What Casanova Told Me by Susan Swan Page B

my Bible, monsieur.”
    “You do not pray in your Congregational church, Miss Adams?”
    “I prefer rational inquiry to religious speculation.”
    “Ah, so I am conversing with a
philosophe?”
    “How else can we know the truth if we do not question what we see? But I am exceedingly interested in your views on travel, monsieur. I was taught that the Grand Tourist travels to get an education.”
    “Then you have read too many guides, Miss Adams. Travel is a faith, like love. And a faith involves pleasure as well as the challenge of pain or hardship. So for the utmost success, a traveller must follow the same methods as love—selection, satisfaction, seduction and separation.”
    When he saw my doubtful look, he added, “My travel principles are empirically sound—worthy, I hope, of a great
philosophe
like Voltaire.”
    “Please tell me one, monsieur.”
    “What you desire is always waiting for you, but you must tell the Fates what you are searching for. First, you should write down your wish on a scrap of paper and then throw it to the winds. It will scatter best if you tear it into a dozen pieces, Miss Adams.”
    “How strange. And another?”
    “We must not follow the dictate of our will but go only where pleasure leads. And we should grant ourselves the comfort of graceful entrances and exits. Although I am not as skilful with my exits as I would like …”
    “Only your entrances, monsieur.” I laughed, thinking of him in his strange wig on the public barge.
    “Ah, so you make fun of me, Miss Adams! And I so dearly enjoy talking to you!” He was smiling broadly now, and for the first time I felt the youthfulness of his spirit.
    “I, too, enjoy our conversations,” I said. “And I am eager to hear about the woman in the locket.”
    “I did promise, did I not?” He glanced at his watch, where the dainty miniature hung from his fob. But this time, he quickly tucked it away.
    “That will have to wait. Forgive me, Miss Adams. I must go to an appointment. May I reclaim my journal?” He took it, and without another word he bowed, and melted into the crowd.
    I sat for a while, watching the spot where he had vanished, my soul disturbed by longings.
    April 25, 1797
    We are soon to be at war. General Bonaparte is in Austria while his army remains in northern Italy. But the situation has become critical. I saw this with my own eyes. I was standing with Father on the shore of the Giudecca near the Convent of the Capuchins. On Easter Monday there was an uprising against the French army in Verona and yesterday we witnessed a foolish gun battle—Venetian soldiers firing on French sailors from a fortress by the harbour. Father says the Venetians have brought war upon us sooner than he would like. Who knows now what will happen to Father’s trade mission? He had hoped the army would bypass Venice in its hurry to crush the Austrians.
    Poor Father. He was feeling poorly, and he became seasick on the gondola taking us to the Convent. Afterwards, I held his head on my lap and massaged his scalp while the gondolier studied us with cunning eyes. Francis had gone to Murano to talk to the glass merchants, and I think the gondolier assumed Father was my aged husband. I stared coldly back and continued massaging my poor father’s scalp.
    I do not hold this marriage plan against Father. I understand that he is doing what is best for me before he dies, and that he does not want me to make my way in the world without a husband, whereas I would be content to live alone in a city like Paris, far from the world of the Gooch farm with its views of the great Atlantic and the humpbacked islands near Boston. Aunt Abigail brought me up to know Greek and Latin, and I could make a modest living teaching the Classics to French schoolchildren. Father dismisses these plans and jokes that it is better for me to wed a dullard who will be too slow witted to mind my bookworm habits than choose a learned man who will assume a wife should obey her