A Venetian Affair (7 page)

Naturally, Andrea pleaded complete innocence: “For heaven’s sake, don’t be so mean. What rendezvous are you talking about? What have I done to merit such scorn? My dear sweet one, you must quiet down. Trust me or else you’ll kill me.” He explained, rather obliquely, that tactical considerations and nothing else occasionally forced him to be silent for a few days or to interrupt the flow of letters. But she should never forget that if he sometimes made himself scarce, it was for
her
sake and certainly not because he was chasing young ladies around: “You know I love you, and for that very reason, instead of complaining about your perpetual diffidence, I only worry about your position. I would have written to you every day to tell you what I was up to, but you know how afraid I am about writing to you—your mother is capable of all sorts of beastliness. All I care about is making sure the members of your household and our enemies and the crowd of people that follow every step we take do not discover our relationship by some act of imprudence on our part.”

Giustiniana was not reassured by Andrea’s words. In fact, his shifty attitude was making her more upset and more defiant:

How could you swear to me that all you cared about was my
position, when in fact you were merely trying to get away from
me using prudence as a pretext to rush over to see N.
⁶
? Don’t be so
sure of the power you have over me, for I shall break this bond of
ours. I have opened my eyes at last. My God! Who is this man to
whom I have given my deepest love! Leave me, please leave me
alone. I’m just a nuisance to you. Before long you will hate me.
You villain! Why did you betray me? . . . Everyone now speaks
of your friendship with N. At first you explained yourself, and so
I was at peace again and I even allowed you to be seen with her in
public . . . and after our reconciliation you rushed off to see her
again. What greater proof of your infidelity? Damn you! I am so angry I cannot even begin to say all I want. . . . Don’t even
come near me, I don’t want to see you. . . . Now I see why you told
me to pretend that our friendship was over; now I plainly see how
fake your sincerity was, your infamous caution. . . . Now I know
you. Did you think you could make fun of me forever? Enough. I
cease to be your plaything.

Were the rumors true? Was Andrea pursuing N., or was Giustiniana working herself into a spiral of groundless jealousy? Whatever was going on, Andrea had clearly underestimated the depth of Giustiniana’s desperation. He suddenly found himself on the defensive, struggling to contain her rage: “How can I describe to you the state I am in, you cruel woman? My mind is busy with a thousand thoughts. I’m agitated and worried about a thousand questions. And you, for heaven’s sake, find nothing better to do than to treat me in the most inhuman way. Where does it all come from? What have I done to deserve all this? . . . Can it be that you still don’t know my heart? . . . Come here, my sweet Giustiniana, speak freely to your Memmo.”

Andrea understood more plainly now that as long as Giustiniana felt locked into a relationship with no future she would only become more anguished and more intractable and their life would become hell. But he remained ambivalent: “Tell me if you want to get yourself out of this situation you’re in. Tell me the various possibilities, and however much they might be harmful to me, if they will make you happy. . . . Speak out, and you will see how I love you.” Was he conjuring up the idea of an elopement? Was he beginning to consider a secret marriage, with all the negative consequences it would have entailed? If so, he was going about it in a very circuitous and tentative way, as if this were merely a short-term device to placate Giustiniana’s wrath. In fact, already in his next letter he retreated to his older, more traditional position: their happiness, as far as Andrea was concerned, hinged on finding Giustiniana a husband. “Alas, until you are married and I am able to see you more freely, there won’t be much to gain. Meanwhile let us try to hurt each other as little as possible.”

Giustiniana, however, had not exhausted her rage. Andrea’s letters suddenly seemed so petty and predictable. Where was the strong, willful young man she had fallen so desperately in love with? In the increasingly frequent isolation of her room at Sant’Aponal, she decided to put an end to their love story. Better to make a clean break, as painful as it would be, than to endure the torture Andrea was inflicting upon her.

