by Sándor Márai
So Mensch finally gave him some money—not a lot, but just enough to cut a proper figure in Bolzano, where, Giacomo felt, his audience must be waiting impatiently for him to appear. Mensch gave him thirty ducats, which he counted out in gold at the lacquered table, his hands trembling with astonishment, without ring or forfeit, as advance against nothing more than a piece of paper assuring him of the credit of Signor Bragadin, a gentleman who might have lived on the moon as far as he was concerned, or at least a considerable distance off, as did all money that did not actually lie on the table in front of him. When he had wrapped the gold in parchment and handed it over he rose from the table, and bowing with the religious reverence of a high priest, ushered his guest to the door. He watched him for some time from the threshold until his customer disappeared in the fog.
The man to whom he had so trustingly advanced the money hastened down the twilit street while Mensch continued bowing and mumbling Italian, German, and French words under his breath. By now he was racing, practically running toward the lights of the main square. He arrived near the church just in time to see a carriage with two lackeys in the backseat holding torches. Behind the glass he caught sight of a pale face he recognized.
“Francesca!” he cried.
Suddenly it began to snow. He stood alone in the square, under the snow, as the carriage drove by him. He was stricken with the pain one always feels when desire becomes reality. Then he returned to The Stag, his hands clasped behind him, his head bowed, his body weighed down by his thoughts. He felt lonelier here and now than he had in the underworld, under the Leads.
The Consultation
That evening he sat in the restaurant of The Stag drinking mulled wine, waiting for the card party to arrive. They appeared cautiously: the chemist whom Balbi brought along, the dean who had visited Naples, a veteran actor, and an army officer who had deserted the day before at Bologna. They played for low stakes, going through the motions, getting to know one another. The chemist was caught cheating and was asked to leave. The soldier pursued the fat, foolish-looking man to the door and threw him out into the street where the snow was still falling. By midnight Giacomo was bored. He and Balbi went upstairs to his room where they lit candles and, with elbows propped on the table, set about marking the pack of cards he had bought that afternoon and which the engraver and printer had decorated with the legend STAMPATORI DE NAIBI immediately below an image of Death and The Hanged Man. The friar was surprisingly skilled at the work: they labored in silence, waxing the corners of the most important cards and using their nails to carve identifying symbols into the wax.
“Are you not worried this might get us into trouble?” asked the friar in passing, absorbed in his task.
“No,” he replied, holding an ace of diamonds up to the light and examining it through half-closed eyes before winking and painstakingly marking it. “What is there to be worried about? A gentleman is never worried.”
“A gentleman?” queried Balbi, sticking his tongue through his pursed lips, as he tended to do when expressing astonishment. “And which gentleman might that be?”
“I,” he said and touched the marked card gently with his fingertip. “Who else could I mean?” he stiffly remarked. “There are only two of us in the room, and it is certainly not you.”
“Do gentlemen cheat?” asked the friar and yawned.
“Of course,” he replied, throwing the cards away and stretching his limbs so his bones cracked. “It is very difficult to win otherwise. It is the nature of cards to be fickle. There are very few people who can win without the aid of some device. In any case,” he went on in a matter-of-fact voice, “everyone cheats. At Versailles the most respectable people cheat: even generals and priests.”
“Does the king cheat too?” asked Balbi, somewhat awestruck.
“No,” he answered solemnly. “He simply gets cross when he loses.”
They considered the nature of the king’s anger. Soon enough Giacomo was alone, and eventually he, too, sighed, yawned, and went to bed. For three days he continued in this deeply solitary fashion with only Balbi, Giuseppe, and little Teresa for company. He played faro with messenger boys and oil salesmen in the bar of The Stag, frequently winning, thanks to the waxed cards which certainly helped, though he occasionally lost because everyone else cheated at the time, especially in the taverns of London, Rome, Vienna, and Paris, where professional itinerant gamblers offered banque ouverte to all and sundry. He remembered one occasion when he had fought a Greek whose remarkable dexterity enabled him to produce ace after ace from his sleeve, but he felt no anger at the time, it was only to keep in practice.
He didn’t see Francesca nor did he make any special effort to look for her just yet.
