Carnevale Read online

  Contents

  Prologue

  Casanova’s Recipe for Chocolate Cake

  Part One

  Chapter 1

  The Story of Saint Cecilia

  Chapter 2

  The Cat Speaks

  Chapter 3

  The Language of Colour

  Chapter 4

  Casanova’s Chorus

  Chapter 5

  The Milliner’s Tale

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  The Gazetteer and London Daily Advertiser July 5th 1763

  Chapter 12

  The Cat Speaks

  Chapter 13

  The Cat Speaks

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  The Cat Speaks

  Chapter 17

  The Cat Speaks

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  The Cat Speaks

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  The Cat Speaks

  Part Two

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Part Three

  Chapter 1

  Reasons in Favour of a Change, by George Gordon, Lord Byron

  Chapter 2

  The Cat Speaks

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  The Cat Speaks

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  A Gondolier Writes

  Part Four

  Chapter 1

  The Cat Speaks of the Pedigree of George Gordon, Lord Byron

  Chapter 2

  The Cat Speaks

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Venetian Intimate Alphabet

  Chapter 5

  The Gondolier Speaks

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  The Gondolier Speaks Again

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  The Cat Speaks

  Chapter 16

  The Gondolier Speaks

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Postscript Dr Julius Millingen’s Report

  Acknowledgements

  Select Textual Acknowledgements

  Author’s note

  Prologue

  Before you hear about it at Florian, let me tell you what happened next. It was night, and noiseless except for the waves, the brusio of the mosquitoes and brulichio of the water rats and the secret corpses shifting gently in the dark silt of the Grand Canal.

  I was cleaning the squirrel-fur brushes. I did not hear him enter. He was so slight that, in the long shadows of the room, I did not see him until he was standing with his small, white hand on the back of my chair. Then the air curdled around me, and he took my neck in that hand, hard.

  ‘Show me your Casanova,’ he said, seven years apart unacknowledged.

  ‘Is that why you have come?’ Neither, then, would I acknowledge them.

  ‘Show me your Casanova, and I will show you why’

  ‘I have a hundred Casanovas here.’

  ‘Then I want to see them all.’

  I picked up a large portfolio and carried it to the table. Byron followed me with his dragging step. Then I felt it again, that pincer at the back of my neck, the way a cat mates.

  ‘Open it.’

  He did not loosen his grip on my neck. With his left hand he raked through the paintings and the sketches. He isolated six of them, sweeping the rest to the floor. There they lay, with their kind eyes and mouths upturned to the ceiling.

  I saw the heel of Byron’s foot descend upon a Casanova nose as he fanned out his chosen pictures on the table. The impossibility of this present scene released a memory: I saw myself painting by candlelight in the gondola, and the next day in my bedroom. I saw my small, unlined hand reaching out of its sleeve to dip my brush into the gallipot. I had painted every part of Casanova, while the waves jostled the steps of the palazzo and Casanova’s cat lay beside us, refusing to be perturbed by the smell of oil paint, or the smell of us.

  ‘This one. Did his eyes really burn you like this?’

  ‘Yes, he made me hot when I painted him, just by using his eyes. It was a way he had.’

  ‘Hot. I can imagine. And these hands – were they really so pink, so soft-looking?’

  ‘But strong. You remember, he had fought duels with them, climbed the roof of the Doges’ Palace with them. He could hold me around the waist with just one. However, Casanova was always gentle.’

  ‘When he lifted you onto the bed. And I suppose he was a monster, where you she-creatures prefer monstrosity?’

  I did not answer.

  Byron continued, ‘And those lips. Are you telling me that his mouth was so fleshy? Don’t those lips look feminine to you?’

  ‘That had not occurred to me. I do not kiss women as a habit.’

  ‘You should try. I know your Casanova was happy with troilism. He was particularly fond of sisters, as I recall. And the Sapphic sorority, of course.’

  ‘Yes, I know that too. But we were enough for each other.’

  ‘You and I were enough for each other, once. Was it, with me, as it was with him?’

  I did not answer. The pincer clenched my collarbone. ‘Was I like him?’

  I did not reply.

  Suddenly, he released me. I skidded on the discarded paintings; I fell backwards to the floor. Then Byron was above me, and I was inhaling the vinegar of his breath.

  Until we were both naked, the questions never stopped: ‘Did he kiss you like this? Did he bite your nipple like this? Did he swallow your saliva like this? Did he enter you like this, or did he wait until you were ready?’

  Afterwards, we lay still among the pictures. Charcoal and paint from Casanova’s likenesses smeared our bodies. When it was over, Casanova’s lips were to be found imprinted on Byron’s thigh. Casanova’s eyes were, as ever, on my breast.

  Casanova’s Recipe for Chocolate Cake

  First, you need the lips to eat it.

  Lips of purple heather, lips of persimmon, lips like mandarin skins

  scraped through honey.

  And then the occasion to eat it.

  The first time you make love to her, the last time you make

  love to her, one of the times in between (may they be many,

  or at least long).

  Of course you also need the sweet wine to moisten it.

