Casanova in Bolzano (26 page)

“It’s not enough,” replied the man.

“Not enough?” the woman asked in the same singsong voice. “No, Giacomo, this time you have not been entirely sincere. You yourself know that this is not to be dismissed, that it adds up to something, maybe even more than something. It is not a little thing, not in the least, when two people know they are meant for each other. It took me a long time before I understood it. Because there was a time when I did not know myself, and that is the way I grew up in Pistoia, behind thick walls, a little neglected and unkept, like wild nettles—and you courted me then on a whim, with mock gallantry, but both of us knew that whatever we said, something true was passing between us! You found me various pet names adapted from plants, animals, and stars, as lovers often do when they are still playing with each other and trying out words, in the early days of love when they lack the courage to call each other by their true names, such as ‘my love’ or ‘Giacomo’ or ‘Francesca.’ By that time all other words are superfluous. But at that stage I was ‘wild flower’ and even, somewhat discourteously, ‘wild nettle,’ because I was wild and I stung and you said that your hands burned and came out in a rash when they touched mine. That’s how you courted me. I think back to those times and feel dizzy or find myself blushing, because I am sure that I knew you the very first time I saw you, in the large hall on the ground floor of the house in Pistoia among those scrappy bits of furniture with their broken legs—I remember you were just showing the cardinal’s letter to my father and exchanging a few pleasantries with him, lying about something with considerable fluency. And I knew more about you at that moment than I did later, when conversation and social games hid your real nature from me. I knew everything about you at that first instant, and if there is anything I am ashamed of, or hide from myself in embarrassment, it’s the consequent period of our love, when you flirted with me using those names of animals and plants and stars, when you acted gallantly, when you were false and alien to me—it is that period that fills me with shame. You were a coward then, Giacomo, too much a coward to do as your heart commanded that first moment you saw me, before we had spoken a word to each other, before you started addressing me as ‘wild nettle’ or anything else. It is a great sin to be a coward. I can forgive you all those things the world will not forgive: your character, your weaknesses, your maliciousness, your boundless selfishness; I understand and wholly absolve you of all those, but I cannot forgive your cowardice. Why did you allow the duke of Parma to take possession of me, to buy me as you might a calf at the cattle market in Florence? . . . Why did you let me take up residence in strange palaces and foreign towns when you knew you were truly mine? . . . I woke at dawn on my wedding night and stretched out my hand looking for you. I was in Paris in a coach under the plane trees, on the stony road to Versailles, with the king on my right, and I didn’t answer when our cousin Louis addressed a question to me, because I imagined it was you sitting beside me and I wanted to show you something. And I asked myself continually: why is he such a coward when he knows we belong to each other? He is not afraid of knives or jails or poison or humiliation, so why should he fear me, his true love, his happiness? . . . I kept asking myself that. Then I understood. And now I know what I have to do, Giacomo—it is the reason I learned to write, and to do so much else that has nothing to do with pen and ink and paper. I learned everything because I love you. And now you should truly understand, my love, that when I say the words
I love you,
I do not say them in a languishing or misty-eyed sort of way, but speak them aloud; that I shout them in your face like a command, like an accusation. Do you hear, Giacomo? I love you. I am not trifling with these words. I am addressing you like a judge, do you hear? I love you, therefore I have authority over you. I love you and therefore I demand that you take courage. I love you so I am starting again from the beginning. Even if I have to drag you from your orbit as if you were a star in the firmament I shall take you with me, I shall tear you from your natural place in the universe, remove you from the laws of your being and from the demands of your art because I love you. I am not asking you, Giacomo, I am accusing you: yes, I am accusing you of a capital crime. I am not inviting you to join a game, I am in no mood to dally or flirt with you, I am not making sheep’s eyes at you or melting with tender sighs. I am staring at you with anger, with fury: I look upon you as one looks at an enemy. I shall kidnap you for love, if not now, then later, nor will I let you off the leash for a single second, whatever borders you cross, however you try to flee me with the little serving maid at your side, the one that opened the doors for me, who started back into the shadows like a fawn that scents danger, sensing that under the man’s clothes I was a woman and a rival, for I sensed that she had something to do with you, too, that she was plotting with you against me, like all the other women. That is how life is and how it will continue to be. But I am stronger for my love. I tell you this directly, and I say it aloud, like a slap across your face, do you understand? . . . Do you hear? . . . I love you. I cannot help it. It is my fate to love you. I have loved you for five years, Giacomo, from the moment I saw you in the old garden in Pistoia, when you were telling that thumping lie, after which you called me ‘wild nettle’ and fought over me, stripped to the waist in the moonlight, at which point you fled and I despised you and loved you. I know you are afraid, are still afraid of me. Don’t try shutting your eyes under the mask, because I can see through the holes: yes, now at last I can see you beneath the mask, and your eyes, which were bright before, like a wild animal’s contemplating its prey, have clouded over, as if some veil or fog had descended on them. Your eyes are almost human now. Don’t shut your eyes or turn away, because I want you to know that I shall not let you go, however complicated an agreement you have come to with the duke of Parma, because despite the agreement you remain the man that is meant for me, and I am the woman that is meant for you; we belong together like murderer and victim, like sinner and sin, like the artist and his art, as does everyone with the mission he would most like to escape. Don’t be afraid, Giacomo! It won’t hurt much! I must make you a gift of courage; I must teach you to be brave in facing yourself, facing us, the fact of us, a fact that may be sinful and scandalous, as is every true and naked fact in the world. Don’t be afraid, because I love you. Is that enough? . . .”

