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| "La Sophiale de Montparnasse" |
The dream is the small, hidden door in the deepest, most intimate sanctum of the soul. ~ Carl Jung
I had the most surreal dream the other night.
After her talk on Joanna I of Naples, Maria de Naglowska crossed the crowded marble floor of the opulent banquet hall and slipped into my half-circle booth. She wore sheer black lace and sat composed, almost statuesque. I lit her cigarette, and the smoke curled around her shoulders, softening the boundary between body and air. At her nod, I poured strong black tea into a glass nestled in an ornate podstakannik. Grey Osetra caviar waited between us, uneaten. Its briny perfume was sharp and distinctly Caspian.
As though continuing a conversation from another lifetime (or another dream), we spoke of Botticelli’s Birth of Venus. She echoed my own reaction when I first saw it at the Uffizi. Prints and online reproductions do it no justice, and its reputation only becomes intelligible in person. Strangely, her voice sounded a lot like Natasha Fatale, the lanky Transylvanian femme fatale from The Rocky and Bullwinkle Show. What surprised me more was not the resemblance, but her familiarity with the internet.
Behind a heavy velvet drape, a hidden choral ensemble unfurled the dissonant madrigals of Carlo Gesualdo da Venosa, voices colliding and parting, beautiful and wrong. The Stile Floreale room breathed luxury, with mirrors threaded with gold veins, and cigarette haze thick as felt. It was a cultural crossroads crowded with artists, intellectuals, and nobility, though I could not say why I had been admitted.
The evening honored a newly discovered painting of the Queen of Naples, long shadowed by rumor, unveiled here for the first time. As dreams are wont to do, the image changed its likeness. Instead of an early Renaissance portrait by an unknown hand, the painting looked uncannily like the pin-up of a young Brigitte Bardot I once kept in my high-school locker.
Touching my neck with her satin-gloved hand, Maria leaned closer and murmured, "Let’s get out of here, darling," languid and indulgent, her tone now pure Zsa Zsa Gabor.
The incongruity finally roused me. I was at my desk. My study was dark save for the green glow of the antique Emeraldite lamp. Gesualdo's madrigals still played, my playlist caught on repeat. Beneath my hand lay an old copy of Mystical Symbolism: The Salon de la Rose+Croix in Paris, 1892-1897. Loose tea leaves clung to the bottom of my cup of Russian Caravan. For a moment, before the room fully settled into itself, I could still smell smoke and brine and feel the faint brush of satin fingers on the back of my shaven pate.
~ By Giovanni di Napoli, October 30th, Feast of Sant'Angelo d'Acri
Also see:
• The Toll of the Corbies (A Halloween Tale)
After her talk on Joanna I of Naples, Maria de Naglowska crossed the crowded marble floor of the opulent banquet hall and slipped into my half-circle booth. She wore sheer black lace and sat composed, almost statuesque. I lit her cigarette, and the smoke curled around her shoulders, softening the boundary between body and air. At her nod, I poured strong black tea into a glass nestled in an ornate podstakannik. Grey Osetra caviar waited between us, uneaten. Its briny perfume was sharp and distinctly Caspian.
As though continuing a conversation from another lifetime (or another dream), we spoke of Botticelli’s Birth of Venus. She echoed my own reaction when I first saw it at the Uffizi. Prints and online reproductions do it no justice, and its reputation only becomes intelligible in person. Strangely, her voice sounded a lot like Natasha Fatale, the lanky Transylvanian femme fatale from The Rocky and Bullwinkle Show. What surprised me more was not the resemblance, but her familiarity with the internet.
Behind a heavy velvet drape, a hidden choral ensemble unfurled the dissonant madrigals of Carlo Gesualdo da Venosa, voices colliding and parting, beautiful and wrong. The Stile Floreale room breathed luxury, with mirrors threaded with gold veins, and cigarette haze thick as felt. It was a cultural crossroads crowded with artists, intellectuals, and nobility, though I could not say why I had been admitted.
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| "The Temptress of St. Tropez" |
Touching my neck with her satin-gloved hand, Maria leaned closer and murmured, "Let’s get out of here, darling," languid and indulgent, her tone now pure Zsa Zsa Gabor.
The incongruity finally roused me. I was at my desk. My study was dark save for the green glow of the antique Emeraldite lamp. Gesualdo's madrigals still played, my playlist caught on repeat. Beneath my hand lay an old copy of Mystical Symbolism: The Salon de la Rose+Croix in Paris, 1892-1897. Loose tea leaves clung to the bottom of my cup of Russian Caravan. For a moment, before the room fully settled into itself, I could still smell smoke and brine and feel the faint brush of satin fingers on the back of my shaven pate.
~ By Giovanni di Napoli, October 30th, Feast of Sant'Angelo d'Acri
Also see:
• The Toll of the Corbies (A Halloween Tale)
