I warn you: my mother is in a fury, and she blames me for everything. She also says she will take her vengeance on me and plans to send all the letters she has—mine and yours—tomorrow morning by courier either to the [British Resident in Venice] or to someone else—I don’t quite know; right now she swears she will ruin me. If she continues to insult me the way she has, I might have to make a decision. . . . I cannot stand it any longer.
Giustiniana hoped things could still be resolved the following morning with a simple apology by Zandiri, but she feared that his own pride and her mother’s anger might conspire to make matters worse for everyone: “If he asks your forgiveness and if you grant it immediately, as you intend to,” she wrote to Andrea before retiring that evening, “things will settle themselves. But if he behaves crazily, God only knows what we must fear!”
The next day Giustiniana awoke to find her mother’s fury unabated. She had taken the affront personally, and she seemed determined to wage war on them even if it meant keeping Zandiri locked up a while longer. “My mother has sworn to ruin us,” she told Andrea. “She doesn’t want [Zandiri] to say he’s sorry. . . . I’m desperate.” It was pure theater: Mrs. Anna was in one corner of the room writing a letter to Murray, the British Resident, while Giustiniana was sitting across the room writing frantically to Andrea about Mrs. Anna writing to Murray. “. . . She makes it appear as if [Zandiri’s] arrest were the result of some violent action on your part designed to keep us here. God only knows what else she will make up.”
In open revolt against Mrs. Anna, Giustiniana decided to send her own version of events to the Resident in order to preempt her mother’s letter to him.
Sir,
I will be in serious danger if you do not help me and grant me your protection in a case so clearly ruled by vengeance alone—not by justice. Hear me, sir, and save me.
When we arrived in Vicenza our carriages broke down, and we were told the repairs would take four days. I immediately informed Memmo with the sole purpose of bidding him farewell just one more time; and he, hoping for the same, rushed to Vicenza. My mother was asleep when he arrived at the inn. He waited for her to wake up in order to congratulate her on the fact that nothing distressing had happened to the family on account of the crash. Having observed that was the case with his own eyes, he was about to go back—as he had promised my mother and as she herself seemed convinced he would do, since he was without coffer and manservant.
Meanwhile, I called in Zandiri—the very stern and knowledgeable manager of our trip—to explain to him all that was going on. But he simply walked from one room to the next without greeting [Memmo] and even slammed the door in his face. That wasn’t enough: when I went down, I was upbraided by my mother in the usual manner while Signor Zandiri hurled insults at Memmo and threatened to kill him even though he was by then far away. His insults were heard by three gentlemen and by many servants. Once Memmo was informed of all this he thought he would simply remind Signor Zandiri that such a rodomontade was very much to his own disadvantage, and in lieu of availing himself of the harsh instruments he had at his disposal, the use of which might have o fended our family, he asked the three noblemen for their honest testimony and gathered more evidence of the fact that he had not even spoken to Zandiri; then he turned to the [Venetian] rappresentante to obtain justice. The rappresentante happened to be out of town, and [Memmo], who, despite his gentle manner, was determined to make [Zandiri] feel his superior status and mortify him, went ahead of us to Verona, whence the rappresentante had in fact just left for Vicenza. This unexpected turn of events forced [Memmo] to go on to Brescia, where he was finally able to present his case and where Zandiri was reprimanded by the Tribunal in presence of the authorities as well as many gentlemen and then transferred to the Castello and put at [Memmo’s] disposal.
My mother went into a fury when she heard of the arrest and blamed me for everything and swore to ruin Memmo and me— again. She doesn’t want [Zandiri] to tell Memmo he’s sorry, even though that would put an end to everything. . . . We could resume our journey as early as tomorrow and Memmo could return to Venice. But no, she wants to move ahead and take her revenge on us for no fault of our own. As she is now writing to you, I have decided to inform you as quickly as possible of the facts, all of which can be proven by eye-witness noblemen.
