Lord Byron's Novel (37 page)

N
OT A MONTH
has passed since the Honourable Peter Piper’s last Venetian letter received its many stamps and marks and was consigned to the Italian post as to the winds (for it too bloweth as it listeth) when a lone figure stands beside the Grand Canal, new arrived—his clothes long, his surtout black as the domino the Venetian masquers love, which draws the eye more surely than all the rainbow hues of gown and cape around it. His hair long and undressed, tumbled as the dark sea-weed—his cheek shadowed, unattended this day by barber or razor—and across that cheek a livid scar from bone to mouth’s corner, like a tale named but untold. Another such tale stands in his dark deep eye, which surveys without judgement and yet without delight the throngs in their riot of colour & song. Beside him, yet a step behind, a slighter figure, in the white dress of the desert peoples of Libya—the carnival-goers but glance at him, supposing him a Reveller like themselves, but he (tho’ years younger than his master) possesses himself in the same calm and stillness of spirit.

Can the one in black be Ali, this blot upon the Venetian sun, thus marked, thus fellowed? My readers (if ever this Tale is to have any—and of those, any who have, with its Author, reached this time, and place) will perhaps ask What adventures, in what climes, tempered that eager and over-charged soul, and forged this calm regard? But such readers will ask in vain—for ’twould lengthen the tale by as much again were all
those
tales to be also told within it—and so shall be left to imagine them—for see, here now comes out, from the Palazzo at hand, to greet his new-arrived Guest, a bent and misshapen man, in a coat of blue silk and a waistcoat of rich brocade—his brother, Ængus.

‘I know not,’ said he to Ali, ‘if I may offer my hand to you. I would not have it refused.’

‘We are the Sanes,’ said Ali. ‘The family despised you, as I hated it—at least its head, while he lived—yet it is all the House I now may own, or ever shall, and he the only Father—mine as he was yours.’

‘He loved you, at the least.’

‘He loved no-one—not even
himself
—himself the least, even.’

‘I must yield to your greater experience,’ said Ængus, and for a time the two but looked upon one another, as though to discern if they would smile at last, or keep between them, as a naked sword, all that had gone before.

‘There is a tale told,’ said Ali then, ‘among the nomads of the desert, with whom I have lived, who have their own conception of Religion, that strangely mixes Christianity and Mahomet’s teachings. They say that in the beginning God had two sons, and not one—one was He who would be called Jesus, and the other Lucifer. In the beginning it was
they
who fell out, and did battle—after which Lucifer left Heaven with his angels, and Jesus stay’d at home. Then, when Jesus in His human incarnation fasted in the desert for forty days—they will gladly show you the very place, for they know it well—Lucifer came to struggle with Him again, as they had done in the beginning. Lucifer challenged his brother to renounce their tyrant Father, and join with
him,
whereupon the mastery of the Earth should be His, and Lucifer would retire to his own abode. Jesus knows it for a bad bargain, and proclaims his continued allegiance to the Father in Heaven, and His plan for Man. Lucifer thereupon leaves Him there, upon that rock—and before he takes flight to the infernal regions, his last words to his divine Brother are,
He always favoured you
.’

‘A pretty tale,’ said Ængus. ‘Nay—it touches strangely upon the matter I have summoned to broach to you. But you will be weary with travel. Come within, wash and refresh yourself. Nothing of these matters till then—and you will perhaps consent, then, to go over to the Lido, and ride?’

‘I am told there are no horses in Venice—save those of brass, over the Cathedral.’

‘And mine. Come! May I make provision for your man?’—He meant the one in white, who stood behind Ali, and had neither moved nor spoken.

‘He is unwilling to leave my side,’ Ali responded. ‘If you have no objection, he will stand by my chair.’ At this a look pass’d between the two, master and man, if such they were—a look that Ængus observed—though, in truth, borne on that look were emotions he knew little of—feelings of tender regard, and of trust, and love. ‘I have none,’ said he briefly, and turned his ill-shaped form to mount his steps.