“It’s too much,” said the man.

“Too much,” said the woman and gave a short sigh. She fell silent, her hands against her mask, and stared into the fire.

The fire spluttered and carried on with its monotonous singing. They listened to its song, full of life, full of reason. Then the woman moved warily, as if afraid of tripping over her sword, and knelt before the man; raising her two long, slender arms and very gently and carefully laying her fingertips on the man’s mask, she took his hidden face in her hands and whispered, “Forgive me if my love is too much, Giacomo, I know such love is a great sin. You must forgive me. Very few people can bear the burden of absolute love that is also an inescapable duty and responsibility. It is the only sin I have committed against you. Forgive me. I will never ask anything more of you. I will do everything to reduce the suffering it causes you. Are you afraid that boredom might one day grip you with its damp palm and strangle you as you wake beside me? . . . Don’t be afraid, my love, because this boredom will be as satisfying and good humored as when you stretch and yawn, and the meaning of the boredom will be that I love you. You don’t know, you cannot yet know, what it is like when someone loves you. I must explain love to you because you know nothing about it. You fear your desire and curiosity, you fear all the women who will smile at you from windows, from carriages, in every inn and in every foreign marketplace, because you fear that you will not be able to pursue them, tied as you are to me, by love. . . . It is not certain that you will want to pursue them, Giacomo, knowing I love you. But if you were to leave me one day, out of curiosity and boredom, I would carry on living and waiting for you somewhere. And one day you will grow tired of the world, having known and tasted everything, and you will wake with a sense of disgust, your limbs racked with some awful disease, your bones riddled with woodworm, and you will look around you and remember that somewhere I am waiting for you. Where should I wait, my love? . . . Wherever you wish. In the country house I may retire to after the death of the duke, in the big city where you first abandoned me, perhaps here in Bolzano, in my palazzo, to which I would have had to return and wait for you once the night was over? You must realize that I will wait for you forever. And wherever I make my bed, be certain one pillow will be reserved for you. Every dish I cook or is placed before me by a servant will be your dish too. When the sun shines and the sky is blue, you must be aware that I will be staring at the sky, thinking, ‘Giacomo will be enjoying the same sky.’ Should the rain come down, I will be thinking, ‘Now he is standing at a window in Paris or in London, fractious and in a foul mood, and someone should really be lighting a fire in the room to keep his feet warm.’ When I see a beautiful woman I will think, ‘Perhaps she may afford him an hour of pleasure so he may be less unhappy.’ Whenever I break a loaf, half of it will be yours. I know it is too much, this love, and I beg you to forgive me. I want to live a long time so I can wait for you to come home.”

