The Man Who Sees Ghosts

BOOK ONE

T

HE EVENTS

that I here set down and to which I myself was for the most part a witness will for many seem beyond belief. For those few who are familiar with a certain political event—if indeed these pages find them still living—it will offer a welcome insight; and for others not privy to this knowledge it may constitute an important contribution to the history of the deceit and confusion that the mind is capable of. The reader will be astounded at the boldness of the stratagem that wicked men are capable of planning and executing, and by the strangeness of the means they can muster in order to ensure the success of this stratagem. My pen will be guided by the pure and unadulterated truth, for when these pages go out into the world I will no longer be alive and will have nothing to gain or lose by the report I make.

It was on my return journey to ‘Kurland’ around carnival time in the year 17** that I visited the Prince von ** in Venice. We had got to know each other while on military service with the ** regiment and were now to renew an acquaintance that peace had interrupted. Since I was anyway eager to see the most notable sights of this city and the Prince was only awaiting some bills of exchange in order to return to **, he easily persuaded me to keep him company and to delay my departure until then. We reached an agreement not to separate for the duration of our stay in Venice and the Prince was good enough to offer me his own apartments in the Hotel Il Moro.

He lived under the strictest incognito because he wished to lead the kind of life he liked and because his small allowance would anyway not have permitted him a style befitting the nobility of his rank: two gentlemen, on whose discretion he could depend completely, made up, alongside some faithful servants, his entire retinue. He avoided extravagance more from temperament than from frugality. He shunned pleasures; at the age of thirty-five he had resisted all the enticements of this voluptuous city. Up till now he had been indifferent to the fair sex. His nature was ruled by a deep seriousness and fanciful melancholy. His tastes were quiet but stubborn to the point of excess; the way he came to decisions was slow and diffident; his affections were warm and undying. In the midst of a noisy mêlée of people he walked alone; shut off in the world of his imagination, he was often a stranger in the real world. No-one was more disposed from birth to be led by others without yet being weak. He was, moreover, fearless and dependable once he was won over and was possessed of great courage, both when combating what he perceived to be a prejudice and when willing to die for one not so perceived.

Being the third prince of his house, there was little prospect of his taking up the reins of power. Ambition had never stirred in him: his passions had taken another direction. Content not to be beholden to the will of others, he felt no temptation to lord it over anyone: all that he wished for lay within the narrow confines of the quiet freedom of a private life and the pleasures of intellectually stimulating company. He read a lot but indiscriminately; a neglected education and early military service had resulted in a mind that had never reached full maturity. All the knowledge he acquired subsequently resulted only in increasing the confusion of his ideas, since they were not built on solid ground.

He was Protestant like his whole family—more because he had been born into it than as a result of any investigation—never undertaken—as to whether he might have become a religious zealot at some period of his life. As far as I know he was never a Freemason.

One evening as we were walking in the Piazza San Marco on our own and heavily masked, as was the custom—it was getting late and the throng had dispersed—the Prince noticed a mask following us everywhere we went. The mask was of an Armenian and was walking alone. We quickened our step and sought by frequent changes of direction to shake him off—in vain, for the mask remained close behind us all the time.

You haven’t got embroiled in some affair here, have you? the Prince asked me finally. Venetian husbands are dangerous.

I am not associated with any lady at all, I rejoined.

We’ll sit down here and speak German, he continued. I would imagine we have been mistaken for someone else."

We sat down on a stone bench, expecting the mask to pass us by. It came right up to us and sat down close by the Prince’s side. The latter pulled out his watch and, standing up, said to me loudly in French: It’s past nine o’clock. Come. We’re forgetting we are expected at the ‘Louvre’. He said this simply to throw the mask off our scent.

Nine o’clock, the mask repeated emphatically and slowly in the very same language. Pray for good fortune for yourself, Prince ***, (calling him by his true name). It was at nine o’clock that he died.—With this he stood up and left.

We looked at each other in dismay. Who died? said the Prince finally, after a long silence. Let’s go after him, I said, and demand an explanation. We crept through every corner of San Marco—the mask was no longer to be found. Disappointed we returned to our lodgings. On the way the Prince didn’t say a word to me, walking to one side and alone, and seeming to be locked in a powerful struggle, as indeed he confessed to me later.

Once home, he broke his silence again for the first time. It is really laughable, he said, that a madman is able to shatter a man’s peace with two words. We wished each other good night, and as soon as I was in my room I made a note of the day and hour when this took place. It was a Thursday.

