Casanova's Women (21 page)

Overnight Casanova was transformed from a homeless musician scraping a living on the margins of society into a rich nobleman's son, a position he felt he had been born for. For the next three years, while he was nominally employed in the office of a Venetian lawyer, in reality he lived a hedonistic, dissolute lifestyle which consisted mostly of gambling, womanising and meddling in other people's love affairs. It did his character little good but, since Bragadin continued to support and house him, Casanova ignored the criticism aimed against him by almost every level of Venetian society: ‘Wealthy enough, empowered by nature with a striking appearance, a resolute gambler, a spendthrift, a great talker with a sharp tongue, lacking all modesty, fearless, pursuing pretty women, supplanting rivals, thinking no company any good other than that which amused me, I could only be hated. Since I was always prepared to risk my own skin, I felt that I was entitled to do anything I wanted, for it seemed that anything which got in my way deserved to be rudely attacked.'
⁵

By the beginning of 1749, Casanova's cocky arrogance had earned him many enemies, particularly among the nobility who, not without good reason, viewed the actors' son as a young upstart on the make. Accused of raping and beating a young virgin (having attempted to ‘buy' the girl's virginity from her mother, Casanova admitted to the beating but not to the rape), he was summoned to a special court presided over by four magistrates. A charge of blasphemy was also laid against him. The reason was either a grisly
practical joke Casanova had played which had involved digging up a corpse, cutting off its arm and hiding it under a man's bed (the victim of the so-called joke was so shocked that he had a stroke and never recovered) or his rumoured dabbling in the Kabbalah with Bragadin. Before he could be imprisoned for either offence Casanova quit the Republic on the senator's advice.

Exiled from his beloved Venice for the first time, Casanova roamed aimlessly through Italy using his mother's maiden name, Farussi, as a pseudonym and supplementing the private income which Bragadin continued to send him by gambling and committing petty fraud. His brilliant intellect was wasting away; he was doing nothing with his life. By March he was in Milan, where he ran into Teresa Lanti's younger sister, Marina. The child he had slept with when she was eleven was now fifteen or sixteen years old and working as a comic dancer and a prostitute. Casanova took her away from her violent pimp and became her lover himself. Together they met Antonio Stefano Balletti, a dancer from a famous Parisian theatrical family who was due to partner Marina in a subsequent engagement in Mantua. Balletti remained Casanova's friend and eventually introduced him to his influential parents and younger sister, an innocent beauty whom, as we shall see later, Casanova made miserable for years.

Since his affair with Teresa, Casanova had enjoyed the sexual charms of many women but had fallen deeply in love only once, during his spell working for Giacomo da Riva, the governor of the galleys, in Corfu in 1745. The object of his desire had been Andriana Longo, the wife of his superior officer, Foscarini. An expert in prolonging an intrigue without ending it, Signora F …, as Casanova discreetly referred to her in his memoirs, refused to give in to him, with the result that he became so obsessed with her that he collected the split ends of her hair, had them made into comfits and secretly ate them. Casanova was on the point of consummating the affair when he caught venereal disease from a courtesan – his fourth such infection. When he confessed this to Signora F … she refused to have anything more to do with him.

Soon after his encounter with Marina, Casanova caught venereal disease yet again, this time during a drunken encounter with a whore. Disgusted by the sordid nature of the affair, he pined for a relationship of real substance. Mere sex, though readily available, was not enough for him, for by the age of twenty-four he had already discovered that ‘the pleasure of love without love is insipid.'
⁶
To really enjoy sex, Casanova needed to be in love. Hoping perhaps to recapture something of his old raw ambitious spirit and to re-ignite either, or even both, of his two greatest passions so far – those for Teresa Lanti and Anna Maria Vallati, the ‘Donna Lucrezia' of his memoirs – he decided to head for Naples, unaware that he now had not one but two children living there: Leonilda, his daughter by Anna Maria; and Cesarino, his son by Teresa. Without knowing it, Casanova was on the brink of the most meaningful relationship of his life. For en route to Naples, he broke his journey in the city of Cesena and encountered Henriette.

