Read What Casanova Told Me Online
Authors: Susan Swan
Tags: #Mystery & Detective, #Fiction, #General, #Historical, #Psychological
What Casanova Told Me (34 page)
“Luce, why did you wait to tell me? Have I told you that you can be really infuriating?”
“Yes, many times. But listen, please. Asked For tried to write to Casanova, only he died in
1798
before her letter reached him. Timothy Adams put Asked For’s letter to Casanova in this box. My aunt says he must not have known what to do with it. The letter must have just been more embarrassing evidence of a relationship outside marriage that wasn’t considered proper in Victorian times. But I’d like to think he thought about Asked For and wondered what he should do.”
“Get on with it, Luce.”
“It’s what I’ve been waiting to do.” She opened the box and took out the letter.
October 19, 1800
Dear Jacob
,
I have been too angry to write since you left Constantinople three years ago. How I hated you for going to such lengths to fool me. And for your foolish belief that you needed to deceive me in order to
arouse my interest. But you must understand that I hated myself too. I began suspecting you had forged the letters from Aimée when we were travelling through Thrace. You muttered things in your feverish state that led me to this conclusion. When you recovered, I waited for you to confide what you had done and I promised myself I would forgive you. When you did not tell me about your forgeries, I punished you by insisting that we journey on to find Aimée. Pride, Father always said, is an Adams failing. Had I not concealed my knowledge, our path might have been different.
Enough time has gone by for me to have a deeper understanding of our love for each other. And I have made a new life for myself in this extraordinary city. I am sorry now that I did not come out and say what I felt because I no longer believe you meant to hurt me. It is true that I was naive, but perhaps I needed you to deceive me. How else could I throw off the yoke of a domestic future with Francis? I realize now that you wanted me to live without the burden of an older person to nurse. You were wrong. Let me join you in Dux and you will see for yourself how gladly I shoulder such a burden.
Your Asked For
“She knew,” Luce said. “She knew he had deceived her. And she wanted to punish him. I think I can understand. I used to think there was something pathetic about people who allow their hearts to be broken.”
“We are always afraid of being played for a fool,” Lee said.
“At least she created a new life in a foreign city. But wait—there is one more thing: a reply to her letter from Count Waldstein,” Luce said.
December 6, 1800
Dear Asked For Adams
,
The Chevalier de Seingalt died two years ago from an imfection. His death occurred a few days before a visit from the chemist, Isaac Bey, who arrived too late with his herbs and medicines and the crayfish he loved. Monsieur Bey thought you would like to know how happy you had made the Chevalier de Seingalt at the end of his life. So he asked me to send on the letters written to him by the Chevalier during your journey together.
Count Waldstein
“Well, what do you think, Lee? Do you still dislike Casanova?”
“Who said I disliked him? He was a creature of Venice, the city that spawned him. He wasn’t able to moor himself to anyone. But he knew how to enjoy life. I admire him for that. And for his appreciation of—”
“Of women?” Luce was smiling wryly.
“You are your mother’s child, aren’t you? You go straight to the point. I suppose you know what happened to Casanova after he left Asked For in Istanbul?”
“It’s in an essay by Arthur Symons. You know him? He’s the Victorian scholar who discovered the two missing chapters from Casanova’s published memoirs.”
Lee shook her head.
“Yes, Symons discovered chapters four and five from the final volume. Of course, I hoped he would have found a letter that referred to Asked For Adams. But he makes no mention of Casanova’s visit to Venice at the end of his life. He does
refer to Finette, Casanova’s dog. When I read this, I felt as if I could reach out and touch Jacob Casanova.”
“Is Symons a reliable biographer?”
“Yes. He visited Count Waldstein’s castle a hundred years after Casanova’s death. He found the missing chapters of the memoirs in one of the six cardboard cases full of Casanova’s manuscripts and letters in the library where Casanova worked. It was on the ground floor with some twenty-five thousand volumes and an engraved portrait of Casanova on the wall.”
“I can see that you’ve done your research. I should expect that by now from you, shouldn’t I?”
Luce smiled at her. “That’s enough about Casanova. I have a special dessert waiting, one I don’t think you’ve ever tried before.”
Luce Adams
The Miller Archives and Special Collections
131
Huron Street
Toronto
March
15
,
2005
Dear Luce:
Thank you for your invitation to go with you and Ender to research Asked For’s travels around the Black Sea. How curious to remember that his translation of the scribe’s document was what first brought you together. It seems like a long time ago now.
I wish I could go with you. None of us can live without the occasional wild journey that tells us what we’re made from, can we? But my summer course finishes in August and until then Lynn-Anne and I are content teaching and reading. Every afternoon, we walk to the ocean to watch the fishing boats come in. I’ve told her that you work in an important archives up in Canada and sift through your old documents wearing a white lab coat. Do you still use it? The last time I visited I thought it made you look like a pastry chef.
Love,
Lee
P.S. I researched the scribe’s description of Bendis, the goddess of the thieves. As far as I know, Bendis has no relationship to Aphrodite although Bendis was associated with Artemis. As Mistress of the Wild Beasts, she would have taken the form of a bird, possibly a raptor. I will check Farnell’s
The Cults of the Greek States
and send a note to Ender if I find anything.
Lee Pronski
22
Homecrest Avenue
Sheepshead Bay, Brooklyn, New York
11235
April
2
,
2005
Dearest Lee,
Do you realize I am writing you on Casanova’s birthday, “blackening paper,” as he would put it? I am in the Reading Room, the last place you might expect to find someone on an early spring evening. How hard it is to believe that in a few days Ender and I will be thousands of miles from this gracious library with its rosy Persian carpet and six storeys of old books and folios. Only moments ago, one of the regulars stopped reading and smiled at me, the pool of light from his study lamp warming his bearded face. I smiled back and he returned to his reading, murmuring the words out loud to himself. My assistant affectionately calls him the Hummer although he is a professor of history and has a dignified Anglo-Saxon name. I try to be stern with professors (no slur intended, Lee). But tonight I am too full of anticipation to chide him even though professors frequently break our rules, licking the pages or making notes with messy ballpoint pens instead of using the pencils we provide.
