IL CONSERVATORIO
Kerwin L. Schaefer
When I reached the conservatory where I was to study, I found that my father had lied about its location. It was in the city of Milan, far to the north of Rome. Well, why should I care? One place was, after all, as good as another, and Milan seemed a wondrous city indeed to a boy from my rural background. The Cathedral, still being built since construction was begun some 200 years ago, was nevertheless glorious in its size and grandeur.
While the city itself awed me immensely, the conservatory was not to my liking at all. Located a few blocks from the Cathedral, it seemed dank and plain in comparison. All I had that was my own was a hard pallet in the dormitory, a long and dingy room which I shared with some fifteen sniveling youngsters, the older and more accomplished students having been granted the luxury of their own rooms on an upper level. This was hardly the fine life I had been accustomed to at home.
At first I wrote daily letters to my dear mother, pouring out my troubles and sorrows. However, these pitiful missives were soon returned by the man I had reason to think was not my true father, along with a harsh note that my mother had no interest in hearing from me. I believed this not at all and would fain have continued my correspondence except that I now realized my words would never reach my mother's ears. Nor, clearly, would she ever learn of the harsh treatment to which my so-called father had had me subjected.
For her part, receiving no letters from me, she must surely think I no longer cared. I vowed to return one day and tell her all, but until that time should come, I was denied even the comfort of her distant sympathy and love. Whenever my eye fell upon the garnet ring that she had given me, I had to fight back tears. And yet it served its purpose well: her memory was never further away than my own hand. Through the years, as that hand grew larger and the ring moved bit by bit from forefinger on my right hand to smallest finger on my left hand, it has never ceased to bring back fond thoughts of the first woman I ever truly loved.
Early on in my studies, it became clear that I did not have the gift of music. My voice was only mediocre. Had it not been for the fees duly paid each year by my accursed father, I would certainly have been discharged as hopeless.
At times, I would go by myself to a small Benedictine monastery nearby, to listen to the monks chant the Office. The purity and simplicity of the chanting fascinated and charmed me. My soul seemed almost to fly from my body and soar upward towards the clouds. I closed my eyes and imagined lovely visions of glory. Sometimes, in a humbler mood, I replayed fond memories of my dear mother to the sound of the monk's voices. There was a vast sense of antiquity and the past, surviving now only in the single melodic line, sung in unison and free of rhythm. I knew it was some of the oldest music I would ever hear, with a heritage stretching back for almost a thousand years from the time of Pope Gregory the First.
Singing in the conservatory choir in the great Cathedral was my biggest joy. As part of the many swelling voices, my own was but a humble thread. I was not chosen for the difficult passages or the solo renditions, yet still I was participating in the glorious ceremony of the Mass. I poured my love of God, if not of music, into my singing in the choir, where my voice was lost amidst the grand total of sound made by the rest of the singers.
As time passed, I resigned myself to the fact that I was not very impressive physically either. The other boys grew tall; their bodies filled out. I grew a little, until I thought I might have bettered my fondly remembered mother's height, but that was all. While the others filled out, new muscles straining against the sleeves of their black students' robes, I had to work hard just to keep the fat from sticking to my ungainly bones, nibbling at foods the others devoured hungrily. One by one, their voices dropped into a man's register and they ceased to sing the soprano parts. Some of the better singers felt this as a great tragedy, their fine high voices gone forever. Accordingly, there was a certain amount of resentment directed towards me for my perpetual soprano, but it was well mixed with pity. Although I heard that there were other castrati in the bigger conservatories elsewhere, I remained the only one of my kind here, an object of curiosity and disdain to the "normal" boys.
As a result of the others in my class maturing, I soon found myself singing with the younger boys. That was all right. At least with them as a comparison, I did not seem so untalented as I knew I was.
After awhile, seeing that my voice was not of the best quality, I tried learning other instruments, taking up the harpsichord, the recorder, the lute. Alas, I found myself no better than average even then! I simply did not have that special gift required to lift one to greatness.
My teachers sighed and shook their heads, consigning me to the ranks of the ordinary. They spoke comfortingly of a post as choirmaster somewhere in a humble rural parish. They allowed me to get by with only perfunctory work on my music studies. I was not destined to be a genius, a shining light, a paragon, so why waste their time on me, when there were others more talented who responded better to their training?
So be it then. Although I struggled dutifully to master my lessons as well as I could, more and more I found that my heart was elsewhere. I turned my interests in the direction of my natural talent, studying the sacred languages of history. I polished my Latin and by my third year could also read Greek passably well. When a new teacher arrived from the Frankish kingdom to the north, it wasn't long before I could speak with him in his own tongue.
