A Dancer in Darkness

by David Stacton

  They did not seem so terrible. The swagger young men on the edges of the crowd did. They were the dandies, and like all dandies they had a ruthless air, and a male vigour that was disturbing. Slim and swarthy, black-eyed, in the torchlight angular and tall, with ear-rings, floppy boots, sleek thighs that flowed out of agile hips, and great open silk shirts, something in the angry way they held their bodies made them like predacious cats complacently licking themselves clean after the kill. When man is a restless animal with brains, there is nothing for him to do but kill, but there is something gorgeous in that violence. Antonio was at home with these young men. Giggling and laughing ferociously, he might have been one of them, and clearly they treated him with respect. He glanced up towards her window mockingly and joyously, and then came to fetch her.

  A dais had been set up for her under a sagging awning. She was to be mistress of the revels, and he master. He led her up to it grandly, and suddenly she understood. They could never share her court. Therefore he would have her share his, as though to prove they were equals after all. She sat down and spread out her skirt. She looked at the faces of this strange court, and the savage young men formed a guard behind her. It had never occurred to her that the world had portable kingdoms, whose members were fiercely loyal to each other and beyond the grasp of the sort of pomp and power she and her brothers had. She had always thought of Antonio as a prince in disguise, but it startled her to find that among these people he virtually was one, for among these people she had no authority. It meant that he was not really her inferior. He was inferior only for her sake. For her he had abandoned a whole world, and it made her own world seem the less. She did not altogether like that.

  He excused himself, and when he came back he was dressed as the dandies were. It bewildered her, but it suited him perfectly. She saw that inside this was what he was. He made her feel ridiculous in her heavy court dress. He wore skin-tight striped pants, tight Spanish boots, a heavy belt, a white blouse, and a short black embroidered jacket. His eyes darted at the Duchess happily. She clenched her hands, and the castanets went even faster.

  They wanted her to dance. But she could not dance with them. She did not know how, and her dress was too heavy, so she let them pull Antonio into their midst instead.

  Firelight leapt and snarled in the garden. It turned the shrubs into furry walls. They might have been at the bottom of a crypt. On the floor of this trench dug through the middle of the night, the torches glittered like glass jewels. There were some negroes in that company. Where they had come from, nobody could say, but of all the dandies, they were the flashiest and the most venomous.

  Antonio seemed alien to her, dancing bare-chested out there, as though she did not matter to him at all. She did not like it, even while something inside her liked it very much indeed.

  The dance was a folia, one of the Spanish-American dances the common people danced. It seemed to absorb Antonio completely, and its sickening, ravenous rhythm made her deaf. She wanted to join him, but could not. She closed her eyes.

  Cariola appeared and took her back to the palace. She went unprotestingly. She lay in her bed alone, wishing he would come, as her head went round and round, but he did not come. He was too happy out there. She felt herself sucked down into sleep.

  When she opened her eyes, he was sitting on the side of the bed, and the night was still. She stared at him, unable to hide the hurt at the back of her eyes. He laughed and leaned over her, supporting himself with his outstretched hands. He was very excited. Despite herself she was roused by him, and laughed. He tumbled into the bed beside her, boots and all. He was covered with sweat and grime, and his body felt alien and strangely taut. She was frightened and subdued to find him so changed, and to find also that in this mood he had control over her, which had not happened between them before. But though she resented that, she also adored it. She held on to him eagerly, and drew him down.

  That next afternoon Cariola found them playing tag in the gardens, laughing their heads off, and with a negro playing with them. It was a bright, sparkling day, with moisture high in the air; and Mestre Antonio looked like a pirate, and her mistress in a peasant’s blouse and skirt like something worse. Cariola sniffed.

  The gipsies camped in the yard, slept late, and went off daily on errands of their own. When they returned through the gates, the fights, the dances, and the swaggering began again. Cariola scarcely recognized the Duchess any more.