This is the last time I bother you, Memmo. Your conduct has
been such that I now feel free to write you this letter. I do not
blame you for your betrayal, your lack of gratitude, the scarcity
of your love, your scorn. No, Memmo. I was very hurt by all this,
but I’ve decided not to complain or to wallow in vindictive feelings. You know how much I have loved you; you know what
a perfect friend I have been to you. God knows that I had staked
my entire happiness on our love. You knew it. Yet you allowed
me to believe that you loved me with the same intensity. . . . And
now that I know you, that I see how you tricked me, I give you
an even greater token of my passion by breaking this tenacious
bond. After all your abuse, your disloyalty, I was already on
the verge of abandoning you. But your scorn of the last few days,
the lack of any e fort on your part to explain yourself, your continuous indulgence in the things you know make me unhappy,
your complete estrangement have finally made me see that
you could not hope for a better development. I have opened
my eyes, I have learned to know you and to know me, and I have
become adamant in my resolution never to think again about a
man capable of such cruelty, such contempt, such utter disloyalty
to me.

So everything between us is over. I know I cannot give you a
greater pleasure than this. . . . And I also know that my peace of
mind, my well-being, maybe even my life will depend on this
break. I shall never hate you (see how much I can promise), but I
will feel both pleasure and displeasure in your happiness as well
as in your misfortunes. I will say more: I will never again love
anyone the way I have loved you, ungrateful Memmo. You will
oblige me by handing over all my letters . . . as they serve no other
purpose than to remind me of my weakness and your wickedness.
So please give them back so that I may burn them and remove
from my sight everything that might remind me of all I have done
for such an undeserving man.

Here is your portrait, once my delight and comfort, which I
don’t want anywhere near me. Ask the artist
⁷
to bring me the one
you had commissioned of me—I will pay for it in installments
and keep it. Your vanity has already been sufficiently satisfied as
it is. Everyone knows how much I have loved you. Please don’t let
me see you for another few days. I know how good our several
days’ separation has been for me, and I have reason to believe
that I will benefit by extending it. I forgive you everything. I have
deserved this treatment because I was foolish enough to believe
that you were capable of a sincere and enduring commitment; and
I guess you are not really to blame if you can’t get over your own
fickleness, which is so much a part of your nature. I ask neither
your friendship nor a place in your memory. I want nothing more
from you. Since I can no longer be the most passionate lover, I
don’t want to be anything else to you. Adieu, Memmo, count me
dead. Adieu forever.

Giustiniana’s dramatic break cleared the air. Within days the poisonous atmosphere that had overwhelmed them dissolved and they were in each other’s arms again, filled with love and desire. Giustiniana even laughed at her own foibles:

Oh God, my Memmo, how can I express these overflowing
emotions? How can I tell you that . . . you are my true happiness,
my only treasure? Lord, I am crazy. Crazy in the extreme. And
what about all that happened to me in the last few days? Do you
feel for me? . . . With my suspicions, my jealousy, my love. . . .
Only you can understand me because you know my heart and the
power you have over it. . . . I don’t know how my mood has
changed so quickly, and why I even run the risk of telling you
this! No, I really don’t know what’s happening to me. . . . Anyway, we’ll see each other tomorrow. Meanwhile I think I’ll just go straight to bed. After having been wrapped up in sweet thoughts
about my Memmo and so full of him, I couldn’t possibly spend
the rest of the evening with the silly company downstairs!

Andrea was so eager to hold Giustiniana in his arms again that even the twenty-four-hour wait now seemed unendurable to him. Alone in his room at Ca’ Memmo he let himself drift into erotic fantasies, which he promptly relayed to his lover:

Oh, my little one, my little one, may I entertain you with my
follies? Do you have a heart to listen? I am so full of dreams
about you that the slightest thing is enough to put me into a cosmic mood. For example, I read one of your letters . . . and I focus
on a few characters in your handwriting and I begin to stare at
them and I tell myself: here my adorable Giustiniana wrote . . .
and sure enough I see your hand, your very own hand, oh Lord, I
kiss your letter not finding anything else to kiss, and I press it
against me as if it were you, oh, and I hug you in my mind, and
it’s really too much; what to do? I cannot resist any longer. Oh my
Lord, oh my Lord, now another hand of yours is relieving me, oh,
but I can’t go on. . . . I cannot say more, my love, but you can
imagine the rest. . . . Oh Lord, oh Lord. . . . I speak no more, I
speak no more.

