Secrets of Casanova

by Michaels, Greg

  “Have you created pieces such as these?” Jacques whispered.

  His brother shook his head, apparently despondent. “Battle scenes are what I paint.”

  “Admittedly,” Jacques went on, “erotic work such as this requires money for models but—”

  “I had expected these to … but they’re no help.” Francesco’s voice had a strange yearning.

  “Oh,” Jacques said, looking up. “You sound as if the miniatures are life and death to you.”

  “They may be.”

  Jacques wanted to ask what Francesco meant. Instead, he shot a quizzical look at his brother, then unveiled a draped easel. “Ah, the creamy-fleshed, rosy-cheeked nymphs Monsieur Boucher paints,” he said. “And all have the unmistakable baby face of Madame Boucher.”

  Francesco gave a halfhearted smile before staring at the table full of erotic work. He selected a miniature and held it in his hand.

  “I know I’m capable of this.” A clap of thunder startled him, and he returned the piece to the table before looking to his brother.

  Jacques smiled, pointing to his swelling crotch. “Psst,” he whispered.

  “Is that humor?” Francesco growled. Instantly, he wheeled about and tramped toward the door.

  ***

  The quietude of the cellar, combined with the surrounding darkness, captivated Jacques. The lanterns created a glittering effect so that the pale russet chambers of the nautilus seemed to expand and contract, shifting into extraordinarily vivid colors. The canvas itself at times seemed to undulate. Francesco’s intense concentration—the fluid motion of his painting arm, the confidence of his brushstrokes—all added to the spell.

  Soon the old Vicomte entered, thwacking the thick support timbers with his shillelagh. He put on a proud air and took a seat in the chair Jacques had vacated. All but swallowed by the cavernous armchair, he said nothing. Occasionally he leaned forward or waved his finger as if it were a baton, tapping it rhythmically on the fauteuil’s arm, while his eyes searched every inch of each canvas as if it held some long-lost secret.

  The two brothers shared a glance before Francesco mumbled something and refocused on his canvas.

  At last the Vicomte spoke. “I sought fame—or infamy, some might say. I wanted my song to be heard, perhaps above others.” His voice held much sadness. He thrust his shillelagh towards Jacques. “I recognize that very characteristic in you, my son. Vanity drives you to indulgence. Your compulsion to have your song heard is your cross, a burden you will not or cannot lay down. I was of that nature. But you shall perhaps discover it’s not a true path.” He leaned back. “For me, in one astonishing experience, only in an instant, I was able to recognize much of my authentic nature, and I was transformed. Profoundly, believe me. And Jesus of … well, I had much to learn.”

  Jacques pulled out his snuffbox, offering its ingredients to his brother and the Vicomte. Both declined.

  “I am decided,” Fragonard said to Jacques. “I am decided.”

  He pointed his shillelagh at Francesco. “Because I am paying wages to this talented artist to paint and not to prod in other business, and as you,” he pointed his stick at Jacques, “are the one whose character I feel free to dissect, you are chosen to accompany me. I invite you alone.”

  Jacques, wondering how soon he would be visiting the erotic miniatures, reminded himself to be surprised when the old owl showed them. He bowed.

  “I gratefully accept, Vicomte de Fragonard, and look forward to your company.”

  Fragonard lifted himself from the chair and retrieved his shillelagh.

  “No doubt that much of what I have said seems to have little importance from your vantage point, Signor Casanova. But grant credit to a man with many years and some wisdom. Truly, I confide I’ve had an experience that most men may only imagine.”

  “My inquisitive nature, sir, near overwhelms me.”

  The Vicomte beckoned the younger man with an outstretched finger.

  ***

  Once into the upper house, the Vicomte and Jacques made their way with only a single candle between them and an occasional wall sconce for illumination. Jacques’ nose was beginning to react to a familiar odor.

  “I rely on your reputation as an understanding man and a citizen of the world,” the Vicomte said as he stepped into the dark void of a hallway, a rash of thunder echoing from the storm outside.

  Jacques was anxious; he didn’t recognize where he was. Certainly it wasn’t the corridor that led to the miniatures, but while he and the Vicomte lumbered down the hallway, he stayed abreast.

