His eyes are shining at this prospect. ‘A man must have dignity,’ he says. ‘Ci vuole dignità.’
‘Exactly. Women wish to submit in their deeper natures but because of the corruption they derive from our first mother they must always seek first to turn us to their purposes. If they achieve it they then despise us. That is the paradox of it.’
‘Strange creatures,’ he says. He has fallen again to scratching at his pate. ‘How can we know what ideas they will get in their heads?’
‘How indeed? One thing there is to bear in mind and you have said it. Ci vuole dignità.’
‘Dignity,’ he says. ‘By God, yes. Why should we be their playthings?’
‘There is one thing more that works for us. More important than any.’
‘And what is that?’ he says.
I pause for effect. I have been saving this ever since I came upon the book, waiting for the moment. I am about to enlist the Virgin’s aid.
‘You do not know what we have in the garden,’ I say at last. ‘That statue in the rose arbour, you thought perhaps it represented one of the Virtues or some spirit of the seasons?’
‘Something of the sort,’ he says, staring.
‘Well, she is the Madonna.’
He gaped at me, grotesque in his surprise. The flush of digestion had faded now and the rouge showed against his sallow skin – he had taken to paint since his marriage.
And so I told him of my discovery. As I have said, the library where I spent most of my days had been greatly neglected. Books had accumulated during the period when the Longhi family owned the house, but for a long time now there had been no attempt to classify them or even to record what was there; they lay everywhere, on the shelves, on tables, in piles along the walls; mildew had affected many, mice droppings lay among them, in some cases mice had nibbled at the edges of the paper. Now in my work of examining these books and making an index I had come across a manuscript volume, dated 1612, written by one Guilliamo Longhi, a history of his family from their earliest beginnings.
It was not a very distinguished story. The Longhi are an old family but they have not often risen to positions of power in the state. They made the mistake of involving themselves in the Tiepolo conspiracy of 1310 and had their palaces impounded as a punishment. They were readmitted into the nobility a century or so later, for services in the wars against Genoa, but never fully recovered their former position. However they produced artists and men of letters and antiquarians – like this Guilliamo.
These facts were in the book, suitably dressed up, embedded in a mass of legend and hearsay and boasting. But what was of most interest to me was the Madonna anecdote and it was this that I related to old Boccadoro, how she had been made for the church of the Santissima Annunciata by a sculptor Guilliamo does not name – perhaps not deigning, perhaps not knowing; how she had been sold to the Longhi, together with the cloister she stood in, when the family bought the land for their garden.
Guilliamo was writing within a century of this and he had relied on stories and old scandals. He says the friars did not want to put the Madonna on the façade of their church because in the same summer she was made the sculptor was involved in the murder of a town whore. Guilliamo asserts that he created amazement by proclaiming that light shone from him, from his face and limbs; and this others claimed to see too, and some even knelt as if witnessing a miracle: so great is the power of suggestion on simple minds.
All these are old tales that Guilliamo picked up here and there; but one thing there was that struck me: the Fornarini were involved in this affair too – the same family as this Piero, Francesca’s uncle, who now has charge of our souls, God help us. At that time, and for a century after, they were one of the first families of Venice and wielded great power. According to Guilliamo, a certain Federico Fornarini, a member of the Consiglio dei Dieci, prosecuted the case himself, brought witnesses and so on. Why one so highly placed should have exerted himself Guilliamo does not know but piously commends such civic virtue. Ours is a more cynical age and for my own part I think it more likely that this Federico wished to conceal his own evil life by appearing as a guardian of morality since a man’s zeal in the exercise of public virtue is usually proportionate to the eagerness with which he pursues private vice. What the outcome was Guilliamo does not say. Then in less than a century these Supplicanti were expelled – for notorious debauchery, as Guilliamo puts it, and unnatural practices.
It was little of this, however, that I told to Boccadoro, stressing instead the beneficent image of the Virgin, here in our midst, conferring grace.
