War & War

V TO VENICE

It was about quarter past two at night and even from a distance you could tell that he was very drunk, since from the moment he came through the door and bellowed Maria’s name he kept blundering against the wall, and the sound of repeated thumps, scufflings and curses made that fact ever more unambiguously clear as he drew closer while she did her best to snuggle under the eiderdown showing neither feet nor hands, not even her head, but hid and shuddered, hardly daring to breathe, flattening herself against the wall so that there should be the greatest possible room left in the bed and so that she should occupy the smallest possible space — but just how drunk he really was could not be properly gauged from inside the room, only once, after a long struggle, he managed to find the door handle and turn it so the bedroom door was flung open, when it became obvious that he was on the point of losing consciousness, and then he did indeed collapse on the threshold, collapsed as soon as the door opened, and there was perfect silence, neither the interpreter nor the woman moving a muscle, she beneath the covers using every muscle to suppress her breathing so that her heart beat loud with fear, an effort she could not maintain forever with the result that, precisely because of the strain involved in trying to keep absolutely quiet, she finally gave a little groan under the sheets then spent minutes in petrified stillness, but still nothing happened, and there was no sound except the radio of the neighbor downstairs where the deep bass of Cold Love, by Three Jesus boomed faintly on without the petulant whine of the singer or the howl of the synthesizer, the bass alone penetrating to the upper floor, continuous yet fuzzy, and eventually she, thinking it possible at last that the interpreter would remain where he was now till the morning, tentatively put her head above the cover to take stock of the situation and maybe help a little, at which point, astonishingly and with extraordinary vigor, the interpreter leapt from the threshold as if the whole thing had been some kind of joke, sprang to his feet and swaying a little, stood in the doorway and with a possibly intentional evil half-smile on his face stared at the woman on the bed, until, just as unexpectedly, his expression suddenly became deadly serious, his eyes grew harder and as sharp as two razors, terrifying her to the extent that she dared not even cover herself with the sheet but simply trembled and hugged the wall as the interpreter once again bellowed MARIA, strangely extending the “i” as if mocking her or in hatred of her, then stepped over to the bed and with a single movement tore first the covers then her nightdress off her so she did not even dare to scream as the nightdress ripped across her body but crouched there naked, not screaming, prepared to be wholly obedient as the interpreter, in a voice that was more a croaking whisper, ordered her to turn on her front and raise herself on her knees on the bed, muttering, get that ass higher you filthy whore, as he pulled his dick out, though since he was speaking in Hungarian, she was left to guess what it was he wanted, as guess it she did, raising her buttocks while the interpreter entered her with brutal power, and she squeezed her eyes tight with the pain, still not daring to cry out, because he was squeezing her neck with equal power at the same time, so that by all rights she should have been screaming but instead it was tears that began to course down her face and she bore it all until the interpreter released his hold on her neck because it was her shoulders he needed to grasp, it being plain, even to him, that if he failed to do so the woman would simply collapse under the weight of his ever more violent thrusting, so he grabbed her again and with increasing frustration yanked her onto his lap though he was incapable of coming to a climax and eventually, having grown exhausted, simply tossed her aside, tossed her across the bed, then lay back, spread his legs and pointed to his softening member, gestured her over again, indicating that she should take the thing into her mouth, as she did, but the interpreter still failed to come so he hit her across the face with great fury, calling her a filthy Puerto Rican whore, and the force of the blow left her on the floor, where she remained because she had no strength left to get back on and try something else, though by this time the interpreter had lost consciousness again and lay flat out, starting to snore through his open mouth, leaving her with a faint vestige of hope that she might sneak away somehow, which she did, as far as possible, covering herself with a rug, and tried not to look at the bed, not to even glance at him lying there utterly senseless so that she might not see that open mouth with its trail of spittle, taking in air, the spittle slowly dribbling down his chin.

