“ ‘One Venetian outwitting three Romans! What patriotism! What wit!’ What could have pleased His Excellence more! We were a brilliant success—so brilliant, in fact, that, at the end of the play, the Duke offered to reward the author of our comedy with a hundred pounds of gold!
“Watching the nobleman’s wet, snarling lips, I realized that he was a dangerous man; I cautioned my friends to be careful. But, heady with triumph, still caught up in their mischievous roles, they ran down from the stage and danced before the courtiers’ table.
“ ‘I am the author,’ said my friend Salvatore, reaching forward to tweak the Duke’s beard.
“ ‘No, I am the author!’ insisted Giovanni, poking the nobleman in the ribs.
“ ‘I am! I am!’ cried Claudio, screwing up his face and feigning a childish tantrum.
“ ‘Take these idiots and break their necks!’ screamed the Doge of Venice, crashing his gigantic forearm against the plates and goblets. ‘I will not have my dignity insulted this way!’
“I stood back, my feet rooted to the stage. Had I not been a fellow of such boundless courage, my heart would have stopped. Gradually, I realized that the Duke had not included me among the condemned. But, at the same time, I understood that there was nothing I could do to help my friends.
“The next morning, I watched them hanged in the courtyard, as a lesson for seditious actors. Clustered on the balconies, the Duke’s guests watched, grinning uneasily, trying to understand if it was all still part of the previous evening’s entertainment.”
That is how you always ended the story, Flaminio, with that same description of the guests. “But what then?” I wanted to ask you. “What happened next? What happened when you left the palace?”
And this is what I think: I think you left the Doge’s hall a determined man, Captain, the leader of a troupe, an adult with no more patience for the wildness of half-grown boys. Already, you had decided to gather together a group of actors who could perform perfectly under your direction, who could improvise faultlessly, who could fill the stage with complete, complex figures from life, unlike the mean, flat caricatures which had once delighted you and your friends from the seminary.
Naturally, it took some time to assemble such a group. You stole actors from other companies, interviewed shopgirls and magicians, recruited beggars from the gutters. But still, you were extremely selective about the men and women you chose for the permanent troupe, and all that picking and discarding took many, many years. By the time you saved me from the convent, many of you had been together a decade; and that was long before we had even seen Isabella Andreini!
But gradually, as I came to realize the exceedingly strange way in which you had chosen us, I wondered that it had not taken you forever.
You had typecast us perfectly, Captain. On the day I finally understood, I laughed out loud. It seemed absurd, impossible, and yet you had done it. You had found a group of actors so similar to the roles they played on stage that improvisation was effortless—they simply played themselves. And if, for the purposes of comedy, they agreed to exaggerate some aspect of their nature into a monstrous grotesque? The audience perceived the terrible self-doubt beneath Dottore’s pompous display, and came away from your plays with a sense of having seen to the core of life.
Of course, you made your mistakes. We all know how Francesco fooled you again and again; who can say what tricks Isabella played? And how could you have known how many of us would come to resent you for refusing to acknowledge those private aspects of our souls, which we did not parade on stage? Yet, like all of your schemes, this one worked admirably: The Glorious Ones were a magnificent success.
But once in a while, Flaminio, I am tempted to think that your plan for The Glorious Ones worked no better than your decision to entertain the Doge. I wonder if you did not introduce a poison into our blood, which has only begun to strangle our hearts. And, most of all, I ask myself whether that old scheme of yours will not prevent me from fulfilling your last wish, from compiling the true, factual history which you so desire.
For how can I begin to tell the truth, Flaminio, when the truth is that I myself was never quite sure just when we were acting?
T
HAT CRAZY DWARF IS
petrified of dying, that coward. That’s why she’s always on my back, nagging me, breathing her nauseating stench down my neck.
“Brighella! Remember this? Remember that? Write it, write it, put it down in black and white.”
“Go stick it up your ass,” I tell her. “You’re just out to keep your name alive after the worms start crawling through your rotten bones!”
“No,” she says, with that proud, silly smile which makes me want to smack her. “It has nothing to do with me. Flaminio’s ghost commanded it, in a dream.”
