But because he lived in Venice he regarded even Signor Bragadin with suspicion for a while. The Venetian market offered too much variety, too much clatter, too great a range of color. Yet not even the foul mouths of Venetian pimps could find a single aspersion to cast at the good name of Signor Bragadin. No one in St. Mark’s Square could boast of having sold favors for cash or privilege to the honorable senator. The senator was as much a child of Venice as he was, but he was not a product of the filthy and narrow alleys of the theater: he was the scion of a prominent, aristocratic marriage bed, had always lived in Venice, was married and widowed here, and even in great old age continued to mourn the early death of his beloved. He lived a lonely life, without relatives, with only a few wise, sophisticated friends and his old servants for company. His house, which was among the most private, most respected in the republic, would open its doors only to a handful of choice spirits, on the occasions when he organized supper for friends: to be invited to one of them was a mark of distinction that few could boast. And this fastidious, private nobleman, this pure fine being, had raised him from the shadows of his murky existence, fished him out of the muddy swirls of the lagoon, him of all people, at the very moment that every star in his firmament had more or less gone out. And why? Not because of secret lusts or passions but out of sheer compassion and a decency that never once tired.
True, not even Signor Bragadin could save him from a cell in the Leads; not from the cell, nor from exile, either, not even in his office as senator when it came to the powers of the Inquisition. The charge the Merciful Ones had brought against Giacomo was laughable. He knew that it had nothing to do with practicing the black arts, nor with orgies, nor debauchery, nor even so much with the diligence of the passion with which he turned the heads of Venetian ladies and maidens. “Not much turning required,” he recalled. “People never understand this. It was never I who made the first move.” Not that this was something he could discuss with the first secretary. People were apt to lie about such matters as they were about everything that really counted in life. So he was referred to as the notorious “seducer,” the officially branded “faithless” lover, the model of inconstancy, the skirt lifter: he was a clear and present danger and labeled as such by the authorities… if only they knew! He was not in a position to tell them that it was not he that picked his victims but they that picked him; there was no way of putting into writing the fact that women’s views on virtue and the way they actually went about things did not entirely accord with what was proclaimed in public offices or promoted from the pulpits of churches. There was no one he could telclass="underline" indeed, there were only rare moments of solitude when he himself could face the fact that when it came to the high combat of love it was he who was the exploited party, the abandoned one, the victim…. But this was not the point. The redeeming of pawn tickets, the episode with the emerald ring, the orgies, the days and nights of gambling, the broken promises, the strutting posture, the obstinate bearing: none of these were genuine charges. This was simply what life was like in Venice…. What they couldn’t forgive, the reason they threw him into jail where even the mighty Signor Bragadin could not save him, was that the danger and corruption he represented for them referred to something else, something other than any crime or indiscretion he might have committed: it referred to his entire manner of being, his soul, the face he presented to the world. “That is what they couldn’t forgive,” he realized, and shrugged. For what the world demands is hierarchy and obedience, the painful act of self-surrender, the unconditional acceptance of mortal and divine order. Deep inside him burned the threatening flame of resistance to such things, and that was unforgivable.
There was nothing anyone could do about this: even Signor Bragadin was helpless to change it. At Christmas he had sent a fur-lined coat, a purse full of gold, and something to read in prison. That was all he could practically do. There is no saving a man from the world; one day it will break in on him and force him to his knees. But that day, his personal day of judgment, had not yet arrived. He had escaped from prison, escaped from them, and now he had to fight like a soldier, to choose his weapons and prepare for combat. So he wrote the letter, got dressed, and set out to seek appropriate ammunition in Bolzano.
He thought he would make a quick, anonymous survey of the town, so he turned up the collar of his coat and walked as fast as he could. Night was already drawing in, flakes of snow drifted across the street. No one recognized him. He fairly swept along, examining things intensely as he went, surveying the terrain. There was nothing particularly attractive to tempt him. It was as if the place were living not only in the shadow of the mountains but of its own prejudices: the houses were pretty enough but there was a suspicious look in people’s eyes. He found this uncomfortable. Like all the great artist-raconteurs, he was only truly relaxed in the company of receptive kindred spirits. “Not much of a place,” he thought with fierce antipathy, crossing the grand central square and entering the back streets. Everything was precisely halfway between high and low: it was a mode of being out of his normal range. The town existed precisely in the no-man’s-land between all he loved and all he avoided in life. It was sober and well ordered, which is to say it frightened him. He hurried along the street with his handkerchief to his mouth because he feared the strange air might give him a sore throat and he pulled his hat down over his brow because he feared the gaze of the local people, though his own half-closed eyes flickered into life every time he crossed glances with a passing man or woman. He kept casting anxious looks at doorways and peering through lit windows trying to guess which of these gabled houses might be the residence of the duke of Parma. “It’s a nice town,” he thought bitterly when he had done his tour. “A clean town. A foreign place, too foreign.” Foreign to him, was what he meant: there was no tempting familiar complicity in its air, no joie de vivre, no passion, no pomp, none of the mysterious radiance that emanates from the desire for pleasure, a radiance he could detect as readily in cities as in people. It was a solemn, virtuous town, he thought, and felt the goose pimples rising on his flesh.