I am a video artist and poet, the interpreter told Korin over lunch next day at the kitchen table, and he would be most grateful if Korin remembered once and for all that it was art alone that interested him, art was his raison d’être, it was what his whole life had been about, and what he would soon be engaged in again after an unavoidable break of a couple of years, and what he would then produce would be a truly major piece of video art of universal, fundamental significance, a statement about time and space, about words and silence, and, naturally, above all, about sensibility, instincts and ultimate passions, about humankind’s essential being, the relationship between men and women, nature and the cosmos, a work of indisputable authority, and he hoped that Korin would understand that what he had in mind was of so immense a scope that even an insignificant speck in the human consciousness such as Korin will have been proud to have been acquainted with its creator, and will be able to tell people how he sat in the man’s kitchen and lived with him for some weeks, that he took me in, helped me, supported me, gave me a roof above my head, or so he hoped, that was what he so he fervently hoped Korin would say, because nothing could stop it now, the success of the venture was guaranteed and it was impossible that it should not be, for the project was all systems go, the whole thing was about to get under way and would be accomplished in a few days, since he would have a camera, an editing room and everything else, and what was more, the interpreter emphasized with particular care, it would be his own camera, his own editing room and everything else, and here he poured more beer into their glasses and clinked his against Korin’s a little wildlly, then drained his down to the dregs, simply poured it down his throat, his eyes red, his face puffy, his hand badly trembling so that when he went to light his cigarette it took several goes with the lighter before he found the end, and if Korin wanted evidence — he sprawled across the table — here it was, he said, then pulled a stern face and, rising from the chair, staggered into his room returning with a package and slapping it down in front of Korin, there, he leaned into his face, there is a clue from which you might be able to deduce the contents, he encouraged Korin, pointing to a dossier bound with a rubber band, there, open it and take a look, so, as slowly and delicately as if he were handling a fragile decorated Easter egg, terrified that one abrupt movement of his might destroy the thing, Korin removed the rubber band and obediently began to read the first page when the interpreter impatiently slapped his fist on the sheet and told him to go on, relax, read it through, he might at last begin to understand who it was that was sitting opposite him, who this man József Sárváry really was, and all about time and space, he said, then slumped back down in his chair, propping his head on both elbows, the cigarette still burning in one hand, its smoke slowly winding its way into the air, while Korin, feeling deeply intimidated, thought he’d better say something and muttered, yes, he understood very well, and was most impressed, since he himself was regularly engaged on a work of art himself, much like Mr. Sárváry in fact, for the manuscript that preoccupied him was a work of art of the highest caliber, so he was very much in a position to understand the problems of the creative imagination, only from a great distance of course, since he himself had no practical experience of it except as an admirer whose task it was to devote himself to its service, his whole life in fact, for life was worth nothing otherwise, in fact it wasn’t worth a stinking dime, the interpreter muttered as if to raise the stakes, turning his head away, still supporting it on his elbow, a statement with which Korin enthusiastically agreed, saying that for him too art was the only meaningful part of life, take for example the beginning of the third chapter which was utterly breathtaking, for Mr. Sárváry should just imagine, he had got to the stage of typing — and he begged to be excused for still referring to it as typing — the third chapter, the one about Bassano, in which it described Bassano and how the four of them continued toward Venice, the loveliest thing there, imagine, being the way it described them waiting for a passing stagecoach to pick them up while they walked slowly along the streets of Bassano, and how they were full of endless conversation debating what they considered to be the most marvelous creations of mankind, or perhaps when they talked about a realm of exalted feelings that might lead to the discovery of exalted worlds, or perhaps, still better, Kasser’s monologue on love and Falke’s response to that, and all the superstructure and supporting structures of their arguments, for that was roughly the manner in which their talk proceeded, meaning that Kasser developed the superstructure and Falke provided the support, but that Toót would chip in at times and Bengazza too, and oh Mr. Sárváry, the most wonderful thing about it all was that there remained a vital element of the story that was not even mentioned for some time, an element whose likely importance, once touched upon, became immediately apparent, and that was that one of them was injured, a fact about which the manuscript had said nothing so far, and only mentioned once, eventually, when it described them in the courtyard of the mansion at Bassano, at dawn, on the day when Mastemann, who had just arrived from Trento, was changing horses, and the innkeeper, bowing and scraping, led the horses in and told Mastemann that there were four apparently monastic travelers on their way to Venice and that one of them was injured but he didn’t know where or to whom he should report the matter, since there was something not quite right about the whole company, he whispered, for no one knew where they came from or what they wanted, beyond the fact that Venice was their destination, and that their behavior was very strange, the innkeeper continued in whispers, for they spent the whole blessed day just sitting about or going for walks, and he was pretty certain they weren’t real monks, partly because they spent most of their time talking about women, and partly because they talked in such an incomprehensible and godless manner that no mortal could understand a word of it, that is unless they themselves were of such heretical bent, and come to that, their very garments were probably a form of disguise, in other words he didn’t like the cut of their jib, said the innkeeper, then, at a gesture from Mastemann, backed away from the carriage and an hour later was totally confused when in departing, the gentleman, apparently a nobleman from Trento, said he would like to relieve the tedium of the journey by taking the four so-called monks with him if they wanted a lift, and what with the fresh horses having been harnessed, the broken strapping replaced, the trunks adjusted and secured on top of the carriage, the innkeeper rushed off as ordered, bearing this good news for the quartet without properly understanding — without understanding at all — why he was doing so, though much relieved by the thought that the four of them would be off his hands at last, so that by the time the carriage eventually rolled through the gates and set off in the direction of Padua he was no longer troubled by the effort of understanding but crossed himself and watched the carriage disappear down the road and stood for a long time in front of the house until the dust of the carriage vanished with them.