“Fat chance,” I say. “What self-respecting ghost would waste its time in the bedroom of a greasy toad like you? No, my dear, I know a coward when I see one. Remember how you were that night we slept together, always peeking out of the corner of your eye, terrified I’d roll you off the bed and crack your skull?”
“So you’re the expert on cowards, Brighella?” she spits at me, her voice crackling with hatred.
“Indeed I am,” I nod. “God knows, I’ve had plenty of practice. This whole troupe’s as yellow as a cesspool, every one of those pissants but me and Isabella Andreini. And lately, watching her make moon-eyes at that big cow Pietro, I’ve even had my doubts about her. But there is no doubt in my mind that you are the most spineless of all, my slimy little jellyfish.”
“
You’re
the coward!” cries Armanda Ragusa, provoked to the edge of tears.
“Armanda,” I say, “that remark is so witless—even for you—that I’m quite satisfied of having won our discussion.”
Ladies and gentlemen of the future. I know what’s running through your dim little brains. “Of course,” you’re thinking, “that Brighella had good reason to be so cocky. He was the one all the artists painted, he knew
his
immortality was secure. He knew that history would remember his nasty face, his wicked grin, his cold, vicious eyes. He knew everyone would see his short, skinny body, hunched up, crouched, ready to dart about like the gadfly he was.
Ah, my unborn audiences, you’re no geniuses. Those fourth-rate scribblings have nothing to do with my fearlessness, nothing whatsoever! What kind of idiot do you think I am? What good would eternal fame do me if I were frying in the fires of hell?
No, my dull-witted friends, the reason I’m so brave is this: I know I’ll never go to hell. I know my soul will never die. Because I, Brighella, the Gadfly, I alone have been absolutely promised eternal life!
You’re wondering where I get the nerve to make such claims? I will tell you. I’ve had a vision, a real vision of holy salvation. Now, you want to know what it is. I’ve got your curiosity aroused. Your tongues are hanging out, you’re covering yourselves with drool.
All right then. Since you’re so eager, I’ll tell it specially, just for you. But it’s a long story, my friends—deeper and more complicated than anything your mean little spirits could comprehend. So I’ll spare you the details, and make it short.
I was born into a family of petty crooks—gangsters, swindlers, whores, pimps, thieves. At the age of eighteen, I was caught with my hand in another man’s pocket, and sentenced to be hanged from the gallows.
They marched me up to the scaffolding. They placed the noose around my neck, some idiot priest mumbled the prayers, the floor dropped out from under me.
And then, just at the right moment, the rope snapped. “What a pleasant surprise,” I thought, as I tumbled gracefully through the air.
But suddenly, in those few brief moments before I landed nimbly on my feet, I heard the voice of God.
“The accused,” said the Lord, “has been sentenced to Eternal Life!”
Of course I knew it was God. His tone was so shrill, so earsplitting, I had no doubt. My heart beat fast, relief washed through me, the air was singing in my ears.
Nevertheless, I managed to stand up straight and brush myself off; then, I bowed, and left the jail, a free man.
Since then, ladies and gentlemen, Brighella the Gadfly has never felt a moment’s fear. I wasn’t even ruffled that night I first met Flaminio Scala, that night I first stung him, in the tavern.
It had been years since my brush with death. I was back to my old ways, my old tricks. I spent my evenings in the cafés, picking fights with wealthy-looking drunks, and challenging them to step outside for a duel. Then my friends, who were hiding in a nearby alley, would jump out, steal the drunk’s money, and run off.
One night, in Bergamo, I picked Flaminio Scala as my victim. It was a chancy bet; I couldn’t really tell if he had money or not. But, judging from the way he was dressed, I assumed he was some kind of rich queer, the black sheep son of some wealthy family.
So I leaned towards him, jabbing my elbow into his ribs. “Hey,” I said, “where’d you get such beautiful long hair?”
“From my head,” muttered Flaminio, intent on his drink.
“Witty,” I said. “Very witty, for such a drunk. Now tell me, did you borrow those fancy clothes from your sister?”
“No,” he said, turning away.
“Faggot!” I hissed at him, as nastily as I could.
Suddenly, Flaminio Scala sat up very straight, and threw his wine in my face. “How dare you call me that!” he cried. “Don’t you know who I am? I am Flaminio Scala, the most virile man in all Italy!”