‘With the Blessed Madonna here,’ I said, ‘how can things go otherwise than favourably for us? If we add to my efforts on your behalf the invisible but potent effects of the Holy Virgin, protector of female purity, emblem of chastity, guardian of the sanctity of Christian marriage, we simply cannot fail. Follow my advice, curb your impatience, keep your distance a while longer. Above all, keep away from her bedroom.’
Ziani paused, savouring the moment. How cleverly and eloquently he had spoken! What a triumphant occasion! He had seen his success written on Boccadoro’s face – the old simpleton had swallowed everything whole.
For years afterwards he had kept Longhi’s book about him as a souvenir, through all travels and vicissitudes, only to have it stolen finally along with the other contents of a travelling-box, at an inn in France, while he was busy with the chambermaid.
He took some snuff, then gave a prolonged ring on his handbell. These days, in spite of Battistella’s unreliable responses, Ziani needed him increasingly as sharer in the climactic moments. When the Mémoires reached the world he would have admirers in plenty, but just now – and with these delays at the printers …
This last thought darkened his mood. Moreover, his right leg was painful this morning, with frequent shooting pains, and his heart was agitated. He tried to retain the sense of triumph but he could recollect nothing now but Boccadoro’s face and his own coldly attentive self watching for signs of weakness, marks of pain. There was no comfort in this for him now. He rang again for Battistella, with mechanical imprecations at his servant’s delay. He sat waiting, muttering to himself, among the faintly stirring draperies in that museum of sheeted exhibits. The tide was low – smells of slime and excrement wafted through the half-open window like a reek of the evil latent in matter. The horror of vacancy came to Ziani. He sought in the ashes of the past for something living still. After some moments of total immobility he remembered a time shortly after this talk with Boccadoro, when he and Francesca had contrived to visit the theatre together. They had returned via San Marco. There had been some special occasion, he could not remember what – the Piazza was brilliantly illuminated. All round the walls there were lamps, on the old and new Procuratie, set very close together so that they merged: the fronts of the buildings were clothed in sheets of light. The arcades were hung with tiny lamps, every curve and volute was defined by them, myriads of lamps, their flames wavering in the breath of the scirocco. White doves shot in alarm through these zones of light. For the sake of contrast, the Piazzetta had been left dark; when the lights of the square became too dazzling you could saunter there at the water’s edge. That is what he and Francesca had done; they had stood together on the Piazzetta with that great blaze of light on one side and on the other the dark water of the sleeping lagoon.
There, where we stood together, Ziani thought, it was neither light nor dark. He thought of this with wonder. It seemed to him that if he could choose now he would stand for ever in the full blaze of the Square, bathe and bathe in the light and never leave it …
He could not bring himself to resume work that day. His disabilities, that horror vacui which had come to him, clouded his mind. He sat sick and disconsolate. After supper he played moody games of draughts with Battistella – games that grew moodier as he lost.
Next morning, however, it was better. Memories came fresh and strong to him. He wrote about his love-making w
ith Francesca and how they had seen old Boccadoro kneeling in prayer before the Madonna. He was coming now to the climax of the story and the sense of this made him write eagerly.
Francesca herself was totally shameless, reckless too. Her bedroom was just down the corridor from his and so it was necessary to be careful but she took no care at all. We contrived meetings all over the house, but the library was the main place. We would lie down on the floor fully dressed. Sometimes in order to excite me she would feign reluctance, resisting my attempts to undress her or open her legs. I would raise skirt, underskirt, petticoats, uncover her patch of pelt – her pubic hair was fairer than the hair on her head, an unusual thing.
