She drew a silver-crocheted purse from the lining of the coat and extended it nervously toward him.
“From you, signora,” said the man, bowing once more as at the end of a dance, his knee slightly bent, his arms spread wide, “I will not accept any money.”
He declared this in a spirit of generosity, humbly enough but with just enough hauteur in his voice for the woman to turn around at the threshold.
“Why?” she asked over her shoulder. “It is what you live on, after all.”
He shrugged.
“You, dear lady, have already paid a great price. I would like you to be able to say that you met with a man who gave you something for nothing.”
He escorted her as far as the stairs, where they looked at each other once more in the gloom with serious and somewhat suspicious expressions on their faces. He raised the candle high to light his guest’s way, for it was already dark and the bats were beginning to flitter through the stairwell of The Stag.
The Contract
It was dark. They were ringing the bells of Santa Maria, and down in the shadows the bar and restaurant of The Stag were tinkling with silver and glass as they spread the tables, when he heard sleigh bells. He stood still a moment, leaning over the banisters, listening. He, too, was a bat, suspended upside down over the world, the kind of creature who comes to life only when the dull lights and sounds of evening awaken him. The sleigh stopped by the doors of The Stag, someone shouted, servants came running with lanterns and fixed them to the ends of long pointed poles, settling silence on the intimate noises of restaurant and bar, the kind of noises he loved to hear down the corridors of inns in foreign towns, when he would emerge from his room on tiptoe, his black gold-buckled half soles on his feet, his white cotton stockings stretched tight over his full legs, wearing a violet-colored frock coat and a narrow, gilt-handled sword strapped to his waist under the black silk cloak that came down to his ankles, his hair carefully sprinkled with rice powder, his fingers bright with rings, a purse made of fish bladder containing gold coins hanging at his side, and a packet of marked cards in his pocket; and, thus prepared for the evening, he would be ready to face the world, impatient for adventure, his heart expectant and melancholy, expectancy and melancholia being much the same thing, then patter down the stairs, eyes darting here and there, knowing that in various rooms in the same town there would be women sitting next to candles from which the smoke gently billowed while they looked into the mirror, quickly tying a bow in a bodice, pinning flowers in their hair, anointing themselves with rice powder and perfume, adjusting the beauty patch on their faces, knowing that musicians would already be tuning up in the theaters, the stage and auditorium rich with the sour-bitter smoke of oil lamps, and that everyone was preparing for life, for the evening, which would be festive, secretive, and intimate: it was the time at which he loved to stop on the stairs of strange inns and listen to the faint brushing noises of waiters and servants and the clinking and chinking of the cutlery, the glass, the silver, and the china. There was nothing finer in life for him, anywhere in the world, than observing preparations for festivities: the prelude, the fuss, every detail infused with the sense of anticipation of all that was unpredictable and surprising. What delight it was to dress at about eight o’clock, when the church bells had stopped ringing, and when pale hands, their movements sensitive and mysterious, reached from windows to fasten the shutters, thereby closing out the world and safeguarding the house which always represents some mutuality, some turning away from worldly affairs; to put on one’s clothes and prepare for the evening with the pleasant quickening of the heart that tells us we are capable of anything, of both happiness and of despair; to stride with sure, light steps past houses, toward the dim shores of the darkening evening. It was this part of the day he loved best: his walk changed, his hearing grew keener, his eyes glittered and he could see in the dark. At such times he felt wholly human, but also, in the complex but not at all shameful sense of the word, like a creature of the wild that, after sunset, when tamer beasts have retired to shallows and watering holes, stands like a great predator, still and silent in the brush, listening to the sounds of twilight, his head raised in rapt attention. So it was now when they were laying tables that he heard the shuffling, tinkling noises rising from the restaurant, and in that instant the whole world seemed festive. Was there any feeling to compare with it, he wondered, a feeling that so quickened the heart and made it pound with apprehension as that of waiting for festivities to begin?
The clatter had stopped now. The shuffling of feet was followed by the sounds of a lighter, younger pattering movement, then he heard the knocking of shoes with wooden soles breaking into a run. “An important guest!” he thought as he stuck his tongue out and licked his dry lower lip in quick, thirsty anticipation. The agitation of the house coursed through him. To his highly developed ear, the word “guest” was one of the most magical sounds in the world, along with other words like “prize,” “prey,” “suddenly,” and “luck”: it was, in short, among the finest sounds a man could wish to hear. “A substantial guest!” he thought in approval, with a pleasant excitement. The light of the torches moved about the upper floor. The voices below were barking short, hard words: the guest must have been at the very door, the host of The Stag bowing before him, issuing stern orders and promising who-knows-what earthly and divine delights. “A difficult guest!” he thought, like a fellow professional, for he himself was just such a “difficult” guest who liked to make his host squirm with a long series of testing questions, to visit the kitchen and examine the size of the salmon, capon, or saddle of venison for himself, to try its quality, to have a much-praised vintage brought up from the cellar then take his time sniffing the cork after the bottle was opened, to wave away the offered wine with contempt and ask for a new bottle and, when it arrived, solemnly and with utmost concentration, to taste the thick, oily, blood-red drops of the French or South Italian grape, then, graciously, with a slightly sour expression, finally agree on the potential of some specific wine, and to turn round at the top of the cellar stairs, or at the door of the kitchen, with a finger half-raised to remind his host in harsh, admonitory tones that he should take care that the chestnuts, with which they were to stuff the breast of the turkey, be boiled in milk and vanilla first, and that the Burgundy be warmed in its straw carafe precisely forty minutes before serving; and it was only after all this that he would take his place at the table and haughtily survey the hall, rubbing his eyes to signify a slight weariness and satisfaction, taking in the furniture and the paintings, whose arrangement and whose local or international character did not truly interest the “difficult” guest, since the most difficult part was over, and one only had to watch that the serving staff always stood at a distance of two paces, far enough not to hear any whispered conversation, but close enough to leap to the table at the lowering of an eyelid and attend to any business immediately. “They are negotiating something!” he thought, for the hard voice of the guest and the humble, fawning voice of the host were still engaged in conversation. “A guest from out of town!” he thought. He remembered that there was a ball tonight at Francesca’s, a masked ball, to which the local nobility had been invited. There had been a lot of talk in town about the ball in the last few days, and all the tailors, cobblers, haberdashers, ribbon makers, seamstresses, and hairdressers were proudly complaining that they couldn’t keep up with demand, as a result of which he himself had spent three useless days vainly demanding his two frilly evening shirts from the washerwoman, who was too busy starching, washing, and ironing the finest linen for Francesca’s ball, and the whole town was filling up with guests preparing for wonderful games and high festivities, all caught up in the kind of exciting, intense, and, to all purposes, good-natured activity that in its own twisted and mysterious manner touches even those who are not directly involved in the affair…. I expect a lot of people will be spending the night after the ball at The Stag, he thought. The weather is dreadful, the Tuscan woman was almost eaten by wolves, and the local gentry and their ladies are hardly likely to set straight off after the event across snow-covered roads, at dawn, in their sleighs and foot muffs. And this “difficult” guest, he too must be bound for the ball, he thought, and felt a sharp stab of envy, as people do when they suddenly discover that they are barred from attending a desirable occasion. The feeling surprised him. It reminded him of his childhood when he learned that adults were planning something strange and wonderful without him. He shrugged, listened a moment longer to the discussion between guest and host, then turned back to his room.