“Let’s discuss it outside,” I said, looking towards the door.
“Nonsense!” shouted Flaminio. “We’ll discuss it right here!” With that, he jumped up on the table, drew his sabre, and flourished, it in a figure eight. Then, he jumped down, and began to chase me around the tavern.
He chased me around the room, over the bar, throwing chairs, overturning tables. His swordsmanship was dazzling; even I, a criminal, was impressed. For I noticed that beneath his charade of fierceness and rage, he was moving carefully, like a dancer; he never touched me with the point of his sword.
At last, Flaminio cornered me, threw me down, and pinned me to the floor with his sabre.
“Brighella!” he cried. “Our gadfly! You are perfect!”
It had been a hair-raising scene. For years afterward, those cowardly barflies of Bergamo would talk about their night of terror in the tavern.
But I, Brighella, was not afraid. Right in the thick of it, I wasn’t even ruffled.
No, ladies and gentlemen, I’ve never been frightened. Yet now, as I think back on my miserable career, I do recall a few nervous twitches, during that first trip to France.
Things were bad in those days, and it was all Flaminio’s doing—Flaminio, with his constant cursing and carrying on, blaspheming, speaking of the Virgin Mary’s body as if it were some hunk of mutton slung up on the butcher’s hook.
“You loud-mouthed idiot!” I’d yell at him. “What’s wrong with you? Don’t you know that even God can only stand so much? You’ll bring it down on all our heads, wait and see. I’d like to hear you talk like that when you’re roasting in hell!”
But the fact was we were already in hell. That French trip was a disaster. Right from the start, I knew it would turn out that way. All those delays, those false starts, every day another letter from the king: “Hurry to Blois—don’t bother—the nobles are assembled—no one is here—come in April—in August—September—November.”
It was January by the time we left. We hardly had to spur our horses—that cold wind whipped us across France like a fleet of crippled sailboats. We traveled slowly, losing our way in blinding snowstorms, breaking our necks on the ice.
I rode last in line, complaining constantly. “Flaminio!” I whined. “This trip will be a catastrophe, mark my words. We’re wasting our talents on those French jackasses! They’ll drive us back across the border with feathers burning in our tails! We should have stayed home, playing the street fairs and carnivals. At least, we were making a decent living!”
But the Captain’s ears were stuffed with delusions. All he could hear was his own fantasy of fame, immortality, great art! Ambition had sunk its fangs deep in him; its poison was making him a slavedriver. He made us rehearse all night, singing and dancing like madmen, even when we’d been traveling all day. Even when he let us go, we couldn’t sleep; then he’d begin that infernal hammering, as he constructed those outrageous sets to impress the French king.
All that time I was the only one brave enough to complain, the only one sensible enough to resist Flaminio’s madness. And, when that business with the Huguenots began, I was the only one who came right out and said what was on his mind.
It was the last week of the trip. We were so close to Blois, so near silken sheets, warm women, good wine—even I felt almost cheerful. Of course, the disaster had to happen then; we were off guard, we’d stopped expecting the worst.
One morning, as we stumbled along the icy road, a gang of grim-looking soldiers suddenly swooped down on us from beyond a bend. Shouting and waving their swords, they galloped towards us, bearing down hard, until they were so near that I could see the foam from their horses freezing in the cold air.
“Fight to the death!” I shrieked. “Fight to the death!” For, though I knew that a handful of puny actors had no chance against those shiny sabres, I couldn’t resist the temptation to make the others feel worse.
Within minutes our enemies had surrounded us. Their leader seized the bridle of Flaminio’s horse, and led us across the meadow. Those cowardly actors were quiet as mice; Columbina and Vittoria sniveled with terror. I grinned devilishly at one of our captors, but the smile soon died on my lips. I’d never seen such hatred on anyone’s face, not even among the poor suckers I’d swindled as a boy.
At last, we found ourselves in a drafty cave, heated by one pathetic, smoking log. A dozen sentries guarded the entrance, trying hard not to peek inside. Just beyond them, Flaminio Scala was trying in his worthless schoolboy French, to negotiate with their commander.
By the time he joined us inside, the Captain’s face was the same color as the dirty snow.