by John Crowley
‘I have also attended two executions, and a circumcision—two heads and a foreskin cut off—the ceremonies were all very moving. But these marvels were nothing, to my mind, in comparison to an encounter I must now describe to you, which involves the strange manners of Venetians in love, and also nearly touches yourself.
‘Often I had heard tales of one, an Englishman (tho’ as it will appear he is not wholly one) who had so adopted the ways of Venice, that he had become the official lover of a noble Venetian lady—the young wife of an old husband—and conformed himself to the many and strict rules that governed his position. There was some wonderment at this, though no ridicule—these matters are taken with what passes among the Venetians with the greatest seriousness. At length the man was pointed out to me, at a rout—though he being in Domino, I could learn little of him, except that he seemed somehow out of human shape—I mean bent, as by disease or accident. The Lady upon whom he waited was as dark-eyed, and red-lipped, and graceful, as she ought to be—or more. And what devotion he display’d—what care to meet her every wish! He receives from her her fan—delivers to her her shawl—bears her a limonata—opens the window by which she sits—closes it again for fear of miasma—sits by her, but a little lower, to hear her conversation, upon whatever Subject—and when she has been delighted enough, he hastens to call her Gondola! (It was in the execution of this task that I noticed how he halted slightly as he walked, yet the flaw diminished not a sort of dignity which he brought even to these slight occupations.) He passed by me as he escorted his Amorosa to the stair, and looked upon me with the most piercing—I would say unsettling—interest, which I trust I well supported, returning him a courtesy.
‘He must have inquired thereupon concerning me, for some time after there came to my lodgings in the Frezzeria—a neighbourhood near St Mark’s—a letter from him, borne by a pretty lad in livery, who delivered it with the most amusing gravity, as if it had ambassadorial status, and there awaited my reply, as he had been instructed. The letter was brief—it invited me to call upon the writer at his own residence, at a certain day and time, whereupon I would hear matter of interest to myself—but the hand, strangely, I seemed to know, as though I had seen it not often, but upon an occasion that might burn it into my mind. Intrigued I was—you know that an unknown is an interesting thing to me, and I find it hard to refuse one, though it cost me! In short I returned a note as brief as his own, agreeing to his request, and watched his messenger bear it away.
‘At the approach of the appointed hour, then, I called for my cloak and gondola (two nice Mrs Radcliffe words for you) and glided off upon the water to his palazzo. The day was one such as I have come to know and to delight in, when the Sun and Sea combine in such a way as to cause the silver-gilt city to seem imaginary, the illusion of a sorcerer, or that hallucination the French call le mirage, in which a lake of water and its trees and caravanserai hover upon the desert sands, only to vanish when approached—this does not so vanish, but it tickles the fancy that it might, and gives a careless quality to all of life that proceeds here.
‘I was welcomed at the stair of the palazzo by the liveried boy, and taken up to the first storey. There I found the man, somewhat diminish’d in stature when out of his black draperies and wearing an ordinary dressing-gown. He welcomed me with a brusque gesture, as he was intent upon a task with a yard of lace that I could not interpret, ’til he spoke. “There is,” says he, as though we was come together just for the purpose of discussing this, “a right and a wrong way to double a Lady’s shawl, and all my fellows seem to have got the knack, and I have not.”
‘I asked him whom he meant by his fellows, and he answered, those who like him had taken the rôle of Cavalier servente to a Lady. It is a guild, said he, with the sternest of rules; the Cavalier servente may act toward his Servite in some ways, but not in others; may wait upon her, but not refuse her commands, saving those that may injure his Honour—which is not injured by his shawl-folding, parasol-bearing, &c., &c. Nor is the position one lightly to be taken up—an amicizia is supposed to continue for many years, and those cancelling their Contracts prematurely are perfidious, and despised. If a vacancy should conveniently appear, the amicizia may be rounded off by a sposizia, and all end happily. I cannot tell you, my Lord, how ill all this contrivance seemed to sit upon the one before me—who now, having cast aside his shawl-folding and summoned Refreshment, offered me a chair by the brazier—he was almost a standing reproach to the delicacies of social intercourse, and of the taking of them gravitate all the more—for he hath a saturnine eye almost hard to meet, yet a tolerant smile often upon his features, as one who finds the ways of Earth a puzzle, which he will tolerate for a time. Now as we sat he came to his business, and with it my amazement grew—for he asked, without much preface, if I knew of your whereabouts! He had, he said, tried diligently to find them out, and had failed—when, upon seeing me at the Masquerade upon the earlier occasion, he remembered me as having once had a connexion with you.
