Casanova’s fine eyes kindled as with sudden understanding.
“You may be right. The hermit spoke of one Paralis who would answer. It must be as you say. Paralis is the tutelary spirit, the invisible intelligence, of which you speak.”
He was excited by the discovery, and they shared his excitement, particularly the senator, who took visible pride in having made it.
“You possess,” he told Casanova, “a wonderful, inestimable treasure, and it is for you to turn it to account.”
“But how?” said Casanova, as indeed he was wondering. “On the few occasions when I have tried it, the replies have been often so obscure as to discourage me. And yet,” he added thoughtfully, “if I had not had recourse to it when last I did, I should never have had the good fortune to know and serve your Excellency.”
The three sat forward intrigued, begging him to explain.
“I asked my oracle whether at the Soranzo ball I should meet anyone who mattered to me. I obtained this answer. ‘Leave the ball at the tenth hour of night.’ I obeyed, and — you know the result.”
Those amiable, credulous gentlemen were petrified. Then Messer Dandolo stirred himself.
“Will you obtain me an answer to a question I shall set you on a matter known only to myself?” he asked.
Casanova was taken aback. But having rashly engaged himself, he must summon effrontery to carry the thing through.
“Why not, sir?”
He drew a gilded chair to the handsome ormolu-encrusted secretaire, sat down and took up a pen.
Messer Dandolo propounded a question so obscure that Casanova had no inkling of what was at issue. No matter. He wrote it down, translated it (quite arbitrarily) into numbers, and set down the answer also in numbers, pyramidically arranged. And now his general learning, and in particular his intimacy with the classic authors, served him well. He was familiar with the pronouncements of the Delphic oracle, and its machinery of ambiguity. Gradually he evolved an answer as cryptic as the question itself.
Messer Dandolo conned it slowly twice; then the meaning which only himself could read into it must have been revealed to him, for he cried that this was wonderful, divine, incredible.
Bragadino sagely nodded his handsome head.
“It is as I said,” he reminded them. “The numbers are a mere vehicle. The reply itself proceeds from an immortal intelligence.” And he added: “Let me ask a question.”
Casanova perceived that there is no more insidious form of self-delusion than the over-eagerness of the fervent student of occultism to discover occult manifestations, and so gathered courage. After Bragadino’s test came Barbaro’s, and so shrewdly ambiguous were Casanova’s answers that both were at least as convinced as Dandolo of the divine nature of Paralis.
And then Bragadino evinced a desire very natural in a student of abstract sciences whose studies had hitherto yielded him no practical return.
“How long,” he asked, “would it take you to teach me the calculation?”
“Not long. But—” and Casanova hung his head, “there is an obstacle. The hermit warned me that if I ever divulged the secret my death would follow within three days.” They stared at him in awe. “After all,” he added, “the threat may have been an idle one.”
“You are very wrong to assume that,” Bragadino gravely answered him, “and you would be mad to incur the risk.”
There was no further question of his teaching them the calculation. And he shrewdly foresaw that if they could not possess the secret they would seek at least to possess the holder of it. In Casanova they believed they had found the means of communicating with supernatural intelligences, celestial and infernal, and of mastering all the secrets of the world, and soon he found himself established as the hierophant of these three wealthy and potent gentlemen.
They made frequent demands upon Paralis now, and Casanova with practice became more and more skilled in answering after the Delphic manner.
One day of early summer, by when the senator’s recovery was so complete that he was able to resume his attendance at the senate, he set a hand upon Casanova’s shoulder, and affectionately addressed him.
“Whoever you may be, I owe you my life and more. Those who sought to make of you a doctor, a lawyer, a priest, a soldier, were fools who did not know you. Heaven ordained that you should come to me, who know and appreciate you. If you will become my adopted son you have but to recognize in me your father, and in my house your home. You shall have apartments, servants, and a gondola of your own, a place at my table, and ten sequins a month, which is more than my father allowed me at your age. The future need give you no concern.”
Casanova went down on his knees and kissed the hand of that noble, kindly gentleman, who thus raised him to the rank of a gentleman of the Serene Republic. I hope he felt ashamed of himself. But I doubt it.
And then as if to provide him with the means of affording a crowning proof of the omniscience of his oracle, he met the Countess Angela. He was taking the air one afternoon on the Square of St Mark, pleasantly conscious that his whaleboned coat became him, when he saw her alight from the Ferrara barge. She was dressed in a long blue travelling-cloak, her face lost in the shadows of a hood. He observed her hesitating, uncertain attitude as she stood there, a small valise in her hand, and he was utterly taken by surprise when suddenly she started towards him, and he heard her pronounce his name. The voice at least being pleasant, off came his laced hat, and he made her a leg very gracefully, whilst those fine eyes of his stabbed the depths of the concealing hood.
“Heaven,” she cried, “must surely have sent you to assist me.”
“Not a doubt of it,” he said promptly. Since his discovery of Paralis he was growing accustomed to being regarded as a celestial envoy. And then at last he knew her for a noble Roman child whom he had met once or twice at the receptions given by Cardinal Acquaviva when, a year or so ago, he had been one of that prelate’s secretaries. But this acquaintance had naturally been of the slightest; between him and the young women of the Roman aristocracy intimacies were not at all encouraged. It amazed him that he should remember her, but not at all that she should remember him. You see, he never suffered from any lack of self-esteem.
