Andreas
If it is profit that a man is after, he should become a merchant, and if he does the job of a bookseller then he should renounce the name of poet. Christ forbid that the business followed by such creatures should furnish a man of spirit with his occupation.
Every year I spend a fortune, and so it would be a fine thing if I followed the example of the gambler who placed a bet of a hundred ducats and then beat his wife for not filling the lamps with the cheapest oil.
So print my letters carefully, on good parchment, and that’s the only recompense I want. In this way bit by bit you will be the heir to all my talent may produce.
ARETINO
from a letter dated 22nd June 1537, sent from Venice
Oh quante sono incantatrici, oh quanti
Incantator tra noi, che non si sanno!
ARIOSTO
What strange enchanters in our time abound
What strange enchantresses alike are found!
ARIOSTO
Hugo von Hofmannsthal
ANDREAS
PUSHKIN PRESS
LONDON
CONTENTS
Title Page
The Wonderful Mistress
Journal of Herr von N’s Tour to Venice, 1779
Herr von N’s Adventure in Venice
Andreas or The United
Afterword by Olivier Berggruen
About the Publisher
Also Available from Pushkin Press
Copyright
THE LADY WITH THE SPANIEL
“UPON MY SOUL,” thought young Herr Andreas von Ferschengelder on the 17th September 1778, his boatman having unloaded his trunk on the stone steps and pushed off again. “What next? The fellow leaves me standing here, there isn’t such a thing as a coach in Venice, that I know, and as for a porter, why should one come this way? It’s as desolate a spot as you’d find in a day’s journey. You might as well turn a man out of the diligence on the Rossauerlände or under the Weissgärbern at six in the morning when he doesn’t know his way about Vienna. I can speak their language—what good is that? They’ll do what they like with me all the same. How does one address utter strangers asleep in their beds? Do I knock and say ‘My good sir’? He knew he would do nothing of the kind; meanwhile, steps were ringing sharp and clear in the morning stillness on the stone pavement: they took a long time to come near, then a masked man emerged from an alley, caught his cloak about him with both hands, and made straight across the square. Andreas advanced a step and bowed. The man raised his hat, and with it the half-mask that was fixed on the inside. He was a man of trustworthy appearance and, to judge from his movements and manners, belonging to the best society. Andreas was anxious to hurry, he thought it ill-mannered to detain for long a gentleman on his way home at such an hour: he said quickly that he was a foreigner just arrived from Vienna by way of Villach and Gorizia. He felt at once that he need not have mentioned this, fell into confusion, and stood stammering Italian.
The stranger approached with a most civil gesture, saying that he was entirely at Andreas’s service. With this movement, his cloak had fallen apart in front, and Andreas could see that the courteous gentleman, under his cloak, had nothing on but his bare shirt, shoes without buckles, and knee-hose hanging down, leaving his calves half bare. He hurriedly begged the stranger not to remain standing in the chilly morning air—he would soon find somebody to direct him to an inn or lodging-house. The man wrapped his cloak tighter about his hips and assured Andreas that he was in no hurry. Andreas was deeply mortified by the thought that the other now knew he had seen his strange déshabillé: his silly remark about the chilly morning air and his embarrassment made him feel hot all over, so that he too, without thinking, threw his travelling cloak open, while the Venetian most obligingly assured him that he was particularly glad to be of service to a subject of the Queen-Empress Maria Theresa, the more so as he had already been on terms of great friendship with several Austrians, for instance, Baron Reischach, Colonel of the Imperial Pandours, and Count Esterhazy. These well-known names, pronounced with such familiarity by the stranger in front of him, inspired Andreas with the utmost confidence. It was true that he knew such great gentlemen by name only, or at most by sight, for he belonged to the minor, or bagatelle, nobility.
When the mask declared that he had what the foreign cavalier needed, and quite close at hand, Andreas was incapable of declining. To his question, put casually when they were already on their way, as to what part of the town they were in, he received the answer: “San Samuele.” And the family to which he was being taken was that of a patrician, a count, who happened to have his elder daughter’s room to let, for she had been living away from home for some time. Meanwhile, they had arrived in a very narrow lane in front of a very high house, which looked distinguished enough, but very dilapidated, for the windows had no glass in them and were all boarded up. The masked man knocked at the door and called several names; an old woman looked down from a high storey and asked what they wanted, and there was a rapid parley between the two. The Count himself had already gone out, the mask explained to Andreas. He always went out at this early hour to buy what was needed in the kitchen. But the Countess was at home, so they could settle about the room and then send for the luggage which had been left behind.
The bolt on the door was withdrawn, they entered a small courtyard, full of washing out to dry, and mounted a steep flight of stone stairs, with steps hollowed out like dishes with age. Andreas did not like the look of the house, and it seemed odd that the Count should be out so early buying provisions, but the thought that he was being introduced by a friend of the Freiherrs von Reischach and Esterhazy cast a bright light over everything and left no room for despondency.
At the top the staircase abutted on to a fairly large room, with the fireplace at one end and an alcove at the other. At the single window a half-grown girl was sitting on a low chair, while a woman, no longer young but still handsome, was endeavouring to build up the child’s beautiful hair into a highly elaborate head dress. When Andreas and his guide entered the room, the child, with a scream, darted into the inner room, showing Andreas a thin face, with dark, beautifully traced eyebrows, while the mask turned to the Countess, whom he addressed as cousin, and introduced his young friend and protégé.
There was a short colloquy, the lady named a price for the room, which Andreas agreed to without further discussion. He would have dearly liked to know whether the room looked on to the street or the courtyard, for he felt it would be a dismal prospect to spend his time in Venice in such a room, whether the house was in the town itself or on the outskirts. But he found no moment for his question, the conversation between the other two showed no signs of coming to an end, while the young creature who had vanished swung the door to and fro and cried with spirit that Zorzi must be made to get up at once, for he was lying upstairs in bed with the colic. Then the Countess told the gentlemen just to go up, the boys would soon turn the useless creature out.
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