One of Andrea’s best friends was his cousin Lucrezia Pisani, the young lady he had bumped into on the bridge as he was chasing Giustiniana. She was lively and attractive and popular among Andrea’s set. She often had interesting company at her house, and Andrea liked to drop by. His breezy reports on his visits there, however, made Giustiniana feel excluded. When she heard he was seeing Lucrezia more and more frequently on the days when they could not be together, she protested angrily. Andrea was taken aback by her attitude. Lucrezia was an old friend, he argued, an ally; she was one of the few who knew about their love affair. He reacted to Giustiniana’s indignation with even greater indignation:
What have I done to you? What sort of creature are you? What on earth are you thinking? And what doggedness! What cruelty! So now it would appear that I have been courting Lucrezia for the past ten days…. Well, first of all, the timing is wrong: she’s been in the countryside for the past several days. I would have gone with her. I chose not to. Meanwhile, I’ve been at home most of the time, evenings included. I’ve had lunch with her once. True, every time I have met her at the theater I have sat in her box…. But could I have sat alone or even with a single friend throughout an entire show? … I am mad to even defend myself. Yes, I like her company and I admit it. First of all because she is one of the easiest women to be around…. She is also witty, knowledgeable, clever. You can talk to her freely, and she often has good company…. Besides, she is your friend, she often asks about you with interest…. You are crazy, crazy, crazy. You will drive me mad with your endless suspicions. Still, I guess I must try to appease you in any case. So rest assured: I won’t be seen with her anymore. But where may I go? Anywhere I went there would be new gossip and new scenes…. By God, I will have to lock myself up in my room, under permanent surveillance, otherwise you still won’t believe me. But of course when no one sees me around people will start thinking that I’m enjoying myself even more secretively. What a life.
Giustiniana’s suspicions, however, were not entirely unjustified: there was talk around town that Lucrezia did indeed have a liking for Andrea that went beyond their old friendship. When Giustiniana’s mood did not improve, Andrea realized he would have to do something more drastic to placate her. He went about it in a manner that revealed his own penchant for intrigue:
This is a difficult thing to ask, but you are so easy, so free from prejudice, you have such a good spirit and are always so obliging with me that it is possible you might grant me this favor. Lucrezia torments me by always asking if she can see some of your letters to me—which I have never permitted her to do. Therefore I would like for you to write me a letter in French in which you praise her. You might add in passing that, while not jealous of her, you do think she is too intelligent not to realize that it would be preferable if I were not seen so often with her. She already knows all the love I have for you and your commitment to me. I assure you that the only reason I am asking you to do this is so that she will convince herself that I am in love with a woman more special than her…. If you’re not up to it, it doesn’t really matter. It’s enough that you love me.
Giustiniana was uncomfortable with this sort of game playing. A little deception to avoid Mrs. Anna’s controls and to meet Andrea on the sly was one thing. But she found his recourse to artifice for the sake of artifice a little unsettling. The ease with which he could transform himself from the most tender and loving companion to the craftiest manipulator was a trait that seemed embedded in his character. And whereas Lucrezia, an experienced operator herself, would probably not have given Andrea’s behavior great significance, Giustiniana found it much harder to understand. She too had a seductive side, a propensity to flirt with men both young and old. But excessive ambiguity made her ill at ease. She held fast to a rule of love that was not very common among other young Venetians: the exclusivity of romantic feelings. So she was stunned to hear, when she went over to the Morosinis’ for lunch shortly after the Lucrezia episode, that Andrea was also flirting with Mariettina Corner, another well-known seductress. Mariettina’s love life was complicated enough as it was: she was married to Lucrezia’s brother, had an official lover and was having an affair with yet a third man, Piero Marcello—a gambler and philanderer who happened to be a neighbor of the Wynnes’. Giustiniana was told that though Mariettina was carrying on the relationship with Piero, it was really Andrea she had her eyes on.
Again she confronted him, and again he blamed her for believing every scrap of gossip floating around the Morosinis’: “What are they telling you, these people with whom you seem to enjoy yourself so much? And why do you believe them if you know they hate me? You accuse me of making love to Mariettina…. But why is it you always fear I’m causing you offense with all the women I see?”
The story of Andrea’s presumed affair with Mariettina had all the ingredients of a Goldoni farce. It turned out that Andrea, at Mariettina’s request, had acted as a go-between in her secret romance with Piero. And Giustiniana—as Andrea was quick to remind her—had even encouraged him to take on that role because she felt that as long as Mariettina was busy with other men she would not present a threat to her. But Andrea’s comings and goings between the two lovers had provided the gossipmongers with plenty to talk about. In the ensuing confusion Giustiniana didn’t know whom to believe. Andrea acknowledged that “some people might well have thought Mariettina had developed an interest in me…. After all, I was constantly whispering in her ear and she was whispering in mine…. She talked to me, gestured to me, sat next to me while apparently not caring a hoot about [her lover], her husband—indeed the world.” He insisted it was all a terrible misunderstanding: he was innocent and Giustiniana was “stupid” if she bothered “to spend a moment on all this talk the Morosinis fill your head with.”
It wasn’t easy for her to dismiss the things she heard about Andrea, because so much of his life was invisible to her, out of reach. The rumors were all the more hurtful because they reverberated in circles to which she was admitted but to which she did not truly belong. Giustiniana knew or was acquainted with most of Andrea’s friends and was a welcome guest in the houses of many patrician families. But even though the veil of social discrimination was perhaps not as visible as elsewhere in Europe, it was very real; it governed Venetian society in subtle and less subtle ways—as in the case of marriage. When Giustiniana wrote to Andrea about his woman friends, there was often an undercurrent of anxiety that went quite beyond a natural romantic jealousy.
Still, she had her own little ways of getting back at him.
As Andrea and Giustiniana struggled to clear up the misunderstanding about his role in their friends’ affair, Mariettina threw one of her celebrated balls on the Giudecca—an island separated from the southern side of Venice by a wide canal, where patricians had pleasure houses with gardens and vineyards. This was one of the major social events of the season. Preparations went on for days. Young Venetian ladies had a notorious taste for luxury. They liked to wear rich and elaborate but relatively comfortable outfits, so they could move with greater ease during the minuets and furlane, a popular dance that originated from the Friuli region. They spent hours having their hair coiffed into tall beehives, which they decorated with gems and golden pins. Their long fingernails were polished in bright colors. They drenched themselves with exotic perfume and chose their beauty spots with special care (the appassionata was worn in the corner of the eye, the coquette above the lip, the galante on the chin, and the assassina—the killer—in the corner of the mouth).1 They carried large, exquisitely embroidered fans and wore strings of pearls and diamonds. High heels had long been out of fashion: Venetian ladies preferred more sensible low evening shoes, often decorated with a diamond buckle. These were fabulously expensive but very comfortable, especially for dancing. Men wore the traditional French costume: silk long jacket, knee-length culottes, and white stockings. Elaborate cuffs and jabots of lace from the island of Burano gave a Venetian touch to their attire. Their elegant evening wigs were combed and groomed for the occasion.
Mariettina’s ball offered a chance for Andrea and Giustiniana to see each other and clarify things once and for all. But Giustiniana, still feeling vexed by the whole imbroglio, was not in the mood for such a demanding social event. She sent this note to Andrea just as he was dressing