He desired her to command him, and tremulously she answered that she would be profoundly in his debt if he would escort her to the house of Messer Barbaro, her uncle.
Now it happened that Messer Barbaro was away in Padua, and not expected to return for a week or two. He told her so.
“In Padua? What then am I to do? I am in sorest trouble. Where can I go?”
She stood, white and faltering, and Casanova observed her lip to tremble. That and her soft young loveliness undid him.
“Would it help you to confide in me?” he gently invited.
“If I dared!”
He relieved her at once of her ridiculous valise.
“Come this way,” he said, “and keep your hood close.”
At the same time he covered his face with a mask, too common a Venetian custom with men of fashion, especially when escorting ladies, to provoke much notice.
He led her to an obscure wine-shop mid-way down a narrow street. There, across an isolated table, they faced each other and she told her story.
“Sir,” she said, by way of preface, “you’ll think me mad or abandoned to have thrust myself so shamelessly upon you. But I am at the point of despair, in a strange city where I know none but my uncle, Messer Barbaro, and even of his welcome I can be none too sure, considering the manner of my coming. In addressing you, I acted upon impulse, believing in my distraught condition that a miracle had brought you to my aid. Say, sir, that you forgive me.”
“I should find it harder to forgive you had neglected to obey an impulse that was so clearly an inspiration.”
“You might not have known me again,” she murmured, trembling.
“In that case I should not have deserved the honour of your confidence, which I am now awaiting.”
&nbs
p; “Tell me first: do you know here in Venice a young patrician named Zanetto Steffani?”
“There is a young noble of that name who enjoys the reputation of being the most dissolute scoundrel in the Republic. I believe him to be absent from home just now. He is not, I hope, a friend of yours?”
Her answer staggered him. “He is my lover — my affianced husband.”
Then came her piteous story. She was to have made a marriage arranged for her by her father, Count Tagliavia; but heeding instead what she believed to be the call of love, she had secretly fled from Rome with the scoundrel Steffani, who was to bring her to Venice, and there make her his wife. But at Ferrara they encountered a young gentleman towards whose sister Steffani had already contracted a similar obligation, a young gentleman who had been seeking Steffani up and down Italy for months. Through a thin partition dividing her room from that in which this meeting took place, the Countess Angela overheard the young champion of his sister’s honour give Steffani to choose between death and marriage. A blow was struck, and Steffani fled the place, leaving the young man unconscious. (Casanova did not see what else Steffani could have done in the circumstances.) Thus the too confiding young Countess found herself alone in Ferrara, with her discovery of her lover’s perfidy.
“What was I do to?” she cried. “Return home to my father I dared not, as you will perhaps understand. So I came on to Venice, hoping for the protection of my uncle, until I can avenge myself upon the monster who has ruined my life.”
And she drew from her massed black hair a slender blade some eight inches long. Casanova shivered to discover such blood-thirst in so lovely a child. Then, as he watched her, the fierceness died out of her glance. It became troubled, and it was with fumbling, unsteady fingers that she re-sheathed the stiletto in her hair.
“But now you tell me that Messer Barbaro is away from Venice. What am I to do?”
The sympathetic Casanova addressed himself at once to the task of soothing her.
“But he will return — in a week perhaps. You must wait for him.”
“Where can I wait? Who will take me in?”
“I know a widow of unimpugnable respectability with lodgings to let not far from here.”
It was settled — what choice had she? — and he presented her to the widow as a niece of Messer Barbaro, who sought lodgings for a few days. At mention of that patrician name, and observing that this masked gentleman was richly dressed, and the lady of an air and carriage that bore out the tale of her high connections, the widow became at once solicitous.
Casanova left the Countess in her care, and departed thoughtful. He had protected the girl partly because she was Barbaro’s niece, and partly because her romantic air and delicate loveliness assured him that it would be pleasant to protect her. And as the days passed, and as each day he went to visit her and beguile for an hour or so the tedium of her waiting, he began to wish that Messer Barbaro’s return might be indefinitely postponed. She was in need, poor child, of consolation, and he began to see himself in the role of the consoler. Also because he found himself more gladly welcomed each day, and this friendship grew apace, he walked with his head in the clouds and began to dream dreams, until, confronted suddenly with brutal reality, he awakened from them, and came sharply down to earth again.
The brutal reality took the shape of her father. One day, a week after Angela’s coming, on returning home from his daily visit to her, he was summoned to the presence of his adoptive father, and found in his company a tall, stern-faced old gentleman whom he was startled to hear announced to him as Count Tagliavia.
“The Count,” said Messer Bragadino, “has sought me in the absence of his kinsman Barbaro to assist him in a very delicate matter. His daughter ran away from home three weeks ago, leaving a letter announcing that she was going to the man she loved. He has traced her to Venice, and discovered that on landing here she was met by a man who was presumably her lover. The Count desires to place the matter before the Council of Ten. But it has occurred to me that you, my son, might assist him first to track the fugitives. I have told him of your gift — under pledge of secrecy, of course.”
