Collected Works of Rafael Sabatini

by Rafael Sabatini

  The officer was courteous, but firm. Casanova must not be surprised to be placed under arrest in his own room, since his opponents in the action pending against him were within their rights in demanding precaution against his possible evasion. He ended by politely requesting Casanova’s sword, which the Venetian regretfully surrendered.

  Forbidden now to leave his chamber, with a sentry on guard day and night in the ante-room, and another under his window, Casanova was nevertheless permitted to receive visitors, and of this permission his friends of the Italian Comedy availed themselves to the full.

  He was visited also by the three officers. They came to persuade him to be reasonable and to pay the sum required, thus avoiding heavy legal charges and perhaps a heavy fine as well as imprisonment.

  “You talk in vain,” Casanova told them. “I have not such a sum at hand. My wealth has been grossly exaggerated to you.”

  “We should be willing, all things considered, to compromise with you,” von Reuss suggested. “We would accept your jewels, lace, travelling chaise, and other effects on a valuation, and for any balance remaining we would take bills from you of a reasonable term. We desire to assist you in this.”

  “So I perceive,” was the tart answer. “I will say this in your favour — that you are the most impudent and shameless swindlers I have ever met — and I have met many. You may go to the devil!”

  They promised him they would have the pleasure of killing him for his insolence after he had paid his debt to them.

  “Quite so,” said he. “Business first; honour afterwards. That is the motto of your kind. And when the business is done the honour as a rule may go hang!”

  “You realize what will happen when sentence is pronounced against you?” said von Reuss from the doorway. “Your effects will be sold, and the money realized will be applied towards the payment of this debt. For what may still be lacking you will have to contribute your person; you will be enrolled as a soldier in the army of his serene highness, and you will pass to the service of France for a yearly sum of six louis. You will continue to serve until the debt is entirely extinguished.”

  On that von Reuss went out, having shattered at last Casanova’s composure. For awhile the Venetian stood there petrified by fear. Here was something he had left out of the reckoning. To be swindled by rooks, to have his pockets picked, to be embroiled in legal proceedings was bad enough. But to contemplate in addition the fate of becoming a soldier in the service of a princeling such as the Grand Duke of Würtemberg, who existed only by virtue of his horrible traffic in flesh and blood with France, was more than his fortitude could contemplate. He broke into a cold sweat, and then sat down to think of a way out, cursing himself for having remained so long inactive. Even if he could escape from the inn it would be impossible to leave the city now, since the guard at all the gates would have been warned.

  Baletti came presently to visit him, and the sight of the actor was in itself an inspiration. Casanova spoke of his peril. Baletti was aghast with horror. Then Casanova invoked his aid, and Baletti unconditionally promised it, and departed almost at once to invite half the female members of the Italian Comedy to sup that evening with Casanova.

  They were a jovial company, and the supper was of the best “The Bear” could yield. Towards the end of the repast Casanova informed them of the danger in which he stood.

  “You must pay,” they cried.

  “Not a copper,” said he, and snapped his lips. “I am determined that these Würtemberger swine shall not have a rag of mine. I have jewels here worth three-quarters of the total amount claimed, and laces worth at least fifty thousand francs at an honest valuation — such as I am persuaded they would not receive at the hands of these thieves. In any case I do not propose to wait for it. I intend to make my escape at the sacrifice of nothing more than my travelling chaise, which the host may keep in discharge of my debt here at ‘The Bear’. My jewels are easily portable, but it is in the matter of my laces that I implore, ladies, your assistance. If you will dispose of them under your hoops, and so carry them away from here, you will leave me eternally in your debt.”

  He had chosen his moment well, after the wine had been circulated freely and produced that expansion which disposes us to take generous risks. When an hour later the ladies took their departure there was about their figures a matronliness which had not earlier been apparent, yet which went unperceived in the uncertain candlelight. They were to leave the laces, linen, silk stockings, and other fripperies — a whole wardrobe, in fact — with Baletti, who would know how to dispose of them.

  Two days later — on the 1st of April, the eve of the trial — Casanova had another visit from von Reuss, who made a last appeal to him.