Pietro Alvise Mastemann, said the man giving a curt bow while remaining in his seat, then leaned back, his face expressionless as he offered them places in a manner that made it immediately obvious that the undoubtedly grand gesture of the invitation owed nothing to friendliness, readiness to help, desire for company, or curiosity of any kind, but was, at best, the momentary whim of a haughty disposition; and since this was the case the actual seating arrangements presented a problem for they weren’t sure where to sit, Mastemann having spread himself across one of the seats and the other being nowhere near wide enough to accommodate all four of them however they tried, for however three of them huddled together, the fourth, Falke to be precise, would not fit on, until eventually, after a series of attempts at finding some cramped position and with an endless shower of apologies, he finally lowered himself onto Mastemann’s seat, insofar as he was able to do that, meaning that he shifted the various blankets, books and baskets of food slightly to his right and having done so squeezed himself against the walls of the carriage while Mastemann did not move a muscle to help but casually crossed his legs, leaned back at leisure and gazed at something through the window, all of which led them to conclude that he was impatient for them to settle down at last so that he might give the driver the go-ahead — in other words this was the state of affairs in those first few minutes nor did it change much afterwards, so Mastemann gave the signal to the driver and the coach set off, but the carriage itself remained silent though the four of them felt that now was the time, if any, for introducing themselves, though the devil only knew how to go about that for Mastemann was clearly uninterested in conversation and the embarrassment of not having gone through that formality weighed ever more oppressively on them, for surely that should have been the proper thing to do, they thought, clearing their throats, to tell him who they were, where they had come from and where they were going, that’s what should have happened, but how to do this now, they wondered, glancing at each other, and for a long time saying nothing at all, and when they did finally break the silence it was to talk very quietly among themselves so as not to disturb Mastemann, remarking that Bassano was beautiful since they were able to see the picturesque massif of Mount Grappa, the Franciscan church with its ancient tower below, to walk the streets listening to the Brenta as it babbled by them and remark on how nice everyone was, how friendly and open, in other words, thank heaven for Bassano, they said, and thank heaven particularly that they had succeeded in moving on too, though the thanks in this case were due not so much to heaven, they glanced across at Mastemann, more to, in fact entirely to their benefactor, the gentleman who had offered them a ride and who, though they tried to catch his eye, continued to stare at the dust rising from the road to Padua, as a result of which they realized, and none too early, that Mastemann not only did not wish to speak, but preferred them not to speak either, that he wanted nothing at all from them — though they were mistaken in this — and was content with their sheer presence, pleased that they were there and that that was what he wished to convey with his silence, their presence being quite sufficient, and having reasoned so far they naturally concluded that it mattered little to Mastemann what it was they talked about, if indeed they did talk, and that made the whole journey more pleasant for them because having realized that they could continue the conversation they had been having in Bassano from precisely the point at which they left off, and were free therefore, Korin added, to develop the subject of love, the way love created the world, as Kasser put it, they continued to develop it while the carriage swept on and Bassano disappeared from sight altogether.

Korin sat in his room and it was obvious that he didn’t know what to do, what to believe or what he should conclude on the basis of all he had heard in the apartment since that morning, obvious because he kept leaping out of his chair, walking up and down nervously then sitting down again, before leaping up and repeating the procedure for an hour or so, not that there was any need for an explanation as such for he had been scared ever since the interpreter threw his door open, at about a quarter past nine and ushered him into the kitchen which looked as though a war had taken place in it, telling him that they owed it to their friendship to down, there and then, a quantity of ale that was good for you, and followed this with a monologue that seemed to consist chiefly of veiled threats as well as a lot of other unrelated things to the effect that something had come to an end yesterday and that this ending firmly closed a chapter, at which point Korin took over the conversation because he really did not want to know what it was that had brought the chapter to a close, and could see that the interpreter’s mood might any minute swing to outright hostility and so he began talking in as uninterrupted a stream as he could manage, that is to say until the interpreter slumped across the table and fell asleep, after which he scampered back into his room but could find no rest there at all, and that’s where the process of squatting on the bed then stalking the room began, or rather the struggle not to listen out for the interpreter or be too concerned as to whether he was still out there or had returned to his room, a concern that continued to preoccupy him until eventually he heard the sound of clattering dishes and bellowing, and decided it was enough, that it was time to work, work, he said, time to sit down at the computer and pick up the thread where he had left it, and so he continued working, managing to immerse himself in the work, and, he said the next day, he immersed himself in it so successfully that by the time he had finished for the day and laid down on the bed with his hands over his ears, the only thing he could see was Kasser and Falke and Bengazza and Toót, and when, despite the periodic clattering and bellowing, he finally fell asleep it was Kasser and his companions alone who occupied his head, and it was thanks to them that when he ventured out into the kitchen at the usual time the next morning he found a magical transformation, for it was as if nothing had happened there, for that which had been broken had been swept away and that which had been spilled wiped up, and, what was more, there was food in the pans again, the clock was still ticking on the cupboard, and the interpreter’s partner was in her accustomed place, standing immobile with her back to him, all of which meant that the interpreter must be out as usual at this time of day, so, overcoming his astonishment, he took his place at the table in the normal way and immediately launched into his account, continuing where he had left off, saying he had spent the whole evening with Kasser, that Kasser’s was the only face he saw that evening, or rather the faces of Kasser and Falke and Bengazza and Toót, and that was how he fell asleep, with nothing in his mind, but them, and what was more, he was pleased to tell the young lady, they were not only in his head but in his heart too, because this morning when he woke and thought things through he had come to the conclusion that for him they were the only people that existed, that he lived with them, filled his days with them, that he might even say that they were his only contact with the world, no one else, only them, he said, that these were the people who, if for no other reason than that theirs were the histories he had most recently read, were closest to his heart, whom he could see in clear detail, he added, even at this very moment how the carriage was conveying them to Venice, and how should he describe it to the young lady, he visibly pondered, perhaps by simply going through each detail as it arose, he said, and he would attempt to do so now starting with Kasser’s face, those bushy eyebrows, the brilliant dark eyes, the sharp chin and the high brow; going on to Falke’s narrow, almond-colored eyes, his great hooked nose, the locks of his hair that fell in waves down to his shoulders; then there was Bengazza of course, said Korin, with those beautiful blue-green eyes of his, the delicate, slightly effeminate nose and the deep furrows of his brow, and finally Toót with his small round eyes, snub nose and those strong lines running crosswise round his nose and chin that looked as though they had been carved with a knife — that was what he saw day after day, every minute of the day, as clearly as if he could reach out and touch them, and having got so far he should perhaps confess that waking this morning, or rather reawakening, he should say, the sight of them made him suddenly fearful, for after heaven knows how many readings he had gradually formed some kind of apprehension as to what it was they were escaping from, in other words where this strange manuscript was leading them, why it was doing so, why they seemed to have neither past nor future, and what it was that caused them perpetually to be surrounded by a kind of mist, and he simply watched them, he said to the woman in the kitchen, simply watched the four of them with their remarkably sympathetic faces, and for the first time, with a shock of fear, he seemed to know, to suspect, what the apprehension was.

