"R. A. MacAvoy - Damiano" - читать интересную книгу автора (MacAvoy R A)

it was nothing like the strongly colored and very Ro-
man appendage that Guillermo Delstrego had borne.
Yet Delstrego had had to admit the child was his,
because witchcraft did not run in his wife's family, and
even as a baby Damiano had given off sparks like a cat.
Was Delstrego in hell? There was gossip that said a
witch was damned from birth, but the Church had
never yet said anything of that sort, and Damiano had
never felt in the slightest bit damned. He attended the
mass weekly, when work permitted, and enjoyed in-
volved theological discussions with his friend Father
Antonio of the First Order of San Francesco. Some-
times, in fact, he felt a little too sure of God's favor, as
when Carla Denezzi let him sort her colored threads,
but he was aware of this fault in himself and chided
himself for an apostate whenever the feeling got out of
hand. His father, though, who died invoking the Devil,
alone knew what... Who could be sure about him?
When he asked Raphael, he was told to trust in God
and not to worry, which was advice that, although
sound, did not answer the question. Damiano prayed
both at matins and at vespers that his father was not in
hell.

It was quite frosty, even though past noon. Cold
enough to snow. The sky was heavy and opaque, like a
pottery bowl tipped over the city, its rim resting on the
surrounding hills and trapping all inside.
Except it had not trapped anyone, anyone but old
Marco and himself. Where had the people gone? Where
had Paolo Denezzi gone, taking his whole family? It
was not that Damiano would miss Denezzi, with his
black beard and blacker temper. His sister Carla,
however...
The whole city was one thing. An undifferentiated
mass of peasants and vendors and artisans called
Partestrada; to Damiano it was all that Florence is to a
Florentine, and more, for it was a small city and in
need of tending. Damiano was on pleasant terms with
everyone, but he usually ate alone.
Carla Denezzi was another matter altogether. She
was blonde, and her blue eyes could go deep, like
Raphael's. Damiano had given her a gilded set of the
works of Thomas Aquinas, which he had gone all the
way to Turin to purchase, and he thought she was the
jewel around Partestrada's throat. Damiano was used
to seeing Carla at the window of her brother's house or
sitting on the loggia like a pretty pink cat, studying
some volume of the desert fathers or doing petit point.
Sometimes she would stop to chat with him, and