It was as if life itself were slumbering in thin air below mountain peaks.
Then there came three days of raging winds when the windows of The Stag were plastered over in snow. The sky was thick with gray woolly clouds as dirty as the cotton in Mensch’s ears. The suits, the shirts, the coats, the shoes, the white silk Venetian mask, the walking stick, and the lorgnette were delivered, and he had a coat for Balbi too, if only for the sake of cleanliness and respectability, because the friar was running round town in a robe that might have been worn by a corpse freshly cut down at a public hanging. But most of the time he just sat in his room alone in front of the fire, in the apathetic, melancholy frame of mind that, despite a lively curiosity and an acquaintance with music, action, lights, and the thrill of the chase, he, of all people, had been ever more frequently afflicted by these last few years. It was as if everything he had planned and dreamed about in jail—life, pleasure, and entertainment—now that he was back in the world and had only to stretch out his hand to grab it, had lost something of its attraction. He was seriously considering returning to Rome, going down on his knees to his generous friend, the cardinal, and asking for forgiveness: he would beg to join the priesthood or plead for a position as a librarian in the papal offices. He thought of towns where nothing awaited him but inns, cold beds, women’s arms from which he would sleepily have to disentangle himself, the corridors of theaters where he’d hang about and tell lies, and salons and bars where his carefully prepared cards might provide him with a modest haul of gold: he thought of all this and yawned. He was acquainted with this mood of his and was afraid of it. “It’ll end in flight and a bloody nose,” he thought and drew together the nightgown covering his chest because he was shivering. This condition had begun in childhood and it was accompanied by a fear and disgust that, without warning, would suddenly come over him and end in nosebleeds that only Nonna, his strong, virtuous grandmother, could cure with herbs and lint. He thought of Nonna a lot these days, never of his mother or his siblings, but of this strong woman who had brought up three generations in Venice and had been particularly fond of Giacomo; she kept appearing in his sad and somewhat disturbing dreams. Nonna used to place an icy piece of lint on his neck and cook him beetroots because she believed that beetroots were effective against all sorts of bleeding, and eventually both the bleeding and the sadness would pass away. “Nonna!” he thought now, with an intense yearning that was keener than anything he had felt for other women.
Francesca lived nearby: by now he knew which house, knew the Swiss guard with his silver-tipped stick and bearskin cloak, had seen the lackeys, the hunters, and the postilions who escorted the duke of Parma on his journeys into town, and, in the evening, he would walk past the palazzo whose upper windows glimmered overhead—the duke enjoyed a busy social life, receiving guests, giving parties—and in the light that streamed from the window across the street he would imagine the magnificence of the reception halls. Balbi, who had talked to the servants, told him that every evening they replenished the golden branches of the chandeliers with three dozen candles, candles of the finest sort, made of goat fat, which the chandlers of Salzburg provided specially for the duke. “Francesca lives in the light,” he acknowledged with a shrug of his shoulder, but he didn’t talk ab
out her to Balbi. Yes, Francesca lived in the light, in a palace, attended by lackeys, and on one or two evenings he could even hear the stamping and neighing of the bishop’s horses as he drew up at the coach entrance and imagined the horses glittering in silver and dressed with a variety of official insignia. For the duke of Parma kept a busy house in the winter months, as befitted his rank, and perhaps the dignity of his young wife, too. And yet there would have been nothing easier than to enter the house and pay his respects to Francesca; the duke would no longer complain of his attentions, and had, in any case, intimated that he wanted to see him—or that, at least, was what Giuseppe had said. It was true that he mentioned it only once, on his very first visit and not since then, for he came every day to run his delicate pink fingers along Giacomo’s jowls, to rub his temples and reset his curls, and, every morning, he would recount in considerable detail the events of the previous night: the manner of the reception, the nature of the party games, the gaiety of the dancing at midnight, and the ins and outs of the card sessions conducted into the early hours of dawn. Giacomo noted them all. Every evening there was dancing, cards, reciting of verses, and playing of party games; every evening there was feasting and drinking at the duke of Parma’s. “Does the duke not get tired?” he occasionally asked in his most arch manner. “What I mean is, does he not tire of so many parties, every night? He stays up late each time; don’t you think this might be tiring for a man of his age? . . .” Giuseppe shrugged but refused to say any more.