  The unmistakable smell of castoreum engulfed Jacques. In moments, the sight of a gleaming lock told him he was standing at the door that had first attracted his attention that day. He heard a creaking sound and lifted the candle to see the Vicomte replace a key into his vest pocket. What lay behind the door?

  “Remove the lock from the hasp, if you please,” said the Vicomte, “then stand aside.”

  After Jacques complied, Fragonard spoke. “I invite you to view my cabinet of curiosities, Signor Casanova. Few others have seen this work of mine. But you are a freethinker. What I have gleaned of your character interests me—and more importantly, what I intuit to be true of you confirms your usefulness.” The Vicomte de Fragonard edged toward the younger man. “Earlier I readied the cabinet. Now I ask your opinion of my creations.”

  The Vicomte pushed hard, and the door swung wide. A jewel box of iridescence blinded Jacques, and in the moment he tried to regain sight, the sickly sweet smell nearly overpowered him.

  The Vicomte ushered him into the chamber while Jacques shaded his eyes against what seemed a ceiling full of candles. When he stepped forward, his slowly returning vision was drawn to the far end of the room where, high at the ceiling, a black scrim draped downward, partitioning a portion of the large space.

  He followed the scrim to the floor. His chief view was the dark outline of a stationary horse, a rider seated upright, arms flexed as if to grasp reins. Moving slowly into the room, he saw the horse had no skin. Every cord of its musculature was visible.

  Jacques’ throat dried. He was sickened but couldn’t keep from looking. Neither man nor horse was a skeleton or a corpse but an amalgamation of red veins, brown ligaments, and yellowish tendons—all power and rawness, frozen in grotesquerie. The rider’s teeth were gritted, his nostrils flared, eyeballs expressionless. A nightmare of fiendish vulgarity.

  “What is the purpose of …” Jacques stammered, nearly voiceless.

  The Vicomte said, “I, naturally, cannot disclose my recipe, though I have, by determined experiment, improved upon a Templars’ formula, which was revealed to me many, many years ago. My écorchés are preserved, I may reveal, by soaking the cadaver in eau-de-vie, mixed with aloe, myrrh, and pepper, among other substances.”

  “What I meant was—”

  The Vicomte broke in. “After draining blood and removing the vital organs, I employ my prescription, then inject the arteries, veins, and bronchial tubes with tallow mixed with turpentine. Sometimes arsenical salts. I then—” The Vicomte stopped, frowning. “No, I forbid myself to give away the embalming process. That is my private domain. I will say my method is far, far superior to, say, that of Czar Peter, who knew how to decapitate his unfaithful lover but knew only to put her head in spirit of alcohol. Spirit of alcohol. Primitive, do you agree?"

  “So the castoreum I smell—?”

  “Covers the occasionally distressing odors from my work. Sometimes I use ambergris or styrax for a sweeter fragrance.” While the Vicomte ambled forward, he spoke. “You realize, of course, that in France we anatomists receive convicted assassins for dissection. That is the law of the land. Fiat experimintum in corpore vili. ‘Let experiment be made on a worthless body.’ The gentleman you see here was in several pieces when the authorities turned him over to me. It seemed he had become an acolyte of the diocese, but the Sacred Orders refused to accept him in the priesthood. The distraught fellow attempted to
murder the bishop outside his episcopal quarters. The attempt failed, and in due course, he was sentenced. His fist was broken on the stake. His arms, legs, thighs, and loins were broken on special scaffolding. And his body, which was to be reduced by fire to cinders and scattered to the wind, was instead given to me. How one may suffer from the boot heel of the Church. But as you see from this bust, I was able to retrieve some of the …” The Vicomte threw his arm wide. “These are my écorchés.”

  Staring at the stark remains, Jacques felt his face grow blisteringly hot. Is man no more than this?

  “As to the purpose about which you asked? There is a far greater intention to my work than one would suppose,” the Vicomte admonished.

  Beside him, a menacing figure, possibly once human, was posed midstride, brandishing a large mandible. The pit of Jacques’ stomach grew cold and hard. Yet almost against his will, he found himself following the Vicomte into the larger chamber beyond.

