The Man Who Sees Ghosts (2 page)

As soon as he had recovered sufficiently to be able to leave his room again, the doctor prevailed upon him to undertake a trip on the river Brenta for a change of air. The skies were clear and a party was made up. Just as we were on the point of boarding the gondola, the Prince noticed that he was missing a key to a small casket that contained some very important papers. We immediately turned back in order to search for it. He distinctly recollected having locked the casket the previous day and he had not left his room since then. But all our efforts to find it proved fruitless and we had to desist so as not to any more lose time. The Prince, whose nature was far removed from harbouring any suspicions, declared the key to be lost and asked us not to speak of it further.

The trip was a delight. A picturesque landscape which, at every bend of the river, seemed to outdo itself in terms of richness and beauty—the brightest of skies which in the middle of February displayed the very picture of a day in May—charming gardens and countless numbers of tasteful country houses adorning both
banks of the Brenta—at our backs Venice in her majesty with a hundred towers and masts rising up out of the water—all this presented us with the the loveliest spectacle the world could offer. We abandoned ourselves completely to the magic of this beautiful natural scene, falling into the liveliest of moods with even the Prince abandoning his earnestness and joining us in seeing who could outdo the others in light-hearted jests. When we disembarked several miles, by Italian reckoning, from the city, the sound of merry music came drifting to us from a small village where the people were holding their annual fair; the place was swarming with all kinds of folk. A troop of young girls and boys, all dressed up in costumes, welcomed us with a pantomime dance. This was highly original and every movement was informed with ease and grace. When the dance was nearly over, the girl who was leading it and playing a queen seemed suddenly to be brought to a halt by some invisible hand. She stood there bereft of life, as did everyone else. The music fell silent. In the whole assembly not a whisper could be heard while she stood there in a deep trance with her eyes fixed to the ground. Then suddenly she leapt back into life with the fire of inspiration, looking about her wildly—“A King is among us,” she cried, tore off the crown on her head and laid it—at the feet of the Prince. At this point everyone present turned to look at him and, being so taken in by the moving sincerity of this actress, wavered for a long time in doubt as to whether there was any meaning in this charade. Finally the silence was broken by the sound of clapping in a general applause. I sought out the Prince. His dismay, as
I observed, was not inconsiderable and he was making every effort to avoid meeting the stares of the onlookers. He threw some money amongst the children and hastened to escape out of the throng.

We had taken but a few steps when a barefoot friar, making his way through the crowd, placed himself in the Prince’s path. “Sire,” said the monk, “give the Madonna of your riches—you will need her prayers.” He spoke this in a tone that we found disconcerting. He was swept away in the surge of people.

In the meantime our company had grown in number. We were now joined by an English lord whom the Prince had already seen in Nice, some merchants from Livorno, a German canon, a French Abbot along with some ladies, and a Russian officer. There was something so remarkable about the latter’s physignomy that it drew our attention. Never have I seen jostling together in one human face so many traits and yet so little character, so much endearing kindness alongside so much repelling coldness. All the passions seemed to have once suffused and then to have abandoned it. All that was left was the quiet, penetrating gaze of a complete connoisseur of men, which intimidated everyone it lighted on. This strange man followed us from afar but appeared to take but a casual interest in all the proceedings.

We came to a booth where a lottery was being drawn. The ladies entered the draw and we followed their example; the Prince also demanded a ticket. He won a snuff-box. When he opened it, I saw him blanch and recoil in shock.—The key lay inside it.

“What is this?” the Prince said to me when we found
ourselves alone for a moment. “A higher power pursues me, omniscience hovers about me. An invisible being which I cannot escape watches over my every step. I must seek out the Armenian and have him throw light on this.”

