A Venetian Affair (5 page)

I know it is a lot to ask, but I can ask no less. . . . I must put you
through this test, and I shall measure your love for me by it. . . .
Giustiniana, I shall be very disappointed if you disregard my
wish. I have never met anyone so impertinent and so false toward
both of us. . . . They like you merely because you amuse them. . . .
By God, you will not be worthy of me if you lower yourself to the
point of flattering these . . . stupid enemies of mine . . . these rigid
custodians of Giustiniana who spy for your mother. . . . They
are evil people with no human qualities and no respect for friendship. . . . Forgive me for speaking this way to you, but I am so
angry that I cannot stand it anymore.

In the early stages, Andrea had a patronizing tone toward Giustiniana and a tendency to take control of every aspect of their relationship. He was, of course, several years older than she, and it was fairly natural that he should take the lead while she deferred to his judgment. But over the months she grew more confident in her ability to conceal and deceive. And in spite of Andrea’s occasional hectoring, she began to enjoy plotting behind her mother’s back. She took a more active role in planning their meetings and often marveled at her own audacity: “Truly, Memmo, I do not recognize myself. I do things I never would have done. I think in ways so different that I do not seem to be myself anymore.”

It was Giustiniana who eagerly informed Andrea that N., a friend on whom they had worked hard to bring over to their side, had finally agreed to let them meet at his
casino,
one of the little pleasure houses that were all the rage in those years and were Venice’s very practical answer to a diffuse desire for comfort and pleasure. (There were as many as 150 such
casini
in the city, which were used as boudoirs, as seditious salons, and—quite often—as discreet love nests.) “I’ve made arrangements for Friday,” she wrote self-confidently. “We can’t see each other before. I didn’t feel I could press him and so I let him choose the date. He has become my friend entirely and confides his worries to me and even vents his domestic frustrations.”

Their excitement grew every day in anticipation of the moments they would spend together. It was not enough anymore to exchange loving glances and signals from afar. If Giustiniana had become much bolder in just a few weeks, it was because her yearning was now so powerful. She longed to be kissed by Andrea, to be held in his arms. And their scheming was finally producing results. Here is Giustiniana, three days before their secret appointment at N.’s
casino:

Friday we shall meet—at least we know as much. But my
God, how the time in between will seem interminable! And afterward what? Afterward I shall think about our next meeting so
that I shall always be having sweet thoughts about you. . . . Tell
me, Memmo, are you entirely happy with me? Is there any way I
can give you more? Is there something in my behavior, in my way
of life that I might change to suit you better? Speak, for I shall do
anything you want. I cannot think of anything more precious than
to see you happy and ever closer to me. I never thought it was possible to love with such violence.

The following evening Alvisetto appeared in Giustiniana’s room bearing a reply from her lover. “My soul,” Andrea wrote, “what a complete delight it will be. Love me, adore me. . . . I deserve it because I know your heart so well. Oh Lord, I am so dying to see you that I am jumping out of my skin.” Alvisetto also handed to Giustiniana a small, delicately embroidered fan— a gift to make the waiting more bearable. In order to avoid raising Mrs. Anna’s suspicions, Andrea suggested that Giustiniana ask her aunt Fiorina to pretend the fan was for her. In the past Mrs. Anna’s sister had shown a certain amount of sympathy for her niece’s predicament. Andrea, always in search of reliable allies, felt this subterfuge would not only allay whatever doubts Mrs. Anna might have about his gift but also give them a sense of how much Aunt Fiorina was prepared to help them in the future.

On Thursday, the day before their meeting, Alvisetto delivered a long, tender letter to Andrea:

And so, my dear Memmo, tomorrow we shall be together. And
what, in the whole world, could be more natural between two people who love each other than to be together? I could go on forever,
my sweet. I am in heaven. I love you. I love you, Memmo, more
than I can say. Do you love me as much? Do you know I have this
constant urge to do well, to look beautiful, to cultivate the greatest possible number of qualities for the mere sake of pleasing you,
of earning your respect, of holding on to my Memmo. . . . Be
warned, however, that your love for me has made me extremely
proud and vain. . . . Where does one find a man so pleasant, so at
ease in society, yet at the same time so firm, so deeply understanding of the important things in life? Where does one find a
young man with such a rich imagination who is also precise and
clearheaded in his thinking, so graceful and convincing in expressing his ideas? My Memmo, so knowledgeable in the humanities,
so intelligent about the arts, is also a man who knows how to dress
and always cuts quite a figure and knows how to carry himself
with grace . . . he is a man who possesses the gift of being at once
considerate and bold. And even if at times he goes out of bounds,
he does it to satisfy the natural urges of his youth and his character. And therein lies the path to happiness. You are wild as a
matter of principle, as a result of hard reasoning. Aren’t you the
rarest of philosophers? . . . And what have you done, what do you
do to women? Just the other day N. said to me: How did you
manage to catch that fickle young man? And I was so proud,
Memmo.