I was allowed access not only to the conservatory library but also to the library of manuscripts at the monastery, so I took full advantage of this privilege, ferreting out long-unused religious texts in languages even some of the maestros or monks did not know so well as did I. I read all the way through the hand-copied and richly illuminated Latin Bible that was always open on its ornate stand in the center of the library, frequently shocked and surprised at the myriad of things it contained. At night I lay in my narrow bed and pondered the mysteries of the Trinity, the teachings of the ancient Church Fathers, the Summa Theologica of St. Thomas Aquinas, with its 38 Treatises and 612 Questions. Grand thoughts and visions inhabited my head in those days. I trembled on the edge of understanding the sacred mysteries of the universe.
Or so I thought at the time. However, there was one sacred mystery that was soon to be revealed to my youthful understanding, and it had nothing whatsoever to do with the intricacies of Divinity.
Knowing I was unable to father children did not bother me at all. I never have understood the attraction of the mewling little brats. Women seem to value them excessively much, but I put that deficiency down to their inborn mothering feelings.
As a result of my own indifference, I found myself much puzzled over the older boys' growing interest in females. I saw little in those overly lush bodies to hold my attention, much less my arousal. I kept my silence when the others would discuss womanly charms, carefully out of the hearing of our stern teachers. My disinterest was assumed to be based on the mutilation of my genitals, and the other students thought little of it, or perhaps merely pitied me the more on that account.
In an attempt to find a blessing in my cursed state, I tried to convince myself that a lack of interest in women would surely allow me to be free of that temptation, and thus able to devote myself to the study of theology and the service of God.
How then was I to understand the strange stirrings in my loins on the occasions when I would catch a glimpse of the older boys' nakedness?
It was not the younger boys amongst whom I lived who caught my interest, for their smooth and hairless bodies were very much like my own. The older students seemed to me very different, with their developing genitals protruding magnificently from dark tufts of curly hair, and patches of that same hair sprouting in armpits and spreading over chests and bodies, giving proof of their soon to be established manhood. The hard muscles that could be seen on arms and thighs. The sharpened angles and planes of their faces, some already decorated with mustaches or small beards. It was to these visions that my poor body thrilled and my soul yearned. And I could not understand why this should be.
Was there a form of pleasure possible for me? I knew what animals did, for I had seen it on my father's estate. Yet I also knew that the castrated sheep did not mount the ewes, nor the capons the hens. Nor had I ever seen a male attempt to mount another male, castrated or otherwise.
So what was I to think of the strange thoughts and urges that haunted me while I sneaked glimpses at the older boys? Or the sinful dreams that came to me by night? Or worse, the imaginings that strayed into my mind while I watched certain of the priests say Mass? Under the rich vestments, what did their mature bodies look like? While I sang the holy melodies, I would wonder. As their hands lifted the consecrated Wafer, a thrill would pass over me, wondering what those same hands would feel like were they to grasp my body and clutch it tightly to theirs.
No matter how fervently I prayed that God would banish these and other even more sinful thoughts, my dissolute mind would persist in wallowing in its own filth.
I discovered that even a castrato could feel lust. My member, small and immature as it might be, could grow hard. And there were dreams. But those dreams never reached fulfillment, and my sheets were never marked with the shameful stains, as others' sometimes were. Indeed, I was not sure if I was even capable of such a thing.
I kept all this secret, even from my confessor. To be sure, I admitted to having impure thoughts. Doesn't every boy? But I never divulged the exact nature of those thoughts, and I performed my prescribed penances zealously, even excessively, in my striving to be free of this lust. I succeeded only insofar as I never acted upon my desires. I was aware of the foul practices the other boys performed on themselves with their own hands, in their beds at night, or when they thought they were alone, but I resolutely refused myself even that.
The years went by, and I grew older but no wiser in these matters.
And then Bishop Angelo Mateo Francesco D'Albertini arrived at the Cathedral, as a temporary assistant for the old bishop, who was in ill health.
From the first moment I saw Bishop D'Albertini say Mass, I could not take my eyes off of him. Standing before the altar, resplendent in his rich vestments, he seemed to me an angel from the Lord.
I do not know exactly what it was about the man that so affected me. He was no more than medium height. Certainly no taller than I. He had to have been quite a bit more than my own sixteen years, but his large and wide-set dark eyes made for a deceptively child-like appearance. His hair was very black, with a slight waviness to it.