If there were just one sentence remaining at the end, as far as I am concerned, dear lady, it could only be that nothing, absolutely nothing made sense, Korin remarked next morning after his usual period of silence, then stared out of the window at the firewalls, the roofs, and the dark threatening clouds in the sky, eventually adding a single sentence: But there are a lot of sentences left yet and it has begun to snow.

Snow, Korin explained in Hungarian, snow, he pointed to the swirling flakes outside, but he had left the dictionary in his room so had to go and fetch it in order to find the word in English, and having done so, repeating the words, snow, snow, he finally succeeded in attracting the woman’s attention to the degree that she turned her head, and having adjusted the gas under the pans, and washing and putting away the wooden spoon, she came over to him, bent down and took a look out of the window herself then sat down at the table opposite him and they gazed at the roofs together, facing each other for the first time across the table as, little by little, snow covered the roofs, she on one side he on the other for the first time, though pretty soon Korin was no longer gazing at the snow but at the woman whose face at this distance simply startled him so much he was unable to turn his head away and not just on account of a fresh swelling that practically closed her left eye but because the whole face was close enough now for him to see the mass of earlier bruises and signs of beating, bruises that had healed but had left a permanent mark on her brow, her chin and cheekbone, bruises that horrified him and made him feel awkward for staring at her, though he could not help but stare at her, and when this became clearly unavoidable and likely to remain the state of affairs, the sight of her face drawing him back time and again, he tried to break the spell by getting up, going over to the sink and filling himself a glass of water, having drunk which he felt able to return to the table and not stare at the face with its dreadful injuries but concentrate on the story of the carriage, concentrating his gaze not on the woman but on the ever thicker snow, telling himself that while it was winter here it was spring back there, Spring in Veneto, the loveliest part of the season in fact, the sun shining but not too hot, the wind blowing but not at gale force, the sky a calm clear blue, the woods covered in dense green on the surrounding hills, in other words perfect weather for the journey, so that Mastemann’s silence no longer weighed on them, for they had accepted that this was how he wanted to proceed and no longer felt inclined to wonder why, content to sit quietly while the carriage swayed gently along the well-worn road, until Kasser picked up the subject of pure love, that wholly pure love, the clear love, said Korin, and what was more, he added, spoke only about that, not about the lesser kinds of love, the wholly pure love of which he spoke being resistance, the deepest and perhaps only noble form of revolt, because only love of this kind allowed a person to become perfectly, unconditionally, and in all respects free, and therefore, naturally, dangerous in the eyes of this world, for this was the way things were, Falke added, and if we looked at love from this point of view, seeing the man of love as the sole dangerous thing in the world, the man of love being one who shrinks in disgust from lies and becomes incapable of lying, and is conscious to an unprecedented extent of the scandalous distance between the pure love of his own constitution and the irredeemably impure order of the world’s constitution, since in his eyes it isn’t even a matter of love being perfect freedom, the perfect freedom, but that love, this particular love, made any lack of freedom completely unbearable, which is what Kasser too had said though he had put it slightly differently, but in any case, Kasser resumed, what this meant was that the freedom produced by love was the highest condition available in the given order of things, and given that, how strange it was that such love seemed to be characteristic of lonely people who were condemned to live in perpetual isolation, that love was one of the aspects of loneliness most difficult to resolve, and therefore all those millions on millions of individual loves and individual rebellions could never add up to a single love or rebellion, and that because all those millions upon millions of individual experiences testified to the unbearable fact of the world’s ideological opposition to this love and rebellion, the world could never transcend its own first great act of rebellion, because such was the nature of things, it was what was bound to follow any major act of rebellion in a world that really existed and was actually set in ideological opposition, that is to say it did not happen and did not follow, and now would never come to be, said Kasser, dropping his voice at the end, then it was silence and for a long time no one spoke, and there was only the voice of the driver in the seat above as he exhorted the horses up the hill, then just the rattle of the wheels as the carriage rolled and sped along the Brenta valley a long way from Bassano.

