“Au courant,” piped in Signora Grimani, who now identified her husband’s clothes.
“Stylish? That’s what we felt,” said Dominique, laughing gaily.
A cackle broke from Francesco’s mouth. Signora Grimani joined in. At once, Jacques felt a satisfaction in his belly: his costume idea had stung the Cavaliere.
“Shall we attend the masquerade?” asked Signora, taking the arm of her glowering husband.
“Francesco and I will join you in a few moments,” Jacques said. He pinched Francesco’s sleeve and waved off the rest. Together, they watched the revelers float toward the entrance of the mansion.
“A word, please?” Clearing his throat, Jacques gently led his brother beneath a high torch. “You, your wife, and I—all have much to gain tonight.” He pitched his eyes toward the diminishing figure of Dominique, looked back to his brother, and hushed his voice. “I recall you telling me of the first time you ever saw her, Francesco. Wasn’t she walking a colt through a lush, yellow meadow?”
Arms lank at his sides, Francesco stared eye to eye with Jacques.
“You couldn’t see her face, yet her walk captivated you. Isn’t that so? You noticed her turned-out feet and knew she must be a dancer. There was something bold and joyful in her step. She possessed a confidence. A lusty confidence, you told me. I plainly say,” Jacques said, his voice filled with sincerity, “remember who this woman is. What she’s done for you. And how she maintains—well, you and I—because of her, you and I stand to achieve much success by night’s—”
“My insolent ways.” Francesco’s eyes misted momentarily, but he said nothing more.
“What?” Jacques asked. “What? Talk with me, Brother.”
A mischievous flame from the flambeau darted toward Francesco. He dodged low, then wheeled back and, coming to his feet, veered away, stalking toward the Grimani residence.
Jacques twisted his fist into his palm and took a step to follow.
“Brothers Casanova? Are you coming?” Dominique wandered in from the dark, stopping at Jacques’ side. “Where’s my husband?”
“He went to inspect his paintings,” Jacques lied. His voice grew reassuring. “He’s in good humor. He and I have an understanding.”
“I’m anxious for tonight,” she said with a slight catch in her voice. “For success.”
“As am I,” Jacques said. “Shall we start with this view?” With a gentle touch to her elbow, he turned her in the opposite direction.
Scanning the huge courtyard, Dominique was awestruck by the partiers now fanning from the opulent coaches. The costumes were more varied and astonishing than in her imagination. Knights in armor, ballerinas, unicorns, pirates of the Spanish Main. And the omnipresent fragrances of the flowers seemed as if they might transport her to heaven. She turned to Jacques, her voice leavened with pleasure. “To the reception vestibule! I’m excited to watch the nobility announced. We’ll join Francesco inside.”
“We shall.”
Keep on your guard.
Jacques tightened his mask and gave
Dominique a playful squeeze on the arm. A clap of thunder boomed while they slipped into a throng of drifting partygoers.
Once inside the ballroom Dominique gasped. “A transformation indeed! Just as Signora Grimani boasted.”
The walnut ceiling decorated in silver and gold now repeated its pattern on the floor. Pale blue area carpets contrasted with the ormolu scrolling, and all reflected in the finely wrought serpentine mirrors lining the walls. A joyous tune from the balcony orchestra wound its way through the ballroom where in every corner of the huge room hung Francesco’s art. High in the balcony, too, was the artist’s most colorful canvas.
From the corner of his eye, Jacques noticed a guest slink past, his peculiar gait displaying cunning malice in each step.
Certain that Dominique was tucked safely behind him, Jacques edged alongside the man outfitted as Pierrot: full mask, frilled collaret, loose blouse, pantaloons, and dunce’s hat. He leaned close and spoke. “You’ll not wreck this ball. You’ll behave.”
The man turned, his eyes shining through his face mask. “Why, the last time I saw the detestable Casanova, I was—”
“At the point of my dagger, which sits even tonight at my side.”
“Particularly humiliating, that dagger experience,” growled
Pierrot.
Disregarding Dominique, Jacques grasped the man by the arm and shuffled him away from the crowd. ”
I
made up the invitation list and
you
, it’s certain, weren’t included. How did you manage—”
“Please keep your voice down.” The man cocked his masked head, jaw jutting upward at Jacques. “And how, friend, is the life of adventuring treating
you
?”
