The Man Who Sees Ghosts (12 page)

“In another corner of the chapel there was a further movement. This came from an elderly lady who now got up from a pew close behind me. Until then I had not been aware of her. She was only a few steps from me—she had witnessed my every movement. This dismayed me—I dropped my eyes to the floor and they swept past me.

I watched her walk down the long church aisle. Her lovely figure is upright—what sweet majesty! How noble her gait! Gone now is my former existence—new graces—a completely new vision. They leave slowly. I follow at a distance and timidly, unsure whether I should dare to catch up with her? Whether I should not?—Will she not grant me another look? What if she did in fact grant me another look as she went past me and I did not see it?—Oh, how this doubt tormented me!

They come to a halt and I—I am rooted to the spot. The elderly lady, her mother or whoever she was, has noticed that her beautiful hair has come loose and is busy putting it to rights after giving her the parasol to hold. Oh, what disorder I wished her hair to be in, how clumsy I wished those hands!

This toiletry completed, they approach the door. I quicken my steps—Half of the figure disappears from view—and the other half—now only the shadow of her dress billowing behind her—She has gone—No, she is returning. She dropped a flower, she bends down to pick it up—she looks behind her once and—towards me? Whom else can she be seeking out among these dead walls? So I was no longer a complete stranger to her—she had left me behind, too, like her flower—Dear F***, I am ashamed to tell you how childishly I construed this look, which—perhaps was not meant for me!”

As to this last question I believed I could reassure the Prince.

“Strange,” the Prince continued after a long silence. “Is it possible never to have known, never to have missed something and then a few moments later to be living for this alone? Can a single moment divide someone into two such dissimilar beings? Since seeing that, it would be just as impossible to return now to the joys and desires of yesterday as it would be to the games of my childhood—since that picture has been planted in me here—this living, powerful feeling that says: you can love only this now and nothing else in this world but this will ever touch you again.”

“Consider, my lord, the sensitive mood you were in
when this apparition surprised you and how much there was that combined to excite your imagination. Suddenly to be removed from the bright glare of the day, away from the hubbub of the street and into this quiet darkness—surrendering completely to feelings which, as you yourself confess, enlivened in you a sense of the peace, the majesty of that place—made altogether more sensitive to loveliness by the contemplation of beautiful works of art—alone, moreover, and solitary, as you thought—and then suddenly—close by—startled by the figure of a girl when you were not expecting anyone else—by a beauty I am happy to accept, which was made even more exalted by the favourable light, a felicitous posture, an expression of zealous devotion—what was more natural than that your inflamed fantasy made out of all this something idealised, something of unearthly perfection?”

“Can fantasy produce something it has not first received?—and there is nothing in the whole range of my experience that could be set alongside that picture. It rests in my memory entire and unchanged as in the moment I saw it; apart from this picture I have nothing—and yet you could offer me a world for it!”

“This is love, my lord.”

“Does what makes me happy need to be a name? Love!—Do not debase my feelings with a name that thousands of weak creatures abuse! What other man has felt what I feel? Such a one never existed till now—how can the name be there sooner than the experience? It is a new, unique feeling, newly created with this new, unique being and only possible for her! Love! I am proof against love!”

“You dispatched Biondello—no doubt to follow your mystery lady so as to gather information about her, yes? What was the news he brought back to you?”

“Biondello found out nothing—as good as nothing. He found her still at the church door. An elderly, well-dressed man, who looked more like a local citizen than a servant, arrived in order to accompany her to the gondola. A number of poor people lined up as she passed and saw her off, smiling happily. At this point, according to Biondello, a hand appeared which flashed with several costly stones. She said something to her female companion that Biondello did not understand; he thought it was Greek. As she had a fair distance to walk to the canal, a crowd began to gather; the unusualness of the sight caused passers-by to stop in their tracks. No-one knew who she was—but beauty is a queen by birth. Everyone respectfully made way for her. Her face was covered with a black veil that reached halfway down her dress, and she then quickly stepped into the gondola. Biondello kept the boat in view all along the Giudecca canal but the crowd prevented him from following it further.”

“But he surely took note of the gondolier so that he would at least be able to recognise him again?”

“He is confident of being able to trace the gondolier, though the man is not one of those he has dealings with. The poor people he questioned could tell him nothing more than that the Signora has been coming here for several weeks and always on Saturdays and that on each occasion she gives them a gold coin to share amongst them. It was a Dutch ducat, which he gave them the change for and brought to me.”

“So she is a Greek and of rank, as it would appear, or at least wealthy—and charitable. That is enough to begin with, my lord—enough and almost too much! But a Greek and in a Catholic church!”

“Why not? She may have abandoned her faith. Besides—there is still something mysterious about it—Why only once a week? Why only Saturdays in this church which, as Biondello tells me, at this time is generally deserted?—Next Saturday at the latest must settle this question. But until then, my friend, help me to leap across this chasm of time! No, it is useless! Days and hours saunter calmly along when my desire has wings.”

“And when this day arrives, what then, my lord? What is to happen?”

“What is to happen?—I will see her. I will find out where she is staying. I will learn who she is.—Who she is?—Why should this concern me? What I saw made me happy, so I already know everything that can make me happy!”

“And our departure from Venice set for the beginning of next month?”

“Could I know in advance that Venice still held such a treasure for me?—You are questioning me from the standpoint of the life I led yesterday. I tell you that my life begins only from today on, that is what I want.”

