among an assemblage of birds on the bank. In the assemblage there had been a bird like the ones in the enclosed garden, for I remembered the Tenniel illustration of it clearly. For a few moments I was mystified, even frightened by the connection, but then I remembered. The birds were dodos, a species of large, flightless birds from the island of Mauritius that had been eaten into extinction by hogs, dogs, cats, and Dutch settlers in 1681. Once again, the vampire had apparently saved a small population of the creatures from extinction, and if that were true the ones we had just seen were the only living dodos in the world. I wondered what psychological trait had motivated him to populate his gardens with such significant pets.

The door at the end of this garden was also hermetically sealed, and it opened with a whoosh. We passed through, and it was here that we began to get a taste of the true flavor of the villa. To begin, the air was of a decidedly different quality. It was much drier than in the previous chambers and possessed that solemn and slightly preservative scent one normally associates with funeral parlors and museums. The gallery itself was of almost blinding splendor. The spiring arched ceiling resembled the nave of a cathedral and was carved in high relief and inlaid with gold and precious stones. The ornate Corinthian capitals were also gilded and the columns themselves were of lapis lazuli. The floor was of varicolored marble chips and polished to such a shine that it reflected the lapis lazuli columns perfectly and created the illusion that everything was floating in space.

Other rooms led off the main gallery between each set of columns and in these rooms, between the columns, covering the walls and every available inch of floor space was a treasure trove unlike any I have ever seen in any manor or museum, church or palace in the world. Everywhere one looked was an endless expanse of objects, masklike sconces and sixteenth-century Medici tapestries, ancient jeweled urns and furniture made out of the horns of Ethiopian sheep. Most visible was a hoard of stone and marble statuary. Standing amid the macabre and jeweled objects was a ghostly army of ancient and silent figures, Roman warriors and Etruscan gods, frozen nymphs and haunting white goddesses. It was apparent that these had not been dug up from any hillside or bed of volcanic ash, but had been perfectly preserved since the moment of their inception, for many still possessed the original paint and gilt with which the ancients adorned their statuary. Here a graceful white Venus removing her sandal still possessed a garish gold breast band and gilded pubic hair. There an unknown maiden gazed lifelessly into space with painted lids and chalcedony eyes. They stood like otherworldly guardians over the overwhelming vastness of the objects and artifacts, garlands of carved agate, stuffed leopards, cameos, rings, brooches, necklaces, bracelets, chalices, and cups.

I had seen the clutter of the vampire before, but the wealth in these chambers dwarfed anything I had seen in the home of des Esseintes. As we strode through we noticed that the side rooms leading off through the columns also possessed their stores, vitrines of every imaginable coinage back through antiquity, gold florins and sestertii, drachmas, denarii, and talents. Corridors of endless apothecary jars. Collections of ancient firearms. Cases of red porphyry and Egyptian glass. Although there was a certain amount of disorder in the objects, everything had the appearance of being carefully and conscientiously placed. Unlike the rooms of des Esseintes, nothing had been allowed to grow dusty or decayed. Nothing was forgotten. Furthermore, nothing seemed to be saved simply for its monetary value. This was not simply the depository of a miser. Archimedean screws were given equal status beside priceless gold ornaments. Ostrich eggs were apparently as cherished as Greek amphorae. We were just about to leave when I noticed a peculiar bronze head with riveted features and a hinged jaw. I recalled des Esseintes’s account of the talking bronze heads of Pope Sylvester II and Friar Bacon and wondered if this could be one of those fabulous automatons.

When we left the great gallery the same whooshing of air accompanied our departure and I realized the climate in certain rooms of the villa was very carefully controlled. It suddenly dawned on me that we were in the presence of a personality who preserved everything, obsessively. For a moment I marveled at the vigilance the vampire must be forced to display to keep his treasures from crumbling to dust. We humans live such a fleeting second in the cosmic scheme of things we are not overly distressed by the omnivorous erosion of the centuries. We treat our books as if they’ll always be there. We let sunlight shine upon our walls without fear of fading the ornaments. We get some sense of those erosions in our museums, where things are encased in glass, and humidity is fervidly watched. But if these objects were merely the normal accumulations of a being sixteen centuries old, what precautions must he take to insure that the material world will not fall to dust around him? In a very literal way I realized that Lodovico’s home was his museum. I wondered if even the blue tinting of the skylights in the peristylium had some protective purpose.

Suddenly Lodovico turned to us. “I am now going to show you my most prized objects.”

We continued on through a resplendent corridor, wondering what possible riches could surpass those we had already seen. I noticed there were paintings by various Renaissance masters on the walls, Titian’s and Raphael’s. We passed through another door.

