The Glassblower of Murano - Marina Fiorato [82]
In his romantic mind,Aldo Savini became a knight championing the cause of the blonde Principessa. He saw himself facing the black knight, Ermanno Padovani, in the lists of bibliographical knowledge. He was determined to provide her with some sort of breakthrough, before the Professore, so he would be her hero.
Over the coming months of deepest winter, Aldo Savini's chivalric fantasy took a fresh turn. Because it soon became clear that the Principessa was pregnant. He saw her belly swell, her angel face take on a rounded, cherubic aspect. Once he saw her, lost in a ship's register, with her hair swept to one side of her swan's neck, writing in a notebook that was balanced on her belly. His heart nearly failed. He, Aldo Savini, would protect her from her foul seducer, whomever he might be. He would help her finish her quest. He must think hard for that breakthrough. And then one day, the breakthrough came.
For many weeks now, Aldo had realized that certain French elements were creeping into the search. Questions about shipping, about the Palace of Versailles, about glass trade to Paris, about the court of Louis XIV the Sun King. Then it struck him - if the Principessa was interested in any of the courts of Europe in the seventeenth century, there was one ubiquitous character who would always be able to help her, a personage who hailed from this very city.
The Venetian Ambassador.
La Principessa had been very excited when he showed her the document. After reading it three times, she dragged the volume of letters over to his desk with a speed that made him fear for her condition, which was now very advanced. She badgered him about making a copy, till at last he took the letter in question to the private inner sanctum where the specialized scanners and printers lay dormant. Squat and expensive, these machines could copy even the most delicate parchment with the use of infra-red laser technology. Not for these documents the exposure to the harsh bands of light of the office photocopier, thought Aldo Savini tenderly. He took the pages back to the Principessa, who waited at his desk. She grasped the pages to her belly, face-up as if she did not want the child to read the contents from within her. She looked agitated, but not particularly happy. Still, ever good mannered, she gave him one of her peerless smiles.
`Thank you, Signor Savini,' she said.
He pushed his glasses up his nose, gathering courage, but she had already turned before he had uttered the name `Aldo.'
She had not heard him - she was walking away through the bookstacks, her mind already elsewhere. And in the grand chivalric tradition to which Aldo Savini was so attached, he never saw her again.
CHAPTER 28
The Ambassador
When Jules Hardouin-Mansart, chief architect of the Palace ofVersailles, showed Corradino the plans for what he called the `Salon des Glaces' even Corradino had a moment of thinking that it could not be done. There were to be twenty-one huge mirrors, each with twenty-one panes. Each pane was to be exquisite, flat, true and with a crystalclear reflection. There was to be no bevel at the edge, so that the glass would appear as one piece, with no interruptions to the reflected image. Moreover, each glass was to reflect exactly the window opposite it, so exterior light and interior light were partnered, to create, as HardouinMansart said, the lightest room in the world. There was also to be fantastic series of frescoes on the ceiling, depicting the King's life and the glories of France. These were to be painted by Royal Painter