  As for the rest, God forgive them in that terrible age, for they were happy for three weeks. It was not their fault. It was a passion. They were prince and princess of the gipsies, and had forgotten who they were. They were to be reminded soon enough, so why should they not laugh while they could?

  XIII

  In Naples Sor Juana was having a triumph of her own. Hers, though sumptuous, was perhaps a little heartless and tinny. This was no accident. She preferred life that way, and so, for that matter, did the age.

  Wishing some monument to himself, and not trusting his posterity, the Cardinal had decided to embellish the Cathedral. The work had now been going forward for several months, and the time of its dedication was at hand. What he had done was to break through a transept wall facing a likely piazza, and build there an immense baroque entrance. It was so contrived as to rivet the attention of anyone who chanced on the square, and to tell the truth, virtually obliterated the church behind it.

  For this dedication Sor Juana had written a diplomatic pageant. It was her Fiori di Cuore, a work much admired in its day for its intoxicating rhymes. An engraved volume was already prepared, fulsomely dedicated to the Cardinal, and by his dispensation she had left the convent to attend the performance.

  She, the Cardinal, and other notables sat on a dais facing the immense drape of black baize which shrouded the door. She reigned there like a little sibyl. Her fame was great and few had seen her, even fewer had seen her with the Cardinal, rumour was unkind, and in this case inaccurate, about their association, and so the square was crowded. That pleased her. She suspected the Cardinal of little reading, and saw no reason why he should not see her merits acted out before him. She sat prim and amiable, but her black eyes darted about the sunlit outside world she these days seldom saw, and she relished all of it.

  She had sat in her convent like Achilles sulking in his tent, but now, if all went well, she would move freely once again, and do great things. It was one of the happiest moments of her life. She had forgotten The Dream, the madhouse, and her brother Bosola, and forgotten them with relief. The dark side of the soul did not interest her. This pomp she had made was of far greater worldly worth, and this was religion as she understood it.

  To Sor Juana, and indeed to the Cardinal, theology was a branch of intrigue. God was a Grand Seigneur, with a court consisting of those in favour and those out of it, the three of them supported by loyal drudges and underpaid priests who, so long as they did their work and did not rebel, were of no real interest. When God’s back was turned, one scrabbled for favour catch as catch can, and then turned up blandly the next morning as Master of the Bedchamber. One had to be amusing, witty, and unctuous. Above all, one had to flatter. The Grand Seigneur was much too busy to attend to affairs of state, but statesmen must never on any account be too busy to amuse the Grand Seigneur. His amusements, it was well known, were voluptuous. And the best way to rise, was to gain favour with his favourites. Sincerity, in this case, consisted of a talent for amiable rhetoric, in return for which one was allowed to live at court, and accumulated estates for one’s posterity.

  The attitude of that priest at Arosa would have been incomprehensible to either of them. For one does not serve God. There are underlings to do that. One’s sole duty is to keep one’s self amusing and Him amused. And if one is beautiful or clever, and so catches His eye, so much the better. Thus Saint Teresa. Thus Bossuet. Thus the Cardinal. And thus Sor Juana. One could never become Grand Seigneur oneself. That was a matter of Blood Royal. But with patience and skill, one could, if one w
ere Cardinal, become Pope; or if one were Sor Juana, marry into the family, and so become a Saint, a Blessed, or, like Teresa, a woman of affairs.

  So, just as Antonio contrived triumphs and court dances, Sor Juana had devised her Fiori. It represented a battle between Sacred and Profane Love. Sacred Love was in court dress. Profane Love in Roman armour, with cuirasses, buskins, good knees, and waving plumes. The choreography was military and square. Each side declaimed the appropriate verses, which were certainly long, but the music was splendid, and the costumes marvellous.

  The merits of Profane Love were undeniable. However, it was agreed by the contestants that the flowers of earthly passion fade. Sacred Love, on the other hand, was somewhat wan, though invested with a fine rolling eye. These flowers did not fade, but neither did they grow on earthly bushes.