“I might ask you the same, Brose,” Jacques barked. “Again, how did you manage to gain entry?”
“Ingenuity.” Brose pointed over his shoulder. “And the fact that I diddle the blue-blooded slut lolling against that far painting.”
Jacques glanced toward the corner of the ballroom and saw a woman leaning against one of Francesco’s large paintings, purple fan limp at her side.
“One of the richest widows in Paris—she was included in the invitations, was she not? Oh, by the bye, how is it that you, one of the rough trade, were allowed to assemble the invitation list?”
Jacques felt Dominique draw next to him. Still staring at Brose, he spoke to her. “I won’t introduce you to this pimp, poetaster, and thief, for if you were to examine his physiognomy beneath that oversized mask, you would see he stands for duplicity and cynicism. Above all, Carlo Brose hates life. For that, he can never be forgiven.”
“Charmed, madame,” intoned Brose, shaking his arm free from Jacques’ grip in order to bow. “I see from the identical ceramics you and Signor wear that you’re a matched pair.” He pointed at Jacques.
“This man hasn’t the heart to introduce his wife to a well-known
rival.”
“I’m his
brother’s
wife, signor.”
“Brother’s wife?” Brose repeated slowly. “How practical. So at hand.”
Jacques glared. “Watch your tongue, or I’ll cut it out and feed it to you.”
“You’d do that? Why, if you were to complete even a portion of what you
say
you’ll complete, you might claim accomplishment.”
Dominique fixed her stare on Brose, then Jacques. “I’ll find my husband.” She turned on her heel and marched away.
“Calm yourself, Casanova,” said Brose. “I’ve reason to behave tonight. If I suitably dote on the Marquise all night long, she’ll marry me tomorrow—and the day following, her pretty fortune will be at my command.”
“Phhtt!”
“In your eyes, I see envy.”
Jacques took a long moment gritting his teeth before he looked away.
“Then doting I shall go.” Carlo Brose waved coyly and loped toward a mass of onlookers.
Jacques’ attention was mastered by a new sight: Cavaliere
Grimani
strutting down the steep balcony stairs to the middle of the
resplendent ballroom. When Grimani began his speech, Jacques quickly fell into a lighter mood, amused at the pompous voice stemming from the man in Arlecchino tights.
Jacques now considered: introductions to la crème de la crème, he told himself, would be far more beneficial
after
his manuscript presentation to Voltaire, so the adventurer began to flow casually around the outskirts of the crowd, nibbling the food, listening to conversations, taking in the gentlemen and ladies decorated in gold braid, tassels, frills, ruffles and ribbons, plumes and puffery. The glittering hues of painted faces, masks, and costumes, the redolent perfumes, the rapid movement of a hundred fluttering fans—all seemed to intoxicate Jacques.
Two women dressed as butterflies flitted by, chattering.
“Apparently this Monsieur Casanova’s so-called religious
manuscript may have views capable of upending the Church.”
Jacques chortled. He was exceedingly pleased.
Upend the Church? Let these butterflies wing through this party and exaggerate my deeds until all the well heeled know my name.
The Cavaliere was ending his speech. “I look forward to meeting each and every one of you this evening.”
“As do I,” Jacques said quietly to himself. He climbed several steps up the balcony stairs for a better view.
Cavaliere Grimani bowed to polite applause while the orchestra filled the room with music, obliging him and Signora Grimani to open the ball with a polonaise, a simple but majestic procession that gave the couples a chance to show themselves. Immediately after, the orchestra struck up a minuet, whose tune was soon augmented by thunderclaps. Jacques would join in good time.
Feeling fully confident, he sipped his champagne while a faster dance—the fandango—began. He savored the fanciful costumes, like spinning fireworks, as they flared across the ballroom mirrors, while beneath the thousand ceiling candles a throng of partygoers pressed in upon a gentleman dressed in a Roman toga.
AS THE RAIN BEGAN TO PELT OUTSIDE,
the orchestra picked up the tempo of its fandango. A crush of guests swarmed toward the entrance. From across the room, Jacques easily recognized the man he’d seen in countless engravings: Francois Voltaire. Thin lips, nose, and face, but bright, bright eyes beneath nonexistent eyebrows. And tonight—poking from his toga—arms and legs as thin as capellini.