‘ “I think he has leaned upon you in the past,” said he to me. “Indeed he named you as his Second upon a certain occasion, when he issued a challenge to a Ghost.”
‘I assented that I had so acted—I forbore to say, dear Friend, that I had also seconded you upon another occasion, when one you challenged was made a ghost, tho’ there was something about the man that encouraged a grisly levity—I cannot explain it, but ’twas so. Now I knew the man for sure—this was he who had pretended to appear for him who would not come, who spoke to us with such impertinence then—who now called himself openly by your name, even as he had secretly then!
‘ “I have request to make to you, then,” continued he, nothing abashed. “I would have you send to him for me a confidential letter.” I replied that I would do so, but that I was also prepared to give to him the address I superscribe upon my own letters. This he waved away, and indeed made it clear to me that he wished me only to include, with a letter of my own, a missive he would supply to me. Further, he asked me to keep all this entirely in confidence—that I had received anything from him, that I had sent it to you, and that the conversation we were then engaged upon had ever occurred. Well! This seemed to me to infringe upon mine own Honour, as being less than frank—but—I cannot say how—I sensed that it was vital that I do so—vital to him, and perhaps to yourself. To be brief, my dear Friend, I enclose herewith the letter in his hand, delivered to me sealed, and by a seal you know, which you may have by now already broken—let me but add, that the one who gave it me (forgive me if I do not refer to him by that name and title he himself uses, to which I do not understand his claim) was definite in saying, that if you should receive it with the seal broken, you must ignore it wholly, and all that it says, or requests. I take it to be a summons, and an urgent one, tho’ I am ignorant of what the matter is. Moreover, and to end—he asked me to salute you, on his behalf, with this name: Brother.’
NOTES FOR THE 14TH CHAPTER
lit de repos: Byron when he left England in the spring of 1816 travelled in a specially built coach modelled in every obtainable particular upon the coach that Napoleon abandoned at Genappe in his flight after his defeat in Russia. It was not small and convenient, as is the one here described, but huge, and black, and subject to mechanical failures, and was soon given up.
the young gentleman: Lord Broughton ( John Cam Hobhouse) tells me that this story, widely told about Mr S. B. Davies, is quite true, that Mr Davies enjoyed travelling in the coach from Cambridge, where he had a fellowship, to London, where he pursued his avocation, which was gambling. Mr Charles Babbage had a coach like it, with which he travelled the Continent. It was of his own design, and steady enough to transport delicate scientific instruments. He named it a Dormobile. I believe that fanciers of such hybrid coaches commonly convene in summer, to examine one another’s recreative vehicles, and celebrate their vagrant manner of life.
Fortune: S. B. Davies did indeed finally lose large sums of money—Lord Broughton
suggests it may have been in the tens of thousands of pounds—despite his skill and nerve in play. He also borrowed sums of money from his friends, which were unpaid when he fled to the Continent. It is, apparently, the only instance of Mr Davies acting dishonourably in a field of human activity where dishonourable, indeed dishonest, actions are frequent—a field which yet depends on the majority keeping its promises, and paying its debts at least a great part of the time—else the race-courses, gaming-tables, betting-shops and bookmakers of the world would vanish into air.
gone mad: How convenient and perhaps even delightful it must be, to be able to visit upon one’s enemies (or their shadows) disasters that might give even the Gods somewhat more trouble to deliver, than a few pen scratches. I hear his laughter, almost, and—almost—I shudder at it.