You conceive how taken aback he was, and what doubts he conceived on the score of his position. Let it be known that Angela was living, in a sense, under his protection, and would any explanation persuade this austere, fire-breathing parent that Casanova was not himself the guilty man? Was he not persuaded already that the man who met her was her lover? — And was not that man indeed Casanova himself? It was even possible that he had been seen and recognized. He perceived here two necessities equally urgent — to protect himself and to serve the young Countess.
Slowly, at last, he propounded a question.
“Will the Count tell me precisely what information he desires from Paralis, and how he proposes to use it when obtained?”
“In the first place,” said the Count, speaking haughtily and half-contemptuously, as if he did this thing but out of courtesy to humour Bragadino, “I desire to know the name of the villain who has abducted her, and where they are to be found. Then if he be of worthy rank either they shall be married at once, or I will kill the man and bury the girl in a convent for the remainder of her days.”
“And if his rank should not fit him for the amende?” quoth Casanova.
The Count’s face empurpled, the veins of his forehead stood out like strands of whipcord. His answer came in a roar of fury.
“It is impossible my daughter should have abased herself to that extent, but if it should prove so, then — God helping me — I will efface the dishonour by killing both.”
Here, thought Casanova, was an amiable gentleman with whose daughter to have made free. He sat down, took up a pen, and wrote down his double-question, converting it into numbers under their eyes — Bragadino’s eager, the Count’s scornfully sceptical. He built his numbers into a pyramid, and extracted the reply in numbers, which once more he converted into words.
For once Paralis discarded all Delphic obscurities. The answer ran thus:
“I will reply completely when the father is disposed to seek his daughter in a spirit of forgiveness, abandoning all intentions of wedding her to the patrician Zanetto Steffani who carried her off, but from whom she fled in time to save herself; nor need he trouble himself with vengeance, for Steffani is condemned to death by the will of Heaven.”
This last daring sentence Casanova was inspired to add by a sudden vision of a young champion of a sister’s honour, scouring Italy athirst for Steffani’s blood.
As Tagliavia read, the scorn and scepticism perished from his face. A blank amazement overspread it.
“Steffani!” he cried. “Zanetto Steffani! Why, how blind I have been! He was in Rome for a month before she disappeared. He saw her frequently, and he quitted Rome at the same time.”
Bragadino rubbed his hands. “You see, you see!” he purred delightedly. Affectionately he patted the shoulder of his adopted son. “Did I not say that Paralis is divine?”
“It transcends belief!” cried the stupefied Count. “But my daughter? Where is she?”
“Paralis promises to tell you when you abandon your present project.”
His face grew overcast, his mouth stern. “Paralis asks too much,” he answered. “The honour of my family demands the marriage, the world demands it.”
“A man may be too much concerned with worldly considerations,” the philosophical Bragadino reproved him gently. But no persuasion could alter the Count’s fixed intent. It was idle to remind him that here was a heavenly command. His feet were firmly planted upon earth, and so in the end he departed to seek worldly aid to recover his daughter.
“At least your oracle has shown me where to look,” he said at parting. “I will begin with the Palazo Steffani.”
He went his ways, leaving Bragadino saddened by this instance of obstinate obtuseness, and Casanova uneasy as to the results that might attend the Count’s enquiries, so uneasy indeed that on the morrow, for once, he d
enied himself the joy of visiting Angela, fearful lest he should be detected. But whilst he sat in his room a servant came to summon him to the senator. Tagliavia was come again, and with him now was his kinsman Barbaro, who had that day returned to Venice.
The Count turned to Casanova as he entered. “The mystery, sir,” he announced, “is deeper than your oracle would seem to imply. I have made further enquiries. Steffani is not in Venice, nor has been for the last two months.”
Casanova frowned as if puzzled. “Perhaps your daughter is not in Venice?”
“I have it positively from the master of the Ferrara barge that she landed here. It was he who told me that she was joined immediately on landing by a man who must have been her lover. He tells me now this man was tall; whilst Steffani is short.”
“You assume too much, I think,” said Casanova coldly. “Appearances can be deceptive; and whilst your information depends upon human perception, mine is derived from a supernatural intelligence which cannot err.”
The Count dismissed this interjection with a gesture of impatience.
“Four persons who saw them together claim to have recognized the man, although he wore a mask. Unhappily, each gives a different name. But I intend to denounce the names of all four to the Council of Ten. Here is the note.”
And he read out the names of the men alleged to have been seen with the Countess. The last name he pronounced was Casanova’s own.
Hearing it, Casanova threw back his head in a gesture of well-feigned indignant surprise, whilst peals of laughter broke from Barbaro and Bragadino. Amazed, the Count stared at them. “You find it amusing?” he said icily.
It was Bragadino who explained. “I did not tell you that this my son is so only by adoption. The last name on that paper is his own — Giacomo di Casanova. And what should he know of your daughter, who has not been in Rome for over a year, and who for the last three months has scarcely been out of my house, and certainly never out of Venice?”
Collected Works of Rafael Sabatini Page 537