As for the fan, she added, “I will ask Fiorina to accept it in my place. I don’t know whether she is on our side or not, but at least she seems willing to fake it.”

The morning after their meeting at N.’s, Giustiniana, enthralled by the sweetest memories of the previous evening, wrote to Andrea entirely in French—not the language she knew best but the one she evidently felt was most appropriate in the lingering afterglow of their reunion:

Ah, Memmo, so much happiness! I was with you for close to
two hours; I listened to your voice; you held my hand, and our
friends, touched by our love, seem willing to help us more often.
After you had left, N. told me how much you love me. Yes, you do
love me, Memmo, you love me so deeply. Tell me once more; I
never tire of hearing you say it. And the more direct you are, the
more charmed I shall be. The heart doesn’t really care much for
detours. Simplicity is worth so much more than the most ornate
embellishments. You are the most charming philosopher I have
ever listened to. . . . If only I could be free . . . and tell the world
about my love! Ah, let us not even speak of such a happy state.
Farewell, I take leave of you now. When shall I see you? Tell me,
are you as impatient as I am?

She added teasingly:

Oh, by the way, I have news. My mother received a marriage
proposal for me from a very rich Roman gentleman. . . . Isn’t it
terrible, Memmo? Aren’t you at least a little bit jealous? And
what if he is as nice as they say . . . and what if my mother wanted
him. . . . I can’t go on. Not even in jest. . . . I am all yours, my
love. Farewell.

CHAPTER Two

Andrea and Giustiniana were so secretive during the first months of their clandestine relationship that only a handful of trusted friends knew what they were up to. As Andrea had predicted, Mrs. Anna eventually began to lower her guard and focus on possible new suitors for her eldest daughter. By the fall of 1754 the two lovers were seeing each other with great frequency and daring. They now had several locations at their disposal. N.’s
casino
was often available. Meneghetto Tiepolo had given them access to an apartment on the mezzanine of his
palazzo
. They also went to a woman named Rosa, who lived in a small and very simple house near the Wynnes and often let them have a room. Setting up a secret encounter was often the work of several days. It took reliable intelligence and good planning. Alvisetto shuttled furtively between the Wynnes’ house and Ca’ Memmo, delivering letters with the latest arrangements or news of an unexpected change of plan. Much was written about the dropping off and picking up of keys.

The feverish preparatory work, coupled with the constant fear of being caught, made their encounters all the more passionate. “How could they be so stupid,” Giustiniana noted with delight, “not to realize what refinement they bring to our pleasure by imposing all these prohibitions? [At the beginning of our relationship] I was always very happy to see you, of course, but the emotions I feel now, the sheer agitation, the overwhelming feeling of sweetness, were certainly not as intense.”

As their love deepened and their relationship became more sexual, jealousy too began to creep into their little world. Despite Mrs. Anna’s more relaxed attitude, Giustiniana was still not as free to move around town as Andrea was. This put her at a psychological disadvantage. Who was Andrea seeing when he wasn’t with her? She had his letters, of course, filled with detailed accounts of his daily activities. But how reliable were they? In her relative confinement in the house at Sant’Aponal she had plenty of time to work herself into a state of anxiety. A hint of unpleasant gossip was enough to send her into a rage.

One of Andrea’s best friends was his cousin Lucrezia Pisani, the young lady he had bumped into on the bridge as he was chasing Giustiniana. She was lively and attractive and popular among Andrea’s set. She often had interesting company at her house, and Andrea liked to drop by. His breezy reports on his visits there, however, made Giustiniana feel excluded. When she heard he was seeing Lucrezia more and more frequently on the days when they could not be together, she protested angrily. Andrea was taken aback by her attitude. Lucrezia was an old friend, he argued, an ally; she was one of the few who knew about their love affair. He reacted to Giustiniana’s indignation with even greater indignation:

What have I done to you? What sort of creature are you?
What on earth are you thinking? And what doggedness! What
cruelty! So now it would appear that I have been courting
Lucrezia for the past ten days. . . . Well, first of all, the timing is
wrong: she’s been in the countryside for the past several days. I
would have gone with her. I chose not to. Meanwhile, I’ve been at
home most of the time, evenings included. I’ve had lunch with her
once. True, every time I have met her at the theater I have sat in
her box. . . . But could I have sat alone or even with a single friend
throughout an entire show? . . . I am mad to even defend myself.
Yes, I like her company and I admit it. First of all because she is
one of the easiest women to be around. . . . She is also witty,
knowledgeable, clever. You can talk to her freely, and she often
has good company. . . . Besides, she is your friend, she often asks
about you with interest. . . . You are crazy, crazy, crazy. You will
drive me mad with your endless suspicions. Still, I guess I must
try to appease you in any case. So rest assured: I won’t be seen
with her anymore. But where may I go? Anywhere I went there
would be new gossip and new scenes. . . . By God, I will have to
lock myself up in my room, under permanent surveillance, otherwise you still won’t believe me. But of course when no one sees me
around people will start thinking that I’m enjoying myself even
more secretively. What a life.

Giustiniana’s suspicions, however, were not entirely unjustified: there was talk around town that Lucrezia did indeed have a liking for Andrea that went beyond their old friendship. When Giustiniana’s mood did not improve, Andrea realized he would have to do something more drastic to placate her. He went about it in a manner that revealed his own penchant for intrigue:

This is a difficult thing to ask, but you are so easy, so free from
prejudice, you have such a good spirit and are always so obliging
with me that it is possible you might grant me this favor. Lucrezia
torments me by always asking if she can see some of your letters
to me—which I have never permitted her to do. Therefore I would
like for you to write me a letter in French in which you praise her.
You might add in passing that, while not jealous of her, you do
think she is too intelligent not to realize that it would be preferable if I were not seen so often with her. She already knows all the
love I have for you and your commitment to me. I assure you that
the only reason I am asking you to do this is so that she will convince herself that I am in love with a woman more special than
her. . . . If you’re not up to it, it doesn’t really matter. It’s enough
that you love me.

Giustiniana was uncomfortable with this sort of game playing. A little deception to avoid Mrs. Anna’s controls and to meet Andrea on the sly was one thing. But she found his recourse to artifice for the sake of artifice a little unsettling. The ease with which he could transform himself from the most tender and loving companion to the craftiest manipulator was a trait that seemed embedded in his character. And whereas Lucrezia, an experienced operator herself, would probably not have given Andrea’s behavior great significance, Giustiniana found it much harder to understand. She too had a seductive side, a propensity to flirt with men both young and old. But excessive ambiguity made her ill at ease. She held fast to a rule of love that was not very common among other young Venetians: the exclusivity of romantic feelings. So she was stunned to hear, when she went over to the Morosinis’ for lunch shortly after the Lucrezia episode, that Andrea was also flirting with Mariettina Corner, another well-known seductress. Mariettina’s love life was complicated enough as it was: she was married to Lucrezia’s brother, had an official lover and was having an affair with yet a third man, Piero Marcello—a gambler and philanderer who happened to be a neighbor of the Wynnes’. Giustiniana was told that though Mariettina was carrying on the relationship with Piero, it was really Andrea she had her eyes on.

Again she confronted him, and again he blamed her for believing every scrap of gossip floating around the Morosinis’: “What are they telling you, these people with whom you seem to enjoy yourself so much? And why do you believe them if you know they hate me? You accuse me of making love to Mariettina. . . . But why is it you always fear I’m causing you offense with all the women I see?”

The story of Andrea’s presumed affair with Mariettina had all the ingredients of a Goldoni farce. It turned out that Andrea, at Mariettina’s request, had acted as a go-between in her secret romance with Piero. And Giustiniana—as Andrea was quick to remind her—had even encouraged him to take on that role because she felt that as long as Mariettina was busy with other men she would not present a threat to her. But Andrea’s comings and goings between the two lovers had provided the gossipmongers with plenty to talk about. In the ensuing confusion Giustiniana didn’t know whom to believe. Andrea acknowledged that “some people might well have thought Mariettina had developed an interest in me. . . . After all, I was constantly whispering in her ear and she was whispering in mine. . . . She talked to me, gestured to me, sat next to me while apparently not caring a hoot about [her lover], her husband—indeed the world.” He insisted it was all a terrible misunderstanding: he was innocent and Giustiniana was “stupid” if she bothered “to spend a moment on all this talk the Morosinis fill your head with.”