Jó, said the interpreter’s lover in Hungarian, pointing through the window and gave a fleeting smile at the falling snow outside by way of farewell before she winced with pain and touching her bruised eye, rose, went over to the burners and quickly stirred the food in the two pans — and with this the whole snow event ended as far as she was concerned, for from that moment not only did she not move from the burner but did not even glance at the window to see how the weather was doing, whether the snow was still falling or had stopped, nothing, not a movement, not even a glance to show that what had so plainly filled her with joy just now had anything to do with her, so Korin was forced to abandon the hope he had glimpsed in her face, the hope that had found solace in the peacefulness of falling snow, or, more precisely, the hope that this solace might find visible expression, in other words he himself snapped back into the old routine and continued as he would have done, though not quite from the same place in the story, for the carriage had reached Cittadella already, and after a short rest moved on toward Padua, Mastemann apparently overcome by sleep and Falke and Kasser too dropping off, so that only Bengazza and Toót were still in conversation, saying that of all possible modes of defense water was clearly the best and that’s why nothing could be safer than building an entire town on water rather than anywhere else, or so Toót proclaimed, and went on to say that, as far as he was concerned, he desired nothing better than a place where the defense arrangements, defense viewpoint, said Korin in English, were so thorough, the whole conversation having begun with the question of what was the most secure place, a problem that arose first in Aquileia, then surfaced again at the time of the Longobard assault, was considered in a more sophisticated way under the rule of Antenoreo, and, appeared to have been solved after Malamocco and Chioggia, Caorle, Jesolo and Heracliana when, as a result of the Frankish advance into the Lido in 810, the Doge moved to the island of Rialto, a perfectly correct decision at the time, that led to the development of the urbs Venetorum, and the invention, on the Rialto, of the notion of impregnability; and it was this decision that brought the peace and trade that established the present conditions of the state, the arrival at the decision coinciding with the arrival of a true decision-maker; which was all very well, but what precisely did he have in mind, they heard the apparently sleeping Mastemann’s voice asking from the seat opposite, an intervention so unexpected and surprising that even Kasser and Falke woke immediately, while the startled Toót turned courteously to answer that they had always believed that the best, most effective form of defense for a settlement must obviously be water, and that is why it was such a wonderfully unique solution to build a whole city on water, for, muttered Toót, there could be nothing better as far as he was concerned than such a place, a place where the considerations of defense lay as close to the heart of the enterprise as Venice, for, as Signor Mastemann will surely know, that was the way Venice actually came into being, with people asking themselves what was the most secure environment, for the question had first arisen at the time of the Hunnish incursions into Aquileia, and had been presented during the attacks of the Longobards, and had led to ever more sophisticated solutions under the rule of Antenoreo, Signor Mastemann, said Toót, until, after Malamocco and Chioggia, Caorle, Jesolo and Heracliana they finally came up with the real answer, that is to say following the invasion of the Lido by Pepin in 810, as a result of which the Doge moved his residence to the island of Rialto, this being the perfect answer and therefore absolutely correct, and it was only in consequence of this absolutely correct solution that the urbs Venetorum came into being; and this discovery of the principle of impregnability on Rialto, that is to say the decision predicated on peace and the development of trade, is what had led to the state of affairs Venice enjoyed today, the arrival at the correct decision having coincided with the arrival of the maker of that correct decision — at which point Mastemann intervened again, to ask yes, but who was it they were thinking of, and he frowned impatiently, to which Bengazza replied, explaining that it was he who not only embodied the soul of the republic, but could articulate it too, making it clear in his will that the splendor of Venice could only be preserved under conditions of peace, with the conservation of the peace, said Korin, and in no other way, that man being Doge Mocenigo, Toót nodded, it being part of the will of Tommaso Mocenigo, and that that was what they were talking about, that famous will, that magnificent document rejecting alliance with Florence which was, in effect, the rejection of war and the first clear articulation of the concept of Venetian peace, and therefore of peace generally; that they were discussing those words of Mocenigo’s whose fame had quickly spread throughout the local principalities so that it was all perfectly public and no surprise to anyone what had happened a fortnight before in the Palazzo Ducale, and when they set out on their journey, it had been in utter ignorance, not knowing where to go, so as soon as they heard about the last pronouncements of Mocenigo at the end of March concerning the will and about the first results of voting at the Serenissima, they immediately set out, for after all where else should fugitives from the nightmare of war find shelter, they argued, but in Mocenigo’s Venice, a magnificent city that after so many vicissitudes now appeared to be seeking to realize the most complete peace yet known.