“Home? Where is that, Francesca?” asked the mask. “I have no home, not a stick of furniture, anywhere in the world.”

“Home is with me, Giacomo,” the woman answered. “Wherever I sleep, that is your home.”

Her two palms curved very gently, as though she were holding a delicate piece of glass, and stroked the man’s mask.

“You see,” said the woman, her voice now faintly singing, her mask a living, smiling radiance, “I am kneeling before you, in fancy dress, like a courtly suitor attempting to charm a lady. And you are sitting before me, in a female costume, masked, because fate has playfully ordained that, for one night only, we should exchange roles. I am the gallant suitor, and you are the lady I am courting. What do you think? Is this not more than coincidence? . . . I had no idea this afternoon that I would be wearing a male costume tonight, nor did you know this afternoon that the duke of Parma would seek you out, bring you my letter, invite you to the ball, and that you would be dressing up as a woman . . . do you think this is all just coincidence? I don’t understand human affairs, Giacomo, I only have my imagination, and I begin to suspect that no vital, no unique situation is coincidental, that deep down, at bottom, everybody, men and women alike, is a similar blend of feelings and desires, that our characters and roles are not wholly distinct, that there are moments when life toys with us and shifts about those elements within us that we had believed to be unique and fixed. That is why I am not astonished to be kneeling before you, rather than you before me, as the duke of Parma had ordained in his agreement, and it is I who am endeavoring to woo you. So, you see, everything is proceeding according to the agreement, even though the actors are not precisely in the parts the duke of Parma had designed for them. I am begging you, my dear, to accept my love. I want to console you because I love you and cannot bear your unhappiness. I am the suitor, the besieging force, not you. I have come to you because I must see you. And here we are now, and you are silent. It is a powerful silence, a proper, tight-lipped silence, as it has to be, considering your role, and I echo the last words of your speeches precisely as the agreement demands. But you are still restrained, Giacomo, still acting: you are too true to your part. Are you not afraid that our time will run out, that night will pass, and you will have nothing of interest or satisfaction to report to the man who commissioned you? . . . Don’t you want me, my love? How terrifying you are when you keep quiet like this, so utterly in character. Not enough and too much, you said, when I offered you everything a woman could offer the man she loved. Look at the fire, Giacomo, see, it has flared up as if it, too, wanted to say something. Perhaps what it wants to say is that it is necessary to be destroyed by the fury of passion and be born anew in feeling, because that is life and wholeness. Everything that has happened might catch light and burn in our hearts if you so desired, if you took me with you or if you let me take you—it is all the same, Giacomo, who goes with whom—but we will have to start everything again, from the beginning, because that is how love works. I will have to give birth to you, to be both your mother and your daughter; my love will cleanse you and I, too, shall be clean in your arms. It will be as if no man had ever touched me. Are you still quiet? . . . Don’t you want me? . . . Can I not console you? . . . How terrible, Giacomo. In vain do I offer you delight and peace, cleanliness and renewal, I cannot drag you into feeling, cannot prize you from your art, cannot change you or see your true face, the last face, without its mask, as I wanted in my letter. . . . Is it possible that you are stronger than I am, my love? Will the strength of my love break against your cold art and impregnable character? . . . I promise you peace and wholeness, and you tell me it is too much and not enough. Why don’t you say just once that it is enough, perfect, just right? . . . Can’t I offer you anything that will draw you out of your orbit? Can’t I say anything to make you finally step out of character and cry, yes, it is enough! . . . Look, here I kneel, I am twenty years old. You know perfectly well that I am beautiful. I know it, too. I am not the most beautiful woman in the world, because the most beautiful woman does not exist anywhere, but I am still beautiful, my body is perfect, my face is alive and full of curiosity, repose, delight, understanding, cheer, and solemnity all blended together. It is the blend that gives it its beauty. Because that blended animation is what beauty is. All else is merely a malleable combination of skin and flesh and bone. You still believe in the kind of women who ostentatiously draw attention to their beauty, Giacomo, who strut about proudly, not knowing that beauty is what dissolves in the crucible of love, that a month or a year after the successful wedding, no one notices beauty