He drew the narrow, much-folded letter from the inner pocket of his fur-lined cape with a slow, leisurely movement and held it high in the air:
“Please overlook any errors you may find. Have I said that before? It is only recently that she learned to write, from an itinerant poet in Parma, a man who had been castrated by the Moors and whom I had ransomed, his father having been our gardener. I have a fondness for poets. Her hand seems to have shaken a little with excitement and there is something terribly touching about that, for her capital letters have never been good, poor dear; I can see her now, her fevered brow and her chill, trembling fingers as she scratches her message on the blotted parchment — and where in heaven’s name did she get that from? — with whatever writing implements she could find, implements probably obtained for her by her companion and accomplice, the aged Veronica, whom we brought with us from Pistoia and whom, it has just occurred to me, we might have been wiser to leave back in Pistoia. But here she is, willing to be of service, and when the moment came, she found some writing paper, a pen, some ink, and some powder, as she was perfectly right to do, for every creature, even one such as Veronica, has some inescapable, traditional part to play. It is not only onstage that nurses have acted as bawds! It is a short letter, so please allow me to read it to you. You can afford to allow it because it is not the first time I have read it; I read it first at about four this afternoon when it was passed to the groom to deliver to you, and again this evening before I set out on my postmasterly, messenger’s errand: a man shouldn’t leave such tasks to strangers, after all. Are you frowning?… Do you think it impertinent of me to read a lady’s letter?… You wish to remain silent in your disapproval of my curiosity? Well, you are right,” he calmly continued, “I don’t approve either. I have lived by the rules all my life, as an officer and gentleman, born and bred. Never in all that time did I imagine that I would meet such a woman and find myself in a situation that would lead me to behave in a manner unbefitting my upbringing, abandoning the responsibilities of my rank: never before have I opened a woman’s letter, partly on principle, and partly because I did not think it would be of such overwhelming interest as to tempt me to act against my principles. But this one did interest me,” he continued in a matter-of-fact manner, “since Francesca has never written me a letter, indeed could not have written me a letter even if she had wanted to, because, until a year ago, she didn’t know how to write. Then, a year ago, shortly after the castrated poet came to us, she began to show an interest in writing — which, now I come to think of it, was at roughly the same time as the news of your incarceration by the Holy Inquisition arrived from Venice. She learned to write in order to write to you, because as a woman, she likes to undertake truly heroic tasks in the name of love. She learned to use those terrible cryptic cyphers of your profession — the modest, meek, and chubby
e, the corpulent s, t with its lance, f with its funny hat — all so that she might offer you comfort by writing down the words that were burning a hole in her heart. She wanted to console you in prison and, for a long time, I thought you corresponded. I believed in the correspondence and looked out for it; I had ears and eyes, dozens of them, at my command, the best ears and sharpest eyes in Lombardy and Tuscany, and those are places where they know about such things…. She learned to write because she wanted to send you messages; yet, after all that, she didn’t write: I know for certain that she did not write because, to a pure and modest heart like hers, the act of writing is the ultimate immodesty, and I could sooner imagine Francesca as a tightrope dancer, or as a whore cavorting in a brothel with lecherous foreign dandies, than with a pen in her hand describing her feelings to a lover. Because Francesca is, in her way, a modest woman, just as you, in your way, are a writer, and I, in my way, am old and jealous. And that is how we lived, all of us, each in his or her own way, you under the lead roofs of Venice, she and I in Pistoia and Marly, waiting and preparing for something. Of course you are right,” he waved his hand dismissively as if his host were about to interrupt, “I quite admit that we lived more comfortably in Pistoia, Bolzano, Marly, and other places, near Naples up in the mountains, in our various castles, than you on your louse-ridden straw bed, under the lead roof. But comfort, too, was a prison, albeit in its own twisted, rather improper way, so please do not judge us too harshly…. As I was saying, the castrato taught Francesca to write, and I watched her, thinking ‘Aha!’ Quite rightly. There are times when Voltaire himself thinks no more than that, particularly when Voltaire is thinking about virtue or power. Each of us is wise at those unexpected moments of illumination when we suddenly notice the changing, surprising aspects of life. That is why I thought ‘Aha!’ and began to pay close attention, employing the sharpest ears and eyes that Lombardy and Tuscany could offer. But I heard and saw nothing suspicious: Francesca was too shy to write to a writer like you, too embarrassed by the prospect of putting her feelings into words — and isn’t it a fact that you writers are a shameless lot, putting the most shameful human thoughts down on paper, without hesitation, sometimes even without thinking? A kiss is always virtuous but a word about a kiss is always shameful. That might be what Francesca, with that delicacy of perception so characteristic of her and of most women in love, actually felt. But she might simply have been shy about her handwriting and about corresponding in general, for, though her heart was troubled by love, it remained pure. And so, when she finally got down to writing to you, I can imagine her agitated, overwrought condition and the shudder of fear that ran through her from top to toe as she sat with fevered brow and trembling fingers, with paper, ink, and sand, to undertake the first shameless act of her life in writing to you. It was a love letter that she was writing, and in giving her all and trusting herself entirely to pen and paper, and thereby to the world and to eternity, which is always the last word in shamelessness, she was venturing into dangerous territory, but she ventured further than that, into yet more dangerous territory, for the point at which someone reveals their true feelings to the world is like making love in a city marketplace in perpetual view of the idiots and gawpers of the future; it is like wrapping one’s finest, most secret feelings in a ragged parcel of words; in fact it is like having the dogcatcher tie one’s most vital organs up in old sheets of paper! Yes, writing is a terrible thing. The consciousness of this must have permeated her entire being as she wrote, poor darling, for love and pain had driven her to literacy, to the symbolic world of words, to the mastery of letters. But when she did write, she wrote briefly, in a surprisingly correct style, in the most concise fashion, like a blend of Ovid and Dante. Having said that, I shall now read you Francesca’s letter.” He unfolded the parchment with steady fingers, raised one hand in the air, and, being shortsighted, used the other to adjust the spectacles on his nose, straightening his back and leaning forward a little to peer at the script. “I can’t see properly,” he sighed. “Would you bring me a light, my boy?” And when his silent and formal host politely picked up a candle from the mantelpiece and stood beside him, he thanked him: “That’s better. Now I see perfectly well. Listen carefully. This is what my wife, Francesca, the duchess of Parma, wrote to Giacomo, eight days after hearing that her lover had escaped from the prison where his character and behavior had landed him, and that he had arrived in Bolzano: ‘I must see you.’ To this she has appended the first letter of her name, a large F, with a slight ceremonial flourish, as the castrato had taught her.”