The Palace: A Novel

by Lisa St. Aubin de Teran

Overview

One of today's most imaginative and lyrical writers, Lisa St. Aubin de Teran weaves together passion, idealism, and adventures in this mesmerizing fable set against the ornate backdrop of nineteenth-century Italy. The palace is the vision of Gabriele del Campo, a young, idealistic stonemason's apprentice imprisoned for supporting Garibaldi's revolutionary unification of Italy. A poor peasant, he has falen in love at first sight with the rich and beautiful noblewoman Donna Donatella. He yearns to be pulled out of poverty, and dreams of winning Donatellaa's heart and building a palaceworthy of his love.

As del Campo languishes in prison, he takes the first steps toward his dream. His cellmate Colonel Giovanni Vitelli, a nobleman, educates him in the customs of the gentry; meanwhile, in his mind elaborate plans for the palace's construction are already taking shape. Twice escaping execution, del Campo emerges from prison to find wealth as a fearless gambler in the corrupt underworld of Venice. Winning a large estate in Castello at a sinister high-stakes gambling house, Gabriele begins to build the palace of his dreams. At last he might win Donna Donatella's love.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780060956530
Publisher:	HarperCollins
Publication date:	05/03/2000
Edition description:	1 ED
Pages:	272
Product dimensions:	5.31(w) x 8.00(h) x 0.61(d)

About the Author

Lisa St Aubin de Terán is the award-winning author of several novels and has also published a volume of poetry, a collection of short stories, and a memoir, The Hacienda, which was a New York Times Notable Book. She is the founder and managing director of the Teran Foundation, a charitable organization that works to establish schools and farm projects in the north of Mozambique. She lives in Amsterdam.

Read an Excerpt

The sun was rising on a May day in 1860, and when it had burnt a complete circle through the pale morning mist, I, Gabriele del Campo, was to be executed by firing squad. The guards often came and took men away before the corn gruel made its early round. Once the slap and clatter reached our cell, everyone was safe for another twenty-four hours. It was mostly their own side that they shot. We, the enemy, were left to rot between the damp stone walls and the gatherig pools of slime. There was little talking there. Life was a routine shrouded in suspicious silence. All our heroics seemed to be reduced to mildew and numb despair. We survived in that dank atmosphere like transmuted forms of pond life. At best, when some rapport was made, we lived like toads croaking to each other sporadically across a trench of mud. As the shuffle of the gruel can and its ladlers approached, the deserters in our cell stared down at the slippery floor in dull-eyed fear. They were picked at random on these morning calls. They were not forewarned as I had been the night before.

The first light made its mark on the grey veils outside the small barred window that was our only source of light and air. I had watched what was left of my world parade past there. It was a world of boots and shoes. No one was ever visible above the knee. The men and officers, priests and prisoners were all reduced to pollarded marionettes; headless puppets scuffling, walking, marching, and creeping round a forgotten backwater of the war. My sentence made no sense to me, not that I had tried particularly to fathom any reasons. My winter of captivity, the damp, the cold, the appearance and disappearance of boys from the cellwere always less interesting than the sour smell of the tepid slop we ate twice daily. My own left foot was chained nineteen links away from an officer called Vitelli who was unlike any of the other inmates. Had I been less confused, I might have noticed him earlier, but I hadn't. Everything was unreal to me until that day of my proscribed death.

I was immune to thought, and unable to share the fear of the huddled deserters. The first flicker of my plight came not with the footsteps or the turning of the key, but from comparing the pierced fragment of sky to my mother's one grey sheet. I imagined that worn smoky stretch of mended linen being scorched by a rogue spark as it dried by her fire. I felt her dismay at the marring of her most prized possession. Then I felt a foretaste of her grief for me, and with it came a sharp pain in my chest and a reluctance to breathe that rendered me unable to answer my name. It was called again.

This is the chronicle of my rebirth; the vision of my life after death. If you will let me be the custodian of your attention for a while, I will tell you how I entered the world of paradox. I will lead you from the prison where I was free to dream (and dreamt to keep my sanity) to the liberty of obsession. Such terms are other people's words. I will use my own, beginning with what would have been my last night.

I lay on my part of the stone shelf in the darkness unable to sleep because of the cold cramps in my shins. In my village, the hay for the mules would have long since been gathered, and the barley and corn would both be almost ripe. The first tomatoes would be swelling green on their fragile stalks, drinking in the daily sun. These were the months of drought and heat. Only this holy stone seemed to recognize no seasons. Despite my tiredness, I lay there, holding myself and thinking about a woman. Then I felt a gentle movement; a tide beneath the ice. I knew that Vitelli was awake too. He never pulled on our shared chain when he was awake; only when he slept would he draw me unconsciously towards him as though trying to reduce the gulf that always separated us despite our enforced intimacy. I could sense his eyes blinking, registering the visible and the invisible in an uncanny way that he had. Vitelli would not be thinking about a woman; there was something Jesuitical about him that seemed too austere for that. He was a man of ideas and ideals. I used to think that all we two had in common were our nineteen links of chain and our predicament. We were both prisoners of war, held at the pleasure of the Vatican States. We had fought for Garibaldi and the Red Shirts, me for wages, he for his belief. Now, camp follower and colonel found themselves sharing a bed, married under cover of night, their bodies joined in heavy wedlock.

Donna Donatella, you never would lift your silken skirts for me. No, and you never even lifted your eyes. I am twenty-two now, I was a mere child then, but I have always longed for you. The New Year frosts were no worse than the ache I have felt for you because of my unworthiness. I served my apprenticeship for you. I cut my fingers to the bone learning to carve in stone. I can carve angels' wings with more skill than many an artisan. Is it the remoteness of my memory or my own failure to exist that will not lift your skirt even in my dreams? There is no illicit waft of the orange flower water you sprinkled on your petticoats; one sniff would do. Even the hem of your gown seems weighted with stone...

Editorial Reviews

"An exotic and bewitching fable of ninetenth-century Venice from "a literary tiger."-- "The Times, " London

From the Publisher