Mathematical Puzzles: It was a commonplace of Lord Byron’s scornful satire (vide Donna Inez in Don Juan) that my mother was of a coldly mathematical cast of mind, abstract and calculating, and devoted to Number. In fact that lady has little true conception of any general or higher Mathematics, and pretends to none; the only reason that Lord Byron credits her with such is that his own conception was not even as great.
a single Eye: In the story of Perseus and Andromeda. They were not evil—they were afraid—of everything. I was kept in ignorance of their fears for me, that I would be snatched away—but of course children (though when we become parents, we forget) may know, or perceive, more than their guardians suppose. I divined that I was, or might be, the object of my distant father’s plans, and I well remember the thrill of terror and anticipation—a mixed feeling to say the least—when at the passage of a coach, or a late knock upon the door, I could convince myself that the long-awaited abduction was at hand Even now
how he halted: Mr Moore relates in his Memoirs that Mrs Mercer Elphinstone told him Lord Byron chose Venice for his residence, because, as nobody walks there, his limitations in this would not be so remarkable.
Mrs Radcliffe: Her Italian romances were read by one and all in Ld. B.’s youth, The Castle of Otranto, The Italian, &c. Two stand upon my own shelves in this Study, which I had in youth. I have stared at their spines so long I feel that I must once have opened them, but I cannot be sure, and have no strength now to determine.
Cavalier servente: Some of Ld. B.’s most amusing letters describe his taking this employment in respect to the Lady who became his last attachment, Countess Teresa Guiccioli, now the Marquise de Boissy. The Countess as she then was came to London in 1835, during the summer of my own wedding. It was of course impossible for me to meet her, but Mr Babbage did, at Gore House; Dr Lardiner, whom I heard lecture on the Difference Engine, and Mr Edward Bulwer, now my friend, both called upon her there, and from them I later learned of the pathetic incident, whereby the Countess decided to see me married; somehow she supposed the wedding was to take place at St George’s church in Hanover Square, and there she waited in expectation for some time on the appointed day. My wedding, however, was solemnized in the drawing-room of a private house some miles away. This had required a special licence—as my Mother’s wedding at Seaham also had. My private wedding was at my Mother’s insistence, her command, to which we (my husband and I) assented strange
It just now occurs to me that here is another path by which the MS of Lord Byron’s novel could have reached the Italian patriots in London, who were all known to Mr Babbage—the Marquise’s brother was a patriot, and a firebrand, who accompanied my Father to Greece and was with him when he died—she might be thought likely to have possessed it—with reason enough to say nothing of it—for the Marquise’s memoir of my father presents him as an Angel upon whose reputation no stain or shadow is allowed to fall
if I should predecease the Lady, strike this out
• FIFTEEN •
In which Lucifer and his brother perhaps agree at last
NOT A MONTH has passed since the Honourable Peter Piper’s last Venetian letter received its many stamps and marks and was consigned to the Italian post as to the winds (for it too bloweth as it listeth) when a lone figure stands beside the Grand Canal, new arrived—his clothes long, his surtout black as the domino the Venetian masquers love, which draws the eye more surely than all the rainbow hues of gown and cape around it. His hair long and undressed, tumbled as the dark sea-weed—his cheek shadowed, unattended this day by barber or razor—and across that cheek a livid scar from bone to mouth’s corner, like a tale named but untold. Another such tale stands in his dark deep eye, which surveys without judgement and yet without delight the throngs in their riot of colour & song. Beside him, yet a step behind, a slighter figure, in the white dress of the desert peoples of Libya—the carnival-goers but glance at him, supposing him a Reveller like themselves, but he (tho’ years younger than his master) possesses himself in the same calm and stillness of spirit.
Can the one in black be Ali, this blot upon the Venetian sun, thus marked, thus fellowed? My readers (if ever this Tale is to have any—and of those, any who have, with its Author, reached this time, and place) will perhaps ask What adventures, in what climes, tempered that eager and over-charged soul, and forged this calm regard? But such readers will ask in vain—for ’twould lengthen the tale by as much again were all those tales to be also told within it—and so shall be left to imagine them—for see, here now comes out, from the Palazzo at hand, to greet his new-arrived Guest, a bent and misshapen man, in a coat of blue silk and a waistcoat of rich brocade—his brother, Ængus.
