Casanova in Bolzano

by Marai, Sandor

  And when the man did not answer, she continued, “Why will you not answer? Can the answer be so terrifying, Giacomo?”

  “You know very well,” the man replied, slowly and somewhat hoarsely, “that if I were ever to answer you in this life, the answer would not be given in pen and ink.”

  The woman shrugged and responded calmly, almost indifferently, with the trace of a smile in her voice. “Yes, I know. But what can I do? . . . I will live and wait for you to answer my letter, my love.”

  And she set out toward the door. But halfway there she turned to him in a gentle, friendly manner.

  “The game and the performance are over, Giacomo. Let us return to our lives, taking off our masks and costumes. Everything has turned out as you wanted. I am sure that everything that has happened has happened according to some unwritten law. But you should know that it has happened as I, too, wanted it: I saw you, I was tender to you, and I hurt you.”

  She stood on tiptoe, looked briefly into the mirror, and with an easy movement placed the three-cornered hat over her wig. Having adjusted it, she added solicitously: “I hope I did not hurt you too much.”

  But she did not wait for an answer. She left the room without looking back, her feet swift and firm, and silently closed the door behind her.

  The Answer

  The room had chilled down and the candles had guttered but were still smoking with a bitter stench. The man stepped out of the skirt, released himself from the bodice, tore off his mask, and threw away the wig. He entered the bedchamber, stepped over to the washbasin, poured icy water from the jug over his palm, and with slow deliberate movements began to wash.

  He washed the paint and rice powder off his face, rubbed the scarlet from his lips, peeled the beauty patch from his cheek, and wiped the soot from his eyebrows. He splashed the water on, its icy touch burning and scratching his face: it stung him like a blow. He ran his fingers through his hair and rubbed his face raw with the towel, then lit fresh candles, and in the light they gave, leaned toward the mirror to check that he had removed every trace of paint from his face. His brow was furrowed and pale, his chin needed a shave, and there were dark shadows under his eyes as if he had just returned from an orgy that had gone on all night. Then he threw away everything associated with the mask, and with quick, certain movements, began to dress.

  Somewhere, bells were ringing. He put on traveling clothes, a warm shirt and stockings, and drew his cloak about his shoulders before looking around the room. The food and drink lay untouched on the damask tablecloth with its silver cutlery, only the snow in the dish had melted and futile little islands of butter were swimming about in the remaining pool like peculiarly swollen Oriental flowers on a tiny, ornamental pond. He picked up the chicken, tore it into two, and with fierce greedy movements nervously began to gnaw it. Having finished it he threw the bones into a corner, wiped his greasy fingers on the tablecloth, raised the crystal wineglass full of viscous golden fluid, and filled his mouth with it. He held his head back and watched as it went down in slow gulps, his enormous Adam’s apple bobbing up and down in the mirror. He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and threw away the glass, which struck the ground with a light chink and broke into pieces. His voice hoarse with wine, he called for Balbi.

  The friar was immediately there, as if he had been ready and waiting for some time. He stood in the doorway, ready for the journey in his thick brown broadcloth coat, in his square-toed shoes, and a flask under his arm that he was nursing as tenderly and carefully as a mother might her child. Teresa followed him in and silently, without a second glance, hurried over to the shards of broken glass and assiduously gathered up the pieces in her apron.

  “Is everything ready?” he asked the friar.

  “They’re preparing the horses,” Balbi replied.

  “Have you packed?” he asked the girl.

  “No, sir,” the girl replied, humbly and modestly. “I will not be going with you.”

  She stood by the fire, her head to one side, the broken glass in her apron, gazing calmly at him with wide and empty blue eyes.

  “And why will you not come with me?” he asked, throwing his head back and looking down his nose. “I guarantee your future.”

  “Because you don’t love me,” the girl dreamily replied like a dutiful schoolgirl repeating a lesson.

  “Do you think I love somebody else?” he asked.

  “Yes.”

  “Whom do you think I love?” he asked curiously, as if addressing a child who was hiding a secret and was now about to reveal it.

  “The woman in men’s clothes, who left a little while ago,” answered the girl.

  “Are you sure,” he asked, astonished.

  “Quite sure.”

  “How do you know?”

  “I can feel it. There is no one else. Nor will there ever be. That is why I won’t go with you. Forgive me, sir.”

  She stood still. Balbi waited silently in the doorway, his hands folded over his stomach, and peered at him with a mildly inquisitive expression, twiddling his thumbs and blinking. Giacomo stepped over to the maid and stroked her hair and brow with great tenderness.

  “Wait,” he said. “Don’t go yet. An angel may be speaking through you.”

  He opened his cloak, sat down in the armchair, drew the girl carefully to him, and sat her down on his knee, gazing deeply into those empty, watchful blue eyes.

  “Sit down, Balbi,” he said eventually. “There, by the table. Take pen, powder, and paper. You will write a letter for me.”

  The friar sat down silently, shifting and panting with his great weight. He lit a candle and examined the pen before staring up at the ceiling in anticipation.

