Nervous laughter trickled from the crowd
The philosopher rested his eyes on the Louis Quinze. “Tonight, I hope to be eloquent.”
The king proceeded to drain his champagne glass, the crease of a drunken grin crossing his mouth. He dipped his head at Voltaire. The onlookers sighed a relief.
“For forty years, I’ve railed against the Church and its god,” Voltaire said. “And I will rail another forty. If God grants it.”
Laughter pitched the air.
The playfulness on Voltaire’s face disappeared. “In my theological studies, I have begun to look into the very beginnings of Christianity. What I’ve discovered is that in the first three or four hundred years after Jesus of Nazareth’s death, there were many variations of Christianity. One variety of early Christianity that greatly interests me was called Gnosticism. This is why we are here tonight.” Voltaire gestured toward Jacques and his manuscript. “Some of us think that the true and original form of Christianity was Gnosticism.”
Several grumbles rippled through the crowd. Jacques’ gut pinched in anguish.
“To digress, the Catholic Church believes that their god—Jesus the Christ—through His gift of sacrifice allows us a free pass to heaven. The Gnostics, conversely, believe a man may create his own pass to heaven—that a man or woman, without mediation from others, has the potential in his lifetime to achieve godhead. Gnosticism maintains that God is to be found exclusively within one’s own self.”
Loud and disagreeable shouts now pierced the air. Jacques snuck a nervous peek at Louis. Clearly he scowled.
Voltaire was undeterred. “This belief, as you may well surmise, was upsetting to the Church of Paul—and to the later hierarchy of popes, prelates, and the like who made a good living by intervening with God on behalf of sinning souls. Like me. Like you.”
Jacques blotted a bead of sweat from his forehead. Even if the king didn’t draw and quarter Voltaire—and Jacques, by association—the good Christians in the crowd might flog them to bits.
“This Christian Gnostic philosophy—in conflict with Roman Catholic theology—obligated the early Church patriarchs to eliminate—to destroy—all Gnostics and all traces of Gnosticism. Yet some Gnostic documents did manage to escape destruction by the Church of Rome.” He pointed to Jacques’ manuscript. “Because I’ve done previous investigations upon this particularly rare manuscript, I deem it to be an authentic Gnostic text that was written in the second century Anno Domini.”
Voltaire shot a look into the crowd, then lifting his arms, wordlessly beckoned Jacques to join him on the dais. “And this particularly rare gentleman, Jacques Girolamo Casanova, has graciously consented to turn this text over to my care and safekeeping. It is the munificent act of a discerning man.”
Voltaire led the light applause. The king, Cavaliere Grimani and his wife, and scores of guests showed their approval likewise.
Jacques’ excitement seemed to expand all the way to his fingers and toes. He wiped the remaining sweat from his forehead, straightened his shoulders, and absorbed the glittering moment. He bowed to the king with as much humility as he could muster, then stepped forward on the dais and hushed the crowd. “I’ve only to say that I, like so many others with whom I’ve spoken tonight, feel honored to be in the company of one of the most eminent men of this century.” Jacques beamed at Voltaire. “This gentleman of France has an unequaled wit, an all-encompassing intelligence—”
“And nearly fleshless buttocks,” trumpeted Voltaire.
At this remark, the crowd convulsed. Jacques, caught completely by surprise, held his sides trying to smother his own laughter, a battle he lost. Through watery eyes, he watched Louis Quinze double over in mirth.
Minutes passed before the uproar settled and the bacchantes returned to their studied politeness.
Jacques cradled the precious text he’d smuggled out of Constantinople, had doggedly transported throughout Europe, a text that he’d always felt deep down would in some manner lend exquisite specialness and unconditional adulation. This night, he’d experienced just that. Tonight, he belonged.
Jacques wondered: was he giving away his magic charm? Suddenly, he felt disinclined to part with the manuscript. But with some formality—and a large smile—he handed it to Voltaire, then left the platform. He could relinquish center stage since another of his triumphal coups would soon take place: his receipt of Grimani’s gold.
Francois Voltaire raised his arm. “Times are changing. Men and gods are changing,” he said. “This—from the mouth of that soothing English author and statesman, the fourth earl of Chesterfield: ‘I foresee,’ said he, ‘that before the end of this century, the trade of both King and priest will not be half so good a one as it has been.’”