The throes she was capable of were amazing. She would be crying out as soon as I was inside her. She would pant and moan and cry out, so that I thought the house would be on us. She didn’t care. Even in her bedroom, not a dozen yards away from his …
Ziani stopped to consider. It was as though Francesca had wanted to be caught. There had been a dangerous, desperate quality in her abandonment. His mind strained across the interval of years to that charmed succession of days – ten days was all they had had. Yes, such recklessness was unnatural. She had kissed and caressed him on occasions when Boccadoro was present, when by turning his head the old man might have seen. Once she had done something worse. And yet, he thought, she did not seem really to know me or recognize me. There had been something impersonal in it. That heedless bright look on her face. Creature of light. Dangerous, destructive. He would have been content to let the intrigue run a course more placidly sensual, more discreet. It was a good joke after all – the sense of having duped Boccadoro added to his pleasure. Francesca’s cries and spasms flattered him. There was sport here for some time to come. But she had shown no sense of self-preservation, none at all. She had not behaved as if there would be other days, other lovers. Yet he had not felt she loved him …
In perplexity he rang for Battistella, ostensibly to ask for some coffee, in reality to sound out his servant’s opinion about this abandonment of Francesca’s. Misgivings accumulated while he sat waiting. The nightmarish suspicion returned to him: would anyone have served Francesca’s purposes, anyone with a prick that could stand to attention? Certainly she had loved to play with his, to fondle and caress it, observing it closely, like a new pet or a toy. Yes, that was it. That length of gristle which had been his pride, with its autonomous erections, its chastened dwindlings, sudden rearing recoveries, this marvellous mechanism had been no more than a toy to her. Useless now to anybody.
When Battistella appeared, he assumed as usual his expression of weary superiority. ‘I have been writing,’ he said, ‘about that period after old Boccadoro came back from his visit to Verona.’ He reached for his snuffbox. ‘By God,’ he said, ‘she was dying for it, she couldn’t get enough.’
He paused, remembering her dangerously exalted face, raised to laugh. She would do anything. Battistella had not replied and Ziani had an impression of extra stillness in him, as if he were waiting for something more. ‘She was possessed,’ he said. ‘Do you remember that time I told you about, when we came upon the old man praying to the Madonna? She made me do it there and then, while he was still at his prayers. I didn’t want to, you know. We could hear him while we were doing it, begging the Madonna to make his wife love him. Francesca enjoyed that. She was cruel, you know. I’m coming on to that bit next, as a matter of fact.’
‘She didn’t enjoy it,’ Battistella said suddenly. ‘Not what you’d call enjoy.’
‘What do you know about it?’ Ziani said, staring. ‘Was it you that was having her or was it me?’
‘Begging your pardon, she was sold to him. She blamed him for buying as much as she blamed them for selling – more, him being old and distasteful on top of it.’
‘I don’t follow that reasoning,’ Ziani said perturbed by this sudden loquacity.
‘She blamed him more.’
‘Because he had married her?’
‘Not only that. She blamed him for what she was doing with you. The more bad things she done, the more it was his fault. There are natures that carry things to extremes.’
‘There certainly are,’ Ziani said. ‘And yours is one of them. I’ve never heard such rubbish.’
‘The cruelty,’ Battistella said, quite undeterred, ‘the cruelty was because she was outraging herself, begging your pardon. Also she wanted to show she was a human being, not a piece of merchandise. How can you show you are a human being and not a piece of merchandise?’
‘I’ve no idea,’ Ziani said. ‘No doubt you will tell me.’
‘By embarking upon actions.’ Battistella paused, nodding slowly. ‘That was what she done with you,’ he said.
Ziani maintained an uneasy silence for some moments. Then, with sudden spirit, he said, ‘You are wrong, Battistella. Francesca liked being fucked, she enjoyed it, nothing to do with merchandise. She enjoyed the risk of being caught too, it excited her. And she was cruel too, nothing to do with outraging herself. Why do you try to explain everything in terms of something else? It is a very dangerous practice, especially in regard to women. If we go on like that the time will come when women will not be held accountable for their vices at all, then where will we be? Would you want to live in such a world?’