anymore—face, legs, arms, a fine bosom, all melt away and disappear in the flames of love, and there remains a woman who may still be able to soothe, to hold, to help you, to offer something, even when you can no longer see the beauty of her face and figure. . . . My beauty is like that, Giacomo: I am true metal, gold through and through. Even if I were worn on someone’s finger, or buried deep beneath the earth, I would be true because I am beautiful. The Creator has blessed me with beauty and he has given me the odd beating, too: I am beautiful and therefore have a purpose in life, which is to please your eyes, though it is not only your eyes I must please, Giacomo. For I cannot pass through life with such beauty without being punished for it, because wherever I go I rouse passions: I am like a water diviner who discovers underground streams, who can feel them bubbling beneath her. I have to suffer a great deal on account of my beauty. I offer you the beauty and harmony with which the Creator has blessed and cursed me and you are still uncertain, saying now too much, now not enough. Are you not afraid, Giacomo? . . . You made my acquaintance when I was still in bud, calling me your ‘wild nettle,’ but you permitted the duke of Parma to buy me, and fled because you feared and still do fear me, even though I represent truth and wholeness. Are you not afraid that human ties might not be enough, that maybe I am just a woman who may tire of waiting, of agreements, deals, and promises? Are you not afraid that I might be tired already and that I visit you only to confirm the fact and tell you so? . . . Because the desire and devotion that burns in my heart for you is itself a terrifying and self-consuming passion! Are you not afraid, Giacomo, that I have secrets of my own? Are you not afraid that I may be able to stir feelings in you that are not entirely tender or calm, that I might, if I very much desired, entertain you with stories that will make you cry out and finally demand, ‘Enough!’ I am truly yours, Giacomo, nor is there anything I desire more than to save you and to save myself, and having done that, to live with you as people do, through whatever hells we may have to face. But if your attachment to your art, to the duke of Parma’s contract, and to yourself demands something more, it may be time for me to weaken and to confess that, while this flame has continued to burn within me ever since I first met you and that it is indeed unquenchable, I was unable to resign myself to your running away, to your cowardice, but allowed other men to kiss me before I gave myself to the duke of Parma. I could regale you with stories about the consolations required by a rejected fifteen-year-old girl. Shall I tell you what it was like after your flight in Pistoia, when I threw myself at the gardener—you know the man? Are you not afraid of hearing about that night, Giacomo? I remember it very well, in every detail, just as you, in your turn, will remember the gardener who gave me flowers on your behalf: a tall, powerful, violent man, a man of few words. Shall I tell you the story of the night after your duel and your escape? . . . Would you really like to hear it in all its detail? And what about the other things that followed as the months and years passed, when I had no news from you, and this flame, that is worse than the flames and fumes of hell, worse than the flames suffered by poor victims of the Inquisition, burned me through and through? Shall I tell you the story of the house in Florence? About the palazzo on the bank of the Arno by the Ponte San Trínita, where you will find my nightgown, my slippers, my comb, and the Venetian mirror you gave me? Should I tell you about the house I frequented that I, too, might have used as a casino, Giacomo, the secret palazzo in Murano that, like you, I once enjoyed? Should I tell you all this? Should I tell you what it is like when a woman who wants to give everything that a young body and soul has to give to the man she loves is disappointed in love and begins to burn with fury, like a torch made of flesh, hair, and blood, a torch that burns in secret, like a flame in the half-light, scorching and blackening everything she touches, so that despite all the power, strength, and wariness of the duke of Parma, he is helpless to put the fire out? Should I tell you what it is like when a woman is obliged to seek the tenderness she desires from one man alone, a man who has run away, in the embraces of ten, twenty, or a hundred men? Would you like names, Giacomo? Would you like proof? . . . Would you like to know the names of those noble lords, gardeners, courtiers, comedians, gamblers, and musicians, together with their addresses, every one of them kinder and more tender to me than you have ever been? . . . Do you want to know what it is like when a woman begins to move through the world like one possessed, touched, and branded by fate, without a scrap of peace in her heart because she loves somebody and has been rejected? Because I could tell you about that too.”