They believe tenure gives them the right to leave yellow Post-it notes on our archival material no matter how many times I point out that the Miller has some of the oldest books and manuscripts in the world. One comes across strange behaviour here. It’s the concentrated atmosphere. On some days, this place feels like an enormous
bedroom where people sit reading and not speaking, as if they are having sex without touching.
Yes, I still wear a white coat along with a pair of cotton gloves if I’m looking at one of the Shakespearean folios. I trust you still have your fedora. It was very striking. I thought you’d be interested to know that I have donated the original journal of Asked For Adams and the scribe’s letter to the Miller and I keep the old documents in a special room in the stacks where a humidity gauge is fixed at forty percent. (A change from the way I used to lug them around in Venice, isn’t it?) Casanova’s letters will be given to a reputable auction house on our return. The Sansovinian has had them long enough.
If anything happens to me, you will know where to find the family papers. Not that I expect things to go wrong. Ender and I are both disappointed you and your new friend can’t come with us. His course secretary has found us a roomy old house in the hills outside Istanbul. It has four bedrooms, more than enough for the two of you if you change your mind.
It’s only a matter of days before we are on our way.
I just thought of Casanova again. He once wrote that all he needed to be happy was a library. He would have liked the notion of the Miller as a bedroom, wouldn’t he?
Love,
Luce
P.S. I just took another look at the travel principles of Jacob Casanova. They hold up very well but I think they are summed up nicely in his wish for Asked For Adams.
Wherever you alight, may home await you.
I would like to thank the late Jack Crean who first recommended Casanova’s memoir about escaping from the Leads; Carol Christ for introducing me to Minoan Crete and for writing
Odyssey with the Goddess: A Spiritual Quest in Crete;
Alberto Manguel for taking me to Venice; Judith Keenan for making my novel the subject of the first BookShort; my beloved editor Louise Dennys who was there from the beginning; Kendall Anderson for her first-rate editorial acumen; Bernice Eisenstein, Chris Doda and Noelle Zitzer for crucial editorial suggestions in the early stages; the extraordinary agents Bruce Westwood, Hilary McMahon, Nicole Winstanley, Derek Johns, Kim Witherspoon and Alexis Hurley for finding the right publisher; Toronto archaeologist Mima Kapches for showing me the similarity between novelists and archaeologists; Patrick Crean and Samantha Haywood for loving support; Karen Rinaldi for her honesty and insights; writer Lynne Suo for the magic of her farm; Tricia Postle and Patricia Hluchy for their time and Sumach Press for its hospitality; Johanna Stuckey for being a special reader and for writing
An Introduction to Feminist Theology in
Judaism, Christianity, Islam and Feminist Goddess Worship;
Russell Smith and Joy von Tiedemann for help with the young photographer; Natalee Caple for her insights on her generation; Domenico Pietropaulo for his work on Casanova’s grammatical tics; Karen Connelly for sharing the isolation of novel writing and for her understanding of Greece; Vicki Poulakakis, James Papoutsis, Gale Zoe Garnett and Stavroula Logethettis for help with the Greek language, and Francesco D’Angelo for her understanding of Italian; the archivists Sean Smith, Suzanne Dubeau, Luba Frastacky and Richard Landon for unstinting support; Deirdre Molina and Janine Laporte at Knopf Canada for their help in the thirteenth hour; John Knechtel and Diana Bryden for research; professor Amila Buturovic for leading me to Irvin Schick; and Irvin Schick (author of
Writing the Body in Islam)
for his astonishing erudition, help and insights into Western travellers in the Ottoman Empire.
Hundreds of books helped to make
What Casanova Told Me.
I am particularly indebted to
No Place for a Lady: Tales of Adventurous Women Travelers
by Barbara Hodgson;
Venice
by Jan Morris;
Sheep’s Vigil by a Fervent Person
by Erin Moure;
Minotaur: Sir Arthur Evans and the Archaeology of the Minoan Myth
by Joseph Alexander MacGillivray;
The Imperial Harem of the Sultans
by Leyla Hanimefendi;
The Travels of Theophile Gauthier
by F.C. De Sumichrast;
Night Letters
by Robert Dessaix;
The Man Who Really Loved Women
by Lydia Flem;
Abigail Adams: Witness to a Revolution
by Natalie Bober;
The Language of the Goddess
by Marija Gimbutas;
Casanova at Dux
by Arthur Symons; and of course,
History of My Life, Vols. 1 to 12
by Giacomo Casanova, Chevalier De Seingalt.
S
USAN
S
WAN’S
critically acclaimed fiction has been published in twenty countries. Her novel,
The Wives of Bath
, was a finalist for the U.K.’s Guardian Award and Ontario’s Trillium Award, and was made into the feature film
Lost and Delirious
, which was shown in thirty-two countries.
What Casanova Told Me
was a finalist for the Commonwealth Writers’ Prize (Canada and Caribbean Region). It was a
Globe and Mail
Best Book; a
Calgary Herald
Top 10; a
Now
(Toronto) Top 10; and a
Sun Times
(Owen Sound) Top 10; and Asked For Adams was named one
of Maclean’s
magazines Top 5 characters.
Swan shares a Puritan background with her heroine Asked For Adams. A branch of Swan’s family immigrated to America in 1635. They settled on farmland near Boston, then moved on to Connecticut. Two centuries later some of the family immigrated to Canada.