On the morning of his intended departure from Cesena he was awoken at daybreak by a terrible hullabaloo in the inn where he was staying. A crowd of
sbirri
were clustered in the corridor outside the open door of the next bedroom. Inside it, an elderly grey-haired man was sitting up in bed in a nightcap yelling angrily at the constables in Latin, of which they did not understand a word. The innkeeper explained to Casanova that the problem was one of suspected immorality: the
sbirri
, in practice the moral police of the strict Papal States, were trying to discover whether the person sharing the man's bed was actually married to him, but since he spoke only Latin they could not communicate with him. If the woman who was hiding under the covers was married to this man, the two of them needed to produce some sort of certificate to prove it. If, on the other hand, they were not married, ‘he'll have to put up with going to prison with the girl; but that won't happen to him because I'm trying to settle the thing amicably for two or three sequins. I'll speak to their captain, and all these men will go away. If you speak Latin, go in and make him see reason.'
⁷

Casanova had learned fluent Latin as a schoolboy, and since he
loved to meddle in an intrigue he immediately sorted out the affair to the satisfaction of the bed's occupant, who turned out to be a Hungarian officer in the service of Austrian empress MariaTheresa. The person lying beside him remained hidden under the covers until later that morning, and when she finally popped her head out from under the sheets she was sporting a male haircut and a man's nightshirt. The Hungarian indicated that, despite her obviously feminine features, Casanova was to address the ravishing cross-dresser as a man.

It was love at first sight. Henriette's form and bearing immediately captivated Casanova. Whilst the other cross-dresser in his life, Teresa Lanti, had actually pretended to be a man, Henriette carried off her male disguise with all the elegance and panache of a fashionable woman at a masquerade. Later that day, outfitted in ‘a blue riding-coat, with her dishevelled hair arranged like a man's', her womanly beauty amazed Casanova. Dressed for supper that evening in a fantastical soldier's uniform of her own invention she looked even more feminine, and ‘the beauty of this girl instantly enslaved me'.
⁸
The situation was made even more intriguing by the fact that, whilst the elderly Hungarian spoke only Latin, Henriette, who was in her early twenties, spoke only French; they could not exchange a single word unless Casanova acted as their interpreter. Since this odd couple were heading for Parma, on the spur of the moment Casanova decided to change his plans and go with them. He wanted Henriette so badly that he had to have her, and would sacrifice anything to get her. His desire to reconnect with his Neapolitan friends and lovers had completely vanished.

It was soon apparent to him that, despite her situation as the lover of a man she could scarcely communicate with, Henriette was well-brought-up and educated to the highest degree. She was also the first Frenchwoman Casanova had ever met, and as such she was a revelation to him. Never before had he encountered such sophistication, allied with such charm and ease of manner, and her sparkling conversation that evening at the house of a local general set the seal on his feelings. It was as if, with her soldier's
outfit, Henriette assumed the freedom to talk like a man. When a prudish lady remarked that it was peculiar to live with a man with whom one could not converse, Henriette quipped that words were unnecessary for the business she and the Hungarian officer conducted together. When asked what this business could possibly be, she answered that they gambled: ‘Nothing else. We play faro; and I keep the bank', and the stakes were ‘so small that it was not worth counting up'.
⁹
Casanova was entranced by her lighthearted and risqué tone. Since he assumed Henriette was a high-class adventuress, he was convinced that he could easily win her from the Hungarian. With this in mind, the following morning he impetuously offered them both a lift to Parma in his private carriage; impetuously, because he did not own a carriage. When they gratefully accepted his offer Casanova immediately ran out and bought a beautiful English
coupé
at a cost of two hundred sequins, twenty times his monthly allowance from Bragadin. He would spend whatever it took in order to impress Henriette.