  With the soul of a bottle inside you, your tongue sees more

  clearly. This is true, be it Falernian, Scopolo, Tokay, Burgundy,

  pink partridge-eye Champagne, or that liquid chalk they make in

  Orvieto. No matter. Maraschino from Dalmatia, even, with

  cinnamon and sugar. Or milk. Once I myself, on my knees,

  suckled from the rose-pink spigot of a young mother in Milan.

  In those days, I had teeth.

  Where was I? O yes, chocolate cake.

  Then you need a bed.

  A bed to lie on, a bed to feed on, sleep on, in which to lose the

  crumbs to lick off the next morning.

  And a surprise is always acceptable, too.


  A snuffbox with a secret spring, an unexpected dearth or

  luxuriance of hair, a fruit preserved for just this moment, a virgin

  who proves as amorous as a pigeon.

  Oh, and yes, you need a chocolate cake, too.

  Send out for one immediately!

  Part One

  Chapter 1

  La fame fa far dei salti,

  ma l’amor li fa Jar più alti.

  Hunger makes you jump,

  but love makes you jump higher.

  VENETIAN PROVERB

  That is what I was doing when the cat found me. I was eating chocolate cake and drinking fragolino, a sweet swarthy wine distilled from the strawberry grape, in my bath. The sins of greed and sloth and the subsidiary peccadilloes of drunkenness and luxurious nakedness – as many as possible was my aim in the dark of that starless early spring night. Day by day, I had assembled what I needed for this entertainment.

  My hands swam through the water until they came to rest like those of the Botticelli Venus. One arm reached down my belly. I curved my palm over the tokens of puberty that were beginning to show. The thumb, still more curved, I held for a moment motionless on the little jut of flesh which we Venetians call the màndola, the almond. How had she refrained, Venus? At that moment I thought of Casanova, and I welcomed the thought.

  For I had seen him, in a doorway, with a girl, once. From my bedroom window at Miracoli, I saw a tall man moving as dogs do, but more slowly, and more tragically. The girl was hidden, except for exquisite doll’s feet, which he had first raised to his lips, one by one. I saw the back of his head disappearing into the darkness that must have been the delta of her legs. Then I saw the head rise, disembodied in the darkness, and plunge towards what must have been her mouth. She was very small; he stooped. So all I saw then, for a long time, was the rise and fall of his buttocks clenched in sagging white pantaloons. The first time I heard his voice it was uttering a rich sigh and an extravagant endearment that put an end to the fascinating movements. After he had helped her to rearrange her clothing, he kissed her forehead, tenderly. I saw him hand her a coin. I saw her disappointment.

  ‘Casanova,’ she whispered. Through the still night air, I heard even her intake of breath.

  ‘Yes, my soul?’ He took her hand, and kissed it, then both of her eyes.

  But she hesitated, and then slipped away without a word. What I still don’t know is this: was she disappointed because the coin was small, or because he had offered her money for something she had in fact taken, and which he seemed to have given, with love?

  ‘Who is Casanova?’ I had asked as my family breakfasted the next morning.

  My mother bit her lower lip and stared mistrustfully at a perfect red apple in her hand, as if it were the original fruit that led to all vice. My little sister, Sofia, stared fish-eyed over her bowl of milk at me. My father’s stern face purpled. ‘Casanova is not a name I want to hear from the mouth of a pure young woman. I will not have it uttered at my table.’

  So I must find out at the convent, at the Caffè Florian, or on the street. Va bene.

  ‘Don’t say that to her,’ whispered my mother. ‘You know how contrary she is. Remember the caterpillars!’

  It was the endlessly repeated family story, the one which, for them, had always defined my perverse character. One morning, years before, my sister and I had been told that the courtyard garden was infested with a species of stinging caterpillar. (These small, vivid plagues come to Venice sometimes.) We were forbidden to play there. I had immediately run downstairs to sit among the roses, allowing the beautiful green beasts to striate my arms and ankles. Sofia stood watching me, weeping for the pain. I did not make a sound, though the insects flayed and feasted on my skin. ‘Why? Why?’ my mother had lamented as she washed away the blood in my bath. I lay silent while Sofia sobbed at the keyhole. How could I explain that I had merely wanted to see what it was like? It was not nice, but it was something I had not experienced before. The caterpillars had been of such a ravishing green. And it might have been nice. The warnings against it had promised as much.

  Certainly my father remembered the caterpillars, but he persisted, ‘Casanova is not to be mentioned in this house again. I am shocked with you, Cecilia.’

  He turned to my mother. ‘How old is she? Thirteen? Fourteen? Is this what the nuns teach her?’

  It was a fair question. Nuns, I was soon to discover, were a great speciality of Casanova’s.

  Before I can tell you about Casanova, there are some things you must know about Venice. I need to tell you how she was in the days when my account begins, for in her gaunt and ghostly decline, as you poverini must see her, you would not recognise the city of perfervid happiness which spawned both me, Cecilia Cornaro, and Giacomo Casanova, and our story.