I know, Mr. Murray, your sense of justice as well as your prudence. And I know that, once well apprised of all the facts, you will not encourage her unfair wrath. I have left Memmo to go to London in accordance with the orders my mother has received [from Lord Holderness]—though under the laws of my country no one could have forced me to had I decided to do otherwise.
Truth reigns in all I have said to you, and all I ask is that you consider it well. I have reason to be fearful, and I put myself in your hands for whatever future violence I might suffer. Whatever you have heard about me, I am sure you will do right. . . . My character is not tainted. You have had occasion to know me. Meanwhile I am fearful of everything, and the only prudent course of action I can take is to ask for your useful and experienced assistance. Use your best judgment in reading my letter written in the greatest haste. . . . I also beg for the protection of Lady [Murray], your wife, to whom I have the honor of being . . .
It was a remarkable letter, scribbled at top speed with one eye on the page and the other on Mrs. Anna sitting across the room. Her tone was respectful, even obsequious, but with just enough familiarity to give her appeal a personal touch, enhanced by her prudent inclusion of the Resident’s wife in her plea.
The last thing Murray could have wished was to become embroiled in a dispute in a remote provincial town between an angry Anglo-Venetian lady with a rather stained reputation and a well-known member of a prominent Venetian family. Luckily, the confrontation was defused before it could escalate into a full-blown diplomatic incident.
Giustiniana told Andrea about the two letters that were due to leave for Venice, and he informed the rappresentante. The following morning, the police intercepted Mrs. Anna’s messenger, who had been instructed to slip out of town unnoticed. Her letter to Murray and the accompanying documents—a selection from the two lovers’ correspondence—were handed over to Andrea, who, in a magnanimous gesture, returned them to Mrs. Anna unopened. But the rappresentante stepped in to remind Mrs. Anna of a basic fact of life in the Venetian Republic: Andrea’s word carried more weight than hers. There was really no point, he added, in pursuing the matter further. She would only damage herself and her family.
In the end, Murray did not receive either of the letters (Giustiniana’s was held back after Mrs. Anna’s had been intercepted), though he was probably informed about the incident in detail. Meanwhile, the rappresentante sent his military aide to the prison at the Castello to work on Zandiri, who finally caved in and wrote a submissive letter of apology to his sworn enemy. Andrea promptly pardoned Zandiri. Giustiniana was delighted and sent Andrea a short adulatory note: “You are a great man in every respect, my Memmo! And such cold blood, such dexterity, such quick and firm decisions in moments of great pressure! Oh, I shall never find another man like you if I live a thousand years.”
The next day a grumbling Zandiri returned to the inn. “No one spoke,” Giustiniana noted. “He and my mother appear to be fairly calm. . . . No secret meetings so far and no new letters.” Victory made her bold again, even reckless. “I am dying to see you. . . . If per chance this evening you should feel inclined to come visit me in the same room as last night, be sure that I would feel infinite comfort in seeing you.”
The lovers spent the night together—the last before they parted ways.
