Glorious Ones

by Francine Prose

  And that’s just what I told myself at the beginning, when I started to play opposite you. “What difference does it make?” I thought. “What does it matter that I met this man before, many years ago?”

  When we rehearsed our scenes together, I concentrated on my acting. I tried to regard you as another actor, a talented newcomer, nothing more. I tried not to see you as a likely source of human love. My life would have made that love too complicated; it could never have been the simple thing I desired. And I wanted to keep my life simple. So I kept my distance.

  But you know the old story. You’ve seen it, in every one of the plays.

  I began to think about you constantly. I thought how much I liked you—you seemed so sensible, so funny, so kind. I began to laugh and joke with you; I began to wonder what it would be like to sleep with you. After awhile, you were always on my mind. When I praised you on stage, I meant every word.

  At last, I realized that I’d fallen in love. You’d won my generous heart, you’d charmed my craziness. For the second time, you’d spoken to my natural voice—the voice that shouted and squawked.

  A few days later, I discovered I was pregnant.

  Wait, Pietro. I see you wincing in your sleep. I know what’s running through your mind. You’re afraid that I’ll say something silly, that I’ll claim the baby was fathered by the power of love. Rest easy. I’m not that kind of woman. I know the simple facts of nature. I couldn’t believe such nonsense.

  And yet, I’ve always wondered if perhaps the opposite was true. Was that why none of the The Glorious Ones had ever fathered or conceived a child? None of them had ever really loved, not even Armanda or Columbina; for there was always hate in it. Is that what made them sterile?

  And why, after ten years of marriage, using no precautions, should I suddenly conceive Andreini’s child? Why, when he and I had only slept together twice that spring? It was love which opened the doors of my womb, Pietro. What else could explain it?

  I mean it metaphorically, of course. Because it couldn’t have been your child. On that day I came to your tent to offer myself, I couldn’t even speak. I was afraid that I’d disgrace myself; I’d ask you, and be rejected. I didn’t believe you loved me, I thought I was imagining those long looks of yours.

  Now, looking back, it seems so strange. I was Isabella Andreini, the greatest actress and playwright in all Europe. And you turned me back into a sixteen-year-old girl, with much less nerve than I’d had at sixteen. It was that odd sensation of becoming a virgin again. You know, Pietro: the poets speak of it.

  And I know how you did it.

  That was the likeness I spoke of before, the tie that bound you, me, and Flaminio. There was something we shared in common: we were the ones with whom everyone fell in love.

  And it was all because we were such dreamers. We lived so close to our own imaginations, we’d learned how to reach in and play with other people’s dreams. We made them believe that we loved them; at the very same time, we made them think our love was all in their minds, a fantasy of their own creation. It confused them, made them unsteady, afraid. In that way, we bewitched them, and pulled them into our web. It was the source of much of our power.

  Flaminio knew those tricks. He played them on Armanda, on Columbina. No wonder those women loved him so much. I’d learned them long ago, so that I could work my magic on Francesco, on The Glorious Ones, on the King of France himself. And you, Pietro? You did it to me.

  Yet we never meant to harm anyone. It wasn’t our fault. For the truth of the matter was that we never knew what we really felt, and what was just in our imaginations.

  But on that afternoon I visited you in your tent, I knew exactly what I felt. That was why I was so frightened.

  That was why I couldn’t speak.

  Two days after we reached Lyons, the pains began. Early in the morning I opened my eyes to see the velvet canopy in my bedroom at the king’s palace. Then, I looked down, and saw the bloodstains on the white satin sheets.

  “Columbina!” I cried. “Quick! Get help!”

  And that was when I knew The Glorious Ones were going to kill me. Columbina moved sluggishly, like an old woman. It took her almost an hour to fetch Francesco from the dining room, where he was breakfasting with the nobles. They entrusted me to the Doctor’s care—Graziano, who knew nothing about medicine! Pantalone quibbled about the pennies needed to buy me infusions, herbs, and leeches. Brighella and Armanda stood outside my room, fighting constantly, sapping my strength with their racket.

  And Francesco? Francesco refused to let me see you. So he must have known, he must have noticed how I’d watched you, during those last months.

  “No,” he insisted, ignoring all my pleas. “That one will make you worse. He’s as unruly as a child, as clumsy as a bull. He won’t know how to behave at an invalid’s bedside.”