  In its corner, beyond more than two dozen gnarled demi-beasts of exposed viscera and swollen veins, hung the dark scrim. Approaching, he recognized the sweet smell of ambergris before stepping around the curtain.

  A figure with skeletal hands, palms pressed together, reclined in a bath of fluid. The being, slumbering on his back, had not been managed or mangled like the rest. Jacques stepped toward the figure. This once lived as a man; amid all the hellish figures, this one alone is transformed. The face had an enigmatic, almost serene expression.

  Jacques turned upon hearing Fragonard clubbing across the parquet floor.

  “All the other écorchés you have seen are my earliest experiments,” the Vicomte said, “rudimentary labors in progress, really. This is the zenith toward which I have worked. He was created from a devout inspiration of the spirit, born from an experience that changed me once and forever.”

  “I find myself oddly touched by him,” Jacques admitted.

  “That is vastly pleasing.” The Vicomte’s face softened. He made one final review of the chamber, punching his shillelagh in staccato thrusts at airy nothings, then strode toward the door.

  Jacques followed.

  - 7 -

  DOMINIQUE CASANOVA WAS FASCINATED. She didn’t wish to be. But her kind and inquisitive nature found her houseguest fascinating. Jacques’ stories of faraway places, of charlatans he’d met, of bluebloods he’d known, as well as his variety of occupations—adventurer, gambler, secretary, soldier, preacher, musician, writer—all excited her.

  He talked. And he also listened, though she knew the dullness of her daily routine provided slim fodder for interest. Their conversation and his attentiveness were all too stimulating.

  This morning while he and Dominique shared Francesco’s two-day old bread, Jacques discussed the brothers’ recent trip to Vicomte de Fragonard’s; without mentioning the indecent miniatures, he accentuated his generous gift to the child, the “rewarding time with his brother,” and the Vicomte’s eccentric manner.

  For Dominique, these stories pointed up her separateness, her loneliness.

  Too, she was disturbed by her interest in —her attraction to—her husband’s brother. So that she might not grow further distraught, she determined that her best course was to rediscover Francesco’s charm. And after seven years with a man who seemed more married to his art than to her, she knew she must, without delay, have an answer for her deepest desire of all.

  After Jacques left for the afternoon, Dominique knelt beside her window, anxious to speak with her god. Fingering the ivory cross hanging from her neck, she attempted to hold back her tears.

  “My master, Jesus, I come in humility to ask … not been to confession, and … feel weak. Show me the path … goodness … sweet Jesus, You keep us pure, create us anew. Encompass my heart in … grant an answer for my confusion. In my master’s name, Jesus the Christ. Amen.” In the fading rays of daylight Dominique genuflected, kissed the crucifix, tucked it back into her dress, and wiped her eyes.

  She knew what she must do: ask Jacques to find another lodging, to leave.

  But it was Francesco who arrived home first.

  “You’re back from the Vicomte de Fragonard’s early?” Dominique called from the door of her room. “I’d hoped you would be.”

  “Tonight I paint at home, not in a cellar,” Francesco grumbled, coming up the stairs.

  “And we’ll have privacy. Jacques and Petrine may not return until late so—”

  “For once.”

  “But I enjoy their company.” Guilt colored her voice. She stumbled on her next words. “May I join you, husband—to see your progress?”

  Francesco said nothing while continuing up the stairs.

  Dominique soon entered the loft, where spiraling shadows—spawned by crude chandeliers—revealed a myriad of creatures on canvas. The walls of the loft seemed a gargantuan speckled honeycomb of sketches, half-finished colorings, blank canvases, and paintings.

  With help from the substantial slice of moon streaming through the overhead window, Dominique crossed the long room, pondering the various portraits, animal depictions, and scenes of war that her husband had painted over the years. She sucked in a breath of air tinged with turpentine and dared a look at several paintings Francesco had slashed; although she found his actions disconcerting, what upset her further was his insistence that his defaced works remain on the loft walls. To Dominique, it was a reminder of his sullen frustration.

