Page 58

My Father set down all but one egg. Leaning over a small earthen bowl on the table, he broke the shell of the egg, carefully gathering the yoke in one side, and letting all the rest spill into his leather cloth. "There, there, pure yoke, Andrei. " He sighed, and then threw the broken shell on the floor.

He picked up the small pitcher and poured the water into the yoke.

"You mix it, mix your colors and work. Remind these-. "

"He works when God calls him to work," declared the Elder, "and when God calls him to bury himself within the Earth, to live the life of the reclusive, the hermit, then will he do that. "

"Like Hell," said my Father. "Prince Michael himself has asked for an Ikon of the Virgin. Andrei, paint! Paint three for me that I may give the Prince the Ikon for which he asks, and take the others to the distant castle of his cousin, Prince Feodor, as he has asked. "

"That castle's destroyed, Father," I said contemptuously. "Feodor and all his men were massacred by the wild tribes. You'll find nothing out there in the wild lands, nothing but stones. Father, you know this as well as I do. We've ridden plenty far enough to see for ourselves. "

"We'll go if the Prince wants us to go," said my Father, "and we'll leave the ikon in the branches of the nearest tree to where his brother died. "

"Vanity and madness," said the Elder. Other priests came into the room. There was much shouting.

"Speak clearly to me and stop the poetry!" cried my Father. "Let my boy paint. Andrei, mix your colors. Say your prayers, but begin. "

"Father, you humiliate me. I despise you. I'm ashamed that I'm your son. I'm not your son. I won't be your son. Shut your filthy mouth or I'll paint nothing. "

"Ah, that's my sweet boy, with the honey rolling off his tongue, and the bees that left it there left their sting too. "

Again, he struck me. This time I became dizzy, but I refused to lift my hands to my head. My ear throbbed.

"Proud of yourself, Ivan the Idiot!" I said. "How can I paint when I can't see or even sit in the chair?"

The priests shouted. They argued amongst one another.

I tried to focus on the small row of earthen jars ready for the yoke and the water. Finally I began to mix the yoke and the water. Best to work and shut them all out. I could hear my Father laugh with satisfaction.

"Now, show them, show them what they mean to wall up alive in a lot of mud. "

"For the love of God," said the Elder.

"For the love of stupid idiots," said my Father. "It isn't enough to have a great painter. You have to have a saint. "

"You do not know what your son is. It was God who guided you to bring him here. "

"It was money," said my Father. Gasps rose from the priests.

"Don't lie to them," I said under my breath. "You know damned good and well it was pride. "

"Yes, pride," said my Father, "that my son could paint the Face of Christ or His Blessed Mother like a Master! And you, to whom I commit this genius, are too ignorant to see it. "

I began to grind the pigments I needed, the soft brownish-red powder, and then to mix it over and over with the yoke and water until every tiny fragment of pigment was broken up and the paint was smooth and perfectly thin and clear. On to the yellow, and then to the red.

They fought over me. My Father lifted his fist to the Elder, but I didn't bother to look up. He wouldn't dare. He kicked my leg in his desperation, sending a cramp through my muscle, but I said nothing. I went on mixing the paint.

One of the priests had come round to my left, and he slipped a clean whitewashed panel of wood in front of me, primed and ready for the holy image.

At last I was ready. I bowed my head. I made the Sign of the Cross in our way, touching my right shoulder first, not my left.

"Dear God, give me the power, give me the vision, give my hands the tutelage which only your love can give!" At once I had the brush with no consciousness of having picked it up, and the brush began to race, tracing out the oval of the Virgin's face, and then the sloping lines of her shoulders and then the outline of her folded hands.

Now when their gasps came, they were tributes to the painting. My Father laughed in gloating satisfaction.

"Ah, my Andrei, my sharp-tongued, sarcastic, nasty ungrateful little genius of God. "

"Thank you, Father," I whispered bitingly, right from the middle of my trancelike concentration, as I myself watched the work of the brush in awe. There her hair, cleaving close to the scalp and parted in the middle. I needed no instrument to make the outline of her halo perfectly round.