In such moments of playful abandon Andrea felt he was capable of doing “even the most irresponsible thing . . . yes . . . I feel this urge to take you away and marry you.” And when he opened up that way, Giustiniana always gave herself completely: “My Memmo, I shall always be yours. You enchant me. You overwhelm me. I will never find another Memmo with all the qualities and all the defects that I love about you. We are made for each other so absolutely. All that needs to happen is for me to become less suspicious and for you to moderate that slight flightiness, and then we’ll be happy.”

After these moments of ecstasy, however, the gloominess of their situation would steal over their hearts once more. Andrea wondered how their relationship could possibly survive. “We will never have a moment of peace and quiet. Meanwhile, you, believing as you do in everything you hear. Good Lord, I don’t know what to do anymore! You will never change as long as I have to be away from you. I see that it is impossible for you to believe that I am all yours, as I am, and it is impossible to change your mother, or your situation, so what am I to do?” he asked Giustiniana with quiet desperation. “I don’t know how to hold on to you.”

CHAPTER Three

In early December 1755, news quickly spread that Catherine Tofts, the elusive wife of Consul Smith, had died after a long illness. She had once been an active and resourceful hostess, often giving private recitals in her drawing room. There is a lovely painting by Marco Ricci, one of Smith’s favorite artists, of Catherine singing happily with a chamber orchestra. But the picture was painted shortly after her marriage to Smith and before the death of her son. As the years went by, she was seen less and less (Andrea never mentions her in his letters). Toward the end of her life it was rumored that she had lost her mind and her husband had locked her up in a madhouse.

Smith organized a grand funeral ceremony, which was attended by a large contingent of Venice’s foreign community (the Italians were absent because the Catholic Church forbade the public mourning of Protestants). A Lutheran merchant from Germany, a friend of the consul, recorded the occasion in his diary: “Signor Smith received condolences and offered everyone sweets, coffee, chocolate, Cypriot wine and many other things; to each one he gave a pair of white calfskin gloves in the English manner.” Twenty-five gondolas, each with four torches, formed the procession of mourners. The floating cortege went down the Grand Canal, past the Dogana di Mare, across Saint Mark’s Basin, and out to the Lido, where Catherine’s body was laid to rest in the Protestant cemetery: “The English ships moored at Saint Mark’s saluted the procession with a storm of cannon shots.”
¹

The consul was eighty years old but still remarkably fit and energetic. He had no desire to slow down. By early spring gossips were whispering that his period of mourning was already over and he was eager to find a new wife—a turn of events that caused quite a commotion in the English community.

John Murray, the British Resident, had had a prickly relationship with Smith ever since he had arrived in Venice in 1751. Smith had vied for the position himself, hoping to crown his career by becoming the king’s ambassador in the city where he had spent the better part of his life. But his London connections had not been strong enough to secure it, and Murray, a bon vivant with a keener interest in women and a good table than in the art of diplomacy, had been chosen instead. “He is a scandalous fellow in every sense of the word,” complained Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, who, rather snobbishly, preferred the company of local patricians to that of her less aristocratic compatriots. “He is not to be trusted to change a sequin, despised by this government for his smuggling, which was his original profession, and always surrounded with pimps and brokers, who are his privy councillors.”
²
Casanova, predictably, had a different view of Murray: “A handsome man, full of wit, learned, and a prodigious lover of the fair sex, Bacchus and good eating. I was never unwelcome at his amorous encounters, at which, to tell the truth, he acquitted himself well.”
³

Smith did not hide his disappointment. In fact he went out of his way to make Murray feel unwelcome, and the new Resident was soon fussing about the consul with Lord Holderness, the secretary of state, himself an old Venice hand and a friend to the Wynnes: “As soon as I got here I tried to follow your advice to be nice to Consul Smith. But he has played so many unpleasant tricks on me that I finally had to confront him openly. He promised me to be nice in the future—then he started again, forcing me to break all relations.”
⁴

Catherine’s death and, more important, Smith’s intention to marry again brought a sudden thaw in the relations between the Resident and the consul. Murray conceived the notion that his former enemy would be the perfect husband for his aging sister Elizabeth, whom he had brought over from London (perhaps Murray also calculated that their marriage would eventually bring the consul’s prized art collection into his hands). Smith was actually quite fond of Betty Murray. He enjoyed her frequent visits at Palazzo Balbi. She was kind to him, and on closer inspection he found she was not unattractive. Quite soon he began to think seriously about marrying “that beauteous virgin of forty,” as Lady Montagu called her.
⁵

