Stone Virgin Read online

  Boccadoro was so delighted by this that he rubbed his skullcap back and forth over his head causing some of his scant grey hair to stick out from under it. He was a man of violent and impulsive gesture. ‘My dear fellow,’ he said. ‘I only wish she could hear you now.’ He paused and I saw an idea born on his face – his eyes were reddish-brown, deep-set and normally quick-glancing, but they became fierce and staring when any calculation was involved. ‘But she could,’ he said. ‘She could hear you.’

  His considerations were clear to me though I did not at first believe he would closet us together. I was near Francesca’s age, as he had begun by saying; and he was wondering if I might sway her, bring her somehow to a sense of duty – including the duty of the bedchamber. I, Sigismondo Ziani, the moral voice of my generation, advocate of the conjugal couch! There was something so innocently hopeful in his staring shrewdness that almost my heart warmed to him – almost.

  ‘There is one obstacle only,’ he said.

  ‘And what is that?’

  ‘My poor friend,’ he said, ‘she hates you.’

  Ziani laid down his pen and reached with mottled paw across the table for the brass handbell which, as essential to his survival, was one of his few possessions left unpawned. He held it at arm’s length and rang it in sustained and querulous fashion, knowing however, from experience so ancient even the rancour had gone from it, that Battistella would certainly not come at the first summons and quite possibly not at the second.

  While he waited he grew pensive. Reflected light from the slopping canal moved in leisurely ripples, over the walls of the apartment, the tented shapes, the faded baize of his table, his curled fingers, the stained satin of his robe – he spilt his food often these days, through tremulousness and the haste of his appetite. Reflections of light, sounds from the canal and riva below, these were the accompaniments to his days; with his view over the water, they were all that linked him to the world outside. He had not been out of the apartment for more than three years now. Poverty, misanthropy, growing infirmity, kept him immured. There is one obstacle only, his mind repeated, with self-delighting lucidity. And what is that? With sardonic interior laughter that moved no fraction of his face he dwelt on the complacency of Boccadoro’s reply. My poor friend, she hates you.

  He was commencing, with habitual imprecations, to ring for a third time when Battistella appeared and moved slowly towards him with his shuffling gait.

  ‘Old fool,’ Ziani said, though his servant was a year younger than himself, ‘you are getting very deaf. When my Mémoires are published I shall buy a bigger bell. What ridiculous thing are you wearing?’

  Battistella made no reply to this but stood surveying his master, mouth slightly open, breathing audibly. He was a spindly old man with inflamed eyes, very steady and direct. The short wig, which he hastily donned from old habit whenever he heard the bell, was rakishly askew on his brow. He was wearing a pink coat with silver embroidery in the fashion of thirty years before, very much too large for him, with sleeves rolled back and enormous ragged pockets so low as to be almost out of reach – he would have had to adopt a crouching posture to get into them. Below the flaps of the skirt his thin legs in their wrinkled hose seemed too frail, the patched shoes too narrow, to bear the pink and silver bulk above.

  Ziani peered closely. ‘I know that coat,’ he said. He felt a movement of rage. ‘You have been at my wardrobe again,’ he said. He at once regretted saying this, as it gave Battistella the chance, which he immediately took, to list his grievances, a thing he enjoyed doing: the dampness of the house, the lack of any proper heating, his bad chest, his wages two years in arrears … Battistella’s face, throughout this wheezing catalogue, remained quite impassive. ‘Provide me with livery,’ he ended by saying – an old gibe, this – ‘and I will wear it, not only with pleasure, but with pride.’

  Ziani felt the eyes of his servant upon him. There was no denying that Battistella had scored a point. He assumed an air of languid superiority. ‘I am in the midst of composition,’ he said. ‘I have no time for trivial matters. I am relating the Boccadoro business. You remember that, I suppose?’

  Battistella’s breathing had quietened a little and he had become absolutely still. ‘I remember it very clear,’ he said.

