“I have a surprise for you, caro mio,” I said to Vivaldi two days later—in the afternoon, this time—as we dressed in preparation to go downstairs and play music.
He raised an eyebrow at me expectantly. “And what might that be?”
I smiled. “On Friday night, I shall be attending the opera at the Teatro Sant’ Angelo.”
His entire countenance became illuminated at my news. “Eccellente! Have you managed to persuade your father to attend, then?”
“It is not my father who shall be accompanying me.” I hesitated. “It is a suitor with whom I shall be attending.” I rolled my eyes, as though the whole affair were completely ridiculous.
“Oh?” he said, trying to sound nonchalant, though I could see him struggling to hide his consternation. “And who might the lucky bachelor be?”
“His name is Tommaso Foscari,” I said, as though I were naming a young man of no importance, as opposed to the son of the premier family of Venice. “His family owns a box at the theater, I believe.”
“What!” Vivaldi shouted. “You are being courted by a Foscari?”
“I only just met him,” I said. “At the ball on Monday. We danced, and he asked if I would accompany him to the opera. And of course I said yes—to see you.”
“Adriana,” he said, crossing the room and taking me by the shoulders. “Listen to me. If he makes you an offer, you are to accept him, do you understand me? You must accept him!”
“Let go of me,” I said, tearing myself out of his grasp. “I already have my father directing me as to whom I can and should marry; the last thing I need is for you to do the same!”
“Why do you persist in this blindness?” he asked, throwing up his hands. “Do you not see that you must marry someone, someday? Your father will not have it any other way, and besides, what other future can there be for you?”
I opened my mouth to interject, but he held up a hand to silence me.
“I am not finished,” he said coldly. “Tommaso Foscari will be able to give you the world, and then some. If he asks for your hand, you must accept him without thinking twice about me. Are you so blind and stubborn that you cannot see all of this for yourself?”
“Listen to you!” I cried. “If you are so anxious to be rid of me, then perhaps I should just leave now, and let that be an end to it!”
“That is not what I meant,” he said. “Not at all. But what we have cannot last forever. You must acknowledge that.”
“I have acknowledged it,” I retorted. “But that does not mean I am in any rush to be married to a man I have just met.”
Neither of us spoke again for a time, locked in a silent confrontation, each of us refusing to back down. Finally he broke the silence. “If you wish to leave, I will not stop you.”
I took a deep breath, steadying myself. “I do not wish to leave,” I said. “But I thought that you wanted me to—”
“No,” he cut me off quickly. “No. I just hope that you might still have a chance for an ordinary, respectable future after all this. Even though…” He trailed off and sighed. “Even though it may be too late.”
I remained silent.
“Ah, cara.” He crossed the room to me and took me in his arms. I closed my eyes and let myself sink into him. I felt his lips brush against my hair. “What is this life we are living, where we cannot bring ourselves to think of the future?”
“I do not know,” I murmured. “All I know is that I cannot bear to think of any future that does not include you.”
He released me, cupping my face gently in his hands. “You know that I wish things could be different, si?” he asked. “You know that I wish I could be the man who wakes up beside you every day, and that we need have nothing to fear?”
My breath caught in my throat. He had never said such things to me before, not even in our most tender moments. And these things he said he wished for were exactly what I wished for as well, in the deepest hollows of my heart, that place that I tried not to examine too closely for fear of what I might find.
In that moment, I could see this entire future before me, and it seemed so easy. It seemed, right then, that if we wanted it badly enough, all we had to do was reach out and take it.
I could do it. I could open my mouth right now and ask him to renounce the Church, so that things can be different, as we both wish them to be. But even though it seemed such a simple thing, I did not do it. For it was not simple. He was risking so much for me already that I could not bring myself to ask him this one, final thing. I could not ask him to give up the only life he knew for a future that now seemed to be evanescing before my eyes as rapidly as a beautiful dream does when the sun’s rays fall upon it.