  Sor Juana had been tempted to continue the discussion, for the verse had flowed freely from her pen. She was, however, a mistress of stage mechanics, and she had sensed that the day would be cold.

  So, in a united chorus of some twenty-five lines, accompanied by the roll of drums and some music for the trumpet, Love both Sacred and Profane announced that though the battle between them was endless, still they united in praise of the most high merits of his Eminence, Roberto, Cardinal-Bishop Sanducci. At this point the baize curtain was released, it dropped clingingly from the arch, and by a simple dramatic device the attention of the crowd was riveted on the gleaming white marble profusion of the Cardinal’s gift to the Cathedral. Twisted columns, putti, graces, warriors, saints, and archangels swirled upward in a tangle of clouds, garlands, and flowers, almost obliterating the door, to where, twenty feet above the ground, two muscular stone seraphs held the enormous escutcheon of the Sanducci arms, crowned with a cardinal’s hat, and surmounted by a dove.

  The performance concluded with one of those conceited sonnets she wrote so well, upon the Cardinal’s hatchments and bearings.

  She could tell instantly that the Cardinal was well pleased. He turned to her and beamed, rising with an ecclesiastical prance; she was allowed to kiss his ring; and as she rose he had time to tell her that his sister, the Duchess of Amalfi, had been graciously pleased to take an interest in the proposed new convent, and in Sor Juana, whose name had in some way become associated with the project.

  Sor Juana was delighted. The Duchess was clearly not an intellectual woman; was, in fact, a flibberty-gibbet, but perhaps that made her all the easier to flatter. Perhaps she might send her a sonnet and a memorial.

  The Cardinal said not yet, but he, too, seemed well pleased. “It would not do to hurry the matter on,” he said. “We must have patience. Perhaps in eight or nine months….” His voice dwindled away, and lowering it, he asked about the conduct of the boy, who must for the moment be kept in strict secrecy.

  That being the case, Sor Juana saw no point in telling him that Bosola knew who he was.

  Pink-faced, unwrinkled, and beaming, with a look of bloodcurdling benevolence, the Cardinal moved forward to receive the compliments of the company, leaving both his architect and Sor Juana well to the rear.

  Sor Juana did not mind. It takes time to bring great schemes to birth, and nine months, after all, was only the normal length of any pregnancy. She returned to the convent in the happy thought that it need not contain her long.

  SIX

  I

  Suddenly events caught up with them, for it is impossible for an honest man to keep his footing in a world of intrigue. He is like a man blindfolded. No matter how clever he is, eventually he is bound to lose his way.

  It is impossible to understand how they managed to conceal their relationship for so long. Yet, though they could not see each other as much as they would wish, and though the Duchess was forced to confide in Cariola, no one knew what was going on, or with whom. Gossip, after all, soon wearies. It has to be fed constantly. Give it nothing to feed on, and it thinks the ground barren and passes on to other fields. That was their margin of safety. They forgot that it is not gossip that betrays us, but the truth of it.

  In public she treated Antonio with a fine affectionate indifference. They both enjoyed that, for it meant their marriage was still a game. As a game, they were equal to it. What would happen to them when it ceased to be a game was something neither of them had thought about.

  The court noticed only that she smiled again, and was pleased to see her smile, though even Bosola could not discover the reason for that joy. Then again, having Cariola, perhaps even he relaxed. Thus matters went on for many months. Spring came, and summer was warm to the hand.

  One morning the Duchess woke to find that she was ill. She could think of no reason for it, and said nothing about it, but it frightened her.

  She went at once to her glass, without summoning Cariola, and holding it in her hands, stood at the window, examining herself intently. She could see no change. She had slept alone that night. To be without Antonio sometimes made her restless. Often in the morning she felt clogged and dull after such a night. There was in that nothing unusual, and the effect soon passed. Yet they had been safe for so long that she had almost forgotten the one consuming terror of passionate women of that age. She did not look at her body, because she was afraid to look.