They were passing through a chestnut grove that filled the air with a fresh and delicate fragrance so for a while, said Korin, there was silence in the carriage, and when they started up their conversation again it turned to the subjects of beauty and intelligence, that is to say the beauty and intelligence of Venice of course, for Kasser, noting that Mastemann remained distant and silent but was undoubtedly paying attention, attempted to show that never before in the history of civilization had beauty and intelligence been so aptly conjoined as in Venice, and that this led him to conclude that the matchless beauty that was Venice must have been founded on purity and luminosity, on the light of intelligence, and that this combination was to be found only in Venice, for in all other significant cities beauty was inevitably a product of confusion and accident, of blind chance and overweening intellect engaged in senseless juxtaposition, while in Venice beauty was the very bride of intelligence, and this intelligence was the city’s cornerstone, founded as it was, in the strictest sense, on clarity and luminosity, the choices it had made having been luminously clear resulting in the greatest of earthly challenges finding their perfectly appropriate solutions; for, said Kasser, turning to the rest of the company while being fully aware of Mastemann’s wakeful presence, they had only to consider how the whole thing began with those interminable assaults, the constant danger, or continuous danger as Korin put it, which had forced the Venetians of those days to move into the lagoon, and how that, incredibly, had been entirely the right decision, the first in a series of ever more correct decisions which made the city — every part of which had been constructed out of necessity and intelligence — said Falke, a construction more extraordinary, more dreamlike, more magical than anything mankind had hitherto produced, one that because of these incredible yet luminous decisions had proved itself to be indestructible, unvanquishable and utterly resistant to annihilation by human hands — and not only that but that this supremely beautiful city, Falke raised his head slightly, this unforgettable empire, he said, of marble and mildew, of magnificence and mold, of purple and gold with its dusk like lead, this sum of perfections built on intelligence, was at the same time wholly impotent and functionless, absurd and useless, an intangible, static luxury, a work of inimitable, wholly captivating and unrivalled imagination, an act of unworldly daring, a world of pure impenetrable code, pure gravity and sensibility, pure coquettishness and evanescence, the symbol of a dangerous game, and at the same time an overflowing storehouse of the memory of death, memory ranging from mild clouds of melancholy through to howling terror — but at this point, said Korin, he was incapable of continuing, simply unable to conjure up or follow the spirit and letter of the manuscript, so the only practical solution would be, exceptionally, to go and get it and read the entire chapter word for word, for his own vocabulary was wholly insufficient to the task, the chaotic mess of his diction and syntax being not only inadequate but likely to destroy the effect of the whole, so he wouldn’t even try, but would simply ask the young lady to imagine what it must have been like when Kasser and Falke, traveling in Mastemann’s carriage, talked of dawn about the Bacino S. Marco, or the brand-new elevation of the Ca’ d’Oro, since, naturally enough, they talked of such things, and the talk was at such a transcendently high level it made it seem they were rushing ever faster through the fresh and fragrant grove of budding chestnut trees, and only Mastemann was proof against such transcendence, for Mastemann looked as if it was of no account to him who asked what and who answered, he being concerned only with the motion of the carriage down the highway, with its swaying, and how that swaying soothed a tired traveler such as himself, as he sat in his velvet seat.

Korin spent the night almost entirely awake, and didn’t even undress until about two or half past two, but paced up and down between the door and the table before undressing and lying down, and was quite unable to sleep even then but kept tossing and turning, stretching his limbs, throwing off the covers because he was too hot then pulling them back on again because he was cold, and eventually was reduced to listening to the hum of the radiator and examining the cracks on the ceiling till dawn, so when he entered the kitchen the next morning it was plain he hadn’t slept all night, his eyes were bloodshot, his hair stuck out in all directions, his shirt wasn’t properly tucked into his pants and, contrary to custom, he did not sit down at the table but, hesitantly, went over to the burner, stopping once or twice along on the way, and stood directly behind the woman, for he had long wanted to tell her this, he said, covered in embarrassment, for a very long time now he had wanted to discuss it but somehow there was never the opportunity, for while his own life was, naturally, an open book and he himself had said everything that could possibly be said about it, so it can be no secret from the young lady what he was doing in

America, what his task was, why and, should he succeed in accomplishing it, what the result of that would be, and all this he had revealed and repeated many times, there was one thing he had never mentioned and that was what they, and particularly the young lady, meant to him personally, in other words he just wanted to say that as far as he was concerned this apartment and its occupants, and particularly the young lady, represented his one contact with the living, that is to say that Mr. Sárváry and the young lady were the last two people in his life, and she was not to be cross with him for speaking in such an excitable and confused fashion, for it was only in such turgid manner that he succeeded in expressing himself at all, but what could he do, it was only like this that he could convey how important they were to him, and how important was anything that happened to them, and if the young lady were a little sad then he, Korin, could fully understand why that might be and he would find it painful and would deeply regret it if the people around him should appear sad and this was all he wanted to say, that’s all, he quietly added then stopped speaking altogether and just stood behind her, but because she glanced back at him for a moment at the end and, in her own peculiar Hungarian accent said simply értek, I understand you, he immediately turned his head away as if feeling that the person he had been addressing could no longer bear his proximity, and stepped away to sit down at the table and tried to forget the decided confusion he had caused by returning to the usual subject of his conversation, that is to say the carriage and how as it was nearing the outskirts of Padua, all the talk was of names, a range of names and guesses as to who would be the new Doge, who would be elected, in other words, following the death of Tommaso Mocenigo, who would rule in his place, whether it would be Francesco Barbaro, Antonio Contarini, Marino Cavallo, or perhaps Pietro Loredan or Mocenigo’s younger brother, Leonardo Mocenigo, which was not unimaginable according to Toót, though Bengazza added that any of these were possible, Falke nodding in agreement that it was all possible, with one exception, a certain Francesco Foscari, who would not be elected for he was in favor of the alliance with Milan and therefore, problematically, of war and Kasser, glancing at Mastemann, agreed it might be anyone but him, the immensely wealthy procurator of San Marco, the one man against whom Tommaso Mocenigo, in that memorable speech, had warned, indeed successfully warned, the republic, for the forty-strong election committee had immediately responded to the power of Mocenigo’s argument and demonstrated their own wisdom, by giving this Foscari fellow just three votes in the first round, and he would no doubt receive two in the next and then would shrink to one, and while they could not be certain of this, Kasser explained to Mastemann, for they had received no fresh news since the first round of the elections, they felt sure that a successor would already have been chosen from among Barbaro, Contarini, Cavallo, Loredan or Leonardo Mocenigo, or at any rate that the successor’s name would not be Francesco Foscari, and since two weeks had elapsed since the first round people in Padua would probably know the result already, said Kasser, but Mastemann continued to refrain from comment and it was evident by now that it was not because he was asleep for his eyes were open, if only narrowly, said Korin, so it was likely that he wasn’t sleeping, and he maintained this attitude to the extent that no one felt bold enough to persist with the conversation, so they soon fell silent and it was in silence they crossed the border of Padua, such silence that none of them dared break it, it being completely dark outside in the valley for a good while now, one or two fawns scattering before the carriage as they reached the city gates where the guards raised their torches so they could see the occupants of the seats and explained to the driver where their intended accommodation was to be found before stepping back and snapping to attention, allowing them to continue on their way into Padua, and so there they were, Korin summed up for the woman, late in the evening in the courtyard of an inn, the landlord and his staff running out to receive them, with dogs yapping at their heels and the horses swaying with exhaustion, a little before midnight on the April 28, 1423.

