‘Il giramondo’ he said, as his name - 'the wanderer'. Would she remember?
Footsteps came to the door. He raised his mask. It opened slowly, and there was a woman before him, in red velvet and a mask. Renzi saw the glitter of dark eyes behind the mask, then it dropped to reveal a delighted Lucrezia. Her vivacity and Italianate presence were just as he remembered. 'Niccolo — mio caro? Niccolo!' she screamed, and clung to him, her warmth and fragrance intoxicating. He thrust back guilt at the memory of how he had treated her and allowed himself to be drawn into the house.
In the opulence of the chamber she eyed him keenly. 'You - you 'ave changed, Niccolo,' she said softly. 'An' where Guglielmo?'
It were better that his wild companion of the Grand Tour be allowed to live down those days in anonymity, Renzi decided. He was now one of England's most celebrated new poets. 'Um, married,' he said. 'Lucrezia, I—' A flood of inchoate feelings and unresolved doubts roared through his head.
She looked at him intendy. 'You're still the crazy one, Niccolo - and now you come?'
'If it does not inconvenience,' he said.
Little more than a child before, she had now firmed to a woman of grace and looks, and was just as much in possession of her own soul.
'Niccolo ... it is Carnivale, not s' good to have heavy thoughts now, carissimi nonni?’ A shadow passed over her face. Then she said impulsively, 'Come, we shall 'ave chocolate at Florian's.'
'But Carlo—'
'It is Carnival. I don' know where he is,' she said impatiently. 'We go in th' gondola Carradini.'
The family gondola waited by the small landing platform at the water frontage of the house, varnished black with a shuttered cabin in the centre. Renzi allowed himself to be handed aboard and the two gondoliers took position noiselessly, gazing discreedy into the middle distance.
Renzi and Lucrezia settled into the cushions of the closed cabin, her features softened to a tender loveliness by the little lamp. The craft pushed off with a gentle sway. Firmly, she reached across and pulled the louvred shutters closed, and then, just as purposefully, drew him to her.
They stepped ashore arm in arm into the magnificence of St Mark's Square, alive with excitement and colour, light and sequins, noise and mystery. There was an electric charge in the air, a feverish intensity that battered deliciously at the senses. They passed by the looming campanile into the arched colonnades of the square,
Renzi's spirits willingly responding to the vibrancy of the atmosphere.
Caffe Florian had, if anything, increased in splendour. Outrageously clothed exquisites bowed to each other under glittering chandeliers hanging from polished wood panelling, their subdued voices occasionally broken through with silver}' laughter. Renzi and Lucrezia sat together in a red padded alcove.
'Questo mi piace,' Renzi breathed, but Lucrezia held her silence until the chocolate came.
Renzi did his best to pull himself together. 'Tell me, what of this Buonaparte? Does he threaten Venice, do you think?'
She went rigid: he could see her eyes darting furtively behind the mask, scanning the room. 'Niccolo — pliss, never say again!' She lowered her mask so he could see her seriousness. 'Venezia, it is not like you remember. It is dangerous times now, ver' dangerous!' He could hardly hear her soft words, and bent forward. She smiled, popped a sweetmeat into his mouth, and continued in a whisper, affecting to impart endearments: 'The Council of Ten have th' Inquisition, an army of spies, look everywhere for th' Jacobin.' Renzi could sense her tension behind the gay smile. 'Ever'where — you never know who.'
She slid towards him, close enough that her words could not be intercepted. 'Carlo, he brings wine from Friuli, he says French are all over nort' Italy like locust, nothing can stop them, not even th' Austrians.' Staring at her drink, she went on, 'Montenotte, Lodi — that Buonaparte, he will not be contented with this. And he advance ver' fast — an' all the Veneqani think to do is more spies — and Carnivale’
Renzi caught her eye. 'As it's said, "Venetians don't taste their pleasures, they swallow them whole"!'
She giggled, then sobered again. 'Niccolo — don' you trust anyone, not anyone!'
'Not even you?' he teased.
'You must trust me,' she said seriously. Then she cupped her chin in her hands and looked up at him. 'Il giramondo — you are ver' strong now, I feel it.'
The warmth of the evening fell away in layers, and the cold reality of a grey, sea-tossed world penetrated even this conviviality, drawing him back. Reminiscences, hard memories pushed themselves into his consciousness, building a pressure of unresolved forces that he knew he must face.
‘Cara Lucrezia, ti voglio appassionatamente, but I fear I'm no fit companion this night...'
'I understan' this, Niccolo.' She regarded him closely. 'What diavolo rides on your back, God know.'
'Lucrezia, can we talk somewhere?'
'Th' gondola,' she responded, and they rose and left. The gondoliers were on hand, as if by magic, and the chill of the night was kept at bay within the comfort of the cabin.
'You have changed, Niccolo — I don' know,' she said tenderly, plucking at his waistcoat as if in doubt of its exotic origins. A wave of feeling broke: he would tell everything, whatever the cost.
He said the words and, looking into her eyes, saw pity, compassion — and insight. She did understand — the transformation of a careless youth to a morally sensitive adult through the harrowing suicide of the son of a farmer, ruined by an Act of Enclosure enforced by his family; the conviction and, more importantly, commitment to a course of action in atonement.
'My sentence is exile from my world, at sea. The problem lies in that since then I have grown to respect, admire and, if you can believe it, in some ways prefer the purity of the brotherhood of the sea.'
Renzi had found opportunities for the deepest considerations of the intellect in the long watches of the night, and he could bring to memory many a conversation with Kydd that he would never admit" had settled his own doubts as much as his friend's.
Her hand crept out to seize his. 'But this is not your world, Niccolo,' she whispered.
A lump rose in Renzi's throat. 'I know it. There are times—' How could he show how much he was torn? The sturdy honesty of deep-sea mariners, their uncomplicated courage and direct speaking had to be contrasted with their deep ignorance of the world, their lacking of subtlety to the point of obtuseness. But such a degree of friendship, won in adversity and tested in perils, was never to be found on land where daily trial of character was not a way of life.
He tried to explain - her intent expression encouraged him. He went on to describe the satisfactions: the change in world-view when the horizon was never a boundary but an opportunity, not the same daily prospect and limit but a broad highway to other lands, other experiences. And the different value for time at sea, when discourse could be followed to its own true end, the repose of mind resulting from the realisation that time aboard ship would not be hurried, varied, dissipated.
The harsh conditions of his exile compared with his privileged upbringing were not the primary concern — a monk would understand the self-denial involved. In fact, as he examined it, explained it, there came a clarifying and focusing.
Kydd. Without any doubt, Kydd's friendship had saved his sanity and made possible the enduring of his sentence. Renzi knew his own mind needed nurture and satisfaction or it would suffer a sterile withering, and he had found both in Kydd's intelligence and level-headed thinking. And they had shared so much together — what they had shared!