  “Your persistence,” Casanova mocked him, “implies doubt of the issue of your action.”

  “We shall see tomorrow,” snarled the Würtemberger as he stamped out.

  “You shall,” laughed Casanova.

  That night Casanova sat at supper alone, Le Duc behind his chair. The door of his room stood open to the ante-room, where the sentry himself was supping. Le Duc was pouring wine from a freshly uncorked bottle. Casanova stayed his hand.

  “Desire the sentry to drink a glass with me since this is my last night in these quarters.”

  Le Duc went out, and returned, his priestly face composed and solemn. The sentry thanked his excellency, and would be greatly honoured.

  “Take him the bottle,” said Casanova grandly.

  Half-an-hour later the sentry was snoring.

  “He’s a noisy devil, Le Duc,” said Casanova. “But, you see, the gentlemen of Würtemberg are not the only men who can play tricks with wine. Let us be stirring, my lad. I’ll leave my travelling-chaise to pay the bill.”

  He took up cloak and hat, thrust a brace of pistols into his pockets, and a hunting-knife into his belt. His jewels were already securely disposed about his person. He took a last look round at the empty travelling bags, and they went out softly, locking the door after them, and removing the key. They tiptoed across the ante-room, past the drugged sentry, and unperceived gained the staircase that led down to the side entrance. Three minutes later they were in the street, muffled to the eyes against the night air.

  The sentry pacing under the window of Casanova’s room gave them good-night as they passed him. It was his business only to see that nobody escaped by the window. In less than a quarter of an hour they were in Baletti’s house on the walls. There they were received by La Binetti and Toscani, who trembled with excitement.

  “All is ready,” said Toscani. “A travelling carriage is waiting on the Fürstenberg road, already laden with the valises containing your laces and effects.”

  “And Baletti? Where is he?”

  “In the moat, awaiting you.”

  They stepped to the window which stood open. Seventy feet below, knee-deep in the mud, stood Baletti invisible. But a soft whistle announced his presence the moment Casanova’s head was thrust from the window.

  A rope was ready, and by this first Casanova and then Le Duc were gently lowered by the women to the moat. Having clambered out to the far side at considerable damage to their garments, they set out, led by Baletti, across a stretch of waste land to the road where a carriage waited near a wayside tavern. Baletti halted.

  “There lies your way,” he said. “I come no further. I was disguised when I hired the chaise in Fürstenberg, and I would not have the postilion see me, lest he should recognize me again, and thus dispel the mystery that must overhang your escape. He has his orders. He is to drive you over the frontier straight to Fürstenberg.”

  They embraced each other, and Casanova profusely thanked the comedian, to whom and to the accidental situation of whose lodgings he owed it that his escape was possible.

  Five minutes later they were driving briskly through the night, away from Stuttgart and its disgusting court. Next morning from Fürstenberg, safe beyond the reach of the Grand Duke of Würtemberg, Ca
sanova wrote to the three scoundrelly rooks. He told them that persisting in his intention of paying them in steel, he would await them for seven days in Fürstenberg, where the ægis of their obscene prince would no longer shield them. Should they fail to come, he would publish them as cowards in every city of Europe.

  They never came, of course; nor did he ever trouble to publish them, or to give them another thought.

  Stuttgart was left gaping at the mystery of his escape, until it was remembered that he had dabbled at different times in magic, and it was concluded that he had employed the agency of the devil to pass unperceived through the barred gates of the city. Of those in the secret not one dared breathe a word of the truth, for Casanova had taken care to make each of them an accomplice.

  THE POLISH DUEL

  Casanova possessed in a pre-eminent degree the adventurer’s faculty of drawing fortune from misfortune, and sometimes, too, he was well served by his luck to the same end, but never so well as on the occasion of his brief but chequered sojourn in Warsaw in the winter of 1765.