The gentlemen would, he felt sure, forgive him this late and somewhat lengthy statement, said Mastemann’s driver at the crack of dawn next day when having woken the staff he sounded his horn to gather the passengers together at one of the tables at the inn, but if something could serve to make his master’s journey unbearable, that is beside the terrible quality of the Venetian roads which made his master feel as though his kidneys were being shaken out of his body, as though his bones were being cracked, his head split wide open and his circulation so poor that he feared to lose both his legs, that is on top of the tribulations already mentioned, it was the impossibility of talking, socializing, indeed of merely existing, so it was unusual for his master to commit himself in this way, and he had undertaken the exercise only because he felt it his duty to do so, said the driver, on account of the news, the good news he should emphasize, of which he had been instructed to speak this dawn, for what had happened, he said, drawing a piece of paper from an inner pocket, was that having arrived last night, Signor Mastemann — and they might not be aware of this — did not ask for a bed to be prepared for him, but ordered a comfortable armchair complete with blankets to be set opposite an open window with a footstool, for it was well known that when he was utterly exhausted and could not bear even to think of bed, it was only like this that he could get any rest at all, and so it was that once the servants found such an armchair for him, Signor Mastemann was escorted to his room, undertook certain elementary ablutions, consumed a meal, and immediately occupied it, then after three hours or so of light sleep, that is to say about four o’clock or so, woke and called him in, him alone, his driver, who by his master’s grace was literate and could write, and honored him by effectively raising him to the rank of secretary, dictating a whole page of notes that amounted to a message, a message whose written contents, the driver explained, he had this dawn to pass on in its entirety and what was more in a manner that was clear and capable of withstanding any enquiry, so that he should be prepared to answer any questions they might have, and this was precisely what he would now like to do, to carry out his orders to a T by attending to them in full, and therefore he requested them, if they found any expression, any word, any idea less than clear the first time round, that they should say so immediately and ask him for elucidation, and having said all this by way of preamble, the driver extended the piece of paper toward them in a general kind of way so that no one actually attempted to take it from him at first, and only once he had offered it more directly to Kasser, who did not take it from him, did Bengazza accept it, seek out its beginning and start to read the single side of text that had been inscribed in the driver’s finest hand, then having done so he passed the sheet on to Falke who also read it, and so the message circulated among them until it was returned to Bengazza once more, at which point they fell very silent and could only gradually bring themselves to ask any questions at all, for there was no point in asking questions, nor was there any point in the driver answering them, however patiently and conscientiously, for any answer would have failed entirely to touch on the meaning of the letter, if letter—letter—it might be called, added Korin to the woman, since the whole thing really consisted of thirteen apparently unconnected statements, some longer, some shorter and that was all: things like DO NOT FEAR FOSCARI and when they enquired after its significance the driver merely told them that as concerned this part of the message Signor Mastemann had merely instructed him as to the correct stressing of the words, telling him that the word FEAR was the one to be most heavily stressed, as indeed he had just done, and that was all the explanation they received, further probing of the driver being useless, as was the case with another statement, THE SPIRIT OF HUMANITY IS THE SPIRIT OF WAR, for here the driver started a recitation in praise of war, about the glory of war, saying that men were ennobled by great deeds, that they longed for glory but that the true condition required for glory was not simply a capacity to undertake glorious deeds but the glorious deed itself, a deed that might be attempted, planned and carried out only under circumstances of great personal danger, and furthermore, the driver continued, clearly not in his own words, a person’s life was in continuous and extended peril only under the conditions of war, and Kasser stared at the driver in astonishment, at an utter loss, then glanced across at his companions who were just as astonished and at an equal loss, before running his eyes over the third statement saying VICTORY IS TRUTH, asking the driver if he had something to add to this subject too, the driver then replying that the election committee, as far as Signor Mastemann was aware, had sat in the election chamber for ten days in the course of which they had come to the conclusion that Cavallo was too old and incapable, that Barbaro was too crippled and vain, that Contarini was dangerous as he had autocratic tendencies, and that Loredan was required to be at the head of a fleet, not at the Palazzo Ducale, in other words that there was only one candidate worth discussing, the one man able to help Venice maintain her honor, the one man capable of victory, the one man chosen by twenty-six clear votes after ten days of debate to be the Doge of Venice, and that man, naturally, was the great Foscari, in response to which Kasser could only repeat the name: Foscari? are you sure? and the driver nodded and pointed to the bottom of the sheet where it was stated, and twice underlined, that Francesco Foscari, the noble procurator of San Marco, had been elected by twenty-six clear votes.

