Cry to Heaven by Anne Rice Read Free Book Online

together to make a little steeple. He was obviously absorbed in his answer.
    “It’s different before the footlights,” he said. “I wonder if I can explain it. Well, you’ve seen the singers at the—”
    “No, not yet,” Tonio said and he felt a sudden flush. Alessandro would realize how young Tonio was, and how curious was this whole little occasion.
    But Alessandro was merely going on, explaining that on the stage one impersonated another; one had to
act
, to be there in space, to be seen. It wasn’t the same at all in church; it was the voice soaring above everything.
    Tonio took another sip of wine, and just as he was going to say that he wanted so much to see an opera, he realized that Angelo and Beppo had hastily risen. Alessandro suddenly looked down the length of the table. Then he too was on his feet. Tonio followed before he actually picked out of the thin bluish gloom the figure of his father.
    Andrea had just come into the room, his heavy purple robes catching the light, while behind him there stood a host of others. Signore Lemmo, his secretary, was near, and those youngmen who were always about to learn rhetoric and political grace from their revered elder.
    Tonio’s fear was so immediate all thought left him.
    What had he been thinking to invite a guest to supper? But Andrea was right before him. He bent to kiss his father’s hand with no notion of what was about to happen.
    And then he saw his father was smiling.
    Andrea took a chair beside Alessandro, as Tonio watched in absolute amazement. Some of the young men were invited to remain. Signore Lemmo told Giuseppe, the old valet, to light the sconces on the walls, and the blue satin paneling came to life suddenly and beautifully.
    Andrea was talking, making some witticism. And supper was being brought in for him and the young men, and more wine was being poured into Tonio’s glass, and when his father glanced to him there was nothing in his eyes but a lively warmth, a gentleness, a boundless love that showed itself deliberately and generously.
    How long did it go on? Two hours, three? Tonio lay in bed later clinging to every syllable, every bit of laughter. Afterwards they had gone into the parlor again, and for the first time in his life, Tonio had sung for his father. Alessandro sang, too, and then they had shared coffee and slices of fresh melon, and a lovely elaborate ice was brought in to be divided on little silver plates, and his father had offered a pipe of tobacco to Alessandro and even suggested that his young son sample it.
    Andrea looked ancient in this company, the translucent skin of his face so drawn that the skull showed its shape through it; yet the eyes, timeless, softly radiant, were as ever in sharp contradiction to the picture. Nevertheless, his mouth moved at times with an uncertain quiver, and when he rose to bid Alessandro farewell, he did so as if the exertion were painful to him.
    It must have been midnight before the company was gone. And with the same slow and careful movement, Andrea followed Tonio to his rooms, where he had never been save when Tonio was ill. And standing almost ceremoniously in the bedchamber, inspected all with obvious approval.
    He seemed too immense for this place, too grand, and hovered like a pool of shimmering purple light in the midst of it.
    The candle made a melting glow of his thin white hair that seemed to float about his face as if there were no weight to it.
    “You are quite the gentleman, my son,” he said, but there was no reproach in it.
    “Forgive me, Father,” Tonio whispered. “Mamma was ill and Alessandro—”
    His father stopped him with a very slight gesture.
    “I’m pleased with you, my son,” he said. And if there were any other thoughts in his mind, he concealed them.
    But as Tonio lay on the pillow, he felt an agonizing agitation. He could find no place to rest his limbs. His legs and his arms tingled.
    This simple supper had been so like his dreams, his fantasies in