Free What Casanova Told Me by Susan Swan Page B

government of the good intentions of the French. It was a lucky coincidence because I was eager to see the gaol where the man Jacob Casanova was imprisoned. My parent knows nothing of my tête-à-tête in the Campanile with the old Venetian. Nor had I ever told him who had given me the dog. I had said I found Finette in the street, and Father was too preoccupied to bother with a stray.
    The old justice building hides beneath its frilly Gothic façade three prisons: the Wells, a horrible sewer beneath the edifice of Istrian marble, where prisoners float in sea water; the Fours, which Father refused to describe to me; and the Leads, built directly under the lead roof of the Ducal Palace. Because the lead heats up in the summer sun, the cells are deadly during the warmer months.
    We entered the Palace of the Doge by an old door called the Porta della Carta, ornamented with slender pillars, statues and the inevitable winged lion of San Marco. Father puffed and sighed as we made our way through a series of rooms—too beautiful to be properly described—rooms such as the Sala dell’Anticollegio, the waiting room of the ambassadors, and the Sala del Maggior Consiglio, the banquet hall where the Doge gives state dinners. The walls of the banquet hall were hung with portraits by Tintoretto and Bassano. Father noticed only the rills of stinking water on the stairs. He looks poorly. There are dark rings under his eyes and from time to time I glimpse an empty look in his eyes.
    The news of war has upset my parent who hoped the sea air in Venice would do him good. Instead, he claimshis constitution is bothered by the filth of its stopped-up gutters and the slops the Venetians empty onto the roofs of their neighbours’ houses. And he misses the Boston newsrooms where men gather to talk politics.
    “Venice is the Grave of Virtue,” Father said as we made our way into the Great Council Hall, his eyes alert for human offal.
    “Oh, Father!” I cried, hoping to distract him. “Look at Tintoretto’s portrait of Heaven! Is it not beautiful?”
    As we stopped by the painting, the Doge’s minion, Marino Faliero, introduced himself. He told us he was a descendant of the first Doge who had built the Ducal Palace.
    Monsieur Faliero led us first to the cells in the east overlooking the canal, the Rio di Palazzo, and the famous Bridge of Sighs where for centuries prisoners have taken their last look at Venice before descending into the watery quarters of the Wells. The little arched bridge was picturesque but I was interested in the Leads, where Finette’s owner had been kept prisoner, and was relieved when Monsieur Faliero took us there directly afterwards, Father wheezing beside me. As we peered into these empty rooms, I tried to caution myself about accepting the old Venetian’s tale. You see, I possess a gullible nature and am only too eager to believe whatever marvellous things I am told—simply because they are marvellous.
    I told Father I did not see how any prisoner could escape from the Ducal Palace. He laughed and asked why any prisoner would wish to escape. With their easy chairs and pillow beds, and despite the low ceilings—both Father and I had to stoop as we entered the rooms—the gaol is more comfortable than the parlours of many farms in Quincy.
    I asked Monsieur Faliero if he knew Jacob Casanova and he said that many years ago he’d seen the Chevalier de Seingalt taking a hot chocolate drink at the Florian.
    “What did Monsieur Casanova look like?” I asked.
    “A dandy of the first order! Very tall, with a strange, sunburnt complexion.”
    “Why are you interested in this man?” Father asked me.
    “It is part of the lore of the Palace,” I said, pleased Monsieur Faliero had described someone resembling Monsieur Casanova. I spoke not a word more in case Father noticed my excitable state. I wanted to see the inscription under the plank in the seventh cell that Monsieur Casanova described. But the little dog