As they supt, Ali had occasion to allude to the single—and
singular
—thing he knew of his half-brother’s Venetian existence, that he had contracted a
liaison
with a certain Lady, and waited upon her in the common form—a form, as Ali averred, of servitude.

‘So it is,’ said Ængus in reply. ‘The
Cavalier
must consent to be a
servente
as well. I at first explained to my Lady, that as to the Cavaliership I was quite of accord, but that the Servitude did not suit me at all—I was overruled, however—she refused absolutely to be shamed in Society by any apparent carelessness of her feelings—I would say of her
moral sense
—and so I assented.’ He lifted his mocking eyes to Ali, and though the
object
of their mocking seemed the same as ever—
himself
—yet a shadow, or a light, of compassion had entered there, perhaps for the same object. ‘Comical I may seem to you,’ he said then—‘Comical indeed may such a life as I lead truly
be
—Still it has moments hard enough to bear with laughter. The Lady falls ill, and is thought to be in a desperate state—her
Cavalier,
tho’ as it happens he has been for a time banished for some peccadillo, is summoned to her side—with her Husband’s agreement—to share with him the anxieties and cares of the time—she has demanded it, tho’ it must occasion the lover’s taking liberties with her in
the Husband’s presence,
or near enough, that would elsewhere and at other times occasion a Duel, but which by the Code the husband must regard as innocent. On the other hand, is the
Cavalier
in the wrong then to insist she refuse her Husband’s lawful attentions, and permit them solely to
himself
—that dear family friend—from whom, by the bye, the husband (and his relations) feels justified in demanding now and then a
service,
or a
loan
? It is justified—it is proper—yet it is comical too—and it is hard.’

He spoke, it seemed to Ali, neither to amuse, nor to complain, but as a Philosopher—and yet still with something
un
spoken. When their collation was past, he waxed impatient, that they should depart—desired Ali to come with him unaccompanied—the which Ali refused, stating that his man knew no English, and that if they conversed in that language, he would learn nothing of it. Ængus at that assented, but made speed to summon his gondola.

‘A floating coffin,’ said Ali of this peculiar conveyance. ‘I would not of choice employ it. As confined as a prison-car—with the added danger of being drowned.’

‘Still, the life of the City could not proceed without them,’ said his brother. ‘You see how cleverly it is fitted out—curtains that draw shut—&c.—and a gentler motion than any hackney-coach—besides which the Gondoliers are the ones who carry messages everywhere, and are
tombs of silence,
else their business in tips would end. But here we are upon the farther shore.’

T
RUE IT IS THAT
I am as you see me,’ Ængus said, when at length three fine mounts of those that the Venetian kept were brought for them, and they had set out along that long shore—behind at a little distance, the companion of Ali following, like a shadow not dark, but bright. ‘The occupations, the delights, the
frets,
and the satin waistcoats—all are mine, I own. And yet I am another as well. Tell me now: Have you heard of those here who have drawn together in Societies, vowed to oppose the Austrian, and expel him from all the Italian lands?’

‘Even in my solitude,’ Ali said smiling, ‘I have.’

‘Some call themselves
Carbonari,
or
charcoal-burners,
for reasons too obscure to elucidate; other ones go by the name of
Mericani,
or Americans, which makes their convictions clearer.’

‘And are you of their number? I would not think you would be—I did not think you loved those who are oppressed—nor have I heard you express any sentiments, in favor of Democracy. Yet I remember what you told me, of the African slaves of your West Indian isle, and how you favoured their revolt.’

‘Mistake me not,’ said Ængus. ‘I despise the
canaille,
and have no illusions concerning their behaviour, once established in the seats of power, or the halls of Justice. No—I do nothing on their behalf—I am not for them—indeed, I am
for
no-one, I am only
against
.’

‘It seems a dreadful thing, and a melancholy.’

‘It ought to matter not at all to you. I am a dog that bites, and does not bark—such a dog has its uses. I know not what others may
build
. I shall not be there.’

‘What chance have they—have
you
—to accomplish that which they intend?’