‘I know not,’ said he to Ali, ‘if I may offer my hand to you. I would not have it refused.’
‘We are the Sanes,’ said Ali. ‘The family despised you, as I hated it—at least its head, while he lived—yet it is all the House I now may own, or ever shall, and he the only Father—mine as he was yours.’
‘He loved you, at the least.’
‘He loved no-one—not even himself—himself the least, even.’
‘I must yield to your greater experience,’ said Ængus, and for a time the two but looked upon one another, as though to discern if they would smile at last, or keep between them, as a naked sword, all that had gone before.
‘There is a tale told,’ said Ali then, ‘among the nomads of the desert, with whom I have lived, who have their own conception of Religion, that strangely mixes Christianity and Mahomet’s teachings. They say that in the beginning God had two sons, and not one—one was He who would be called Jesus, and the other Lucifer. In the beginning it was they who fell out, and did battle—after which Lucifer left Heaven with his angels, and Jesus stay’d at home. Then, when Jesus in His human incarnation fasted in the desert for forty days—they will gladly show you the very place, for they know it well—Lucifer came to struggle with Him again, as they had done in the beginning. Lucifer challenged his brother to renounce their tyrant Father, and join with him, whereupon the mastery of the Earth should be His, and Lucifer would retire to his own abode. Jesus knows it for a bad bargain, and proclaims his continued allegiance to the Father in Heaven, and His plan for Man. Lucifer thereupon leaves Him there, upon that rock—and before he takes flight to the infernal regions, his last words to his divine Brother are, He always favoured you.’
‘A pretty tale,’ said Ængus. ‘Nay—it touches strangely upon the matter I have summoned to broach to you. But you will be weary with travel. Come within, wash and refresh yourself. Nothing of these matters till then—and you will perhaps consent, then, to go over to the Lido, and ride?’
‘I am told there are no horses in Venice—save those of brass, over the Cathedral.’
‘And mine. Come! May I make provision for your man?’—He meant the one in white, who stood behind Ali, and had neither moved nor spoken.
‘He is unwilling to leave my side,’ Ali responded. ‘If you have no objection, he will stand by my chair.’ At this a look pass’d between the two, master and man, if such they were—a look that Ængus observed—though, in truth, borne on that look were emotions he knew little of—feelings o
f tender regard, and of trust, and love. ‘I have none,’ said he briefly, and turned his ill-shaped form to mount his steps.
As they supt, Ali had occasion to allude to the single—and singular—thing he knew of his half-brother’s Venetian existence, that he had contracted a liaison with a certain Lady, and waited upon her in the common form—a form, as Ali averred, of servitude.
‘So it is,’ said Ængus in reply. ‘The Cavalier must consent to be a servente as well. I at first explained to my Lady, that as to the Cavaliership I was quite of accord, but that the Servitude did not suit me at all—I was overruled, however—she refused absolutely to be shamed in Society by any apparent carelessness of her feelings—I would say of her moral sense—and so I assented.’ He lifted his mocking eyes to Ali, and though the object of their mocking seemed the same as ever—himself—yet a shadow, or a light, of compassion had entered there, perhaps for the same object. ‘Comical I may seem to you,’ he said then—‘Comical indeed may such a life as I lead truly be—Still it has moments hard enough to bear with laughter. The Lady falls ill, and is thought to be in a desperate state—her Cavalier, tho’ as it happens he has been for a time banished for some peccadillo, is summoned to her side—with her Husband’s agreement—to share with him the anxieties and cares of the time—she has demanded it, tho’ it must occasion the lover’s taking liberties with her in the Husband’s presence, or near enough, that would elsewhere and at other times occasion a Duel, but which by the Code the husband must regard as innocent. On the other hand, is the Cavalier in the wrong then to insist she refuse her Husband’s lawful attentions, and permit them solely to himself—that dear family friend—from whom, by the bye, the husband (and his relations) feels justified in demanding now and then a service, or a loan? It is justified—it is proper—yet it is comical too—and it is hard.’
