"I want you, my son, stay with me," said the man. His drunken languor had left him, and he held tight to Amadeo's hand. "Who will ever believe that I saw you?"
Amadeo's tears had risen. Could the man see the blood?
At last Amadeo pulled back, and removing his glove, he pulled off his rings, and he placed these in his father's hands.
"Remember me by these," he said, "and tell my mother that I was the man who came to see her tonight. She didn't know me. Tell her the gold is good gold. "
"Stay with me, Andrei," said the father. "This is your home. Who is it that takes you away now? "
It was more than Amadeo could bear.
"I live in the city of Venice, Father," he said. "It's what I know now I have to go. "
He was out of the tavern so quickly his father could not see it, and I, once seeing what he meant to do, had preceded him, and we stood in the snow-covered muddy street together.
"It's time for us to leave this place, Master," he said to me. His gloves were gone, and the cold was fierce. "Oh, but that I had never come here and never seen him and never known that he suffered that I had been lost. "
"But look," I said, "your mother comes. I'm sure of it. She knew you and there, she comes," I pointed at the small figure approaching who held a bundle in her arms.
"Andrei," she said as she dr
ew closer. "It's the last one you ever painted. Andrei, I knew it was you. Who else would have come? Andrei, this is the ikon your father brought back on the day you were lost. "
Why didn't he take it from her hands?
"You must keep it, Mother," he said of this ikon which he had once linked to his destiny. He was weeping. "Keep it for the little ones. I won't take it, no. "
Patiently, she accepted this.
And then another small present she entrusted to him, a painted egg¡ªone of those treasures of Kiev which mean so much to the people who decorate them with intricate designs.
Quickly, gently, he took it from her, and then he embraced her, and in a fervent whisper assured her that he had done nothing wicked to acquire his wealth and that he might some night be able to come again. Oh, what lovely lies.
But I could see that this woman, though he loved her, did not matter to him. Yes, he would give her gold, for that meant nothing. But it was the man who had mattered. The man mattered as the monks had mattered. It was the man who had wrung the strong emotions from him. The man had brought from him bold words.
I was stunned by all. But wasn't Amadeo stunned by it himself? He had thought the man dead, and so had I.
But finding him alive, Amadeo had revealed the obsession¡ªthe man had fought the monks for Amadeo's very soul.
And as we made our journey back to Venice, I knew that Amadeo's love for his father was far greater than any love he had ever felt for me.
We did not speak of it, you understand, but I knew that it was the figure of his father who reigned in Amadeo's heart. It was the figure of that powerful bearded man who had so vigorously fought for life rather than death within the monastery who held supremacy over all conflicts that Amadeo was ever to know.
I had seen it with my own eyes, this obsession. I had seen it in a matter of moments in a riverfront tavern, but I had known it for what it was.
Always before this journey to Russia I had thought the split in Amadeo's mind was between the rich and varied art of Venice and the strict and stylized art of old Russia.
But now I knew that was not so.
The split in him was between the monastery with its ikons and its penance on the one hand, and his father, the robust hunter who had dragged him away from the monastery on that fateful day.
Never again did Amadeo speak of his father and mother. Never again did he speak of Kiev. The beautiful painted egg he placed within his sarcophagus without ever explaining its significance to me.
And on certain nights when I painted in my studio, working fiercely on this or that canvas, he would come to keep me company, and it seemed he perused my work with new eyes.
When would he finally pick up the brushes and paint? I didn't know, but such a question didn't matter anymore. He was mine and mine forever. He could do what he pleased.
Yet silently in my secret soul, I suspected that Amadeo held me in contempt. All I taught of art, of history, of beauty, of civilization¡ªall this was meaningless to him.