The stunned crowd seemed almost to tip back on their heels as if a blasting wind raged through the ballroom.
To Jacques’ surprise, King Louis offered a sardonic smile and began to clap. Here was an enlightened monarch—or a drunken one—who gave the crowd his royal permission to applaud Voltaire’s courage, if not his opinion.
Applause rose slowly throughout the room.
Voltaire took his cue. “In earnest shall I study this priceless manuscript and soon report on its significance to all Frenchmen—who are once again my fellow countrymen. I thank Cavaliere Michele Grimani and Signor Jacques Casanova, two generous and true gentlemen.” Voltaire paused. “Yet how extraordinary this world is: two Venetians—sharing a radical text they cannot read—coax a Frenchman out of the bowels of Switzerland. What unexpected wonder and strangeness.”
While the savant descended the dais amid heavy applause, the orchestra struck up another minuet.
Behind the dais—out of view of the guests—Grimani’s manservant placed a velvet purse into Jacques’ palm, then strode briskly away.
Jacques fondled the gold coins. All doubts, compromises, and contingency plans dissolved, including the last thread tethering him to Vicomte de Fragonard’s proposal. The gold—a thrilling elixir!
As joyous as Jacques felt, he became somewhat miffed that Dominique was not near. He’d not seen her during the presentation, nor had she met him behind the dais. Where was she at this, his moment of triumph? With Francesco?
Jacques tucked the purse between two tatters in his breeches and stepped gingerly from behind the platform to take in the mass of revelers who were beginning to clutter the ballroom floor.
At the near end of the floor, a woman attired as the goddess Diana—and arching like a proud fawn—pranced toward the doors leading to the garden. Even from a distance, Jacques’ keen eyes could make out the black silk mouches in the guise of hearts and teardrops pasted to her temple, frolicsome marks he adored. He was further invigorated by the gauzelike costume wrapping Diana’s body. Shall I swallow her whole or have her piecemeal?
From one of the waiters, Jacques filched two glasses of champagne and shuttled across the ballroom, looking through the doors. A thin drizzle of rain teased the flames of the torches outside so that, in the garden, Diana was nowhere to be seen.
Turning slowly around, he spotted Dominique halfway across the room. For the moment, she did not see him.
“This way,” purred a female voice.
Jacques spun about, again peered into the garden, and saw the fleeting figure of Diana. He peeked back in Dominique’s direction, but then veered straight out the door.
Navigating the labyrinth of wet shrubs he slugged down his champagne just before he heard a whispered “Here, right here.”
A fan snapped shut. A hand clamped his groin.
“Ah,” Jacques groaned. The hand loosened but immediately slid across his waistcoat, then under his tattered shirt and found flesh. A nipple.
“Oh.” He squeezed his eyes closed. “Oh!” Clutching a glass in each fist, he barely managed to remain upright.
“I thought we’d never have one another,” pouted the woman. One hand kneaded Jacques’ chest while the other tugged his head low, allowing her mou
th to slither across his.
Jacques recognized the stinking breath. Overcoming his mortification, he uttered a faint “Marquise D’Ampie?”
“Yours for the taking.”
“Where’s Diana, the fawn?”
Another salacious kiss from the woman repulsed him. He jerked upright, stood tall, downed his other champagne, then dropped both glasses to the slick grass. He glanced at the Marquise, recalling that this was Carlo Brose’s woman, the one whom he was to marry. Wrecking Brose’s plan might please Jacques greatly.
“All night I’ve wanted to suck your flesh,” growled La Marquise.
“Your wantoness is, umm, not infectious,” murmured Jacques, rainwater dripping down his nose. “Or your drunkenness.” He felt his member stemming. It grew erect and, discovering an oblique path, peeped through one of the holes in his breeches.
The Marquise dropped to her knees. She broke into sobs—hugging, caressing, kissing Jacques’ hardened manhood through the shredded breeches.
“Madame! Do you suppose the involuntary response of my flesh grants you permission to …?” Jacques tried to regroup his reeling senses. What to do?