I now believed I had found the right moment to keep my word to the Marchese. I made it clear to the Prince that his weakened financial state would not allow of a longer stay in Venice and that in the event that he did prolong his stay beyond the appointed date, he could by no means count on the continuing support of his Court. It
was now that I learnt what had been kept secret from me until then, namely that his sister, the reigning *** of ***, secretly pays him a substantial allowance that excludes her other brothers and that she would be happy to double if his Court were to cut him off. This sister, a devout Pietist, as you know, believes that the large savings she makes at her reduced Court could be put into no better hands than those of her brother, whose wise charitable nature she knows and whom she keenly respects. I have in fact known for a long while that there is a very close bond between the two and also that they exchange frequent letters; but because the Prince’s expenses to date have been adequately met by the usual source, I had never come across this hidden source of support. It is therefore clear that the Prince has had expenses that I knew, and still know, nothing about; and, if I may conclude from the rest of his character, I am certain they are ones that only redound to his honour. How could I have fondly imagined I knew him inside out?—Feeling after this revelation even less obliged to wait before disclosing the Marchese’s offer to him, I was not a little taken aback when it was accepted without any difficulty. He gave me full authority to settle the matter with the Marchese in the way I thought best and then straightway to cancel the arrangement with the usurer. His sister would be written to immediately.

It was morning when we parted. As unpleasant to me as this turn of events is and is bound to be for several reasons, the most vexing part of it by far is that he is threatening to prolong our stay in Venice. But I anticipate far more good than evil from this dawning passion. It is
perhaps the most powerful means of drawing the Prince away from his metaphysical day-dreams and back to common humanity: it will have its usual crisis, I hope, and like an artificial illness take the old one away with it as well.

God be with you, my dear friend. I have written all this in the wake of the actual events themselves. The post is leaving now; you will receive this letter along with the previous one both on the same day.

This Civitella fellow is really the most obliging man in the world. The Prince had barely left me the other day when a note from the Marchese appeared, commending the offer to me in the most urgent terms. I immediately sent him a written undertaking in the Prince’s name for 6000 zechins; in less than half an hour this was followed by another note along with twice the sum in bills of exchange as well as in hard cash. The Prince finally consented to this increase in the sum; but the written agreement, fixed for six weeks only, had to be accepted.

This entire week was spent sending out enquiries about the mysterious Greek lady. Biondello set all his machinery into motion, but so far nothing has come of it. He did find the gondolier, though; but nothing more could be got out of him than that he had set the two ladies down on the island of Murano, where they climbed into two sedan chairs which had been waiting for them. He took her to be an Englishwoman because she had spoken a foreign
language and paid him in gold. He did not know her male companion either; the latter gave him the impression of being a mirror manufacturer from Murano. At least we knew now that she was not to be sought in the Giudecca and that she was in all likelihood staying on the island of Murano; but what was unfortunate was that the Prince’s description of her was of no use at all to a third party trying to identify her. It was precisely the passionate attentiveness with which he, as it were, swallowed up the sight of her that had prevented him from seeing her; everything that other people would have focused their attention on he had been quite blind to; according to his description one might have been tempted to seek her more in Ariost or Tasso than on a Venetian island. Furthermore, enquiries had to be made with great care so as to avoid creating any unseemly stir. Since, apart from the Prince, Biondello was the only one to have seen her, through her veil at least, and who could therefore recognise her again, he searched where possible in all the places where she might be presumed to be and at the same times; the poor man’s life this whole week has amounted to little more than a constant running around all the streets of Venice. In the Greek church community in particular no stones have been left unturned but everything has met with the same lack of success; and the Prince, whose impatience grew at every dashed hope, had to console himself finally with the following Saturday.

His agitation was terrible. Nothing amused him, nothing was capable of absorbing him. His whole being was in feverish motion; he abandoned all society and in this isolation the evil grew. This of all weeks was when
he was besieged as never before by visitors. His imminent departure had been announced and everyone came flocking. These people had to be occupied so as to divert their suspicious attentions; he had to be occupied in order to distract his mind. In this predicament Civitella hit upon gambling, and in order to keep the crowds away, recommended playing for high stakes. He hoped at the same time to awaken in the Prince a temporary taste for gambling, which would soon stifle this fanciful flight of his passions and which one would be able at any time to wean him away from again. “Cards,” said Civitella, “have guarded me from many foolish things I was about to do and made good many I had already done. I have often rediscovered in faro the peace and good sense that a pair of beautiful eyes have deprived me of, and never have women had more power over me than when I was short of the wherewithal to gamble.”

I will leave aside here to what extent Civitella was right—but the means we had lighted on soon began to prove even more dangerous than the evil it was supposed to remedy. The Prince, who was capable of giving the game a fleeting charm only by playing for high stakes, soon did not know where to draw the line. He lost all sense of proportion. Everything he did took on an impassioned character; everything was marked by the short-tempered impetuosity that now reigned in him. You know his indifference towards money; he now became totally insensible as to its value. Gold coins ran through his fingers like water. He lost almost uninterruptedly because he played without giving it any thought whatsoever. He lost enormous sums because the risks he took were those
of a desperate gambler.—Dear O***, I write this with a knocking heart—in four days the 12,000 zechins and more besides were lost.

Do not reproach me. I blame myself enough. But could I prevent it? Did the Prince listen to me? Was I able to do anything but remonstrate with him? I did all that was within my power. I am not guilty of anything that I can see.

Civitella suffered serious losses, too; I won 600 zechins. The Prince’s unparallelled bad luck created a stir; it was thus all the more impossible now for him to abandon the game. Civitella, who was visibly delighted to be able to oblige, immediately advanced him the said sum. The hole is plugged; but the Prince now owes the Marchese 24,000 zechins. Oh, how I yearn for the savings of his pious sister!—Are all princes like this, my friend? Our Prince behaves for all the world as if he has done the Marchese a great honour, and the latter—he plays his part well at least.