Murray and his sister were not alone in seeing the consul in a new light after Catherine’s death. Mrs. Anna too had her eye on him, because she felt he would be the perfect husband for Giustiniana: Smith could provide her daughter a respectable position in society as well as financial security. Furthermore, he had been a friend of the family for twenty years, and he would surely watch over the rest of the young Wynnes—at least for the short time that was left to him. After all, wasn’t such a solution the best possible way to fulfill the promise he had made to look after Sir Richard’s family? Mrs. Anna began to lure the consul very delicately, asking him over to their house more frequently, showing Giustiniana off, and dropping a hint here and there. She set out to quash the competition from Betty Murray while attempting to preserve the best possible relations with her and her brother. Inevitably, though, tensions in their little group rose, and Betty Murray reciprocated by drawing the consul’s attention to the fact that, as far as she could tell, Giustiniana still seemed very much taken with Andrea.

At first Giustiniana was stunned by her mother’s plan, but she knew that the matter was out of her hands. And although she was only eighteen, she did not express disgust at the idea of marrying an octogenarian. She was fond of Smith, and she also recognized the material advantages of such a marriage. But all she really cared about was how the scheme would affect her relationship with Andrea. Would it protect their love affair, or would it spell the end? Would it be easier for them to see each other or more difficult? The consul was so old that the marriage was bound to be short-lived. What would happen after he died?

Andrea had often said, sometimes laughing and sometimes not, that their life would be so much happier if only Giustiniana were married or, even better, widowed. It had been fanciful talk. Now, quite unexpectedly, they contemplated the very real possibility that Giustiniana might be married soon and widowed not long after. Andrea became quite serious. He set out his argument with care:

I want you to understand that I want such a marriage for love of
you. As long as he lives, you will be in the happiest situation. . . .
You will not have sisters-in-law and brothers-in-law and God
knows who else with whom to argue. You will have only one man
to deal with. He is not easy, but if you approach him the right way
from the beginning, he will eagerly become your slave. He will
love you and have the highest possible regard for you. . . . He is
full of riches and luxuries. He likes to show off his fortune and his
taste. He is vain, so vain, that he will want you to entertain many
ladies. This will also open up the possibility for you to see gentlemen and be seen in their company. We will have to behave with
great care so that he does not discover our feelings for each other
ahead of time.

Andrea began to support Mrs. Anna’s effort by dropping his own hints to Smith about what a sensible match it would be. Giustiniana stepped into line, though warily, for she continued to harbor misgivings. As for the consul, the mere prospect of marrying the lovely girl he had seen blossom in his drawing room put him into a state of excitement he was not always able to contain. Andrea immediately noticed the change in him. “[The other evening] he said to me, ‘Last night I couldn’t sleep. I usually fall asleep as soon as I go to bed. I guess I was all worked up. I couldn’t close my eyes until seven, and at nine I got up, went to Mogliano,
⁸
ate three slices of bread and some good butter, and now I feel very well.’ And to show me how good he felt he made a couple of jumps that revealed how energetic he really is.”

Word about a possible wedding between the old consul and Giustiniana began to circulate outside the English community and became the subject of gossip in the highest Venetian circles. Smith did little to silence the talk. “He is constantly flattering my mother,” Giustiniana wrote to Andrea. “And he lets rumors about our wedding run rampant.” Andrea told Giustiniana he had just returned from Smith’s, where a most allusive exchange had taken place in front of General Graeme,
⁹
the feisty new commander in chief of Venice’s run-down army, and several other guests:

[The consul] introduced the topic of married women and after
counting how many there were in the room he turned to me:

“Another friend of yours will soon marry,” he said.

“I wonder who this friend might be that he did not trust me
enough to tell me,” I replied.

“Myself. . . . Isn’t that the talk of the town? Why, the General
here told me that even at the doge’s . . .”

“. . . Absolutely, I was there too. And Graeme’s main point
was that having mentioned the rumor to you, you did nothing to
deny it.”

“Why should I deny something which at my old age can only
go to my credit?”