  “Address it Your Excellency,” he said. “And watch your hand now. I want this to be beautifully written. I will speak slowly so you have time to form the letters. Are you ready? We may begin. ‘I am leaving town in the early hours of this morning. I am leaving without payment or reward, and all I ask is a single favor. Your Excellency has already volunteered his services as a postman once: I beg him now, by way of farewell, to undertake the task once more, and to inform the duchess of Parma that I call for help on whatever powers may be, and pray to God that He preserve us, she and I, now and in the future, from ever meeting again. I would that Your Excellency beg her, as she cares for her life and fears God, to avoid me henceforth, and to make sure that we never again look upon each other’s faces, whether masked or unmasked. That is all I ask. For by most human expectations—and I say this with due courtesy, without any intent to offend—I am likely to outlive Your Excellency. I shall outlive him as nature and human destiny decree, and Your Excellency’s noble corpse will soon be dust in his ancestors’ tomb while Francesca and I continue to exist in the world: and, once Your Excellency is dead there will be no one to protect her, the woman we have both loved, each in his own fashion, according to our agreement and our fate. That is why I ask Your Excellency to tell the duchess, she whom I shall never again address in writing, to avoid me like the plague or the deluge; she should avoid me as she might sin and calumny; she must avoid me so that she might save that which is more important than life, meaning her soul. Only Your Excellency can tell her this. My carriage is prepared; in an hour I shall have left town and by evening I shall be beyond the frontiers of the state. The duchess of Parma will inform Your Excellency at some opportune hour, at a moment of tenderness perhaps or at some other proper confidential time, that I have carried out my obligations according to the terms of our agreement; not quite as we imagined, not quite as I usually do or imagined I would, but it is the outcome alone that matters, and the outcome is that I have kept my word and that the duchess of Parma has returned home by first light of dawn, known and cured, recovered from one who is as the plague and the yellow fever to her, and that she will henceforth dwell at the side of Your Excellency, without me, as is to be expected, with only the fading memory of my dangerous and wicked person in her heart. For that which was desire and p
assion between us has vanished in the performance, and now it is I who carry with me all that was feverish and resembled infection in that love, and the duchess of Parma is now free to dedicate her life to Your Excellency, gilding his declining years in a calmer frame of mind.’ Have you written it all down? . . . Wait, perhaps we should say his declining months . . . instead. It is more considerate in its honesty and, note this, Balbi, and you too my child, that it is incumbent on us to fight the great duels of life, even at moments of the most desperate crisis, with consideration, for it is befitting that we should be courteous while being true to the facts and to ourselves. Now where were we? . . . ‘Declining months. For if I do not perish along the path, at the hand of some assassin, or by way of accident—Your Excellency having informed me that my entire life is an accident, albeit an accident that I am determined, tooth and nail, to survive—I will live on, and every day I live will present a danger to the soul of Francesca. That is my message to her. Everything else I report speaks for itself. I am leaving the town, as agreed, and the duchess of Parma is back at home after her adventure, as pure as the driven snow or the fleecy clouds of spring. It may, of course, be true that, according to the new knowledge, the color white is an aggregation of all other colors, from the crimson of blood through to the black of mourning: it is what I read in the philosopher’s book and I merely pass the knowledge on, adding only that the adventure was itself as pure as most people imagine snow to be. Your Excellency desired peace and recovery: he desired that the spell of love be broken and that Francesca should live on at her husband’s side without pining, without memory. This has come to pass and I can go my way. I do not say that I go with a light heart. Nor do I say that I go proudly, shrugging my shoulders, rubbing my hands with satisfaction, like an artist who has finished a commission, stowed away his reward, and can hardly wait to cross the border and embark on new projects, with new techniques, ready to hammer out new agreements. I have looked into my heart and all I can say is that the tie we sought to sever with words and daggers is stronger now than it was the day before, or indeed ever before: the tie meaning that which binds me to the duchess of Parma. Knots tied by the gods are, it seems, not to be untied by human hands, however clever, tender, or violent. And that is why Your Excellency should look to the duchess’s soul and ensure that we never meet again. Fire dies, said the duchess, and sooner or later all passion turns to ashes, but let me say, by way of farewell, that there is a kind of fire that is not lit by the spark of the moment, nor by the kindling of the senses; nor is it fanned by greed or ambition, no: there is something that continues to flicker in human life, a flame that neither custom nor boredom succeeds in putting out; nor do satisfaction or lechery succeed where they fail; it is a flame the world cannot extinguish, indeed, we ourselves cannot extinguish it. It is part of the fire that human hands once stole from heaven, and ever since then those responsible for its theft have faced the wrath of the gods. This is the flame that will continue to burn in my heart, nor do I have any wish to extinguish it: and wherever life leads me, wherever I present my character and exercise my art, I will know that the flame does not go out and that its heat and light fill my life. I could not say this to the duchess, since I did not want to break the agreement, and I will adhere to the letter of that agreement as to the rules of my art. I did not say to her, “I am yours alone, forever,” as lovers generally do: I kept my word, and it is only Your Excellency who can tell the duchess of Parma that sometimes the artist can be a hero by obeying the conventions