  She set her tray of bread, cheese, and wine on a small table, then took a seat on her favorite stool while her husband finished lighting the chandeliers.

  When Francesco walked by, Dominique tugged playfully at his finger, but he drew back his hand. He climbed the ladder that was set against his large canvas, closed one eye, and began to paint, adding silver highlights to the sabers of a troop of soldiers attacked on all fronts by a fierce enemy.

  Several minutes passed while he worked.

  “I should take a saber to that brother of mine,” Francesco grumbled, eyeing Dominique. “Am I unwise to say so, my wife?

  “Such an imposing canvas,” was all that Dominique said.

  Francesco stubbed the palette with his brush, shook his head, then descended the ladder.

  “My brother is a singular character whose extravagances make many steadfast allies—like his bishop friend—and many avenging enemies.”

  Dominique supposed her husband was correct about Jacques. He had many enemies—and no one to protect him.

  Francesco gobbled a hunk of cheese, then lumbered back to his work. He crouched by the corner of the large canvas, running a finger across a tree he’d sketched months ago, before climbing the ladder.

  “Did I tell you when my brother was twenty, he was so enamored of a girl that he decided to bake locks of her hair in a sweet confection—a not uncommon practice where we grew up—and present it to her?” Francesco rattled on, now splotching vermilion on his field of battle. “The whole love affair foundered, died. By sheer chance, our mother was in town, and she comforted him in his utter misery—while during those few days, a different calamity had befallen me that put me in worse agony than he. But Zanetta ignored me. As always.”

  Dominique caught her husband’s dismay. “I don’t ignore you, Francesco. I want us—”

  “Don’t,” he barked. He speared his paint palette with his brush as if he were impaling a bug.

  Dominique stiffened and remained silent for several moments before speaking. “What do you want from me? I don’t understand.”

  She clamped herself to her stool, a sharp agitation within her driving her to leave the room. This agitation stemmed a secret, a truth that she knew dwelled in her, but one she couldn’t seem to dredge from her depths. Although long ago Dominique had decided she’d not confide each and every one of her confidences to Francesco, she’d always felt an unspoken permission to do so, if and when she cared to shed another layer of guard. She knew Francesco, in his bearish manner, accepted her even if her secrets were her own.

  But th
is unidentified unease she felt seemed more a secret from herself than from Francesco. Free this secret. Pry it loose. Open it, Jesus, to my heart.

  She pinched at her crucifix while Francesco, balancing on his ladder at chandelier height, smeared a dark indigo on his canvas. No emotion was perceptible now on his face, nothing that might betray what he was thinking or feeling. He was finished talking. Dominique had learned this. She’d become skilled at reading his minute gestures, in gauging his utterances and moods. She sometimes understood his eyes, but not when they were in the throes of despair.

  Francesco stared at his canvas, rubbing his forehead as if he wanted to erase his flesh. He climbed down the ladder.

  Dominique knew. He grows dispirited. His black humor encases him.

  She weighed whether to address him.

  Francesco set aside his palette and stood alone, brown hair shrouding his brow.

  Our strength is friendship, Dominique soothed herself. But a strange instability disturbed her with this thought.

  “Friendship, our strength,” she said aloud, as if an invocation. The inflexible wooden stool pressing against her gave her pause.

  “Friendship,” she reiterated, now beginning to question her statement.

  Suddenly new words, as if furnished by another voice, arrived on Dominique’s lips, and although she wanted to deny them, subdue them, reject them, they pushed coldly and quietly out through her mouth.

  “Friendship’s our deadly weakness. It cannot be the only way I love you. No longer is … meager friendship … enough. I resent that I don’t have a husband.” Instantly, she knew this was the plain, earnest truth whose declaration she’d hidden for such a long, long time. And she knew the truth was hurtful.

  Stunned, Dominique stared at Francesco before continuing. “I need my husband. And I want children.”

  His dark, unwelcoming eyes confirmed his understanding of what Dominique had just said. Slowly, his lips crooked into a glum, impassable grimace.

  Grasping her crucifix, Dominique shoved aside her stool and moved closer to Francesco. She touched his hand. The pain in his eyes was crushing. Nothing would comfort him.