It wasn’t easy for her to dismiss the things she heard about Andrea, because so much of his life was invisible to her, out of reach. The rumors were all the more hurtful because they reverberated in circles to which she was admitted but to which she did not truly belong. Giustiniana knew or was acquainted with most of Andrea’s friends and was a welcome guest in the houses of many patrician families. But even though the veil of social discrimination was perhaps not as visible as elsewhere in Europe, it was very real; it governed Venetian society in subtle and less subtle ways—as in the case of marriage. When Giustiniana wrote to Andrea about his woman friends, there was often an undercurrent of anxiety that went quite beyond a natural romantic jealousy.

Still, she had her own little ways of getting back at him.

As Andrea and Giustiniana struggled to clear up the misunderstanding about his role in their friends’ affair, Mariettina threw one of her celebrated balls on the Giudecca—an island separated from the southern side of Venice by a wide canal, where patricians had pleasure houses with gardens and vineyards. This was one of the major social events of the season. Preparations went on for days. Young Venetian ladies had a notorious taste for luxury. They liked to wear rich and elaborate but relatively comfortable outfits, so they could move with greater ease during the minuets and
furlane,
a popular dance that originated from the Friuli region. They spent hours having their hair coiffed into tall beehives, which they decorated with gems and golden pins. Their long fingernails were polished in bright colors. They drenched themselves with exotic perfume and chose their beauty spots with special care (the
appassionata
was worn in the corner of the eye, the
coquette
above the lip, the
galante
on the chin, and the
assassina—
the killer—in the corner of the mouth).
¹
They carried large, exquisitely embroidered fans and wore strings of pearls and diamonds. High heels had long been out of fashion: Venetian ladies preferred more sensible low evening shoes, often decorated with a diamond buckle. These were fabulously expensive but very comfortable, especially for dancing. Men wore the traditional French costume: silk long jacket, knee-length culottes, and white stockings. Elaborate cuffs and jabots of lace from the island of Burano gave a Venetian touch to their attire. Their elegant evening wigs were combed and groomed for the occasion.

Mariettina’s ball offered a chance for Andrea and Giustiniana to see each other and clarify things once and for all. But Giustiniana, still feeling vexed by the whole imbroglio, was not in the mood for such a demanding social event. She sent this note to Andrea just as he was dressing for the evening:

If the bad weather continues I will certainly not come to Marietta Corner’s
festa.
You know my mother and how she fears the
wind. She has warned that she will not cross the canal if there is
the slightest bit of wind. In the end it is probably better that such a
reasonable pretext should excuse me from coming as I believe you
and I would both have a terrible time. . . . Still I will try to convince my mother to get over her fear—I hope you will acknowledge my goodwill. I have already opted for a new course:
henceforth you will be able to do as you please; I will neither complain nor bother you with accusations. When you will cause me
displeasure I will try to convince myself that you won’t have done
so out of ill will but because you do not believe I am sensitive to
those things. . . . By the way, all those pleas for forgiveness and
that habit you have of carrying on exactly in the same manner
even though you know you o fend me—I really cannot stand it.
The truth is, I will continue to give you proof of my real affection
while you will hurt me more and more. And who knows if all my
suffering will change you one day. . . . Good-bye now, Memmo. I
would not want to keep you from your toilette.

In the end Giustiniana did not prevail over her mother—if she ever tried—and she did not go to Marietta’s ball. The next day she sent Andrea this bittersweet note: “I did not write to you this morning because I felt you might be tired after last night and needed your sleep. The bad weather prevented me from coming, but as I told you I believe in the end it was for the better. Today I was half hoping I would see you at the window at Ca’ Tiepolo, but I guess I fooled myself. This evening we are going to Smith’s. I will write to you tomorrow. I have nothing else to ask you except to love me much—if you can. Farewell.”

Andrea always reacted defensively, even impatiently, to Giustiniana’s outbursts of jealousy. He was not immune to similar feelings, but in the abstract he espoused what he considered a “philosophical” approach. “It is practically impossible for me to be jealous,” he explained:

Not because I have such high esteem for myself that I do not
recognize others might be worthy [of your attentions]. No, the
reason is that I don’t want to believe you are flighty or coquettish
or fickle or careless or mean. If ever there came a point in which I
really did nurture doubts about you . . . then I would simply think
of you as a different woman. The pain I would feel on account of
your transformation would certainly be intense, but to me you
would no longer be the lovable, the rarest Giustiniana. And by
losing what ignited my deepest love and continues to nourish it, I
would lose all feeling for you and return to the Memmo I was
before meeting you.