  But the days passed, and nothing seemed to be wrong. She relaxed. Only towards the end of the month was she nervous. She would not see Antonio. She could scarcely bear even to see Cariola. A week later she was ill again, and then she knew. She told no one.

  She did not dare. She waited a day or two. Then, unable to sleep, waking before dawn, and before Cariola was up, she got out of bed, stripped off all her clothes, and stood naked and shivering on the stone floor of the room, looking at what she could see of her flesh in the glass. Her breasts seemed as small and firm as ever. Her belly was taut. She turned this way and that, as the cold air from the unglazed window rippled the fine hairs on her body. There was a faint almost imperceptible growth, for when she had grown the Piccolomini heir, nothing had shown for seven months. She had a deep, wide pelvis.

  She felt like running away to hide, but only the anonymous can hide. The well-known and the famous have nowhere to go. She wanted to rush down the private stair, go secretly to Antonio’s quarters, take him by the shoulders, and shake him. There must be something he could do to help.

  Apart from panic, she felt astonishment that fate could change what had been so delightful suddenly into something so horrible, without warning, and overnight. She knew what it felt like to be trapped. She stood in the cold light, shivering, the mirror still in her hand.

  There was a creaking sound behind her. She whirled, dropping the mirror, which shattered in all directions on the floor. Her hands flew over her breasts.

  It was Antonio. “I had to come,” he said. “I had to know what was wrong.” He looked at her and his eyes widened. Whatever he had been expecting to find, it was not this.

  He wrapped her in a cloak and led her gently back to her bed. She let him do so. She wanted to be comforted, and lost control of herself. She began to shake. To her overwhelming relief and surprise he held her tightly in his arms. She was not a Duchess then. She gave way and became a frightened woman.

  The door opened and Cariola came in, ready to wake her mistress. Her lips tightened with disapproval. Over the Duchess’s head Antonio motioned her away. Cariola did not like that, but she went.

  “Are you sure you can trust her?”

  The Duchess did not know whom she could trust. “I think so.” She drew the robe more closely around her, feeling immensely frail. Soon the palace would begin to stir. There was danger in that. Yet she could not bear to send him away.

  “What am I to do?” she whispered. “If my brothers find out, they will kill you.” They might also kill her, but she could not bring herself to say that.

  He paused. “We must keep them from finding out. How long has it been?”

  “Almost three months.”

  He paced up and down the room. When he spoke he w
as almost brusque. “Take Cariola and go to Ravello. I’ll send you a woman there.” As though realizing how cruel his voice sounded, he smiled at her timidly.

  Something inside her shrank. “No,” she said.

  He shook his head. He looked abruptly old. “What else is there to do?”

  She was terrified at his annoyance. She sat on the edge of the immensely high bed, her bare feet not quite reaching the floor. The room was still very cold. She swallowed bitterly: he was right. She looked up at him half shyly.

  “Will you come?”

  “I can’t do that. It wouldn’t be safe, for either you or me.”

  “Safe!” She could not keep the bitterness out of her voice.

  The distance between them seemed ungulfable. They might just as well have been strangers. No doubt he thought she had tricked him. She did not like the way he stood watching her. She knew this scene was the test of something. The process was almost visible in his face. She found herself watching it almost impersonally, the way an alchemist would watch his alembics, sure that this ultimate test for gold would also fail, and yet rooted there by a last cynical shred of hope.

  It made their love seem foolish and delusive. She forced herself to retain some dignity.

  Then, she did not know how, he had his arms around her, and was smoothing her hair, with his head buried on her shoulder. “It has to be this way,” he said. She scarcely heard him. She was too overwhelmed to find that he was still there, and had not fled, even though she was sure he had wanted to. That he had wanted to somehow made his presence more real and more secure. Something had changed in both of them. She wondered what it was.