Voltaire. Brilliant thinker, writer, and prodigy extraordinaire.
During their correspondence, Jacques had envisioned meeting the esteemed philosopher a hundred times, but always his fanciful scenarios were fraught with unease, for it was said that Monsieur de Voltaire on occasion took joy in skewering men with his caustic wit and scalding humiliations.
Jacques tensed while his mind piled high wild thoughts.
Examining his warm and clammy palms, he wondered:
how do I expect to earn respect from the most exceptional man in Europe when I’ve chosen to wear torn and tattered rags?
What if—somehow—the great Voltaire made known that Jacques was the son of Zanetta Farussi, actress? Among this crowd, Jacques’ shame would be total.
In due course, he forced himself to move to the edge of the crowd that surrounded Voltaire.
The partiers quieted. Monsieur de Voltaire began to speak. “I’m long, lean, and fleshless,” he spouted while tugging at his wig. “Furthermore, I’m without buttocks. I need heat.”
The spectators cackled.
“And there is nothing of which abuse has not been made. The kiss, for example, designed by nature for the mouth, has often been prostituted to membranes which do not seem made for this usage.” Voltaire lowered his voice to a throaty whisper. “One knows of what the Knights Templar were accused.”
Hoots of laughter echoed through the ballroom while Voltaire
clucked away. If a stolid, moralistic sage was anticipated,
expectations were now shattered.
I can converse with Voltaire on this bawdy level, at least.
A gruff voice in the middle of the throng sounded. “Monsieur de Voltaire, what do you think of the three youths in Lyons who—”
The philosopher raised his hand. “Yes, I know what you ask.
The boys who read some of my anti-Church raillery, and then
decided to mutilate a cemetery crucifix and smear ordure on another. What is one to say?” he sighed. “The three are now sentenced to torture, to death, and to oblivion. I’m shocked to the core of my being at the
community at Lyons who, as Christ’s good Catholics, are
commanded to turn the other cheek. I agree, yes, some punishment is needed for the boys for destroying property. But torture and death?”
There was not a movement in the crowd as Voltaire’s jaw shook uncontrollably.
He wiped his hand across his forehead, then as an afterthought added: “Frederick of Prussia thinks the young men should suffer a fate worse than death—to be condemned to read Thomas Aquinas’ entire
Summa Theologica
. An acid smile crossed his face until he raised his hand to cut off the mounting laughter. “Yet I must not jest in the face of such barbarity.”
The flutter of a fan caught Jacques’ eye at the farthest part of the crowd. A woman wearing a wimple and a face mask flipped her purple fan closed and circled it teasingly in his direction, allowing Jacques to recognize the startling sapphire rings on her lithe fingers. Beneath the brocaded mask were rheumy eyes he knew—those of the Marquise D’Ampie, the woman whose impassioned charms he’d shared two months ago—and with whom he’d scarcely traded a word. The hairs bristled on his arm as he recalled his late-night tryst with the toothless woman.
What was I thinking when I invited her to this select affair? And to boot, this is the harridan whose vast fortune will shortly belong to Carlo Brose.
Jacques shook his head at the Marquise. He gestured
emphatically toward Voltaire, turned away from the woman, and launched his
champagne glass to his lips, hoping the drink would soothe his
disgust.
“Signor Casanova? Signor Casanova?”
While Jacques guzzled, the voice again rang out.
“You are Signor Casanova, the Venetian, are you not?”
Jacques’ ears turned to fire. His pulse battered his brain. Francois Voltaire addressed him from across the room. The crowd parted in halves.
Jacques forced a stiff bow and replied. “I’m he, Monsieur de Voltaire. You do me honor.” The guests immediately hushed in apprehension.
“Although you and I, good sir, have exchanged our thoughts by post, we’ve never had the pleasure of meeting face-to-face.”
“You are correct, monsieur,” Jacques answered, his voice
cracking badly.
“Signor Casanova, I’m reminded of a not-insignificant feat of yours: that some time ago you escaped an inescapable prison, and that this bold action has astounded much of Europe.”
“My bold action most certainly astounded the authorities.” A round of laughs issued from the crowd.
“And now, Signor Casanova, no one in Europe trusts you. That is, in their prisons.”