On October 12 the Wynnes headed for Milan. Ten days had passed since the carriage had broken down. Andrea and Giustiniana had to go through a painful separation all over again. “Everything that has happened in between has made me feel that I belong to you even more,” Giustiniana wrote. “I feel this separation very deeply. . . . I’ve never felt such pain, my Memmo—not eve
n in Padua.” There, at least, they had had more time to take leave from each other. Their parting in Brescia was a rushed and brutal affair. After a long day on the road that left her exhausted and “completely battered,” she began to take stock. As in her first letter from Vicenza, she reverted to addressing her lover as her dear brother:
Mon cher frère,
I am far from you, my dear Memmo, I will not see you again, and I am so sure of it now that all I feel is pain and desperation. It was so difficult to leave [this morning]! They had to call for me ten times because I had locked myself in a room and had spread out your letters and was crying and feeling completely desolate. But what’s the point? In the end I had to leave, and now you are so far away that I have finally come to realize I will not see you for a very long time. But I had to tear myself away without even a farewell, an embrace, a few shared tears! Oh God! . . . Oh, my Memmo, why do I love you so? Your friendship is such a rare thing that I would have felt bound to you forever even without having any other feelings for you. Oh, wretched circumstances! And you, Memmo, will you still love me? Yes, you will; but do not tell me, or else just tell me with the coldest words. I feel I could become extravagant: so far away that I cannot lay a claim on you nor give in to my feelings. Ah, if only you knew how torn I am! The past, your kindness, your friendship. All this love I have for you, it startles me, it fills me completely. I love you more and more, and more and more I see the miserable difficulties ahead. . . . Oh God! Memmo, my Memmo, still forever mine, oh God, pity me. And you, my heart, how will you remember me? Forget the past; be generous to me the way only you can be, and promise to think of me only the way I will be from now on. I will tell you everything, do not doubt that; I will keep you informed of my conduct, my opportunities, my feelings, my prudence. Yes, I shall be prudent—you mustn’t doubt that any longer. If only you knew how I feel now about caprice and weakness, I think you would be satisfied; but do not worry: my prudence will not be excessive; it is wise, well founded; and it will not vanish. Think well of me, if you still can, and expect to think even better of me yet. Tell me everything; continue to lend me your tender assistance. I will depend on it: I am yours. My dearest Memmo, mon aimable frère, you are such a rare being. Where else to find you if not in you? And will I not look for you and find you again? Wait for me, wherever you want.
It was typical of Giustiniana to address her letter to her cher frère and ramble on for pages, as if the actual scribbling of all those words dulled the pain and provided a small measure of relief. Invariably, however, the indulgent musing stopped as she reminded Andrea—and herself—that circumstances called for more disciplined behavior. After all, there were things to be done in Paris, urgent matters to attend to:
I will also take a keen interest in La Pouplinière and my future state, which will depend entirely upon myself and my reputation. . . . With my good manners, my cleverness, and my talent in eliciting the sympathy of others, I will make the catch; and then, Memmo, others will depend on me as I now depend on others, for, believe me, I will have a name and all the rest. . . . Trust me; I will tell you everything; I have given you my sacred word, and I intend to keep it. Look over me, my heart, and help me, but above all love me always.
The Wynnes arrived in Milan on the evening of October 13 and took rooms at Il Pozzo, a fashionable inn not far from the Duomo. It was the first time Giustiniana had left Venetian territory since her trip to London after her father’s death, when she had been fifteen. Once she was outside the Republic, her distance from Andrea seemed even greater. In her thoughts she traveled back to him constantly in order “to penetrate his being,” as she was fond of writing. She conjured, as a lover will against all odds, Andrea’s magical appearance in the most unlikely places: at street corners, in shops, even in the foyer of the inn where she was staying. To free herself from the suffocating presence of Mrs. Anna, Zandiri, Toinon, and her four younger siblings, she went out to explore the city in Andrea’s imaginary company.
Squeezed between the Venetian Republic and the rising Kingdom of Piedmont and Sardinia, the Duchy of Milan was a shadow of its former self—little more than a city-state on the southern rim of the Austrian Empire, which had extended its authority over the duchy after the War of the Spanish Succession. The city was fairly prosperous, yet its morale had long been sapped by the rule of the invaders. “There seems to be a provincial atmosphere everywhere here,” Giustiniana wrote, complaining that people stared at her “as if they had never seen a foreigner.”
She visited the Duomo, watched charlatans sell their miraculous balsams and unguents in the square, wandered around the streets, peered into fancy stores, observed the clothes people wore. She was struck by the great number of elegant carriages congregating in the main square for the evening stroll, and she also noticed the poverty and filth and the high number of beggars in the streets. As for the ladies, always the object of her special attention, her verdict was rather damning: “Mostly ugly, mostly clumsy.”
One way or another, the Milanese always came up short in her running conversation with Andrea. “I had a different idea of Milan,” she concluded petulantly. “. . . I make comparisons, and at present I like Venice in the extreme.”
Giustiniana went to the theater with Mrs. Anna and thought the show so boring that she stared blankly at the stage until she was overwhelmed by a wave of nostalgia: “It occurred to me I was in a theater, and so I was taken over by the strongest melancholy. I remembered . . . Oh, what I remembered. . . . Do you remember all that I remember? If you can, then surely you will pity my state.”