The following evening the Prince said to me: Shall we take a stroll across San Marco and look for our mysterious Armenian? I am intrigued to see how this comedy will unfold. I agreed. We remained in the square until eleven. The Armenian was nowhere to be seen. We repeated this the following four evenings and with no better success.

As we were leaving our hotel on the sixth evening, I was prompted to leave a message behind with the servants—I no longer recall whether I did this involuntarily or on purpose—telling them where we might be found should anyone ask for us. The Prince remarked on my solicitude, which he praised with a smile. There was a large press of people in the Piazza San Marco when we arrived. Hardly had we gone thirty paces when I once more spied the Armenian, who was working his way through the crowd hurriedly and appeared from his expression to be looking for someone. We were about to reach him when a member of the Prince’s entourage, Baron von F**, came up to us breathlessly and handed the Prince a letter. It bears a black seal, he added. We assumed it was urgent. This struck me like a bolt of thunder. The Prince had stepped over to a lamp and now began to read. My cousin has died, he cried. When? I burst in.

He looked at the letter again. Last Thursday. At nine o’clock in the evening.

Before we had time to recover from our astonishment the Armenian was standing in our midst. You are known here, sir, he said to the Prince. Go in haste to your hotel, the Il Moro. You will find the Senate’s deputies there. Have no misgivings about accepting the honour that you will be offered. Baron von F** forgot to tell you that your bills of exchange have arrived. He was lost in the crowd.

We hurried to our hotel. Everything fell out as the Armenian had foretold. Three of the Republic’s noblemen were waiting to welcome the Prince and accompany him with all due ceremony to the assembly where the city’s chief nobility awaited him. He had just enough time to let me know by means of a swift sign that I should wait up for him.

He returned that night towards eleven. Solemnly and rapt in thought he came into the room and, after dismissing the servants, grasped my hand. Count, he said in the words of Hamlet, there are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamt of in our philosophies.

My lord, I replied, you seem to forget that you go to bed richer by a great hope. (The dead cousin was the heir to the throne, only son of the the ruling ***, who, old and sickly, was now without any hope of his own line succeeding. An uncle of the Prince, also without an heir and any prospect of obtaining one, was the only one who now stood between him and the throne. I mention this circumstance because this will be discussed at a later date.)

Do not remind me of that, said the Prince. Even if I were to gain a crown, I would now have more to do than reflect on such a trifle.—If it was not simply a guess on the part of this Armenian—

How is that possible, Prince? I interjected.

Then I would surrender to you all my royal hopes in exchange for a monk’s cowl.

On the following evening we arrived in the Piazza San Marco earlier than usual. A sudden shower of rain obliged us to to enter a coffee-house where gaming was underway. The Prince took up position behind the chair of a Spaniard and watched the game. I had gone into an adjacent room where I was reading the papers. After a while I heard a commotion. Before the Prince’s arrival the Spaniard had been losing constantly but now he was winning on every turn of the cards. The whole game had altered markedly and the bank was in danger of being broken by this pointeur, now made bolder by the happy change in his fortunes. The Venetian who kept the bank rudely told the Prince that he was disturbing the luck of the game and should leave the table. The latter gave him a cold look and remained where he was; he maintained the same composure when the Venetian repeated his insult in French. He thought that the Prince did not understand either of the two languages and turned to the others with a disdainful laugh: "Do tell me, gentlemen, what I should do to make this Balordo understand me? So saying, he stood up and tried to seize the Prince by the arm, who at this point lost patience: he took a strong hold of the Venetian and, none too gently, threw him to the ground. Tumult filled the entire house. I rushed in on hearing the noise and involuntarily called out to the Prince by his name. Be on your guard, Prince, I added thoughtlessly—we are in Venice. The Prince’s name was the cue for a general silence, out of which grew a muttering that to me suggested danger. All the Italians present banded together in a huddle and stepped to one side. One after the other they left the room until the two of us found ourselves alone with the Spaniard and some Frenchmen. Unless you leave the city immediately, sir, they said, you are lost. The Venetian whom you handled so roughly is rich and of some consequence—it would cost him but fifty zechins to have you dispatched from this world." The Spaniard offered himself as bodyguard for the Prince’s safety and thus to conduct us home. The Frenchmen were willing to do the same. We were still standing and deliberating what we should do when the doors opened and some officers of the State inquisition entered. They showed us a government warrant in which both of us were commanded to follow them forthwith. We were led under strong guard as far as the canal. A gondola was waiting for us there in which we were obliged to seat ourselves. Before we disembarked we were blindfolded. We were led up some large stone steps and then down a long winding passage above a vault, as I deduced from the constant echoing that resounded under our