  So I lay there, praying to Mary. I thought that, as a woman, she would understand. “Please,” I begged her. “Let me get well. Let me get well so that I can go to Pietro and tell him. Don’t let me die, so he’ll never know.”

  But I’d forgotten. The Blessed Mother was a virgin. She couldn’t understand. She wouldn’t grant my prayer.

  So that is why I’m coming to you in this dream. That is why I’m returning, from beyond death, from beyond the gates of heaven, from beyond that state funeral, financed by the King of France. I want to tell you what was in my heart, I want you to know. If necessary, I’ll shout at you. I’ll scream and squawk, in the true voice of my spirit. But I want you to understand.

  Wait. The blankets have slipped down to your waist, and I’m afraid you’ll be awakened by the chill. Lie still, sleep, for now it’s time to tell you about heaven.

  There is a window in the sky, Pietro, through which the angels can look down and see the future of the world. That was where I met Flaminio Scala again, after so many years. He was standing at the window, with his nose pressed against the pane.

  But he couldn’t see. Poor Flaminio, even in heaven he couldn’t see the ends of things. He saw vague outlines, blurred shapes; but he couldn’t see the details.

  “Isabella!” he cried, greeting me warmly. “All is forgiven! I, Flaminio Scala, the most humble and charitable angel in heaven, assure you that all is forgiven. Now please, quickly, do me a favor. Look through this window, and tell me what you see!”

  I look through the window. And I see. I see the end of The Glorious Ones. I see them dying, one by one. I see their deaths enacted, as if each one were a short scenario.

  I see the Doctor growing older, more senile. At last, in the course of his demented research, he drinks a bottle of his own medicine, for experimental purposes. And the medicine is rat poison.

  I see Brighella, slipping from a high scaffolding, landing on the stage. His neck is bent back, askew, like that of a broken doll. When he comes up to heaven to collect his final reward, Saint Peter is waiting for him at the gate.

  “Brighella,” says the saint, “fifty years ago, our Precious Lord resolved to break your neck on the gallows, to consign you to the pits of hell. There was, however, a mistake; such things happen, even in heaven. But now, He has decided to amend His oversight.”

  As the saint falls silent, Brighella begins to fly through the air like a maddened gadfly. He falls and tumbles, buzzes through the clouds. Then, he vanishes out of sight.

  I see Pantalone growing sicker, more obsessed. I see him being buried in a plain wooden coffin, with a gigantic sack of gold beneath his head.

  I see Columbina living to an old age, then dying from an unexpected recurrence of the French pox.

  I see you too, Pietro. One night, a rich young widow comes out of the crowd. You sleep with her; she likes it, and proposes marriage. You become her husband, and no longer have to beg in the streets. You die of gout, a rich man’s disease.

  Don’t pity me, Pietro, for having to watch you with another woman. It makes it easier to be here, away from you, in heaven.

  I try and try to s
ee Francesco’s future, but I can’t. I, too, have my blind spots. Though perhaps it’s because Flaminio’s already stolen my husband’s spirit, and taken it with him to heaven; perhaps Francesco’s soul is already here, and I just can’t find it.

  And, at the very end, I see something which makes me glad that Flaminio is so blind.

  I see you writing down this dream, Pietro, and giving it to Armanda, who’s begged you to do it. I see her putting it together with the broadsides, the posters, the copies of the plays, with all the histories the others have written. I see her assembling them, as a monument to Flaminio Scala, to insure the Captain’s immortality.

  She begins to carry this strange collection around with her, day after day, month after month, year after year. She carries the papers in a pouch on her back, like an artificial hump. They are never more than a few feet from her side.

  But gradually, an odd thing starts to happen. As Armanda grows older, she feels the pouch growing heavier and heavier. It becomes so heavy that she can’t move while she’s wearing it. She can’t lift it. It’s crippling her, crushing her bones, ruining her life.

  Yet she can’t abandon it; she’s promised Flaminio Scala.

  One day, staggering beneath her impossible pouch, she stumbles towards the river. Still wearing that monument to Flaminio on her back, she walks into the water.

  Armanda’s body begins to float downstream. And the leaves of the manuscript float out around her, spinning on the surface of the water, like lily petals.

  So it came true! That old witch, Flaminio Scala’s mother, had told the truth! Flaminio was undone, condemned to obscurity, by a woman from the convent, the one he’d adopted himself. His name was obliterated by that harmless little dwarf, who loved him so much, and who was so undone by him.