‘I know not for certain,’ said Ali. ‘There are 10,000 in Romagna alone. I myself could whistle a dozen lads—nay, a hundred—to my back at need. The
fratelli
are everywhere—they hire assassins—an Austrian officer was shot at my very door or nearly—a couple of slugs in him—and though I had him brought within, and a doctor called, I could not save him.’

‘I wonder that you should have tried.’

‘I think, Brother,’ said Ængus, ‘that—unless I am much mistaken in you—in fact you do
not
wonder.’

For a time he would say no more, and they rode on—it was Ali who took up the thread of thought again.

‘Yet your duties in Society, and in matters of the heart, must often take you from these heavier things.’

‘It is,’ said Ængus, ‘rather the reverse. Without my rôle in Society, I would soon have been stopt from giving any help to the party of Liberty, and would now be clapt up in Prison, a thing to be avoided at all costs in this Republic.’

‘I begin to see,’ Ali averred. ‘Your
servitude
is not all it seems.’

‘For a long time the circumstance has been of the greatest value to me. There are many who delight in gossiping of me—the Scotch cripple—
il zoppo
—who toils after his mistress so diligently—so like a Monkey. See, see, they say to one another, what Venus makes even such a one do, and how he dances to her tune! That is quite enough to fill their heads—they would never make further guesses concerning me. A man who would do as I have done, would never do
otherwise
—one Character per man—
two
would be a solecism.’

‘So you hide yourself, and your doings, away—in the plainest of plain sight.’

‘So I have done—till now. Now the disguise begins to tatter. Indeed, the very
perfection
of it is to be the means of my undoing. I am very near to very great trouble, my brother.’

‘I have awaited the broaching of this matter. Now I see it come near.’

Here Ængus stopt, and dismounted, inviting his Brother to do likewise; when he had done so, Ængus came close, tho’ still he look’d away, as a man might who wishes to impart a thing privily, and wonders if he might be overheard. ‘My Lady’s husband is a man of some parts,’ quoth he then, ‘and has himself not always been what he now seems. (You may be sure that I know all that may be known about the man.) He has seen some fifty Summers, and the surviving of them has made him cunning. In that unsettled time when Buonaparte’s armies and officers vanished from the land like a cloud, and those of Austria returned to replace them, he took the side of a revolutionary mob—thinking it better to put himself at their head, than to have them cut off
his
. After that uprising was crushed, and the Austrian authorities restored, he returned to his former contempt for the people, and conformed himself willingly to the new Rulers. His earlier association with the patriotic movement, however, had established connexions that he thought it prudent never to give up—and through them he has drawn ever closer to my secret—indeed he is now almost certainly in possession of it—and only refrains from informing the Austrians of it, until he have disguised his own Hand in the matter, and is able to unmask me without unmasking himself. It will be at any moment now. I am prepared to leave upon the hour, if need be, and vanish with no more trace than those enemies of the State under the Doges, who, once denounced and tried in secret, were never heard of again. Yet I cannot—till I have replaced myself, and quickly, with one wholly unknown, and undiscoverable—a man whose name appears on no List, and is on the tongue of no Informer—a man who is willing
and able
to do the work I have been engaged with.’

‘So it is for this that you have drawn me hither,’ said Ali, with a smile—a sort of smile that could not have crossed his lips in times gone by—a smile of the Sanes, yet not, for his soul is still untainted by that dark stain. ‘You will ask of me, that I be this one.’

‘I know no other that I may so ask. I cannot say, still, why I have thought to do it.’ Here he bent, and from the sand picked up a round smooth stone, of blackest hue, and stroked it in his fingers as though it were precious. ‘Have I guessed wrongly?’

‘I have no reason to consent.’

‘Have you never felt those stirrings of anger, or resentment, at the powerful and the cruel, or inspiration in thinking of their overthrow? I should have thought you would. I should, if I were you. Do you know the tale of Jacques-Armand? He was a peasant boy, forcibly adopted from his parents by Queen Marie Antoinette, who took a fancy to him. Yet despite her caresses, and the fine clothes and rich foods he was given, he wept continually and was inconsolable. When the Revolution came, Jacques-Armand became the most ruthless Jacobin of all, and beheader
extraordinaire
in the Terror.’