  ‘You always claim to remember everything. Do not imagine for one moment that you deceive me. This at least you should remember, as you were involved in it closely. I have reached one of the key points, that moment when with a sudden lightning flash of intuition I realized that Donna Francesca was not opening her arms to him.’ Ziani chuckled on a rising note, hee, hee, hee, and reached for his snuffbox. ‘So to speak,’ he said. Triumph caused him to sniff up the rappee too vigorously. He sneezed violently and his eyes welled up with tears.

  ‘As I remember,’ Battistella said, ‘begging your pardon, you mentioned that possibility to me soon after meeting the lady and subsequent to that you speculated several times as to whether Signor Boccadoro was getting his conjugals. “Is he getting his oats, Battistella?” you said to me. “That is what I would like to know.” So how can it have been a sudden bit of lightning?’

  Ziani stared. His mouth fell open. This burst of garrulity, and the contradiction it contained, had been totally unexpected. His eyes were smarting still. He could think of nothing to say. The nightmare panic of being worsted descended on him. He took out his handkerchief and fell busily to wiping his eyes and blowing his nose. When the rather grubby cambric was removed his face had recovered its lopsided composure. ‘My poor Battistella,’ he said. ‘You do not understand what it is to be an artist. Are we to include everything that occurs from hour to hour? Of course not. We must strive to render things dramatic. That is the art of it.’

  ‘Begging your pardon, sir,’ Battistella said, ‘but things either happened or they didn’t.’

  Ziani raised his eyes to the ceiling. ‘What a blockhead!’ he said. ‘Do you want me to say what waistcoat I was wearing? I compress all my suspicions into one moment. I am trying to present this business as a campaign, Battistella. Lightning assessments, bold courses, a master plan. My Mémoires will be faithful to the spirit of the age. And what is it, this spirit of the age?’

  Battistella made no reply.

  ‘You have no idea, have you? This is the age of the heroic strategist.’

  Still his servant said nothing. Using silence to indicate dissent or disapproval was one of Battistella’s customary ploys; Ziani knew it of old; as always it vexed him and as always he was constrained to conceal his vexation. ‘Well, well,’ he said. ‘If anyone else had said that you’d have thought it brilliant. Well, you needn’t speak. You have no vision, Battistella. That is the difference between us. When these Mémoires of mine are published, you will change your tune. Did you take the sheets to the printer again yesterday?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And they still agree to make no charge for the printing?’

  ‘They say they will take their costs out of sales.’

  ‘You see?’ Ziani looked up in triumph. ‘The rogues can smell money,’ he said. ‘These are people used to assessing manuscripts. They see the genius in my pages. What is for dinner today?’

  ‘For dinner today we have a good torta.’

  ‘Torta, torta,’ Ziani said fussily. ‘Torta can mean many things. You do not tell a man what is for dinner simply by saying there is pie.’ He looked expectantly at Battistella.

  ‘This torta contains chicken pieces fried in good oil, and ham ravioli.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘And almonds and dates. Also there is sweet wine from Malaga.’

  Ziani’s eyes glistened. ‘I will admit,’ he said, ‘that you have managed excellently with food lately, my good Battistella. There was a time when it was polenta every day. Now the money seems to be going further. I congratulate you. As a literary critic you may lack refinement, but you are a good man in the kitchen. You will be rewarded, never fear. I am thinking of raising your wages. As you
see, the printers have faith in me. Those people are not fools, they can see what will make a profit.’

  He paused for a moment, but his servant remained silent. ‘Well,’ he said, ‘you may leave me now. I am ready to resume.’

  ‘Yes,’ Battistella said, but for some time longer made no move, remaining silent and immobile, almost as if he had forgotten where he was, holding his master in the same fixity of regard.

  This gaze, the way Battistella had looked at him, remained in Ziani’s mind after he had gone. There had been a troubling quality in it. Of course he was losing his wits, povero vecchio: sometimes he did not seem to know quite where he was. This thought gave Ziani a brief sense of superiority. All the same … Battistella was his only link with the world, and dependence made him sensitive to any hint of change. Sometimes, these days, he had a sense that his servant was up to something. Age had slowed Battistella down. He had become contradictory and moralistic. But he had been a considerable trickster in his day. Of course Battistella was just as dependent on him, in a different way … Fifty years now. Scrapes they had been in together … this brought him back to thoughts of Boccadoro, and he took up his pen once more, remembering that comical indecision:

  I saw contrary impulses pass over Boccadoro’s face, march, counter-march, skirmish briefly, withdraw to regroup. As I have said, though shrewd in business matters he was ingenuous in all else – I never knew a man easier to read. If Donna Francesca in very truth hated me, as he asserted, my effectiveness as counsellor would be greatly the less, she would not be brought to compliance by hated Ziani; on the other hand, and for obvious reasons, it increased his sense of security.