and obligations of performance, by not pronouncing the words that burn in his heart and on his lips, whose meaning is in the end, after all, “I am yours alone, forever.” I did not pronounce the words, and the words I did not say will now echo forever in our two souls; that is why I report, by way of farewell, that I have kept our agreement faithfully, to the letter. The performance was a success, Your Excellency, and the show is over. But there is something that remains and will never be over, something upon which Your Excellency has expended all his strength, his secret influence, his terrifying omniscience and literary acuity, and yet is impossible to undo or destroy, which is the knowledge that whatever flame heaven has ignited in the human heart is not to be extinguished by human hands or human intelligence. And there is something else I could not say for fear of breaking our agreement: that there is a kind of sacrifice or service in love which is more than declarations or abductions, more than “I am yours alone, forever”’—you should write those words within quotation marks, I think—‘There is a kind of love which does not wish to remove or to hurt but to protect, perhaps even to save, and that this may in fact be the truest love of all, and however surprised I am to feel it, it is the feeling that the memory of the duchess of Parma prompts in me and always will. Because there is nothing easier than to remove the loved one from the world. There is nothing easier, for an experienced performer like me, than to produce tears and vows, to carry out the accomplished seduction, to undertake the great somersault, to join the circle dance of nymph and faun, complete with pipes and rustic viols. I think I can say, without boasting, that I know my art, that I have performed often enough in my life, and will, no doubt, perform again should the nymphs and gods of pleasure so command. Nothing would have been easier for me—and only Your Excellency is free to repeat these words to the duchess, for I could not speak them in case the words became a reality and the reality resulted in action!—than to yield to my desires; to answer neither “too much” nor “too little” to all that a woman in love could offer me out of the depths of her pain and not to worry about her revenge, either, but to act upon desire, action, after all, having been the working principle of my life, for there has never been very much distance between my desires and my deeds, thank heaven’—I would like a semicolon there, please—‘and I say this without boasting, with a clear conscience. But I knew something that the sickly child of love, the duchess of Parma, could not yet know: I knew who I was, I was aware of my earthly task, my role, and my fate, and I also knew that the flame that keeps me alive and gives me strength is death to those who carelessly touch it. There would have been nothing easier for me than to accept her gift, to exchange body for body, and soul for soul, and thereby to take possession of One’—write that with a capital O—‘One who was truly mine. And there was yet something else I knew that the duchess of Parma could not yet know: that the truth can only survive as long as the hidden veils of desire and longing draw a curtain before her and cover her. That is why I did not lift the veil and bathe truth’s mysterious face in the light of reality. And now I must return to my own reality, which is many-colored. I know its taste and scents so well that sometimes they seem bitter to me, and I no longer expect miracles or salvation. Let us go in peace, Your Excellency! We are mortals, and that high station imposes obligations on us: we are obliged to know our hearts and our fates. That is not an easy task. There are only two divine medicaments to help us bear the poison of reality and prevent it from killing us prematurely, and these are intelligence and indifference. We are men, the both of us: we know this secret; we have encountered reality and met our truth; we understand this. But it is not the business of a young, fiercely beating, and grievously wounded heart to understand it: that is why we must silently bear her accusations and her revenge, too, the revenge that will follow us everywhere we go. And I beg her once more, as I go, before I vanish into the mist that will now be covering the mountain paths, vanish away into cities, into time, into otherness, as my fate, which I truly regard as my fate, consumes me, to avoid me at all costs. She should avoid me if she wishes to save her soul. Because goodness, experience, skill, and compassion are only means whereby we may discipline the heart from time to time, but something underlies our intentions, directing our steps, some vast imperative whose magical power we may not transgress without being punished for it. I wish you months of happiness, Your Excellency! I hope we are not disappointed in each other. And if, a little later, when passions have died down somewhat and the miraculous balm
of forgetting has eased the young heart so dear to both of us, should my name crop up in the course of some tender conversation, tell her that I have carried the rapier she exchanged for my dagger into the world, and am handling it well. That I will not bring disgrace on it. Tell her this so she may be assured. It is possible that I might have to twist the blade she has given me in a heart or two, but tell her that she need not fear, for my hand will be cold and certain at those moments. Because this hand, that she now holds in such contempt, has trembled only once in all these years, the only time that goodness, clear sight, and compassion prevented it, and that was when I did not reach out for her, who was my truth. And when you are searching for famous last words on your death bed, Your Excellency, simply pronounce the words that mark your own farewell, the words that now remain my unspoken message: “I am yours alone, forever.”’”

  He spoke the last words quietly and calmly into the girl’s ear, clearly enough for Balbi to hear them, too.

  Then he stood up and raised both arms high into the air before putting the girl down as indifferently as he might an inanimate object. He looked about him absentmindedly, took the rapier from the table, and stuck it in his belt.

  “Now make a clean copy!” he ordered Balbi.

  He went over to the window, opened the blinds, and bellowed into the faint glimmering light, his voice hard and commanding: “Bring the horses!”