The Venetian Resident, Giuseppe Imberti, offered the Wynnes a seat in his box at the Opera. On her first night there, Giustiniana loudly complained that the singing was “dreadful.” The Resident agreed, and since he knew Andrea well, he showed himself more eager to catch up on the latest twist of their love saga than to listen to the music. Mrs. Anna, still recovering from the jolting trip from Brescia, arrived late at the opera, so Imberti had plenty of time to tease Giustiniana.
I confessed to him that I love you, but I also told him we are now bound only by friendship. He asked me if I had your portrait. I showed it to him and kissed it in his presence. . . . Then he wanted to know how much I was willing to pay in order to see you and I said: Everything. And I said it with all my heart! He asked how much I would give him if he produced you in less than twenty-four hours. . . . In the end he only promised to show me a letter of yours tomorrow. Still, I hope to God he will. He then tried to make me believe that you were hidden somewhere inside the hall. At that point, I must confess, I began to fantasize that you might actually be there, and much to my embarrassment I started looking for you in every box. You can imagine my state when I couldn’t find you! How terrible I felt until the opera was over! I feel miserable, Memmo. . . . If you love me, if you are my friend, arrange things in such a way that you can visit me soon, and I will not fail to come looking for you.
The Wynnes stayed three full days in Milan while their carriages were refitted for the next leg of the trip—straight west toward Piedmont and its capital, Turin. Giustiniana was incapable of reviving her initial curiosity about the city and grew more miserable with each day. She got up late, went to mass with Mrs. Anna before lunch, and took uninspired walks around the neighborhood. She had little interest in the people she met. “Everything bores me . . .”
For lack of anything better to do, she went to the “dreadful” opera again, figuring Imberti would be there—as indeed he was— and they could talk about Andrea: “I came home in the Resident’s carriage, and I talked about you along the way, telling him, as always, part of our story. I had talked to him about you at the Opera as well—during the first act and the dancing part.”
The solicitous Resident enjoyed Giustiniana’s company, not to mention the whiff of Venetian intrigue she had brought with her. He gave a dinner party for the Wynnes on their last evening in town (since he knew they had not unpacked their trunks entirely and did not have their
evening gowns available, he downgraded the formal dinner to a more casual affair—but still “with many guests”). Despite her melancholy mood, Giustiniana was a breath of fresh air in that musty Milanese crowd of retired generals and diplomats and crumbling aristocrats. She was the object of everyone’s curiosity: even strangers came up to her and asked shamelessly about her “well-known passion.” And when her mother was not within earshot, Giustiniana indulged in Andrea-talk, which invariably brought on a familiar mixture of pleasure and pain: “The few I choose to speak to all know I adore you.”
Imberti was sorry to see Giustiniana leave. The night before the Wynnes’ scheduled departure, he begged her to stay on a few days and even offered to hide Andrea in his house. Andrea was in fact on his way to Milan on business, but he was waiting for the Wynnes to leave Italy before making an appearance there. It was unthinkable that the two lovers should find themselves again in the same city so soon after the Zandiri incident—and with Mrs. Anna still in a rage. “I explained to him your justified worries, as well as the dangers for me.” Still, Giustiniana now had a useful ally in the Resident, who agreed to handle their secret correspondence in the days ahead.
It was a gray, dreary afternoon on October 17 when the Wynnes drove away from Milan. Before leaving the inn, Giustiniana scribbled one more note to Andrea and pressed it into the hands of Imberti, who had come to say farewell:
If you do come to Milan and you don’t stay at the Resident’s, come here and take the room I was in. . . . Come to [Il Pozzo] and ask for the San Carlo room. There are two beds, and you must sleep in the one next to the wall. . . . Remember that from that bed I sent you a million sighs, and in that bed I shed a few tears as well. . . . Tell me everything about your life. . . . Be mine forever. . . . Love me as much as you can and as long as you can.
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