  Ah, we were a happy city! It was our entire occupation to be happy. We were mad with happiness, stuffed with it like truffles. When I think of Venice as she was in 1782, I think of a hundred thousand souls all devoted to pleasure. Souls like that become insubstantial and faintly luminous. You see, we were in the phosphorescent stage of decay.

  We were a happy city. We were harmless and slightly worn out, loose and languid in our frisks. We had a child’s sense of fun, latterly a tired child’s. We were always up to something. There was no viciousness in us, only the irresponsible trespasses that unfortunately happen when pleasure runs wild. We loved practical jokes. We were constantly in that exquisite, perilous state of happiness, the gasping moment before the belly-laugh jumps out of the belly. We were so happy that we could not bear tragedies in our theatres. The one sad play they tried was a tremendous flop. In the comedies, when the villains were despatched, we cheered the corpses: Bravi i morti!

  The deepest of our philosophies was this:

  A’a matina ‘na meséta,

  Al dopo dinar ‘na haséta,

  A’a sera ‘na donéta.

  In the morning a little mass,

  In the afternoon a little gambling,

  In the evening a little lady.

  We gambled like lunatics. In Venice people staked their clothes and walked home naked. Others staked their wives or daughters. The poorer we were, the more extravagant we became. We lost the concept of the value of money because we did not earn it. At Arsenale, where we should have been building ships to defend ourselves, fountains of wine ran continually. We forgot how to sleep: we merely fell into stupors. We rose to start our routs when civilised cities were going to bed. Our masses were like gala concerts. Our very beggars spoke in poetry.

  Yes, we were a happy city. Our morals were indeed somewhat nimble. And our dress might be called immodest, but this was because we considered it our duty to show the world every beautiful part of ourselves. And yes, our pleasures were spiced with a few picturesque depravities. Actually, we were ripe as old fish! There were lewd acts engraved upon our snuffboxes and calling cards. Certainly, we took no nonsense from our priests. Think on this: there were ten times as many courtesans as noble or respectable bourgeois wives like my mother. But Venice was not a bordello. It was a haven for women. Their cavalieri serventi – their gallant lovers – whispered into their pretty ears a light fare of compliments as continuously as the lagoon utters waves. We wore our hearts upon our sleeves all year round, for love-affairs were always in season.

  Everything was decoration in that happy city. Luxury became us. In Venice, we were mesmerised by our own entrancing vision in the mirror: the mirrors of the water and the speckled mirrors in our sumptuous bedrooms. In Venice, every boat wore at the point of its prow a lacy little spume of foam. As the world closed in upon us, we used our depleted stocks of gunpowder not to arm ourselves but for fireworks! Fortunately, we were so beautiful that we frightened our enemies; they did not think themselves good enough to conquer us. When you hear that it was necessary to forbid the Venetian laundry women to wear velvet, satin and black fox fur, you start to understand what kind of city we were then.

  Ah, we were a hap
py city! Venice had become so old that she had fallen into her second childhood and laughed at everything. We were voluble as parrots. Our hands conducted simultaneous conversations, eloquent as a pair of poets. With a flourish, we welcomed in all the self-styled counts and virgins, the fortunetellers and the snake-oil salesmen. The very men who swept the streets sent the dust dancing in graceful arcs, tendering their brooms like slender ballerinas. We even made joy of acqua alta! We pirouetted over the passerelle with the water clucking underneath us like an old governess. We splashed and giggled even as the sea dragged our chairs and our underwear into the lagoon.

  The sea took all our memories and our sins away. She bestowed upon us her strange mother-of-pearl light which changed every instant and gave us a taste for lightness and infinite variety in all things. She revived us with her fresh breath upon our cheeks after we had spent ourselves in our debauches. She was always behind us or ahead of us, winking at us, showing us the futility of caution or even planning. For us, the sea was a liquid stimulant like coffee or hot chocolate. And she was everywhere. You could not close your bed curtains against her moist, lascivious sighs. You could not stop up your ears against her saucy whispers.

  We had Carnevale six months of the year. In our strange and beautiful masks we always had a choice of who to be. In our masks, we were accountable to no one, and we took full advantage of this. In those days Venice kept eight hundred and fifty mask-makers in business. For our masks were not merely for Carnevale. They were for the fairy tale of the everyday, to be worn every night.

  We ate foolish foods: meringata and towering confections of spun sugar. We were so spoiled we thought cherries fell from the trees without stones. We drank pomegranate sherbet from Araby and herbed raspberry kvass. Afterwards we dabbed the corners of our greedy mouths with silk handkerchiefs and threw them away! We ground the detritus of our pleasures into the paving stones until they made a harlequinade of orange peel, confetti and pumpkin seeds under our slippered feet. In the crowds, the women were liberally fondled.

  You start to have an idea of us, now perhaps. But don’t even try to imagine the joy of being born Venetian in the time when Venice was a happy city. You would not come close to the truth. These things I knew in my bones about Venice before this story began, even though I myself lived in a family that tried to hold itself aloof from the happy city, that tried very hard not to be happy, but, instead, to be good.