Everyone loves a rogue, don’t they? Well, I don’t, that’s for sure. Not any more; I’m all done with rogues.
We leave the café at around eight, and stroll back through the well-lit streets towards the apartment. Florence is so atmospheric by night; I think I almost prefer it once darkness has fallen. It obscures the graffiti and the other imperfections that adorn the city in places where they really shouldn’t be, on walls and archways, even on the huge monuments and churches, and the more subtle light seems to enhance the historic feel of the place, take us back to when it was in its prime. We pass by the majestically up-lit Duomo and the smaller but by no means insignificant Baptistry, whose gilded doors glint with an almost artificial brilliance under the spotlights.
I pause to glance in the window of a tourist-type shop selling postcards and prints of the city’s great artwork. Amongst Botticellis and Giottos of all sizes I spot a small Venus of Urbino towards the back of the display, almost obscured by the other pictures. But to me it is as though she has her own personal spotlight, seizing my attention and rooting me to the spot.
The sudden jolt of seeing her hits me with a lightning bolt of memories from one of the dreams I had in the museum. Someone is painting me; I am nearly naked, reclining on a huge sofa or lounger of some sort. The man in the dream is pacing the room, angry about something, and I am doing my best to calm him down. Eventually he gives in and comes to me, and I have an immense feeling of love, sensuous touch and of being held in a way which makes me feel more cherished than anything on earth. Who is this man, and for that matter who is the woman – the one that I ‘become’ in these dreams? Maybe I have just been looking at too many renaissance paintings, too many reclining nudes, and my subconscious brain keeps trying to transport me back to those times?
Sophia calls to me from the corner of the street, shaking me out of my daydreams. ‘Where did you go to?’ she asks. ‘I’ve been calling you for ages, you seemed to go into some sort of trance, it was a bit weird.’
‘ Oh, it was nothing, I think I was just remembering something from one of those dreams,’ I reply, trying to pass it off as unimportant. She really is going to think I’m a weirdo if I keep doing this, so I decide to keep to myself the memories of what came back to me, quickly changing the subject as I run to catch up with her and the others, who have just disappeared around the next corner. Looks like everyone is piling back to ours, and I am glad of that as the last thing I fancy is a night in on my own. These dreams and the memories of them are starting to give me the creeps a bit and I need a good distraction.
I can’t recall having had recurrent dreams before, although these two weren’t exactly what you could call recurrent; they were more like separate instalments of some bigger story, I think, like there’s some crazy soap opera playing itself out in my head. All I know is that the man and the woman – me – are basically the same in both, but I don’t know why and I don’t know who they are. I don’t know what the ‘me’ in the dreams looks like, although I am quite convinced that she isn’t Lydia Irvine, twenty-first century gal.
That’s enough for now; I don’t really want to have to expend any more thought power on it, it’s wearing me out. What I need is a lively night in with lots of friends.
And that was exactly what I got. Stefano, Lanzo, Dante, and my newly acquired friends Alessandra and Francesca didn’t actually leave until some time well after two o’clock. They were all great company, but they left so late , and as they have all been so nice to me, I would have felt rude sneaking off to my bed halfway through the evening. Spot the would-be English party-pooper.
Oh God, my head. I know I’m a student and therefore should be used to the whole stay-up-late,
We leave the café at around eight, and stroll back through the well-lit streets towards the apartment. Florence is so atmospheric by night; I think I almost prefer it once darkness has fallen. It obscures the graffiti and the other imperfections that adorn the city in places where they really shouldn’t be, on walls and archways, even on the huge monuments and churches, and the more subtle light seems to enhance the historic feel of the place, take us back to when it was in its prime. We pass by the majestically up-lit Duomo and the smaller but by no means insignificant Baptistry, whose gilded doors glint with an almost artificial brilliance under the spotlights.
I pause to glance in the window of a tourist-type shop selling postcards and prints of the city’s great artwork. Amongst Botticellis and Giottos of all sizes I spot a small Venus of Urbino towards the back of the display, almost obscured by the other pictures. But to me it is as though she has her own personal spotlight, seizing my attention and rooting me to the spot.
The sudden jolt of seeing her hits me with a lightning bolt of memories from one of the dreams I had in the museum. Someone is painting me; I am nearly naked, reclining on a huge sofa or lounger of some sort. The man in the dream is pacing the room, angry about something, and I am doing my best to calm him down. Eventually he gives in and comes to me, and I have an immense feeling of love, sensuous touch and of being held in a way which makes me feel more cherished than anything on earth. Who is this man, and for that matter who is the woman – the one that I ‘become’ in these dreams? Maybe I have just been looking at too many renaissance paintings, too many reclining nudes, and my subconscious brain keeps trying to transport me back to those times?
Sophia calls to me from the corner of the street, shaking me out of my daydreams. ‘Where did you go to?’ she asks. ‘I’ve been calling you for ages, you seemed to go into some sort of trance, it was a bit weird.’
‘ Oh, it was nothing, I think I was just remembering something from one of those dreams,’ I reply, trying to pass it off as unimportant. She really is going to think I’m a weirdo if I keep doing this, so I decide to keep to myself the memories of what came back to me, quickly changing the subject as I run to catch up with her and the others, who have just disappeared around the next corner. Looks like everyone is piling back to ours, and I am glad of that as the last thing I fancy is a night in on my own. These dreams and the memories of them are starting to give me the creeps a bit and I need a good distraction.
I can’t recall having had recurrent dreams before, although these two weren’t exactly what you could call recurrent; they were more like separate instalments of some bigger story, I think, like there’s some crazy soap opera playing itself out in my head. All I know is that the man and the woman – me – are basically the same in both, but I don’t know why and I don’t know who they are. I don’t know what the ‘me’ in the dreams looks like, although I am quite convinced that she isn’t Lydia Irvine, twenty-first century gal.
That’s enough for now; I don’t really want to have to expend any more thought power on it, it’s wearing me out. What I need is a lively night in with lots of friends.
And that was exactly what I got. Stefano, Lanzo, Dante, and my newly acquired friends Alessandra and Francesca didn’t actually leave until some time well after two o’clock. They were all great company, but they left so late , and as they have all been so nice to me, I would have felt rude sneaking off to my bed halfway through the evening. Spot the would-be English party-pooper.
Oh God, my head. I know I’m a student and therefore should be used to the whole stay-up-late,
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