The sun was nearly setting when we arrived in front of the summer-house where dinner was being served. The name of the Prince had swelled our company to sixteen persons. Apart from those mentioned already, we had been joined by a virtuoso from Rome, some Swiss and an adventurer from Palermo, Sicily, who was in uniform and gave out that he was a captain. It was decided to spend the entire evening there and then travel home by torchlight. At table the conversation was lively and the Prince could not refrain from relating the incident with the key, which excited general wonderment. The matter was hotly argued over. Most of the company boldly contended that all these magic arts amounted to mere sleight of hand; the abbot, who was already well in his cups, challenged the whole world of spirits to come of their hiding-places; the Englishman uttered blasphemies, while the musician crossed himself to ward off the devil. A few, among whom the Prince numbered, were of the opinion that one should reserve judgement on such matters; meanwhile the Russian officer conversed with the ladies and seemed to take no interest in the conversation. In the heat of the argument no-one had noticed the Sicilian leave. Not half an hour had passed when he returned wrapped in a coat and placed himself behind the chair of the Frenchman. “You were bold enough earlier to want to take on all the spirits—would you like to try your hand with one?”

“Done!” said the abbot—“if you are willing to take it upon yourself to produce one for me.”

“I am,” replied the Sicilian, turning towards us, “when these ladies and gentlemen have left.”

“Why so?” cried the Englishman. “A plucky spirit is not afraid of good company.”

“I cannot vouch for the outcome,” said the Sicilian.

“For Heaven’s sake, no!” shrieked the ladies at the table, starting up from their chairs in alarm.

“Let it come, this spirit of yours,” said the abbot, defiantly, turning to one of the guests and asking him for his dagger, “but warn it in advance that we have some sharp blades here.”

“You may do as you see fit,” the Sicilian replied coldly, “if later you should feel so prompted.” He then turned to the Prince: “You have maintained, my lord, that your key passed through the hands of some stranger—can you divine who that was?”

“No.”

“And there is no-one you could guess at?”

“I did have one thought, I admit—”

“Would you recognise this person, if you saw him before you?”

“Most certainly.”

At this the Sicilian threw back his cloak and drew out a mirror which he held before the Prince’s eyes.

“Is this the man?”

The Prince recoiled in fright.

“What did you see?” I asked him.

“The Armenian.”

The Sicilian hid the mirror back beneath his cloak.

“Was it the same person you imagined?” the whole assembly asked the Prince.

“The very same.”

A change of expression came over every face at this and the laughter ceased. All eyes were fixed intently on the Sicilian.

“Monsieur l’Abbé, things are getting serious,” said the Englishman; “I would advise you to consider sounding the retreat.”

“The fellow’s possessed!” the Frenchman shouted and ran out of the house; the women rushed out of the room, shrieking, with the virtuoso hard on their heels; the German canon was snoring in an armchair, while the Russian remained sitting nonchalantly as before.

“Perhaps all you want is to make a laughing stock of a braggart,” the Prince resumed after these others had left, “or are you indeed willing to keep to your word?”

“It is true,” said the Sicilian, “that in respect of the abbot I was not in earnest: I only made the proposition to him because I knew the coward would not take me at my word.—But the matter itself is too serious to be merely the means of playing a joke.”

“So you will allow then that it is in your power?”

The magician was silent for a long time and appeared to be examining the Prince carefully.

“Yes,” he said finally.

The Prince’s curiosity was already close to breaking point. In former times, making contact with the spirit world had been a subject he had enthused about more than any other and, since the first appearance of the Armenian, all those ideas that his maturer judgment
had dismissed now claimed his attention once more. He went to one side with the Sicilian, with whom I heard him negotiating most urgently.

“You see a man before you,” he continued, “burning with impatience to know for certain about this important matter. Whoever were to scatter my doubts in this and lift the veil from my eyes, him I would embrace as my benefactor and first friend of my heart—would you be willing to perform this great service for me?”

“What are you asking of me?” said the magician cautiously.

“Simply a demonstration of your skill in the first instance. Let me see an apparition.”

“What would that lead to?”

“Then when you know me better you may judge as to whether I am worthy to receive higher instruction.”

“I have the highest regard for you, great Prince. In your countenance resides a secret power that you yourself have no knowledge of as yet and this it was that bound me to you from the first. You are mightier than you yourself realise. All my powers are completely at your command—but—”

“Then let me see an apparition.”