  For my own part I felt sure he was exaggerating the matter. After all, I was unoffending and the acquaintance was slight, even though I had been a month in the house. My days were spent in the library, for the most part. Finding the atmosphere oppressive, I dined out in the town whenever I could afford to do so, which was whenever I had money from my mother – she had married again, after my father’s death, as I have explained already. Because of the unfortunate circumstances narrated earlier in these Mémoires I was not welcome in my step-father’s house, but my mother gave me money sometimes. Even when I took the evening meal, however, conversation was not lively, there was no increase in intimacy, as there was always present, in addition to Boccadoro himself, his ancient deaf aunt, who lived in the house, and often enough Francesca’s singing master, Signor Malpigli, or her dancing master, whose name I have forgotten – Buffo, I think. Sometimes even her dressmaker stayed to dinner. Boccadoro had the ungenteel habit of asking anyone in the house to his table.

  It was probable enough she disliked me, I thought; his praises would not have disposed her well towards me; but hatred is another matter. In the course of a career not unmarked by experience of the fair sex – as should be evident from the most casual perusal of these Mémoires – I have noticed that ladies render themselves vulnerable through declarations, much more than do we, for whom matters of the heart occupy a less central place. Therefore their safeguard is in discretion and they know this well.

  ‘However it may be,’ I said, ‘give me the chance to be of service to you. If what you say is true she cannot dislike me more. Let me try what I can do.’

  For a moment I wondered if eagerness had throbbed too palpably in my voice; but no, his face broke into a smile. ‘If it produces results,’ he said, ‘by God you will not find me ungrateful.’ He meant money, of course. The promise shone from the yellowish teeth of his smile, offensive alike to dignity and all sense of elegance. Nevertheless, I smiled back upon him. ‘You have engaged more than a scribe,’ I said. ‘As I hope to show you.’

  The meaning in these words he did not see. He smiled still and nodded. At this moment the lady herself, accompanied by Maria, came out from the house on to the terrace which overlooked the garden. She had perhaps been intending to descend the steps but on sight of us she checked and turned aside. The two of them then began to walk the length of the terrace, a distance of thirty paces or so. During the rest of my conversation with Boccadoro they walked back and forth on the terrace; Francesca in a long-sleeved gown of some white material and her hair set with threads of pearls, which shone as they caught the light; Maria too in white, and carrying a white shawl, in case her mistress should feel cold, for it was early still, though with promise of heat later.

  Ziani looked up from the page. Evening was advancing, the light was losing strength. His eyes were giving him trouble. Before long Battistella would bring his dinner, this famous torta that he was promised, also the great candelabrum which would hold thirty candles but now held only three – all they could afford, or so Battistella said. Battistella controlled all expenditure now. He kept the candelabrum in his own quarters and would not bring it forth, no matter how much play Ziani made with the bell, until he judged the time appropriate.

  Sockets for thirty candles, Ziani thought, and he allows me three. In the evenings, when the shadows deepened, the shapes of things looked threatening, and he longed for a good clear light that would leave no dark corners. He keeps the candelabrum in his room, he thought. When I demand it, he makes excuses and creates delays … He felt twinges of rage, too much resembling pain to be encouraged. He closed his eyes and breathed deeply. She, the maid, Maria, was carrying a shawl, a white shawl, yes, in case her mistress … promise of heat in the day, but it was early still. Scent from the cones of acacia flower, a scent normally rank, but the cool air chastened it. The stone lady was in her arbour, flecked by the sunlight that broke through the young vine leaves, patterning her face and headdress and robe and the arm which lay across her breast, defending and caressing – that ambiguity which intrigued me from the first … There were darker markings on her. Dew of the night? Yes, there was something of the night about her still – what was it? Why am I obliged to think so deeply about her, only a thing of stone?