  You see him now a hard-bitten man of forty, already conscious that his best years lie behind him, yet of a /verve/ as vigorous as his constitution. The fortune amassed in Holland some years before, which would have kept an ordinarily extravagant man in luxury for the remainder of his days, he had by now entirely dissipated. Already he was beginning to have recourse to the questionable shifts by which he had kept himself in funds in his early years. Outwardly, however, he still contrived to maintain the splendour of the great gentleman, and though his purse grew light and his creditors in Warsaw impatient, his air and manner were as haughty and imposing as in his most affluent days.

  He had come to the Polish capital armed with those letters of introduction with which he was invariably able to provide himself. They led to his being presented to the witty, scholarly Stanislas-Auguste, and a happy quotation from Horace established him in the royal favour. Also, the king — like most monarchs of the day — was avid of news of the doings of Catherine of Russia, and Casanova, fresh from St Petersburg, where he had wintered, was not only able to gratify his curiosity, but did so with all the piquant humour in which he knew how to array his impudence. Stanislas-Auguste was very pleased with him, providing him with some work of a literary character, to which Casanova devoted himself with assiduity, being led to hope that it would lead to his being appointed the King’s private secretary. Thence he hoped that Fortune, following the royal example, would smile on him once more. And with that end in view he was as prudent now in his mode of life as it lay within his nature to be. He avoided gaming-tables, and strove to keep himself clear of intrigues. Yet in the end an intrigue of the vainest character caught him in its toils almost despite himself.

  It happened early in February that the famous Italian dancer, La Binetti, with whom Casanova had been acquainted for some years, halted at the Polish capital on her way to Russia. Tomatis, the enterprising director of the Warsaw Opera House, engaged her for a week, and so well did she acquit herself that she was offered, and accepted, a year’s engagement, to the dismay not only of La Cataï, who had hitherto reigned unrivalled in the Warsaw theatre, but also of Tomatis himself, who was La Cataï’s best friend, and who had been far from foreseeing such a consequence to his speculation.

  Very soon La Binetti was the rage, languidly receiving the homage of a multitude of adorers. Yet since La Cataï continued still to have her partisans, it followed that the frequenters of the Warsaw theatre were divided now into two parties, so that the rivalry between the two dancers became more and more acute.

  Considering that Casanova was an old acquaintance, it was natural that La Binetti should expect to find him in the ranks of her followers. But his new mood of prudence, and his resolve to avoid intrigues, kept him aloof from all partisanship. He tells us that La Binetti scolded him for his aloofness, and that she was almost as annoyed with him as with Tomatis. But I hesitate — for reasons that will presently become apparent — to accept that statement. Besides, there was no parallel between his friendly neutrality and Tomatis’s avowed hostility towards her. For Tomatis was by now bitterly repenting that he should himself have afforded La Binetti the opportunity of conquering rather more than the half of Warsaw. He made no secret of this, but worked quite openly in the interest of La Cataï, and missed no occasion to manifest how greatly superior he considered her to La Binetti. As a consequence it was not long before La Binetti came to hate Tomatis, and to look round for a weapon with which to avenge herself upon the luckless director. That weapon — and a very ready one — she found presently in Xavier Branicki, who, deeply enamoured of her unquestionable charms, was prepared to go any lengths to win her favour.

  This Count Branicki was a handsome, vigorous man of thirty, newly returned from Berlin, where he had been as ambassador to the court of Frederick. He was Grand Chamberlain of the kingdom, a colonel of Uhlans, and a close friend of the king’s. A man therefore of some weight and consequence in Warsaw, as you can conceive, yet not above becoming a bully in the service of a dancer, as you shall see.

  At her imperious behest, he addressed himself to the punishing of Tomatis for the latter’s preference of her rival. One night at the opera, during the performance of the second ballet, in which La Binetti was appearing, Branicki amazed the audience by entering the box occupied by Tomatis and La Cataï. It was the first time that either in public or in private he had paid the slightest attention to the rival dancer, and before the present homage of his words and bearing both La Cataï and her friend Tomatis could conclude only that he had quarrelled with La Binetti. He took a seat beside the lady, and was assiduous in his attentions throughout the remainder of the evening. At the end of the performance he begged to be permitted to conduct her to her carriage, which in reality was the carriage of Tomatis. Even then he did not take his leave of her; having handed her into the vehicle, he followed, and seated himself beside her. Tomatis, who under the eyes of the courtly throng that filled the vestibule had followed the pair between satisfaction and mistrust, stepped forward now to enter the carriage in his turn. But he found his way barred by the arm which Branicki suddenly shot forward.