Before he could say the word “insatiable,” Jacques was neatly tossed to his back.
La Marquise pounced.
A quarter hour and three positions later, Jacques was incensed. And to his added consternation, another pair of lovers in an adjacent arbor began a whine of lust.
“More. More,” bawled D’Ampie. “Tonight, my lover, I want to die the little death a thousand times.”
“No doubt,” muttered Jacques, continuing the act of fornication mechanically.
He toiled in a heated sweat, most of it pouring from his head. The drizzle offered little relief while allowing soaked strands of his well-dressed peruke to droop to his eyes.
Amid carnal howls from the adjoining shrub and frenzied dance cadences exploding from the ballroom, Jacques flipped his wig on to the nearest hedge and strained to view Madame Marquise—bluish teeth and all—now on her back.
D’Ampie, you have drifted from flirtation to lechery to—perhaps not satiation but to exhaustion … “Marquise, I won’t continue this rut.”
The by now nearly formless creature didn’t answer. But during a flash of lightning, Jacques caught her wistful grin.
He disentangled himself, stood up, and shook rainwater from his back like a sodden wolfhound, then groped through the shrubbery maze toward the candlelit ballroom.
His tattered costume and disheveled appearance in the garden doorway surprised neither the drunken dancers nor the servant whose champagne Jacques began to thirstily guzzle.
Before he could finish his drink, a plump woman masked as a shepherdess drew alongside him. In a startling gesture, the fleshy shepherdess struck the bold opening pose of the violent Venetian furlana, a dance that had no equal in all of Europe. Jacques—soaked to the bone, drained of his faculties—declined the woman’s invitation, but she, as well as several insistent others, would have none of it. The shepherdess yanked Jacques to the center of the floor.
They danced six furious furlane, one following the other. Jacques, at the finish, was out of breath and nearly insensible, but the sizeable shepherdess stood absolutely still without the least sign of fatigue, as if to defy him. The furlana continued. During the most demanding part of the dance, the whirl, Jacques’ partner seemed to hover over him like a thick shade tree. Three times she executed the double grand cercle. Gasping for air, Jacques felt tart champagne rising up his throat.
A lone violinist, standing beside a bright torch high in the orchestra balcony, plucked a frenzied pizzicato, then stopped midphrase. The orchestra broke off.
On the ballroom floor, the few remaining dancers, glancing to the balcony, froze in place. Jacques, too, came to a standstill. Before starting to stalk away, he glimpsed toward the violinist.
Above and behind the seated musician, a long, slack object swung like a padded pendulum from one side of the narrow balcony to the other. A man. A man in a gay and tattered costume dangling from a rope wound around his neck. A mask attached to the back of the man’s head was in view until, shortly, the twisting pirouette of the body offered a snatch of his greenish-blue face. A bit of tongue protruded from the mouth. Everyone in the ballroom stood immobile, engrossed in the unnatural spectacle.
Twirling in front of his painting—my brother! He’s finally done it, the shit.
A horrible choking gushed from Francesco.
Jacques blinked in confusion. His brain spun. His heart thundered as if a sword thrust had breached his chest. His eyes, his burning eyes, again followed the rope from a ceiling rod to the body as it labored back and forth.
Jacques tasted the sickening tang of champagne as the contents of his stomach rolled onto the back of the shepherdess who stood beside him. Even before the woman realized what had befallen her, Jacques was running toward the side stairs leading to the balcony, knots of revelers barring his path.
“Help!”
He recognized Dominique’s cry, which was quickly drowned by appalling screams.
A dozen strides from Jacques, a man dressed as Mars thrust his fist to the balcony toward Francesco. “That’s the madman who slashed the Cavaliere’s painting,” he shouted. “That ghoul is—”
Jacques pressed forward toward the stairs, driving fat Mars to his knees when he passed. His eyes darted to the balcony, to Francesco, then to a musician who reeled toward the balcony railing, his hands clapped over his nose and mouth. The panicked musician toppled a burning flambeau before plunging into the crowd below. More cries of terror.
“Fire, fire in the balcony!”