  When I turned my back on that scene, I couldn’t look at Flaminio. There were tears in my eyes.

  “What did you see?” he demanded. “Tell me: what did you see?”

  “Captain,” I replied. “I saw wonders. I saw the entire future of the theater. I saw millions of stages all over the world. I saw brilliant playwrights, great actors. I saw thousands of troupes—which would never have existed if not for you and your Glorious Ones.”

  “But what about me?” he asked. “Did you see my name, enthroned in glory for eternity?”

  “I couldn’t see the details,” I said, very softly. “All I could see were the vague, blurred shapes.”

  Muttering to himself, Flaminio walked away. And, as I stood there, gazing after him, I suddenly remembered an interlude we played, in that first drama, so long ago, the one about the Moon Woman.

  In the interlude, I played Pantalone’s melancholy daughter, out walking in my father’s garden. There was a bright moon in the sky, and I was gazing at my lover, the full moon.

  Pantalone had filled his garden with marble statues, which gleamed eerily in the dim light. Dusted with white powder, standing perfectly still, every one of the Glorious Ones pretended to be a statue.

  I looked at them all, one by one, frozen in that gleaming light. And, one night, I saw:

  I saw them all—Flaminio, Armanda, Brighella, Pantalone, Francesco, Columbina, the Doctor. I saw their whole lives, their pasts, their souls, their dreams about themselves. It was as if I’d invented them, like characters in a play.

  I saw them gleaming, petrified in marble. And I began to wonder: what sort of play is this which I have written? Is it really a comedy, as we’d always said? Or is it actually a tragedy?

  At that moment, the statues came to life. The Glorious Ones jumped down from their pedestals and surrounded me. Armanda and Brighella leapt into the air. Francesco turned amazing cartwheels, the Doctor puffed out his chest, Flaminio flourished his sword. All of them danced around me, in a circle, as I stared up at the moon.

  Then, suddenly, I knew beyond a doubt: it was indeed a comedy.

  Here in heaven, they have their own answer to that question.

  Perhaps this will surprise you, Pietro, but many of the angels are actors. That is what they do with their spare time. Every day, all over heaven, thousands of short skits are performed, each one based on a true incident which took place on earth. All the great stories are played out—legends from the Greeks, from the Bible, the masterpieces of the Orient, and an astonishing number of wonderful stories which have never been written down.

  Eventually, all the newcomers to heaven begin to notice a surprising thing: many of the stories are the same, most of the dramas seem interchangeable. There are vast millions of Isabellas, Brighellas, Flaminios—all wearing different costumes, all living in different times.

  As soon as the new angels realize this, their wings begin to shimmer with joy. “That’s all human life is about,” they tell each other happily. “It’s just a series of stories and plays, most of which are exactly the same!”

  Immediately, they forget the sorrow of their own stories, the ones they’ve lived out on earth. “That is the meaning of heaven,” they say. “The knowledge that it is all just a story. Surely, this is what Jesus meant, when He promised that we would be cleansed of the memory of mortal pain!”

  Sometimes, I agree with them, and it comforts me; the thought of The Glorious Ones no longer causes me such suffering.

  But sometimes, I’m not so sure; I wonder. Because if they are right, Pietro, if everything that befell The Glorious Ones is all just another story, then tell me, tell me this:

  Why does Flaminio still long for worldly immortality? And why am I bothering to come to you, in this dream?

  Though FLAMINIO SCALA, ISABELLA, and FRANCESCO ANDREINI were actual historical figures, this novel is not, in any sense, intended as their biography. Though several incidents have been borrowed from their lives, even these have been changed.

  My apologies to their memories and their ghosts.

  About the Author

  Francine Prose is the author of sixteen novels, including A Changed Man, winner of the Dayton Literary Peace Prize, and Blue Angel, a finalist for the National Book Award. Her most recent works of nonfiction include the highly acclaimed Anne Frank: The Book, the Life, the Afterlife, and the New York Times bestseller Reading Like a Writer. A former president of PEN American Center and a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters, as well as the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, Prose is a highly regarded critic and essayist, and has taught literature and writing for more than twenty years at major universities. She is a distinguished writer in residence at Bard College, and she lives in New York City.

  All rights reserved, including without limitation the right to reproduce this ebook or any portion thereof in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Copyright © 1974 by Francine Prose

  Cover design by Jason Gabbert

  978-1-4804-4505-5

  This edition published in 2013 by Open Road Integrated Media, Inc.

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