Andrea had come away from the consul’s rather flustered, not quite knowing whether Smith had spoken to him “truthfully or in jest.” He asked Giustiniana to keep him informed about what she was hearing on her side. “I am greatly curious to know whether there are any new developments.” No one really knew what the consul’s intentions were—whether he was going to propose to Giustiniana or whether he had decided in Betty’s favor. It was not even clear whether he was really interested in marriage or whether he was having fun at everyone’s expense. Giustiniana too found it hard to read Smith’s mind. “He was here until after four,” she reported to her lover. “No news except that he renewed his invitation to visit him at his house in Mogliano and that he took my hand as he left us.”

Andrea feared Smith might be disturbed by the rumors, ably fueled by the Murray clan, that his affair with Giustiniana was secretly continuing, so he remained cautious in his encouragement: perhaps the consul felt he needed more time; his wife, after all, had only recently been buried. Mrs. Anna, however, was determined not to lose the opportunity to further her daughter’s suit, and she eagerly stepped up the pressure.

In the summer months wealthy Venetians moved to their estates in the countryside. As its maritime power had started to decline in the sixteenth century, the Venetian Republic had gradually turned to the mainland, extending its territories and developing agriculture and manufacture to sustain its economy. The nobility had accumulated vast tracts of land and built elegant villas whose grandeur sometimes rivaled that of great English country houses or French châteaux. By the eighteenth century the villa had become an important mark of social status, and the
villeggiatura—
the leisurely time spent at the villa in the summer—became increasingly fashionable. Those who owned a villa would open it to family and guests for the season, which started in early July and lasted well into September. Those who did not would scramble to rent a property. And those who could not afford to rent frantically sought invitations. A rather stressful bustle always surrounded the comings and goings of the summer season.

Venetians were not drawn to the country by a romantic desire to feel closer to nature. Their rather contrived summer exodus, which Goldoni had ridiculed in a much-applauded comedy earlier that year at the Teatro San Luca,
¹⁰
was a whimsical and ostentatious way of transporting to the countryside the idle lifestyle they indulged in during the winter in the city. In the main, the country provided, quite literally, a change of scenery, as if the
burchielli,
the comfortable boats that made their way up the Brenta Canal transporting the summer residents to their villas, were also laden with the elaborate sets of the season’s upcoming theatrical production.

Consul Smith had been an adept of the
villeggiatura
since the early twenties, but it was not until the thirties that he had finally bought a house at Mogliano, north of Venice on the road to Treviso, and had it renovated by his friend Visentini. The house was in typical neo-Palladian style—clear lines and simple, elegant spaces. It faced a small formal garden with classical statues and potted lemon trees arranged symmetrically on the stone parterre. A narrow, well-groomed alley, enclosed by low, decorative gates, ran parallel to the house, immediately beyond the garden, and provided a secure route for the morning or evening walk. The consul had moved part of his collection to adorn the walls at his house in Mogliano, including works by some of his star contemporaries— Marco and Sebastiano Ricci, Francesco Zuccarelli, Giovan Battista Piazzetta, Rosalba Carriera—as well as old masters such as Bellini, Vermeer, Van Dyck, Rembrandt, and Rubens. “As pretty a collection of pictures as I have ever seen,”
⁶
the architect Robert Adam commented when he visited Smith in the country.

The consul had often invited the Wynnes to see his beautiful house at Mogliano. Now, in the late spring of 1756, he renewed his invitation with a more urgent purpose: to pay his court to Giustiniana with greater vigor so that he could come to a decision about proposing to her, possibly by the end of the summer. Mrs. Anna, usually rather reluctant to make the visit on account of the logistical complications even a short trip to the mainland entailed for a large family like hers, decided she could not refuse.

The prospect of spending several days in the clutches of the consul did not particularly thrill Giustiniana. She told Andrea she wished the old man “would just leave us in peace” and cursed “that wretched Mogliano a hundred times.” But Andrea explained to her that Smith’s invitation was a good thing because it meant he was serious about marrying her and was hopefully giving up on the spinsterish Betty Murray. Giustiniana continued to dread the visit— and the role that, for once, both Andrea and her mother expected her to play. Her anguish only increased during the daylong trip across the lagoon and up to Mogliano. But once she was out in the country and had settled into Smith’s splendid house, she rather began to enjoy her part and to appreciate the humorous side of her forced seduction of
il vecchio
—the old man. The time she spent with Smith became good material with which to entertain her real lover: