by Roman Payne
The Wanderess
by Roman Payne
A Novel 1st Kindle Edition
The Wanderess Official Website: www.wanderess.com
To learn about the author, please visit: www.romanpayne.com
Acknowledgments & Legal Statement:
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
ISBN 978-0-9852281-4-9
© 2013 - Roman Payne
This first Kindle edition is published by Aesthete Press.
Cover model photography by Elena Ray. Cover landscape photo by Leoks. Cover design/art-conception by Roman Payne.
Important Note to Readers:
The author of The Wanderess wrote and designed this novel to be read in traditional book format (codex). As his publisher, we must apologize to him for what we have done to the book by making it available for e-readers. Much of the spacing between paragraphs, and between quotations, has been compromised in this Kindle format. And without also reading the paperback version of this novel, you will go away without enjoying the effect of one of Payne’s most charming touches in The Wanderess: his footnotes.
Therefore, Kind Reader, if when you are done reading, you decide to show the author the polite courtesy of posting a simple review of The Wanderess on the online bookstore where you purchased it, please do not be less generous in the number of stars you give the novel ‘for reasons of ebook formatting and readability alone.’ If you find beauty and joy within these pages, let the praise go to him. You may let us know if you enjoyed, or didn’t enjoy, this ebook’s formatting, by emailing:
[email protected].
(—Sincerely, The Publisher, Aesthete Press)
Roman Payne’s Dedication:
I designate this novel to my little sister, Stefanie. While I dedicate it to my Heroines, my Patronesses, and to the Wanderesses of the world. To my Heroines and Patronesses, for their support during the novel’s creation; to the Wanderesses, for their inspiration and the poetic beauty of their lives.
Special dedication goes to Mimi of Chantilly, France for her selfless and undying support. Without her, this book would have died in Valencia. Special thanks as well to Guillemette of Paris, to Nausica’a of Lagonisi, Greece; Carolina of São Paulo, Claire of Paris, Choteuse of Marseille …and to my Mother. As for the men, my gratitude extends to the XVIII century adventurer, Abbé Prévost, for his classic novel Manon Lescaut, which served as the inspiration and architectural model for The Wanderess. Most importantly, this dedication extends to my close friend, the famed writer and scholar, Pietros Maneos, for his heroic support during the writing of The Wanderess, and for his ‘Bramabella’— both the literary movement, and the land.
— Roman Payne; Chantilly, France; November, 2013
The Wanderess
Introductory Quotations:
* * *
“I sleep, but my heart waketh: it is the voice of my beloved that knocketh, saying, Open to me, my sister, my love, my dove, my undefiled: for my head is filled with dew, and my locks with the drops of the night.”
— Song of Solomon, 5:2
* * *
“…And where is my gypsy wife tonight?”
— L. Cohen
* * *
Chapter One
WANDERESS, WANDERESS, weave us a story of seduction and ruse. Heroic be the Wanderess, the world be her muse.
…I jot this phrase of invocation in my old leather-bound notebook on a bright, cold morning at the Café **** in Paris, and with it I’m inspired to take the reader back to the time I first met and became acquainted with the girl I call The Wanderess—as well as a famous adventurer named Saul, the Son of Solarus. It was because of these two that I would come to know one of the most beautiful and touching of all love stories I could ever invent or imagine, a tale to inspire the heroic soul. But that will all come later. Now let us go back to the beginning. It all started three years ago, in Italy…
I had left Paris in the fall to roam the countryside in Europe and the islands, as the book I was writing at the time required some literary research that obliged me to travel. There were details to be learned about several locales. A specific garden in London to visit. A provincial inn in Calais, in northern France, to investigate. As well as a property in rural Tuscany where I planned to set the scene of a lovers’ retreat, reminiscent of Boccaccio. Finally, a tragic ending to be staged in Corsica and Mallorca made it necessary that I visit these enchanting islands.
It was with considerable regret that I left Paris that month, for autumn is my favorite time to be in the capital. When in September the last of the Parisians have returned from their homes in the country, we collectively throw ourselves back into the joys of city life and the voluptuous season begins. Autumn: the season of parties, banquets, ballets and festive balls; the time when the luxurious parisiennes are the most luxurious, the virgin demoiselles the most virginal, the fragrant bourgeoises the most fragrant, the courtisanes the most divine. Still, although I love elegant parties, dancing and dining and spending the night with a sweet woman in my arms, my life belongs to literature. And so I left Paris that autumn to do my research and am now glad I did, for I have the most fascinating story to tell of my experience.
Arriving in Pisa, I hired a driver to take me to the village of Petrognano where I had to check on some facts and spend a few days. There was a certain country inn where I’d planned to lunch, stay the afternoon and sleep the night. In the days to follow, I would inspect the layout of the area for literary purposes.
Riding in over the countryside, the hills were burnished gold and copper. The black forms of the peasants who worked collecting chestnuts and olives in the fields dotted the landscape. And with their bulky capes, and their large harvest sacks, they resembled those great European bison that graze in the Caucasus.
Arriving in Petrognano, we rode up a winding road and stopped in front of a quaint little inn: La Locanda Villa B***1. This was the inn I had travelled from Paris to find, and it was in front of this inn that I saw a most touching scene. A scene I will relate to you now…
1 LA LOCANDA VILLA B***: The use of asterisks to disguise proper names, (which Payne has already demonstrated on the first page of this novel when naming the ‘Café ****’ in Paris), may not be familiar to readers who are not accustomed to reading 18th century European novels. This technique, which is found
A man with a very handsome face, not by any means old, although no longer in his first-youth, was preparing to leave on a journey. His driver was urging him to give the authorization for the two to depart so that they would reach his destination by nightfall (I found out later that he was going to Florence). The reason he was being held-up was because on his lap there was seated a young girl. She was not a child, no, although she was not yet quite an adult. She was somewhere in her teens, perhaps sixteen, maybe seventeen. She sat on his lap shedding an abundance of tears, making it clear that his leaving her was the source of her sorrows. My vision wasn’t too great from far away, and so I approached closer. I had a better look and noticed that the girl was of extraordinary beauty. Despite her extreme youth and the fact that her hair was in complete disorder, despite too her wild show of emotions with tears spouting from her eyes, she had the air of a fine and noble lady about her, so that I didn’t doubt for a moment that she was a girl of first rank. No doubt this feminine creature would grow even more beautiful and noble as the years advanced her into womanhood. The man too, who seemed equally miserable to be saying goodbye to the girl, although it was obvious his masculinity kept him from visibly crying quite so profusely a flood of tears, was so fi
ne in the build of his body, and the sophistication of his dress, right to the elegance of his face, that I didn’t doubt for a minute that he came from the highest class of citizen. So that the two together, this handsome and elegant gentleman, together with this unbelievably beautiful child, made for the most awe-inspiring couple I had ever seen in my life. I initially took the girl for his niece or his baby sister. He certainly was not old enough to be her father, though she was closer to the age of a daughter than that of a peer. The way they hugged and cried in each other’s arms, I was sure they were brother and sister, sharing some family tragedy. I thus became very curious, yet I watched their scene of farewell from as far as I could without distancing myself to where my vision would blur and my hearing be naught.
throughout The Wanderess, has a history of use in literature where it censors names so as to protect the reputations of places; as well as of people who might not enjoy the fame of being named in a work of fiction, albeit of literature. [Editor]
Between tears and embraces, the handsome gentleman whose face was quite pale as though torn by a grief that had been aching him for some time, promised the girl that he would return at daybreak the following morning, swearing that only one night would ever separate them again, that after this night they would be linked for life. The girl kept asking him to give her one last kiss before he left, and kissed him so passionately, abandoning herself to him completely, that I no longer had any doubt that he was anything besides her lover. Over and over she cried that this was surely the last time they would see each other, that something could happen—perhaps something would happen to him on the road?—and spilling ever more tears, she finally allowed herself to be freed from his lap so that the man’s driver could set off on the journey.
As the gentleman started riding away, I could see him choking heavily on his own tears, now that the two were actually separated. He called back to the girl that he would waste no time and soon would return to find her at the inn and the two would never again part company for as long as they lived. Although the girl wept at this, spilling a flood of tears that seemed never to end, she was not so generous in words, and offered no response to his hopeful vows. This is something that surprised me, as if she knew something that he did not know. I would soon find out that my suspicion was right, that there was a secret between them—or dividing them, rather. And so, with my heart torn by this touching scene between two handsome people I’d chanced upon in the yard, I bid my driver take a break from his duties so I could eat a meal in the restaurant of the inn, take some notes on my surroundings for literary purposes, and relax my body that was weary and sore after such a long journey. I fancied that in sleeping at this same lodging where the girl would be sleeping while she waits for her lover to return the next morning, I might chance upon a discussion with her and find out what such an enchanting-looking creature was like in person.
It was then while I was in the dining room, sitting at a table near the hall where guests at the inn check-in and out, that I heard something that startled me: this young girl who had just been swearing her eternal devotion to the man who was at this time travelling to Florence, was now at the check-out counter whispering to the innkeeper that she would need to leave the inn that very moment, and not a moment longer; that she would be travelling on—“alone, and far”—and needed her bags brought down in the instant. When they asked what they would tell Signore when he returned from Florence, she made the sound of money piling on the counter and I gathered that this money would purchase some desired response. I could tell by the sounds exchanged once they had accepted the money that Signore would hear simply: that she had left, and how she had left, but nothing as to the route or destination of Signorina.
