Cry to Heaven - Anne Rice

castrato【義】做閹割手術的歌手(十六∼十八世紀在義大利, 閹割男童以保持其女音)

cIt was the year 1715, Louis XIV, le roi soleil of France, had just died, Peter the Great was the czar of Russia. In the far-off North American colony of Masschusetts, Benjamin Franklin was nine years old. George I had just taken the throne of England.

with its acrobatic flexibility colored by so much sadness.

The physician was unnamed for his own protection.

exonerate使免受指控

irrevocable decision

It was a nightmare, yet it was impossible to wake up or get out. It went on and on, and every time he opened his eyes he was still there.

Imagine, if you will, that life is still livable, that life is even --- well, good.

you could have bested any natural man!

Carlo had done evil to him, irrevocable evil.

What lay before Tonio? What emerged from this chaos? What had become of Tonio Treschi...?

And this became a ritual with him every nihgt for years, the feel of that earth and the rumble of that mountain.

He had put the past behind him.

you have known so much pain.

I am some creature whoes name i can't bear to speak. Help me!

What did it matter that he had once known worse pain?

Capon閹雞

Bravos暴徒

Circe【希神】賽絲

did it make Tonio suffer beyond endurance?

He knew she was purely symbolic to him. She was woman, Tonio was Tonio with whom he was miserably in love.

You're the devil with the face of an angel.

Astonished to hear such a confession from his own lips.

The first thrust bringing a groan from him, and then he felt his entire body moving in the same rhythm .....

It would never be the same between him and Guido!

It is this powerful one to whom i surrender

And a sorrow came over Tonio when he realized these embraces were only for a short while.

That time and accomplishment would heal his wounds.

The patrician troubador

He knew only that this chapter of his life had come to an end

as though they'd known each other intimately a long, long time ago.

Tiers

abbati

catcalls嘲罵所發的尖銳聲; 喝倒采

Tonio bested his every trick

few eunuchs with plump little breasts as delectable and succulent as those of a woman.

His mind was too unaccustomed to such happiness.

I have become a simpleton

staring into her darkening and troubled eyes

those moist crevices

he was afraid of her, afraid of her, and he did not know why, only that it was a measure of the power she had to wound him. Yet she would never do this to him. He sensed at the core of her some grand and simple goodness.

You only add to your own pain.

It was the battle of those twins he was witnessing: the one who craved life, and the one who could not live without the hope of revenge.

And now that Christina tugged upon the bright twin, now that the opera surrounded him with such blessings and such promises, the dark twin, out of fear, strove to destroy the loving one, for fear if he did not he himself might cease to exist.
... was that the more life gave to Tonio, the more Tonio realized he could not enjoy any of it until he had settled the old score in Venice.

The man who did this to me is yet alive and unpunished for it.

You were but a chess piece moved from one square to another.

... and vilify you for loving a eunuch singer. You've convinced me you're strong enough to turn your back on that.

I can never forgive you for it.

Their song a cry to heaven that heaven did not hear.

A veritable Gordian knot

I have never been tested by God as you have.

And time blunts nothing.

What in the name of God are you that your will and your selfishness and your pride demand such a price!

What was lost to me will never be retrieved.