When I knelt before him at the railing to receive Communion, I had to hide my fascination behind a sedate and pious expression. The coarse hair I could see growing profusely on the backs of his hands and fingers as he placed the consecrated Wafer on my tongue indicated the likelihood of a hairy body as well. Indeed, above his neatly trimmed goatee, his cheeks showed the dark shadow of a heavy beard that could probably never be entirely shaved off.
He chanted the Mass in a rich tenor. It had such power that I could make out his voice singing along with the choir.
After that first day, I spent many mornings at the Cathedral even when the choir was not needed, attending his Masses, wanting only to watch him and blend inconspicuously in with the rest of the faithful, imagining my prayers ascending to heaven intertwined with his own. I soon developed a reputation for devotion and piety, which did me no harm at all.
Many times during these services, the Bishop's eyes would touch upon mine. Sometimes I saw a flash of something in those dark depths, but I knew not what it was.
Springtime was full of glory for me that year, as I spent many hours in silent adoration of my beloved Bishop. But things were not to continue in such a halcyon fashion. Not long after I turned seventeen, on a fine day in early May, my life changed once again.
I was summoned peremptorily to the office of the head of the conservatory. Not being one of those extraordinary few students whom the Maestro deigned to teach personally, I barely knew the man, except by sight. I could not imagine what such a summons might portend.
In this case, it turned out to be an evil stroke of fortune for me. As I stood trembling before the massive carved oaken desk, hardly daring to raise my eyes, the great man disdainfully held out to me a folded sheet of paper.
I took it, recognizing my father's untidy handwriting. The words are burned into my memory, as clear today as they were then, and just as evocative of pain.
Karl,
Your mother is dead of the coughing sickness. She was buried today. I will no longer waste my money paying for you to stay at the conservatory. You must now make your own way in the world. Live or die, I care not which, but never return here.
Heinrich von Lindenheim
Fighting back my tears, I looked up at the Maestro. There was neither sympathy nor compassion on his face. Failures in musical talent were not well liked by such a one as he.
"How soon must I leave, Maestro?" I asked numbly.
"Your fees are paid until the end of this month. Beyond that –" He shook his head.
"I understand." Turning away, I left the room.
Several days later, when my first shocked grief had lessened somewhat and the bulk of my tears for my dear mother had been shed, it came home to me what a bad predicament I was in. With no wealth of my own, and no chance of a future in music, where would I go? What would I do? I had given no thought to my future before, thinking to at least have my father's financial support, if nothing else. My pitifully poor musical skills would hardly be sufficient to gain me a position at any church that could afford better. Indeed, even could I handle such a position, I had no way to seek it out. Usually the conservatory found a place for its students, even the less-talented ones. But I, who had been tolerated only for the fees my father had sent, would simply be cast out.
As the month wore on and the days of my present comfort and security grew inexorably less, I became frantic with fear. I had spoken to those few of the teachers who had taken any interest in me at all, and they had had nothing to suggest, other than that I should return to my family estate and throw myself on my father's mercy. (How little they knew of the quality of my father's mercy!)
I withdrew into myself, deserting my usual linguistic studies and avoiding the other boys as much as I could. My stomach sick with fear, my heart pounding each time I thought of my future, I knew not how to deal with my situation. Hours passed while I wept alone on my knees before the side altar in the Cathedral devoted to the Virgin Mary, praying for my mother's soul as fervently as for deliverance from my present woes. Sometimes I fell asleep on the hard stone floor. Everyone at the conservatory avoided me, seeing the desperation gathering behind my red-rimmed eyes.
It was during the final week of May, as I knelt praying, clutching the hand that bore my mother's ring to my breast, that my deliverance finally arrived. So distraught was I that I did not even hear the footsteps of the man who approached me from behind. My eyes were tightly closed, my thoughts and entreaties directed silently to the Lord of Hosts, when a hand came to rest on my shoulder.
I shrieked and leapt to my feet, only to find myself face to face with Bishop D'Albertini, who stood there alone, his gold and blue robes luminous against the dim late-afternoon light coming through the stained glass windows.
I am not certain which of us was the more surprised at my strange behavior. Astonished, I fell to my knees before the handsome apparition confronting me, not entirely certain if he was real or merely a vision.
"Forgive me, Your Excellency," I implored. "I did not realize you were there."
He smiled, and it was as if a beneficent sun shone upon me. "Please," he replied kindly, "stand up." Studying my tear-streaked face, he went on, "You are called Karl, are you not?"