It says much about Casanova's attitude to sexual equality that he thought no less of Henriette for being the lover of a man she obviously did not know very well, a man, it soon emerged, whom she had picked up by chance a few days previously. Her mysterious story began to emerge in Bologna, where the travellers spent their first night en route to Parma. With Casanova acting as interpreter, Henriette gave the Hungarian full permission to explain how he had met her. When visiting the ancient port of Civitavecchia near Rome, he recounted, he had spotted Henriette, dressed in men's clothing as she was now, disembarking from a small tartan
¹⁰
in the company of another elderly officer. Later that day Henriette and the officer had checked into the same inn where he was staying and were given the room opposite his, and from his window he had observed that they were scarcely on speaking terms. Presuming, as Casanova now did, that the female masquerader must be a courtesan, he had sent his guide and interpreter to offer Henriette ten sequins for an hour's meeting. She had sent him back the message that she was about to leave for Rome, and that if he wished to see
her again he should contact her there. Once back in Rome himself, he had thought nothing more of Henriette until three days before he was due to leave for Parma, when he had suddenly found out where she was staying. In answer to his urgent note asking to see her before he left the city she had volunteered to meet him two hundred paces outside the walls. There she had climbed up into his carriage and, by gestures and with great difficulty, had given him to understand that she would travel with him all the way to Parma. She had become his lover that day.

What was a young, well-brought-up Frenchwoman doing running around the strictly religious Papal States in breeches, passing herself from man to man as if she were a bag of sweetmeats? Who was the old man with whom she had arrived in Civitavecchia, and what had motivated her to run away from him in Rome and entrust herself to a stranger she could scarcely communicate with? Why did she want to go to Parma? When asked by the two men if she cared to explain her side of the story, Henriette was evasive. The same principle that prevented her from lying to them did not permit her to tell them the truth, she answered carefully, adding that when they arrived in Parma her lover must promise to let her find lodgings by herself, and to pretend not to know her if he saw her by chance in the street.

Mystery enveloped Henriette like a heady perfume, and Casanova was intoxicated by it. Unable to sleep, he spent the night pacing up and down his room talking out loud to himself. Who was this woman who combined ‘the most elevated feelings with an appearance of the greatest libertinism'? Why did she insist on being left to her own devices once they reached Parma? How did she imagine she would survive alone in that city since she spoke no Italian and appeared to possess neither money nor clothing of her own? Alongside these questions ran a current of desire for Henriette so strong that it bordered on anger. Henriette must realise that Casanova was determined to have her, and that he would not let her make a dupe of him!

When he finally fell asleep, Casanova had a vivid dream that he was making love to Henriette. When he awoke, he went directly to
see the Hungarian and, in what was regarded at the time as a civilised, gentlemanly fashion, discussed the possibility of taking Henriette over; his dream had to be turned into reality with the utmost haste. Since the Hungarian seemed more than willing to pass her on, Casanova then approached Henriette herself with a desperation that took the form of a furious harangue. Did she want him to take her to Parma or not? he demanded. She should understand that since he was her friend – since he actually loved her – he could not, as the Hungarian had done, promise to abandon her in the city ‘without money, and with nothing to sell, in the middle of the street in a city where you cannot even talk to anyone …
Forget me
is soon said. Know, madame, that a Frenchman may be able to forget, but an Italian, to judge by myself, has not that singular power.'
¹¹
It was a matter of honour, even of national pride, that Casanova would stick by her. If Henriette did not want him, he would immediately leave for Naples and do his best to forget her. But if she agreed to let him take her to Parma, she must promise to make him happy by the possession of her heart; nothing less would do. Casanova wished to be her only lover, and to enjoy her favours only when he had deserved them ‘by my services and my attentions and by everything I will do for you with a submission of which you will never have seen the like.'
¹²

A weaker, more emotionally involved woman might have felt coerced or upset by Casanova's harangue, but the self-assured Frenchwoman was merely amused by it. Did he understand, she laughed, ‘what it is to say to a woman in a declaration of love, which should be all tenderness,
Madame, one or the other, choose this instant'
?
¹³
Casanova persisted in the same vein: this was an extremely serious matter to him. By giving Henriette an ultimatum, he was honouring, even empowering her by making her the arbiter of both their fates. He was not in a rage but at a pivotal moment in his life, and if he was railing, it was not at her but ‘at my bizarre fortune and those accursed Cesena
sbirri
who woke me up, for had it not been for them I should never have seen you'. So Casanova was sorry he had met her? Henriette teased.