Ziani reached again for his snuffbox. Good humour had returned to him. He had come out on top in this argument, he felt. ‘It would be the end of civilization as we know it,’ he said. ‘I really did not think that at your advanced years you would fall into that intellectual trap, Battistella.’
Battistella made no reply, had begun in fact his usual snail-like withdrawal.
‘Do you remember that man in Paris who shot off his own uccello by accident?’ Ziani said. ‘That was ten years later. That will come in the Paris section of my Mémoires. A practised duellist too – he had killed six. I don’t recall what the quarrel was about, an affair of honour no doubt.’
‘You were cheating at faro. He caught you dealing with a mirror in your lap.’
‘Walking towards me, coming up to the barrier, he fired his pistol somehow by mistake and shot off his own cock. You would say that meant something else, for example that he hated himself for having already taken six human lives, but I would say simply that he shot off his cock.’
Battistella, arrested in his creeping retreat, remained obstinately silent.
‘A young man,’ Ziani said. ‘Not more than thirty. He may be alive still. Forty years ago it happened. That would be forty years senza uccello. A strange fate for a man. Well, don’t speak, damn you. You can’t bear to be worsted in argument, can you?’
‘Will there be anything else, sir?’
‘No.’ Ziani strove to preserve a dispassionate appearance. ‘No, you can clear off. I have to get on with my Mémoires. We have discussed what there is for dinner, have we not?’ he added rather wistfully – he would have liked to run through it again. Battistella, however, had gone or at least was no longer distinguishable among the billowing forms.
Left alone, Ziani thought for some minutes, focusing his memories. Then he began to write.
For some days after Boccadoro’s return we led a charmed life, Francesca and I. We took risks but it seemed that the gods aided us. The old man must have listened to me, for he kept away from her room, though I never dared spend the whole night with her, usually leaving well before morning.
We had some narrow escapes. I remember that Francesca’s music master once nearly surprised us together in the garden – we still, out of gratitude, sometimes made love in the arbour of the Madonna. But the nearest thing was when the priest, Don Antonio, came on one of his visits. He used to come regularly to discuss the affairs of an orphanage Francesca took some interest in, and – more to the point – contributed charity to, though of course it was all Boccadoro’s money. This priest was a stout florid fellow, greatly in love with his own opinions, with a pompous habit of rocking back on his heels.
On thi
s occasion we had forgotten he was coming. It was mid-afternoon, with Boccadoro gone off to his warehouse on the Zattere al Ponte Lungo. Francesca and I were downstairs in her apartment with the door locked, half-naked both, grappling together on the Turkey carpet and she was just beginning to prick me with her claws – she had a delicate way with her nails when excited – when I heard a tapping at the door and it was Battistella come to tell us that Don Antonio was waiting in the anteroom.
Now there was no way out of the salon save by this anteroom and I was afraid that if we kept him kicking his heels there, and then he saw me emerge, he might out of pique, or duty, or a confusion of the two, find the matter of sufficient interest to mention to old Boccadoro. So I dressed with what speed I could and I snatched up some sheets of music and rolled them together in such a way that they might seem like documents and so I made haste out of the room.
There was a short passage, another door, then the small room where he waited. He rose to his feet when he saw me and with a bare greeting began to move towards the door. ‘One moment, padre,’ I said. I had to give Francesca time to dress and compose herself, to overlay with attar of roses that odour of sanctity which love-making bestows on the person, to allow the flush of our encounter to subside from her face.
It was now that I showed my superlative presence of mind. I knew that this Don Antonio was opinionated and fond of talking dall’alto in basso and so I decided on the instant how to snare him. ‘One moment, padre,’ I said, ‘Donna Francesca and I have encountered a philosophical difficulty in the course of our conversation and I would like to take this opportunity of referring the matter to your learned wisdom.’
‘Yes,’ he said, ‘what is it? I would not keep the nobil donna waiting.’
‘She will not mind,’ I said. ‘She would explain the difficulty herself, but asked me to do it. Ladies, as we know, are not at their best when dealing with abstract notions.’