"Yes, Your Excellency." I rose uncertainly. Why should he even know my name? To him, I could be but one of many boys singing in the conservatory choir.
"Will you walk outside with me, my child?" He turned toward the small side door nearest us, simply assuming that I would follow as a matter of course.
Once out of doors, he walked across the courtyard and out into the extensive Cathedral grounds, with me trailing dutifully behind. For a brief time we strolled in silence. I realized we were heading to a less frequented section, where the graveled walkway passed through a wooded glen. As the shadows closed around us, he gave a sigh. Spying an iron bench by the side of the path, he sat upon it.
"Would you sit with me for a while, boy?"
"Right willingly will I do so, Your Excellency." I had begun to regain control of my wits by now, curiosity and fascination overcoming my earlier confusion. I perched beside him, careful not to encroach upon the edges of his fine robes.
For a moment, he stared out at the woods surrounding us. The sun was sinking low in the west, and the shadows spread themselves darkly through the branches. I took small, quick glances at his profile: the straight nose, the fine lips, the luminous brown eyes I had admired so much at a distance now close beside me. I hardly dared to breathe.
Still facing away from me, he remarked at last, "I find myself curious about this boy who spends so much time on his knees before the Virgin," he remarked softly, leaving me to wonder how he knew anything of what I had been doing lately.
Then he turned to me, his brown eyes fastening on my averted face as I watched him from under my eyelashes. With a firm finger beneath my chin, he lifted my head. "I have felt the heat in your glances when you watch me at the altar, my child. Even now, you look at me while pretending that you do not."
The Bishop laid his other hand on my shoulder, squeezing it gently. I could feel the strength in that grip, should he wish to use it. Under that caressing hand, I trembled. Was I so easily observed for what I was?
His hand moved down my back, then around to the top of my thigh. I dared not move nor speak, as his fingers brushed what remained of my sex.
Leaning closer, he spoke almost into my ear, his warm breath sending shivers up my spine. "I know what has been done to you, boy."
With his hand still resting upon my groin, I could neither draw away nor trust myself to speak.
"I feel your desire, Karl. Can one such as you take pleasure in this" he asked, stroking my excited organ gently through the folds of cloth.
"Yes, Your Excellency," I murmured, shocked by the question.
He nodded slightly. Raising the hem of my cassock, he reached beneath it, moving his hand up above my stockings to the bare flesh of my thigh. His lips found mine, as his other arm pulled me close against the side of his body. Hidden beneath the folds of my robe, his fingers worked their way inside my undergarment. Despite the shame of having my pitiful sex touched by another, I allowed him to fondle me.
He was clearly exploring me at first. Only when he had satisfied his curiosity did his caresses become erotic. I gasped, letting my head fall back. He whispered, "Touch me, boy."
Obediently, I slid my own hand under the rich brocade of his ecclesiastical robes, groping upwards to find his genitals. Never had I touched an adult man before. The size of his organ, swollen with passion, was no little surprise to my naïve fingers.
As he had done with me, so also did I explore him. The hair-covered and wrinkled sac behind his penis was tight and drawn upward against his body, unlike the soft bags I had seen on other boys when we had stood urinating together.
Fascinated with the sensations of touching him, I mimicked the motions of his fingers on my own body, wanting to show my eagerness to please him. His touch was like fire on my small organ, teasing, pulling, one moment tickling, and the next so tight it was almost pain. I moaned as the intense pleasure reached its bursting point. So overwhelmed was I that I almost thought I was dying when my own fluid spurted out and over his hand. Until then, I had not known I was capable of such a thing.
Abruptly, he released me. Grasping my shoulders, he pushed me downward off the bench so that I knelt before him. "Use your mouth on me, Karl," he ordered hoarsely, raising his robe and then letting it drop until it covered my head and body.
The musky smell of his groin overwhelmed me. Eagerly, I leaned forward, my mouth joining my seeking fingers. Uncertain of exactly what I was expected to do, I kissed his hardened organ. It was dark beneath his robe, so I could see little, working on him by touch alone. His moans, muffled by the layers of cloth covering my head, increased, and his body made thrusting movements. I parted my lips, taking the crown of his organ into my mouth. Immediately, he thrust harder, pushing into me until I gagged over the fierce onslaught of his manhood. As I fought for breath, his seed pumped copiously down my throat.
When it was over, shame flooded through me. I crumpled to the ground in tears, leaving the Bishop to step clear of my huddled body and rearrange his robes.