The barber had mentioned the invitation only once, on the first day, and having mentioned it once remained eloquently silent on the subject, skirting the guest’s ingenuous questions. “Is the duke tired? . . .” he echoed and, lisping fastidiously, chose his words with care. “He would have every reason to be tired, I suppose. His Excellency always rises early and goes to hunt at dawn, however late he retired the previous night, then he takes his breakfast in his wife’s bedroom, where they receive guests at the morning levee. Is the duke tired?” he repeated the question and shrugged. The tiredness of the privileged was quite different from the exhaustion of the poor. The wellborn eat a lot of meat and that is what makes them tired. He, Giuseppe, would only say that, as far as he personally was concerned, he was never tired of dancing, flirtation, or of cards, but thinking, fine manners, and the general standards of behavior required by high society had often exhausted him. “The duke is given to thinking!” he whispered confidentially. And he winked and fluttered his eyelashes as if he were betraying some secret passion of the duke’s, a major vice or a tendency to a peculiar form of depravity; he winked as if to suggest that he could say more if he chose, but would not, because he was a careful man and knew the ways of the world. The stranger heard the news and bowed. “Given to thinking, eh!” he asked in a low voice indicating intimacy. They understood each other perfectly. The language they spoke was their mother tongue in the full meaning of the word, the language of people who, without knowing it, share certain tastes, certain traits of character: it was an underworld language that the inhabitants of a superior world can never quite understand. However, Giuseppe made no further mention of the duke’s invitation to the visitor: it was something he passed on, that first day as a matter of minor courtesy, then kept his peace, a peace that, in its own way, said as much as his loquaciousness.
“Is the duchess beautiful?” asked the visitor one day, in a disinterested, airy sort of way, as if the question were of no importance. The barber composed himself to answer. He put the tongs, the scissors, and the comb down on the mantelpiece, raised his epicene, long-fingered hand like a priest bestowing a blessing during mass, cleared his throat, then quietly embarked on a singsong, pleasantly lilting speech. “The duchess has dark eyes. On the left side of her face, near her downy pitted jaw, there is a tiny little wart which the chemist once treated with vitriol, but it has grown back again. The duchess artfully covers up this wart.” He recited all this, and a wealth of other minor detail, as though he were a priest delivering a sermon or an apprentice painter discussing the graces and shortcomings of a masterpiece. The coolness of his judgment signified an appreciation far surpassing mere enthusiasm. For Giuseppe was every day in the presence of the duchess, before the lesser and the greater levee, when the maids were depilating Francesca’s shins with red-hot walnut shells, polishing her toenails with syrup, smearing her splendid body with oils, and scenting her hair with the steam of ambergris before combing it. “The duchess is beautiful!” he sternly declared, the solemn expression ludicrous on a face as childish and effeminate as his, a face so chubby it was not quite human, the kind of face some highly respectable artist might have painted on the walls of an aristocratic woman’s bedchamber at Versailles as the face of a shepherd in a naïve, sentimental, wholly unselfconscious, and charmingly corrupt pastoral. The visitor waited while the long, delicate fingers finished with his face and hair and, having learned that the duke was given to thinking and that the duchess was beautiful despite the fact that a tiny wart had grown on her face again, he listened to various other interesting items of news. He remained silent while the other talked. They might have shared a common language but now they were speaking of different things. The fact remained that the duke had not repeated his desire to see the visitor.