  “Take another carriage, and follow us,” the Grand Chamberlain commanded, much as he might have commanded a lackey.

  Stung by the tone, Tomatis was so imprudent as to display a dignified insistence. “I am not accustomed, Count,” he said, “to travel in any carriage but my own.”

  “Drive on!” shouted Branicki to the coachman.

  “Stay where you are!” Tomatis commanded, and since Tomatis was the master it was Tomatis who was obeyed.

  The scene promised to become interesting; it began to look as if the Grand Chamberlain were about to be made ridiculous. But Branicki played with loaded dice. The thing had gone as far as he had intended, and Tomatis had afforded him the pretext he required. Compelled by the director’s firmness to alight from the carriage, he did so with every appearance of anger, and called to an orderly who stood by to box the director’s ears. The orderly, with perfect, mechanical military obedience, dealt Tomatis a resounding buffet. The director reeled, half-stunned by the blow. Then, partly recovering himself, but lacking the wit or the courage to drive his sword through the body of his assailant, he plunged into the carriage, and was driven home to eat, as Casanova says, his /soufflet/ for supper.

  The unfortunate director was so crushed by the affair that for a time he hardly dared to show himself. He appealed to the king for justice; but Stanislas-Auguste was reluctant to take action against his friend and Grand Chamberlain. To Casanova, who had been a witness of the affair, and who was filled with indignation against the aggressor and sympathy for Tomatis, the director confided bitterly that vengeance on Branicki was too costly a luxury for him. It would entail his departure from Poland, and the loss of some 40,000 sequins which he had invested in the theatre.

  Heaven knows I do not wish to add to the catalogue of rogueries to which Casanova confes
ses. Yet I suspect him of a certain lack of candour in his account of what followed. We know that he was extremely hard-pressed for money at this moment; that he was of a resolute courage, and a useful man of his hands; we know that Tomatis was tolerably rich, and burning to punish Branicki, if it were possible to do so without his own agency being revealed. Is it therefore unreasonable to suspect that more passed at his interview with Tomatis than Casanova reveals, and that the sequel did not fall out exactly as he would have us believe?

  He says, for instance, that he had reason to suspect that La Binetti intended to have him similarly dealt with. But he can have had little grounds for this suspicion, considering how friendly had been his relations with the dancer until then. What is far more probable is that he now deliberately provoked her resentment by ostentatiously joining the party of her rival, in the hope that she would send Branicki to box his ears. He admits, indeed, that not having 40,000 sequins to lose like Tomatis, he had no occasion to fear her lover. He tells us, too, that she was radiant now, whilst hypocritically affecting regret for the misfortune of her “friend” Tomatis, and that her falseness disposed him against her. Is it too much to suppose that he deliberately expressed his feelings; and short of supposing this, how is one to account for what followed?

  It happened that a little while later — on the feast of St Casimir, to be precise — Casanova was of the king’s party at the theatre. Stanislas-Auguste left after the second ballet, and Casanova went behind to congratulate a young Piedmontese dancer, named La Caracci, whose performance had greatly pleased his majesty. Passing La Binetti’s dressing-room, the door of which stood open, he paused to exchange a greeting with her, and had got no further when Count Branicki arrived. To Casanova this was the signal for departure. Frigid and distant, he bowed to the Polish nobleman, his chill and deadly politeness an insult in itself, and went his way to convey to La Caracci the pleasing news of the royal approbation. He was still delighting her with this, when to his amazement — as he says — the dressing-room was unceremoniously invaded by Branicki. Casanova’s bold dark eyes played over the Count with a glance that was haughty and challenging. Branicki laughed. He was a handsome fellow, tall and florid, with keen blue eyes, and a sneering mouth.