  Ziani opened his eyes. She had looked alert, that was it. As if her ravisher – or deliverer – might be near, the promise of the dark not yet over. She could have been a garden deity, a spirit of the seasons. Boccadoro and I stood near to her talking, the two girls pacing above. Girls they were still – for the servant was scarcely older than the mistress – and of a similar height. And dressed in white, and walking side by side … was it then that the first rudiments of the notion came to me? About the germination of ideas it is impossible to be precise. Of course when they turned towards us it could be seen that Maria was darker-skinned and slightly fuller-bodied, she lacked the ethereal quality of Donna Francesca, but the general resemblance was strong.

  Men in colloquy below, women parading above. It was as if some secret of life were contained there. He and I could have been attendant lords, or attendant saints, of that order who assist at divine occasions, miraculous events, hover at the margins of visitations. We had perhaps arranged this occasion too, for so might the Queen of Heaven have walked, with a companion, in the cool of the morning, visible to mortals but indifferent. A wrong choice was made, he thought suddenly, on that morning or a morning like it, by me or someone else. It was not inevitable that I should end like this, captive, disabled, with no one to rely on or compete with but Battistella. Did I compound the wrong or merely inherit it, as I stood there with Boccadoro, watching them pass and repass?

  This softening, almost like contrition, was unusual with Ziani and he shifted sharply in his chair as if in an effort to be released from it. It was almost dusk now. He hoisted himself and leaned sideways, with the usual pain of such labour, to look down over the broad glinting surface of the water. From here, helped by the curving line of the canal, he could make out the blurred masses of light on the Rialto, the blanched reflections on the water. Strange to think that the house where these distant episodes had occurred was quite close by, that after all vicissitudes he had come back to die within a mile of it. Boccadoro was dust, gone with his horns to the grave, but the house was still there, with the narrow canal below the garde
n wall. The arbour empty now, unless some new tutelary spirit had been installed. She was still alive, married into the Bembo family. Living in some style, so Battistella said.

  He could hear the loud bells of San Stefano ringing the Angelus, signal to pleasure, not devotion. Venice was stirred with the rhythms of pleasure still: in that respect she had not changed. This was the time of promise, of encounters. He could remember, as if the feelings had belonged to another, the excitement of dressing to go out, in this same house, when there had still been money, and in other houses in Venice, the sense of a whole city, a whole population, preparing for pleasure, the bells, the flush on the water turning leaden – one set out as the rose turned to lead: augury of disillusion not recognized then.

  The great houses on the opposite bank were lit up now. No shortage of candles there. Gondolas bobbed in the broken bronze reflections at the landing stages below the steps. While he watched, a party in white bird masks and scarlet tabarri came down from the Casa Loredan opposite and were helped into two boats. It was Carnival time still – Carnival was almost continuous in Venice. In these beaked masks, tall hats, full cloaks, only voices and laughter distinguished men from women.

  Some at least could afford to entertain, Ziani thought, with bitterness. Some could afford considerably more. Battistella, his lifeline in this too, brought him the gossip of the coffee house as this was retold in the market. Had not Ludovico Marin employed the architect Selva, notorious for his high fees, to redesign the interior of his mansion and extend it as far as Campo San Salvatore? The Contarini had ten gondolas at their doors and fifty servants in livery. For the sake of a single reception, it was said, the Mocenigo family had gutted three adjoining palaces, giving them a suite of forty salons. All this while others, of descent no less illustrious, lived on bread and gruel in their new ghetto of San Barnabà – so many broken patricians in that district now that they called them Barnabotti – or crouched, as he did, in some corner of their pillaged ancestral homes. Ziani felt a rush of energizing malevolence. Revenge was as necessary now as it had been that distant morning in the garden, though the enemy was different. Scions of these noble families featured or would feature in his Mémoires, all in a scandalously discreditable light. Then we shall see who laughs, he thought, reaching for his handbell. Then we shall see.