He slid his hands down to my shoulders, then my waist, and withdrew them. “But it cannot be,” he went on. “I have nothing to offer you—I cannot even offer you myself, not completely. Yet for what it is worth…” His eyes searched my face. “I love you, Adriana. I do. But I love you enough that I want what is best for you, and unfortunately that does not include me.”
My more sensible, realistic—perhaps bitter—side recognized the truth of his words. Love was simply not going to be enough.
“I know,” I said finally, looking back up to meet his eyes. “But that is the kind of love that hurts.”
A knock on the door downstairs startled us, causing us both to flinch away from each other. A few seconds later, we heard the door open, and Giuseppe’s voice calling out tentatively, “Madonna?” Then, slightly louder, “Adriana?”
“Coming, Giuseppe,” I called. I reached for my cloak and pulled it on. “I must go,” I said. I suddenly found myself unable to look at him. “I am sorry.”
“You have nothing to be sorry for.” He stepped forward and lightly kissed my forehead. “May you get home safely, cara.”
“I will see you two nights hence at the theater,” I said, desperate for this afternoon not to leave a bitter, somber taste in our mouths.
He smiled, as I had hoped he would. “Of course,” he said. “I will look for you in the grandest box of them all.”
“I will be there,” I promised as I moved toward the door, “with eyes only for you.”
* * *
Later, as I walked beside Giuseppe on our way home, I could not help but mull over our argument. My troubled thoughts must have been evident, for Giuseppe, after stealing several sideways glances at me, asked, “You seem out of sorts, madonna. Is anything amiss?”
We had to press our way through a bit of a crowd in the narrow street just then. I waited until Giuseppe drew near me again before replying. “No, I am well enough, Giuseppe. Thank you for asking.”
We moved onto a bridge over a narrow canal, and Giuseppe gently took my elbow and steered me toward the railing, away from anyone who might overhear. “Are you certain? Because you seem to be rather upset.”
I sighed, realizing he knew me entirely too well to be put off with such vague replies. “It is just that … he makes me so angry sometimes!” I burst out. “I love him, yet … one moment I want nothing more than to be with him, and the next I could slap him! The things he says, sometimes … he confuses me. I know not what to think or even to feel half the time.”
To my surprise, Giuseppe chuckled. “Based on my experience, that certainly sounds like an apt description of love. Not the one the poets prefer, of course, but accurate nonetheless.”
I stared at him in astonishment. “So I am not altogether mad?” I asked.
“Well, you may be, but that is a separate matter entirely,” he teased.
“Truly, Giuseppe, what do you mean?” I pressed. “Love is supposed to be like this?”
He leaned his forearms on the iron railing of the bridge and looked out over the water of the canal before us, reflecting the dirty façades of the stone buildings surrounding it. “I do not claim to know how love is supposed to be. I can only tell you what it is—what it has been—for me.” He paused. “I think the people we love cause such violent changes in our emotions because we are so vulnerable to them. When you love someone, you give them power over you, so perhaps it is mostly fear that causes us to react with anger, as we sometimes do—fear that they will misuse the power we have given them, knowingly or not.” He looked up and met my eyes. “I have found this applies not just to romantic love, but also to more friendly or familial attachments as well.”
His words gave me the chance to blurt out the question I had been longing to ask for years. “Why are you so good to me, Giuseppe?” I asked. “What is it that makes you feel so…” I paused. “Responsible for me?”
“That is a question that you must ask your father,” he said, straightening.
“What does my father have to do with this?” I demanded.
He chuckled and moved away from the railing. “More than you know.”
Frowning, I followed him as he began to lead the way back home. “I have not the slightest idea what you mean,” I said.
“And it is not my place to enlighten you on this point.”
My first instinct was to press him on the matter, yet something held me back. If it was something he felt he had no right to tell me, then he must have a good reason. After all, when had Giuseppe ever refused me?
So instead I remained silent, and we walked the rest of the way back to the palazzo without speaking further.