If he were to describe their reaction, Korin ventured, simply as indescribable, it would be only an overused, hackneyed form of speech that the young lady should not take literally, for the manuscript was particularly sensitive and precise on the subject of Kasser’s disappointment, dealing with it in great detail, and not only with that but with the whole morning after the exchange with the driver, at the conclusion of which they understood, not without considerable difficulty, that one purpose of the dawn message was to let them know that Mastemann did not envisage continuing the journey with them — and this was the point, explained Korin, this sensitivity, this refined eye, this proliferation of precise detail, the way the manuscript had suddenly become extremely precise, as a result of which an even stranger situation confronted him, for now, because of the valedictory at the end of the third chapter, it wasn’t events at the inn at Padua following the appearance of the peculiarly well-prepared driver with his peculiar mission that he wanted to tell her about, but the description and its extraordinary quality, in other words not about how, having understood the matter, Kasser and his companions themselves considered the idea of continuing their journey with Mastemann to be out of the question, since according to the thirteenth part of the message the road to Venice that they had so desired to take, either with Mastemann or with anyone else, meant nothing to them now, not about that but about all those apparently insignificant events and movements that had now become extremely important, or to put it as simply as he could, said Korin to the woman in an effort to clear the matter up, it was as if the manuscript had suddenly recoiled in shock, surveyed the scene and registered every person, object, condition, relationship and circumstance individually while utterly blurring the distinction between significance and insignificance, dissolving it, annihilating it: for while events of obvious significance continued to pile up, such as that Kasser and his companions continued to sit at the table facing the driver until he rose, bowed and left to start preparations for the departure of the carriage, to secure the luggage, to check the straps and examine the axles, following this, if such a thing was at all possible, the narration focused entirely on minute particulars of utter apparent insignificance such as the effect of the sunlight as it poured through the window, the objects it illuminated and the objects it left in shadow, the sound of the dogs and the quality of their barking, their appearance, their numbers and how they fell silent, on what the servants were doing in the rooms upstairs and throughout the whole house right down to the cellars, on what the wine left in the jug from the previous night tasted like, all this, the important and the unimportant, the essential and the inessential, catalogued indiscriminately together, next to each other, one above another, the lot building up into a single mass whose task it was to represent a condition, the essence of which was that there was literally nothing negligible in the facts that comprised it — and this, basically, was the only way that he could give her some idea, said Korin, of the fundamental change that overcame the manuscript, while all the time the reader, Korin raised his voice, carried on without noticing how he had come to accept and realize Kasser’s disappointment and bitterness, though it was only by registering this disappointment and bitterness that he could foresee what still lay ahead, for of course, much still did lie ahead, he said, the chapter leading to Venice would not abandon its readers at this point, only once Mastemann himself appeared at the turn of the stairs wearing a long dark-blue velvet cloak, his face stiff and ashen, and marched down to the ground floor, dropped a few ducats in the palm of the bowing landlord, then, without casting a glance at the travelers’ table, left the building, got into the carriage and galloped off along the bank of the Brenta while they remained at the table, and once the innkeeper came and placed a small white canvas package in front of them, explaining that the noble gentleman from Trento had commanded him to pass this on, after his departure, to the man they said was wounded, and once they opened the package and established the fact that what it contained was the finest powdered zinc for the healing of wounds, only once that had been recounted did the third chapter end, said Korin standing up, preparing to return to his room, with this mysterious gesture of Mastemann’s, then with their own settling of bills with the landlord, and, he hesitated in the doorway, with their farewells to him as they stepped through the gate into the brilliant morning light.

All is of equal gravity, everything equally urgent, said Korin to the woman at noon the next day, no longer concealing the fact that something had happened to him and that he was on the edge of despair, not sitting down in his accustomed chair but walking up and down in the kitchen, declaring that either it was all nonsense, all of it, that is to say everything he was thinking and doing here, or that he had reached a critical point and was on the threshold of some decisive perception, then he rushed back into his room and for several days did not appear at all, not in the morning, not at five, not even in the evening, so on the third day it was up to the interpreter’s lover to open his door and with an anxious look on her face enquire, It’s oil right? or Okay? for nothing like this had happened before — not even to stick his head out of the door, for after all anything might have happened, but Korin answered with a simple, Yes, it’s all right, rose from the bed where he was lying fully dressed, smiled at the woman, then, in an entirely new and relaxed manner, told her that he would spend one more day thinking, but tomorrow, about eleven or so, he would appear in the kitchen again and tell her everything that had happened, but that wouldn’t be until tomorrow, having said which he practically pushed the woman out of the room, repeating, “about eleven,” and “most certainly,” then the lock clicked shut as he closed the door behind her.

Well then, all is of equal gravity, everything equally urgent, Korin declared the next day at precisely eleven o’clock, taking a long time to pronounce the words and holding his silence for a good while, at the end of which silence, having said all he had to say, he simply repeated, significantly: Equal, young lady, and of the utmost importance.