"What troubles you, Karl?" he asked at last. "You did wonderfully. Did you not also enjoy your own pleasure?"
I dared to glance up at him. All I saw in his face was puzzlement and confusion. "But it's a sin, Your Excellency."
He shook his head sadly, as if he expected better of me. "Only to uneducated fools, my poor child. Come, what harm have we done?"
"But – But your vow of chastity --" I stuttered in consternation.
"Pooh! Chastity refers to the act between a man and a woman, for the sake of begetting children."
I had never heard chastity defined quite so narrowly before, but who was I to challenge a Bishop of the Church? Even so, there were other problems with what we had done. "Then what of the Holy Bible?" I persisted. "Leviticus -- A man may not lie with another man --"
"Ah, but you are not truly another man, are you?"
Taken aback, my mouth gaped open.
"You're not a man, Karl. You're a castrato, a eunuch. God's Laws don't apply to this. You're in a different category entirely."
There was something wrong with his reasoning, but I was too totally perplexed to know what it was. "But – but –"
With a genial smile, he drew me to my feet and wrapped me in his arms, my tear-stained cheek crushed against the rich brocade of his mantle. "Ah, my little one, your concern does you honor," he soothed. "But you need not worry about sin. We two, we are not mere people. We are beyond the foolish rules made for ordinary men." He held me away at arm's length, large brown eyes inviting me to share his exalted viewpoint. "I am your Bishop. If it was sinful, would I not have told you so?"
I was not entirely convinced by his reasoning, but I could not resist the cajoling smile on his face. "Yes, Your Excellency," I murmured dutifully.
His fingers tightened on my shoulders. "Dear boy, I know about your troubles here. I know you have to leave the conservatory soon."
"How do you – " I started, but he laid a finger across my lips.
"I have ways of finding things out." His finger moved slowly around my mouth, teasing my lips gently. "I know more about you than you can imagine, and I can help you, if you wish."
"How?" I whispered. Unbidden, my tongue flicked out to lick that circling finger.
"I will go far in the Church, Karl. I know it. I have just been granted an assignment in Florence. You could come with me, as assistant to the choirmaster there."
"Your Excellency, I am not worthy of such a position," I protested, only too aware of my lack of musical talent. Surely, if he knew as much about me as he claimed, he must also know what a poor student I was.
"I have investigated your record here at the conservatory, and you are worthy of anything I say you are, boy." The liquid brown eyes turned hard. The finger on my lips pressed harder, prying at my teeth.
Assistant choirmaster at a cathedral! Far higher than I could have aspired on my own. A livelihood that I could pursue, despite the actions of my perfidious father. And I could be with Bishop D'Albertini on a daily basis, answerable only to him.
"I would be honored, Your Excellency," I murmured, drawing that probing finger into my mouth and sucking on it as I watched his brown eyes melt with a now-familiar lust.
As the favorite of the Bishop, my station at the conservatory improved considerably. I was called often to His Excellency's office for interviews, ostensibly for the purpose of instruction in what would be my new duties.
For the remainder of that month, I found myself treated with a distant but definite deference by everyone at the conservatory, master and boy alike. At times, I thought that deference might be tinged with contempt, especially from the masters, as if it were obvious to all that I had been chosen for my talents in an art far less exalted than music.
There was no talk of my leaving when June began. Apparently, I was to be permitted to stay until His Excellency summoned me to accompany him to Florence.
At last word came that I was to make ready to leave. I had little enough to take with me, but I once again filled my small trunk with my belongings, shedding more than a few tears over the memories that were invoked by doing so. Last time, my sainted mother had been alive and helping me with the task. Now I was alone, bound for what I fully expected would be a glorious future in the Church, with someone like Bishop D'Albertini as my patron.
I was still uncomfortable about the things we did together in his office. I knew enough about the Church's teachings to realize the speciousness of his reasoning, but at an even deeper level, I did not want to know better. Indeed, I could not afford to do so.
Barely had I finished packing my belongings when a knock sounded at the door and a fine new trunk was delivered to me! When I opened the lid, my eyes were confronted with a riot of bright color and shimmering fabrics. I needed no note or other explanation: it was clear that the Bishop wanted his minions to make a fine appearance, and I was to have all this as my new wardrobe.
As I drew each bit of finery from the collection and held it up to examine, my heart grew light and filled with joy. Surely, my future in the Church would be as fine and rich as these lovely robes. It was an omen, a portent of things to come.
Or so I thought, at the time.