Jacques, reaching the bottom of the stairs, saw Dominique stumble in the balcony just before new mayhem commanded his eyes back to the ballroom floor. The king’s Swiss Guard had sprung into action. The huge men, arms outstretched, swept through the crowd like scythes through grass, thrusting aside lords and ladies, pulling Louis Quinze toward the reception room and entrance. Shrieks ripped the air; revelers trampled one another.
Battered by the frenzied onslaught on the stairs, Jacques barely remained standing. His throat was scorched. The reek of vomit roiled his senses. “Not dead, must not be,” he found himself yelling. “Save him!”
Just then, a bone-thin Voltaire, stripped of his toga, swept past. The bewildered philosopher was steered toward the entrance by a maelstrom of screaming people.
Jacques—tottering, shoving, helpless against the mob—fixed his eyes above the ballroom tumult to the fire. The sinewy flames lashed wildly about. With renewed vigor, he battled through the bunched crowd, charging up the stairway. At the uppermost landing, searing hot smoke greeted him. Clamping his nose, he watched a musician, wits gone, fling himself from the height.
Dominique came into sight, hauling a chair toward Francesco’s limp body.
“Dominique!”
When Jacques reached her, she had stretched tiptoe on the chair’s edge, struggling to separate Francesco from the rope. Quickly, he pulled her down, then drew his dagger, bounded up, and furiously sawed the cord until Francesco, like a sack of grain, crumpled upon his shoulder, sending his ceramic mask plummeting to the floor, where it smashed to pieces. Dominique dropped to the floor, weeping openly, insanely.
“Fight, Brother, fight,” commanded Jacques, as he laid Francesco down. Smoke clogged Jacques’ brain. Flicking his eyes momentarily to the crackling flames one tier below, he crouched over Francesco and wrestled the rough cord from around his neck. The noose had crushed the throat. He placed his ear to Francesco’s mouth. No breath. He put his ear to Francesco’s body. No heartbeat. No life.
“Stay, Francesco. Stay with me.” Jacques felt his strength collapse. “Don’t give up.” He wiped away foam from Francesco’s lips and stuffed the contorted tongue back into his mouth. He cradled Francesco’s head. “Nothing,” he said. “Nothing to be done.”
Coughing on the harsh smoke, Dominique heaved herself to sitting.
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br /> Jacques’ gut jerked fiercely. She mustn’t see him. He ripped off his jacket, laying it over Francesco’s face, but the bulging, blood-red eyes peered eerily through the tatters. When Dominique craned toward him, Jacques turned away to see three musicians smother the balcony fire.
Dominique grasped the lifeless hand of her husband and folded it to her bosom, wailing piteously. Jacques turned and pressed his fingers to her cheek, watching the warm tears brim her eyes.
He lay down beside Francesco, hoping his brother might again bloom to life. Tenderly, he stroked his hair and cheek, then wrapped his arm around Francesco’s massive chest, drew him close, and leaned into his ear. “I’ve never held you in my arms.” He paused to calm his speech. He placed a quiet kiss on Francesco’s lips. “You’re my brother. Until the day I die, you’ll always be my little brother.”
The candles in the chandeliers burned lower, then lower still.
When the storm passed and the dawn of day began to break, Jacques, Dominique, and Petrine carried Francesco down the balcony stairs, settling him on the empty ballroom floor, while servants offered what little aid they could to the few injured spectators who yet remained. No one offered assistance to Jacques.
In through the garden door trudged Carlo Brose, staggering past the wretched and grief stricken. The husky man, mud caking his costume, champagne bottle swinging from his hand, full mask fixed to his face, sprawled to the ballroom floor amid the debris. He throated a thick drunken laugh. “What a sight. Bread, blood, defecation, death.” Raising himself to his elbow, he waved a finger about. “But then, hearing those swaddled bluebloods screeching like hares in a trap. And also my Marquise. Probably somewhere face down in the muck, where she …” Brose’s eye found the vanquished Jacques Casanova. “Herr Adventurer, you must depart this tawdry—you don’t belong—you, a much-dejected fellow. I could forgive you if you slobbered on great God. But this?” Brose let loose a brazen howl.
From out of nowhere, Brose produced a small book. “Hah! Stole this from your pocket last night!” He thumbed the pages awkwardly and gloated for some time until, lifting his masked head, he stared at Jacques.
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