The Secrets of Casanova (22 page)

Jacques glanced across the room. His toes seemed to curl in his shoes. He shook his head. “All those? All those books and … ” He turned back to the Cardinal. “Thank you,” he choked. “Of course, there will be some whose language is incomprehensible to me, and there may be others …” He watched the cardinal’s head slowly wilt. “But you‘ve greatly reduced my burden. The Pontiff shall hear of your excellent assistance, mark my words,” Jacques lied again.

Passonei’s eyes lit with joy.

“And now, I begin immediately.”

“I shall be in the hallway,” said the cardinal, stepping out the door.

Jacques stood as immobile as the books on the shelves. His ruse with the Pope had worked; he had admission to the Index. But now a formidable challenge: to find a book title that matched a line from
Fragonard’s scroll. Jacques clapped his hands together in
anticipation and began. The path to riches was before him.

After several hours, he had scrutinized hundreds of proscribed books by title. He wished to read many of these, not just to inspect
their titles. Paracelsus, Ramón Lull, and the Persian J
ā
bir ibn
Hayyān.
Philosophers and mystics, misunderstood by Christians. Misunderstood—and therefore the Church of Rome declared their
works heretical and
forbidden.
And Lull, himself a lay member of the order of St. Francis. What irony.

Jacques examined a copy of the
Picatrix
for conjuring up the devil, as well as the infamous book on magic,
Clavicula Salomonis
. He perused a treatise by Artephius on the philosopher’s stone. Setting it aside, he picked up another text. It was one he had owned: Aretino’s
Sonetti Lussuriosi
. He sat down at a long table, opened the book, and began. Soon he was laughing aloud. If only he’d an hour to study this profound work with its thirty-two erotic positions.

At noon, Cardinal Passonei entered the room unannounced. He carried with him a lunch for the important guest of the Vatican.

Jacques knew that the more authority he presented, the more rumors would buzz about in theological circles. He decided to test his power.

“Tomorrow for lunch, I’ll require a five-egg omelet.”

The cardinal was momentarily dumbfounded. “I, sir, am neither a cook nor a servant,” he muttered, wandering back to his hall chair. “But you shall have it.”

By late afternoon, Jacques could do no more. He rubbed his eyes and pushed his chair from the table. But how fortunate he felt to browse books human hands had not touched, some for hundreds of years. A number of these most likely were the single existing copy of an original text, maybe something as pagan as Homer—the originals
destroyed by ransacking barbarians or the burning of the
Alexandrine Library by the Roman legions, or by floods, by book burnings, by
book lice even. To actually hold these manuscripts—many
containing
the most precious knowledge of mankind—in his two hands:
astonishing. How precarious was Truth that it could be bundled up and forgotten, shut away in a forbidden library, or utterly destroyed by marauding man?

Jacques did not tarry. His immediate antagonist was time. How much time would be required to scour hundreds, thousands of manuscripts? How long would it take before a title, a trace, a line, leapt out at him?

Jacques dug in his jacket pocket and pulled from it Fragonard’s
riddle. “From one, learn to know all. / To know all, you need but
three. / There is measure in all things. / Stop, Traveler.” And there were the vertical letters “S-O-N-B-O-I-S-I-L-A.” The letters, the verses—all of it remained opaque.

He replaced the scroll in his coat and considered what the
evening had in store. Cardinal de Bernis had asked him to a private dinner
party but, contrary to Jacques’ request, had not invited Dominique.
Of course, to Jacques the gist of de Bernis’ action was clear: debauchery.

He would have to invent a lie for Dominique to swallow.

He stood, stretching and yawning, before making his way to the
archive door. He soon followed Cardinal Passonei down the
hallway.

Wandering past an open door, Jacques noticed the scribes
affixing stamps to
volumina
and marking notations with their quills. In the
corner of the cluttered room, he also saw a water clock. He’d not
seen a
clepsydra since his youth. He’d arrange to take a closer look.
Tomorrow.

At nine o’clock that evening, Jacques sat at table. Before him
spread a culinary splendor that had been catered by Cardinal de
Bernis—great epicure or great glutton, Jacques could not decide which. The cardinal’s vintner had supplied an excellent champagne with which Jacques refilled four glasses. He set the bottle under the table next to another empty.

“For my second toast of this young evening,” Jacques announced while raising his glass, “Cardinal, the loan—or shall I say the gift—you furnished has brought a sheen to my eye. And an itching to my palm.” Jacques held up the small bag of gold coins that de Bernis had earlier bestowed and flopped the purse on the table. “Be so good as to gift me any time it pleases you, Your Flatulence.”

The two actresses who sat at either end of the table joined in De Bernis’ laughter. The response rattled the table china and silverware of the intimate room, setting the two girls to more snickering and allowing Jacques to cast a further critical eye on the two votaries of Thalia that the Cardinal de Bernis had procured.

Charlotte—“La Catai” on the stage—
luminous
, thought Jacques. There was a reserve about her, somewhat incongruous with the abundant bosom she displayed.

The other actress—whose age could not exceed twenty—was
likely
the ingénue of the theatre company. Ample, attractive, with
alabaster skin and blonde hair that made her nearly translucent in the candlelight.
Giselle must be perfection on the stage.
Downing a morsel of food, Jacques sat back in his chair, once again satisfied with the cardinal’s choice—on both counts.

Jacques guessed what was forthcoming:
with two young
women, a competitive rivalry often ensued, and little by little one would attempt to outdo the other. He knew that at these times his principal chore was to hearten the competition, then allow feline nature to …

Two hours and six champagne bottles later, Jacques and the girls lazed in the center of a bed in a room of discriminating decor. The room belonged to Cardinal de Bernis, and though he was nowhere to be seen, yet he was seeing. That is, he’d taken a position in the adjacent room where, through a special notch in the wall, he could partake of the amatory exploits of Jacques and the actress pair.

Jacques, himself unclothed, reclined between the two nude girls. He cradled one in each arm so that they were face-to-face, lying on his chest. Giselle wreathed her hands, stretched her arms ever so slightly toward Charlotte, and brought the young face to her mouth
before licking the full lips of the girl. Charlotte trembled, but
Giselle’s hands held soundly.

Jacques drank in the soft bodies that seemed to float upon him. His mind drifted, while the lazy strum of a guitar mingled with a resonant flute in a nearby street.

As time slowed and bodies wove into surprising patterns of delight, Jacques found the two girls kneeling over his torso, each
holding one another in a gentle hug. The girls kissed sweetly,
lovingly, as they fused together.

For some moments, Jacques took in this amorous picture, but he was not one to admire art without conversing with the artist. He
slowly, carefully extricated his body, rose to his knees, and
repositioned himself next to the embracing girls—the three blending together like swaying willows—in the center of the bed.

Placing a hand around each girl’s buttocks, he began stroking,
squeezing, caressing. Sliding his hand below Charlotte’s buttocks
and between her spreading legs, Jacques reached his other hand likewise, between Giselle’s thighs, his fingers investigating the glossy hair of each, while he gently maneuvered toward their warmth. In Giselle, Jacques found what he desired. Then, in Charlotte.

He guessed the cardinal was also finding what he craved, that he might be particularly in the mood for the rich sensuality of the
ménage à trois. In times past, Jacques had excited the clergyman
with athletic feats and wildly imaginative sexual displays. But tonight, Jacques and his lovers excelled in slow and desirous lovemaking.

For this, the Cardinal would be indebted.

Jacques felt tender convulsions from the girls who, still
embracing,
kissed longingly. Giselle opened her eyes momentarily, turned
toward him holding his gaze, until soon her eyelids fluttered closed once again. Charlotte’s lips, now gliding to her neck, sucked covetously.

Jacques watched and resumed his massage of the girls’
wetness—the gift of their subtle scent amplifying his desire. So firmly were the pair pressed together that Jacques’ fingers stroked each at the same time, advancing his delicate work.

This pleasing task continued, a rhythm establishing itself: from time to time Charlotte sobbed, throwing back her head, allowing her deepest passion to fly up. Giselle then covered Charlotte’s face with lingering kisses.

Whenever Charlotte leaned briefly away, Jacques offered his
mouth to Giselle and was rewarded with a warm, pliant tongue flitting across the arch of his lips. His body further flooded with need. He worked his fingers steadily, faster in the wetness—both girls now loosed in abandon.

Giselle and Charlotte gasped, then hastened their bodies to full excitement. Growling ardently, they released one another—Charlotte giving way to her back, pulling Giselle slowly on top of her, facing her, kissing her.

His manhood hardened with strength, Jacques saw no reason to part the two. He fit his slick hands around his jewel, lubricating his hardness, and from behind inserted himself into the lushness of Giselle’s sex. The girl moaned when Jacques began his gentle push.

In a blink it was over—as Jacques, animated well beyond
capacity, delivered his heated thrust.

Presently, the girls began to sigh. The moment slowly passed, and lying side by side, both closed their eyes and fell into sleep. Jacques savored well the gratifying sight before chuckling to himself.
Although the cardinal may have expected his amatory enthusiast to provide entertainment of a far-longer duration, he will undoubtedly find his own path to bliss.

“THIS WOMAN
is a vital part of my studies,” Jacques stressed. “You may be sure of it. Now, shall I bring this matter before the Pope?” The marble hallway echoed Jacques’ stern voice. This early
morning, he was not sparing in his forceful words to Cardinal Passonei. Even Dominique, who stood at Jacques’ side, appeared
disgruntled.

One or two scribes shoved into a hallway door to see the disturbance.

Passonei’s head swiveled like a sparrow surrounded by feral cats. “There’s no need to trouble His Holiness. If she—this woman—facilitates your work, as you insist, she’s permitted to join you in the archives. But only in this room,” sputtered the cardinal.

After the cardinal removed his spectacles and shuffled into the hallway, Jacques smiled: at his side in the Index was his helper for the stout undertaking ahead.

The morning passed quickly.

Because Dominique could not read, she aided Jacques by
removing manuscripts from shelves, returning them, even dusting them, all the
while ignorant that the archive contained writings prohibited by her
Church.

Jacques had told her only that he’d received admittance to one of the Vatican’s theological libraries.

No reason to trouble her conscience, he reasoned.

With her naïve hands, Dominique brought him book after book: Agrippa’s works on magic and alchemy, including his
De occulta philosphia
; Nicholas Copernicus’
De revolutionibus orbium coelestium libri VI
, which proved the heliocentric system; a scripture entitled
Sinaiticus
; licentious stories by Crébillon the Younger; Blaise Pascal’s elegant
Pensées
.

Jacques did not read Hebrew or Aramaic, so the
Midrasch-Na-
Zohar
was passed over. He riffled through works on Freemasonry, magic, witchcraft, and necromancy—works he’d heard of while a young
man in Venice. As the morning progressed, he found himself
appalled that the Vatican churchmen had not categorized or sorted the books.

At noon, Dominique approached Jacques. After confiding her need for a lavatory, he stood, and the couple traipsed through the Index door where—just outside it—they found Cardinal Passonei snoring loudly, the long hallway redoubling his every wheeze. From the ceiling, a painted flock of tiny
putti
, fat little cherubs, grinned.

Jacques woke the sleeping man and requested his counsel:
Dominique had a necessary function to perform. But where? To this, the yawning cardinal pointed to his right far down the hallway, then dropped his head back to sleep.

Strolling to the lavatory, Jacques noticed that the low bustle of the scribes in other rooms was not to be heard. Perhaps it was time for their meal. Or possibly it was their daytime prayers that kept them from their duties.

What Jacques did not see was the old cardinal, his eyes slivered open, watching the couple move down the hall.

When her necessaries were finished, Dominique joined Jacques, and the pair began their walk back to the Index.

Through a crack of an opened door, a light struck Jacques’ eye—a reflection emanating from the water clock he had seen the day before. Glancing down the hallway at the sleeping Passonei, Jacques cautiously pushed open the door before coaxing Dominique into the large room. He scanned the room.