So he stayed in town, that foreign, somewhat alien town, even after Signor Bragadin had sent the requested gold, along with a wise and virtuous letter full of noble, practical advice that was perfectly impossible to follow. Mensch was delighted that Signor Bragadin had obliged, and enthusiastically counted out the money with trembling, assured fingers, using a blend of German, French, and Italian expressions, separating interest and capital, with much mention of the terms “credit” and “security.” Signor Bragadin had in fact sent more money than his adopted son had asked for, not a lot more, just a little extra to show that an official loan was being topped up by the affections of the heart. “A noble heart,” thought the moved fugitive, and Mensch nodded: “A sound name! Fine gold!” As to Signor Bragadin’s letter, it contained all that a lonely, aged man could or might say while exploring such unconventional feelings, for all feeling is a form of exploration, and Signor Bragadin knew that this relationship would do nothing to enhance his whiter-than-white reputation and spotless respectability. No gossip or suspicion dared attach itself to the senator’s name but, when it came down to it, how far would Venice understand the deep morality underlying his affection? An ordinary Venetian would wonder whether this feeling, even in such irreproachable form, were all it seemed to be, and would not understand why a nobleman, a senator of Venice no less, should squander the affections of his old and none too healthy heart on a notorious playboy. “Why should he?” asked the Venetian public, and the more vulgar of them put their hands to their mouth, gave a wink, and whispered, “What’s in it for him?” But Signor Bragadin’s knowledge was deeper than theirs: he knew humanity’s most painful obligation is not to be ashamed of true feeling even when it is wasted on unworthy subjects. And so he sent money, more than his fugitive friend had requested, and wrote his long, wise letter. “You have made a new start in life, dear son,” he wrote in firm, angular characters, “and you will not be returning to your birthplace for some time. Think of your home with affection.” He wrote a great deal on the subject of his homeland, a page and a half. He advised Giacomo to forgive his birthplace because, in some mysterious way, one’s birthplace was always right. And a fugitive, more than anyone, especially he, who was now to be swept to the four corners of the world, should continually reflect on the fact that his birthplace remained his birthplace in perpetuity, even when it was in error. He wrote gracefully, with the certainty that only very old people with highly refined feelings can write, people who are fully aware of the meaning of every word they use, who know that it is impossible to escape our memories and that it is pointless hoping that we might pass our experiences on to others; who realize that we live alone, make mistakes alone, and die alone, and that whatever advice or wisdom we ge
t from others is of little use. He wrote about his birthplace as he might of a relative who was part tyrant and part fairy godmother, stressing that, whatever the strains, we should never break off relations with our family. Then he wrote about money and, much more briefly and practically, about a friend in Munich who was prepared to help a traveler at certain times, up to certain amounts; he wrote of the Inquisition which was greater than the great ones of the world, or as he put it, how the “powers of Church and State were fully united in the hands of the leaders of this incomparable institution.” But he had to write this, for as the addressee recognized, a sentence to this effect could not be omitted from any Venetian letter, for even the letters of Signor Bragadin were open to the inspection of the messer grande. Then he gave his blessing for the journey, and for life itself, which he said was an adventure. Giacomo read the letter twice then tore it up and threw it on the fire. He took Mensch’s gold pieces and could have set out for Munich or elsewhere immediately. But he didn’t. It was his fifth day in Bolzano and he had got to know everyone, including the captain of police, who called on him to ask most courteously how long he intended remaining in town. He avoided answering and cursed the place after the official left. He paid off debts and gambled away the rest in the bar of The Stag and in the private apartments of the chemist whom they had earlier ejected from The Stag but who was now hosting sessions of faro at home. Without money, and with the address of Signor Bragadin’s acquaintance in Munich in his pocket, he had every reason for moving on. But now that he had paid the innkeeper and the shops, had bought a present for Teresa, and offered a handsome tip to Giuseppe; now that the gold had allowed him a few moments of Venetian brilliance, he could afford to stay. He enjoyed credit, not only with Mensch, whom he had sought out again in the last few days, not just with the shops who had been paid off once, but with a more problematic company, the gamblers. An English gentleman—who, when he wasn’t gambling, was studying the geology of the surrounding mountains—accepted his IOU address in Paris. Given such losses and gains achieved by dint of experience and light fingers, having paid off old debts and piled up new ones, the natural ties of his new situation, based on interest and a general relaxation in his circumstances, slowly established themselves. Everyone was happy to extend credit to the stranger now because they knew him, because they recognized that the odds on him winning or losing were impossible to calculate: they accepted him because the town quickly got used to him and tolerated his presence behind its walls the way any man tolerates a degree of danger.