“I must, however, first be sure that you do not ask this of me out of idle curiosity. Although unseen forces do in some measure obey me, this is on the sacred condition that I do not profane the sacred secrets, that I do not misuse my power.”

“My intentions are of the purest. I want the truth.”

At this point they moved away to a window further off where I could no longer hear them. The Englishman,
who had likewise been privy to this conversation, drew me to one side.

“Your prince is a noble man. To let himself get mixed up with a swindler I find all the more deplorable.”

“That depends,” I said, “on how he will manage to pull out of the transaction.”

“I tell you what,” said the Englishman, “the wretched devil will now slap a high price on his services. He’ll not display his skills until he hears the clink of money. There are nine of us. Let us make a collection and tempt him with a substantial sum. That will both prove his undoing and open the Prince’s eyes.”

“I’ll go along with that.”

The Englishman threw six guineas onto a plate and went round everyone in turn making a collection. Each one contributed some louis; our proposal seemed to be of uncommon interest to the Russian in particular, who placed a one hundred zechin banknote on the plate—an extravagance that astonished the Englishman. We took the collection to the Prince. “Please be so good,” said the Englishman, “to intercede with this gentleman on our behalf that he might let us see a demonstration of his skill and accept this small proof of our appreciation.” The Prince added a costly ring to the plate, which he then offered to the Sicilian. The latter hesitated a few moments. “My good gentlemen and patrons,” he began, “I feel humbled by this generosity.—It would appear you have misjudged me—but I will yield to your demands. Your wish will be granted” and he gave the bell-pull a tug. “As regards this money, to which I myself have no right, you will allow me to deposit it with the nearest
Benedictine cloister as a charitable donation. This ring I will retain as a treasured memento to remind me of the worthiest of Princes.”

At this point the landlord entered, to whom he handed over the money.

“He’s a rogue nevertheless,” the Englishman spoke in my ear. “He’s surrendering the money because now he’s more concerned with the Prince.”

“Or because the landlord is acting on orders,” said another.

“Whom would you like?” the magician now asked the Prince.

The Prince hesitated a moment —

“Best make it a great man,” cried the English milord. “Call up the Ganganelli Pope. It won’t cost that gentleman much either.”

The Sicilian bit his lip. “I am not permitted to summon anyone who has been ordained.”

“That’s too bad,” said the Englishman. “We might have learnt from him what disease he died of.”

“The Marquis of Lanoy,” the Prince now rejoined, “was a French brigadier in the last war and my most trusted friend. In the battle of Hastinbeck he received a fatal wound—he was carried to my tent where he shortly died in my arms. While he was still struggling in his death throes, he beckoned me to him. “Prince,” he began, “I will never see my homeland again, so I wish to tell you a secret to which only I have the key. In a nunnery on the Dutch border lives a—” and with this he expired. The hand of death cut the thread of his words; I would like him summoned and to hear how he would have continued.”

“By heaven, that’s asking a lot!” cried the Englishman. “I’ll declare you to be a second Salomo if you can peform this task.” —

We praised the Prince’s clever choice, applauding it to a man. Meanwhile the magician strode up and down, appearing to be struggling to come to a decision.

“And was that all that the dying man left you with?”

“That was all.”

“Did you make no further enquiries about it in his own country?”

“All to no avail.”

“Had the Marquis of Lannoy led a blameless life?—There are some who have died I am not free to summon.”

“He died repenting the debaucheries of his youth.”

“Do you have on your person some memento of him?”

“Yes.” The Prince did in fact carry a snuff-box about with him, on which there was an enamel miniature of the Marquis, and this he had lying next to him on the table.

“I do not require to know more—Leave me on my own. You shall see the dead man.”

We were asked to repair to the other building until such time as he would call us, while he had all the furniture removed from the room, the windows unhinged and the shutters carefully bolted. He ordered the landlord, with whom he seemed to be on familiar terms, to bring a container filled with glowing coals and to douse all the fires in the rest of the building. Before we left he was careful to exact from each one of us an oath of eternal silence as regards what we would see and hear. All the rooms of this building were then locked behind us.