I, who had been so touched by the scene of affection shared between these seemingly perfect lovers as the gentleman was leaving, became horribly disturbed that this little angel who had spilled so many tears then could now be heartless enough as to abandon her lover without so much as a word as to where she was going! I quickly signed for my meal and went out to find her and inquire about the situation. She had gone out into the yard. I was determined to get to the bottom of the matter, even if it meant following her wherever she was going, or else, by seekingout her lover in Florence. It was true, I had my literary research that obliged me to stay and inspect the Villa B*** and the surrounding countryside, and even to interview some peasants, read vernacular books, study local plants and the like, but I decided that if such a tender scene of romance and affection between two lovers could be followed immediately by a scene of such deceit and betrayal, well then I didn’t need to concern myself with literary research—or literature at all, for that matter!—since this scene of deceit and betrayal was proving that the world didn’t have any meaning or purpose, and therefore literature had no meaning or purpose, and so the world didn’t even deserve literature! Deeply disturbed and unhappy due to all I’d overheard, I left the dining hall and went out into the yard to see where the girl was going with the porter who hurried after her with her bags.
Once in the yard, the porter left the girl and placed her bags in the shade of a tree so he could go check on the status of the transportation to Rome, (it turned out she was going to Rome). When the porter came back, he told her with great regret that there had been some problem with the courier to Rome, some delay. “What kind of problem?!” she demanded of the porter. Her face paled completely. She looked horrified. “What kind of delay?!”
“The driver was trampled by a bull in Certaldo, Miss, his skull is smashed. The replacement driver won’t be arriving here before very late in the evening.” To this the girl sobbed ever more despairingly as she tugged with her little hands at the lace hem of her skirt. She looked up and flashed her pair of eyes betraying extreme worry. The porter offered to give her a room where she could wait till evening and have an excellent meal prepared at the inn’s expense, but she told him through her veil of tears that she couldn’t stay another moment at the inn, and that if fate had dealt her such a miserable hand as it appeared it had, she would suffer the road alone with her shoes scuffing in the dust. Although how was she to carry her bags?! In despair, she plopped herself down on her luggage and told the porter to come find her in the yard the moment the transportation was ready to leave for Rome. With the porter gone, she began again to spill an endless flood of tears into her cupped hands.
I who was meanwhile still a discreet witness to this scene was so incredibly touched to see a girl so young and beautiful crying so magnificently that I decided to approach her in a gentle manner. When she heard the crunching of my shoes on the gravel beside her, she stopped weeping and looked up at me with great modesty. Her tender cheeks were steaming with hot tears. I introduced myself, and not waiting for her to reply, I told her that I’d overheard her request to go to Rome, as well as the response that the transport to Rome wouldn’t be leaving until late in the evening; so to save her waiting the entire day and evening in the yard, I would take her there myself, we would leave in a few minutes. After all, I had some important research I needed to do in Rome and was going there myself. This latter remark was a lie, as the only literary research I had need of in Italy concerned Tuscany, but I was anxious to find out the story of this matchless girl. Needless to say, she accepted my offer, her face beamed with relief and gleamed with hope. So within a quarter of an hour, my driver was around loading her luggage in the rear with my own, and everyone climbed in and we were off! …me, myself, and the loveliest girl in Europe. My joy knew no bounds as we wound around the burnished gold and copper hills of the Italian landscape. We dashed down roads, and my heart expanded with joy.
The poor girl cried so uncontrollably for the first part of the journey, pouring endless tears onto her shoulders, soaking her little shirt, that it was impossible to find out anything from her, or about her. We spoke for the first time when we reached Siena. I asked her where she was going in Rome, if she knew the city and had someone to meet, someplace to stay, or if she w
ould be travelling on from Rome. She pressed a cloth to her eyes and said that she was travelling on from Rome immediately by boat. She needed to catch a boat to leave Italy, to leave Europe entirely, all as soon as possible. I laughed through my nose at this and replied that it was very fortunate to learn this now, in Siena, as this was the point to turn off for all port destinations. “There is no port in Rome,” I told her, “and to get a boat one has to go to Civitavecchia, which is on the coast, about three leagues closer to us than Rome, about seventeen leagues from Rome, should I have taken you there first.” She thanked me for being a good guide, apologizing that she only knew the north of Italy and that she would very much like my driver to take us to Civitavecchia so she could take a boat and leave the country. She then resumed her crying.
I continued to be fascinated by this weeping, and by all of womankind. How is it that a woman lets a man go to Florence as he swears his love for her, saying that he will be back at daybreak the following day so the two can never again part, and while she doesn’t exactly swear a promise to be there to meet him at daybreak, she gives him all the reason in the world to make him believe that she will be there, her love and passion for him being so strong, her tears being so numerous. Then finally the moment the hopeful gentleman leaves, the woman turns into a cold and calculating absconder who pays-off hotel staff-members with gold to make sure that they deceive the poor devil who will return at the point of day only to have his heart completely shattered. Then she finds she can’t get to Rome on her own that day, so she allows a masculine stranger to shuttle her across the wide, strange earth, on roads she doesn’t know, to places with names like ‘Civitavecchia’; and all the way she sobs, spilling liters of tears as though the one who was truly broken-hearted by this whole affair was she! — ‘Oh, womankind! You will never cease to confuse me!’
Not being able to handle it anymore, having the whole future of literature as dependent on the answer as my own wellbeing, I finally turned to the girl on the journey and said: