A Venetian Affair: A true story of impossible love in the eighteenth century

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Andrea settled in at the Tiepolos’ for the rest of summer. His health fully regained and his sister apparently out of immediate danger, he was anxious to catch up on the time not spent with Giustiniana. They were soon back to their old routine, working their messengers to exhaustion and conniving with trusted allies to set up secret meetings. Giustiniana’s muslins were swishing again as she rushed off on the sly for quick visits to the “hovel”—which she now called “our pleasure house”—or to the caretaker’s, to the Tiepolos’, or even to the village bottega if they were feeling especially daring. When they were not together, they sent notes planning their next escapade. Giustiniana was in heaven. There were no worries in her mind, no dark clouds in the sky: “Am I really entirely in your heart? My Memmo, how deeply I feel my happiness! What delightful pleasure I feel in possessing you. There were times, I confess, in which I doubted my own happiness. Now, Memmo, I believe in you completely, and I am the happiest woman in the world. What greater proof of tenderness, of friendship, of true affection can I possibly want from you, my precious one? My heart and soul, you are inimitable. And it will be a miracle if so much pleasure and joy do not drive me entirely mad.”

In the tranquil atmosphere of the Venetian summer, when the days were held together by card games, a little gossip, and an evening trottata, the sudden burst of activity between the Tiepolos’ villa and Le Scalette did not go unnoticed. There was much new talk about Andrea and Giustiniana among the summer crowd. Even certain members in the Wynne household grew worried. Aunt Fiorina, always sympathetic to their cause, had been aware of the intense correspondence between the two lovers over the course of the summer but had refrained from making an issue of it. When she learned that Andrea and Giustiniana were actually seeing each other, however, she put her foot down and subjected her niece to “a long rebuke.” The stakes with the consul were too high for them to be playing such a dangerous game, she explained.

Fiorina’s alarm presaged worse things to come. Andrea went back to Venice on family business for a few days. Giustiniana wrote to him several times, but the letters never reached him; her messenger had been intercepted. Someone in the Wynne household—perhaps in the servants’ quarters—had betrayed Giustiniana and handed the letters over to Mrs. Anna. The last lines of a frantic message to Andrea are the only fragment that has survived to give us a sense of the panic and chaos that ensued:

… the most violent remedies. It is known that I have written to Venice, but not to whom! Everyone, my Memmo, is spying on me…. Don’t abandon me now, and don’t take any chances by writing to me. I won’t lose you, but if something violent were to happen, I feel capable of anything. If you leave me I shall die, my soul!

Alas, Mrs. Anna knew very well to whom Giustiniana had written in Venice because she was also in possession of some of Andrea’s letters—letters she had intercepted before they could be delivered to her daughter. She confronted Giustiniana, shaking with anger. “All day was an absolute hell—if Hell can really be that horrible,” Giustiniana wrote to Andrea a few days later, when she was finally able to seclude herself (“I must write to you where and when I can”). At the height of her fury Mrs. Anna threatened to sue Andrea and “expose him as a seducer who upsets peaceful families,” she raged, “for the letters I have in my hands prove that he is just that.” Giustiniana pleaded for mercy with such force and conviction that eventually she managed to calm her mother down. In tears, Mrs. Anna withdrew her threat but warned her daughter there would not be another reprieve: “I will have you watched all the time, I will keep my eyes wide open, I will know everything. And remember that I have enough in my hands to ruin Signor Memmo.”

The worst was avoided—what could have been more nightmarish than seeing their love story torn to shreds in a courtroom? But the betrayal had suddenly exposed the secret life of the two lovers. The places they met, their secret arrangements, their promises of lifelong love and devotion—everything was now known to Mrs. Anna. She had a list of the names of their messengers and accomplices. There was not much she could do about the Tiepolos except prohibit her daughter from setting foot in their house. But within the Wynne household, retribution was swift. The servants who had abetted the lovers were given a scolding and punished harshly. Alvisetto, who had been in on the whole thing from the start, was sent away.

There is something deeply sad about Alvisetto’s dismissal, which reminds us to what degree a servant’s life was in the hands of his padrone—his master. In general the master of the house and his wife had a formal, even distant relationship with the servants. But the younger members of the household had a closer rapport with the house staff. They would often appear in the servants’ quarters to trade gossip or ask a favor. And it was not uncommon for a daughter of the house to confide some of her secrets to a maid (or for a son to seek sexual favors). But it was always an imbalanced and ultimately ambiguous relationship. And there was often as much room for treachery as there was for connivance—on both sides. After all, Giustiniana found her allies in the kitchen at Le Scalette, but she had probably found her betrayer there as well. Goldoni made fun of the complicated relations between masters and servants in one of his most popular plays. But poor Alvisetto was nothing like “the wily and dumb” Truffaldino, the main character in A Servant for Two Masters. One has the feeling that, all along, he had been forced by Giustiniana and Andrea to cooperate with them against his better judgment. Now he was being made to pay, very dearly, for a mess that was not of his making. And they could do nothing to save him.

The two lovers managed to resume communications within a few days. Giustiniana barricaded herself in a kindly peasant’s home on the property, where she hastily scribbled her notes to Andrea. But seeing each other was out of the question, given the circumstances. “Ah, Memmo, what must I do? … Will I ever see you again? I love you more than ever, but I am losing you! … Help me, tell me what to do.” It was not long before they found a solution. Andrea suggested he write a letter to Mrs. Anna, professing his undying love for Giustiniana and offering to marry her in a couple of years if Consul Smith did not make an offer. It was a bluff: Andrea and Giustiniana both knew he was not planning to make good on the promise. But he thought it would convince Mrs. Anna that his intentions were honorable and she might therefore allow them to see each other. It was a risky strategy for a short-term gain. Nevertheless, Giustiniana agreed to the plan and decided to bring her aunt Fiorina in on it to a point—telling her about the letter Andrea wished to write to Mrs. Anna but without explaining to her that it was a deception. Aunt Fiorina responded with mixed feelings. “There is no denying that Memmo loves you and that he is a gentleman,” she said to her niece. His proposal was “very reasonable.” The problem, as she saw it, was getting Mrs. Anna to consider listening to him. But she was willing to help.

Even with Aunt Fiorina on their side, Giustiniana felt that, in the end, success or failure hinged on Andrea finding the right tone and words with which to address her mother. Her instructions to him were very precise—and they showed a considerable determination to take charge of the situation.

You will begin your letter by complaining that I have not written to you. You will tell me that you know in your heart that I love you deeply. You will assure me that you love me in the extreme and that to prove it you had written to my mother because you wanted her to hear an important suggestion you had to make—at which point you will copy the letter you have prepared for her. The most important thing (and here, my dear, you need to be artful and I want you to trust me) is to show yourself resolute in offering to write up a document in which, as you have said, you will promise to marry me in two years if Smith or some better party does not come along and propose to me. Give several reasons why it would be advantageous for me to marry you and add that it is your deep love for me that brings you to make this proposition, which you already know will be embraced by me with all my heart. And say you will have to wait because your present circumstances do not allow you to go through with the proposal at this time but in two years things should happen that could make us happy and comfortable for the rest of our lives…. [Add] that we would be very careful to keep this promise a secret.

It is hard to imagine that deep in her heart Giustiniana, though fully aware it was all a scheme, did not hope it would all actually come true, and that in two years’ time she would be married to Andrea. If she did, she kept it to herself.

Andrea struggled over a first draft. Giustiniana showed it to Fiorina, who was “satisfied with [Andrea’s] sentiments” but a little daunted by the resentment he expressed toward Mrs. Anna. “She told me to tell you that to seduce that woman one must flatter her—not be aggressive.” She asked Andrea to try again. “My love,” she added to encourage him, “what happiness will come our way if we manage to deceive her! Either Smith will marry me, in which case we won’t need [the subterfuge], or he won’t marry me, in which case she certainly won’t take away from the man whom she thinks will one day marry me the freedom to be with me from time to time.”

Andrea’s second draft, however, was even more disappointing.

My Memmo, this is not the sort of letter that will get us what we want…. It is weak and useless, so you will understand why I haven’t shown it to my mother and not even to my aunt. The other one was stronger and would have served our purpose wonderfully if you had simply deleted the few lines in which you insulted my mother…. In this one I see only the lover…. So write a new letter or rewrite the first one the way I told you to…. Send it immediately…. My aunt has already asked me if it had arrived, and it would be a pity if she saw us so unhurried in a matter of such importance