It was after passing through this door that we saw what treasures surpassed all the precious metals and wealth of gems that we had already seen. Beyond was another great gallery even larger than the previous, only this one was filled with an endless canyon of books. They towered two stories over the marble floor, bisected by a narrow balcony and scaled by numerous ladders. It was reminiscent of des Esseintes’s endless collection only much vaster. There was a second important distinction. Slowly, as I took in the details of the library, I realized it delved even farther back through the gloom of time than the collection of the gentleman monk. My eyes passed from the interminable rows of portfolios and leather volumes, to codices and parchment scrolls. But this was not the end. There was more, much more. Tiers of lead plates and special containers for slabs of inscribed wax. Unending glass catacombs of rolled animal skins and hermetically sealed tubes for papyri. I was dazzled. Perhaps nowhere else in the world could any one man lay his eyes upon a collection such as this. Oh, there were reading rooms in certain libraries where one might examine a scrap of parchment or an ancient table, but again nothing so endless and perfectly sustained as this. Incredibly, I realized that these records, the lead plates and the animal skins, had been kept by the same personality since antiquity. These were the incunabula of a man who had had access to the medieval libraries of Europe, a man who had walked among the Medici. What impossible secrets lay hidden in these walls?

Once again, and for reasons unknown to me, I got the distinct impression that the library had been recently vacated. There were no books resting open on the tables. There were no lingering smells, but still I sensed that only moments before our entry, other feet had scuffed these floors, other eyes had stopped and browsed among the books.

I would have given my right hand to spend even an hour in that library had I not been so filled with exultation at the prospect of at last seeing my little Camille. I looked at Ursula and again I was a little startled to see that she did not seem as enamored by the awesome world we were being allowed to witness. There was still something else troubling her, something I did not comprehend. As we approached the opposite end of the impossible library I noticed that towering high in an alcove over the double bronze doors was a statue of the scribe from the Arch of Constantine.

Lodovico glanced at us cursorily, and once again I felt the influence of his eyes. For the first time I began to understand the full meaning of the control he must exert over Niccolo, the source of Niccolo’s powerlessness. What’s more, I understood the total immobilization of emotion and thought the ancient prophets must have felt when they confronted their gods; what Ezekiel must have felt when he faced the four beasts of the burning wheel. I was oddly comforted by the fact that at least Ursula trembled before his gaze as well.

We passed through the bronze doors and into another corridor, and at length a familiar sound met my ears. It was distant and plaintive, a rapturous and melodic tinkle.

I could hold back no longer. I rushed by our silent antagonist and felt the same electrical tingle of his presence that I had first sensed coming from des Esseintes in the orchid conservatory. I did not pause to wonder what further metabolic control had enabled Lodovico to conceal this aura from us during our previous exchanges. I was much too concerned in reaching the source of the music. I burst through the doors at the end of the corridor.

Inside was a grand salon all in white, with wall panels in high relief. Here and there white busts, as white as the ivory walls, were inset into oval-shaped niches, and the ceiling was resplendently painted by an unknown Renaissance master. One entire wall was filled with glass doors facing a Tuscan columned loggia, and olive trees lined the cliffs beyond. Through their leaves the sun was setting and flooded the room with vermilion. The panes of the glass must have been very thick, for the olive trees fluttered rapidly in the updraft, but not a sound could be heard inside. The room was luxuriously furnished with white chairs and divans. At one end of the room and set in a recess surrounded by pilasters was a mammoth oil painting. The subject was a strange moonstone goddess, naked and embracing a swan. Around her feet were human infants hatching from eggs. Even if I had never seen the painting before; the pearly shimmer, the dreamlike landscape of crags and mossy hills were all undeniably the work of the master, Leonardo da Vinci. As it was, I did know the painting. It was Leonardo’s famed
Leda and the Swan,
and it had hung in Fontainebleau until it had vanished mysteriously at the end of the seventeenth century.

At the opposite end of the room a tall cabinet sparkled with a collection of Florentine glass. Before the cabinet sat a long, squarish pianoforte, and at the pianoforte sat little Camille.

There are no words to describe the ecstasy I felt. The moment I stepped upon the fine parquet floor she seemed to sense my presence and stopped playing. She turned her empty ashen eyes in my direction and I rushed forward. I cried as I swept her up into my arms. My outburst of emotion surprised me almost as much as it seemed to surprise Ursula as she entered the salon. Camille’s face expressed no emotion, but the tenacity of her grasp, her reluctance to release herself from me, was indication enough of her feeling. At long last I stood her on the floor to get a better look at her.

She was dressed in a blue-and-white-striped frock and her knee stockings were also white. It was surprising to me that she had changed so little, although it shouldn’t have been. Her small button nose still turned up a little. Her chestnut hair curled ever so slightly on either side of the small white neck. Her pale hazel eyes were as blank and frozen as a French porcelain doll, but still in some ineffable way the vacancy of those eyes exuded all that was innocent in the world. I stood for many long moments just holding her tiny hands within my hands as she faced me, when suddenly a thought of utter horror swept through my mind. With cruel forcefulness I grasped her head in either hand and flung it back. I opened her mouth and intrepidly peered in. The relief I experienced was profound. What I had feared was not there. There were no tiny sharpened canines. Her teeth were as normal and pure as a painted angel’s.

Nonetheless, the terror I had felt somehow exemplified all of the doubt and confusion I had suffered. I turned toward Lodovico, who had positioned himself magisterially in the most prominent chair, lb my continued wonder something strange was occurring in his eyes. They were black and smoldering with unknown resources, but I stared bravely into their depths.

“Why did you take her?” I demanded.

For the first time a passionate curiosity rose up in Ursula and she too jerked her head toward the vampire. It was obvious it was a question of critical importance to her as well.