Light-headed but heavy-footed he stumbled, and clutched at the plaited rope of crimson silk that, threaded through stylized hands of polished brass, hung in festoons against the wall. Good luck! said somebody. A step or two ahead of and above him were Maureen and Annette: what energy was displayed in their sprightly, springy tread! His ankles were swollen under his black socks, and the slight exertion of climbing the staircase was bringing the sweat out on his back.
In an ante-room off the sala stood Loredana Bembo, an imposing figure, splendid in jewels, and by her side her husband, a short, thickset, baldish man, but with an unmistakable air of authority about him. ‘it was so good of you to come,’ she said to Henry. ‘And I promise you a hundred lire for every mosquito-bite you get to-night.’ A hundred lire was something in those days; it will pay me to get a bite or two, thought Henry, and waited for the buzz, but it didn’t come, and when at last they all sat down to dinner, he saw why; the windows were defended by thin metal grilles, of mesh so fine that even a mosquito couldn’t find its way through. He had seen them before, of course; his own sitting-room in the hotel was fitted with them. They couldn’t be the secret Countess Bembo had spoken of.
He wasn’t sitting next to her, an ambassador and a man of title occupied these coveted positions. Of his two neighbours, one was an Italian, one an Englishwoman who always came to Venice at this time.
‘What is Countess Bembo’s secret?’ he asked her. ‘Or haven’t you heard of it?’
‘There is something,’ she said.
‘Do you know what?’
She shook her head. ‘Loredana always has something up her sleeve,’ she said. ‘Let’s hope it won’t be too peculiar.’
A member of one aristocratic Venetian family, married into another, Loredana Bembo was a law unto herself. Conventional when she chose to be, if the fit took her she would flout convention. At such times a reckless look would come into her eyes. ‘E originale,’ her friends said of her, ‘she is an eccentric,’ and if they sometimes criticized her they were also proud of her and a little afraid. What she said went, what she did got by.
The champagne flowed, and as fast as Henry drank it his labouring, overheated skin discharged it. He dabbed his neck, his face, his hands. Perhaps it would have been wiser not to drink, but he could not forgo the momentary relief each swallow brought him—the immediate physical relief, and the deliverance from his nervous premonitions. All nerves they were: to-morrow this time he would be at Merano breathing freely. Drinking freely he could better imagine that paradise. The faces opposite him were a blur, but one was Maureen’s, and another, farther to the left, between a Nino and a Gigi who were both talking to her at once, was Annette’s.
At last the chairs scraped on the smooth terrazza and they left the dining-room, in Continental fashion, the men and women together, a little group of white shirt-fronts and bare shoulders. Up they went, upstairs into the second sala, for the Palazzo Bembo had two, two great galleries that ran the whole length of the building. Breasting the ascent, however, they stopped, as a crowd stops, automatically, almost barging into each other: and little cries broke out and circled over Henry’s head. ‘Ah, che bello!’ As they moved on and up, these exclamations, and others like them, screams and trills and chirrups of delight, went on, and Henry, reaching the top, saw what it was that had provoked them, though for a moment he didn’t quite take in what it meant. He blinked and looked again: what was it, this array of snowy surfaces, booths, tents, tabernacles, this ghostly encampment under the great chandelier? Then, drawing nearer, he saw: it was an encampment, an encampment of mosquito-nets. Following the others’ lead, Henry began to circulate among them. They were of all shapes and sizes, some square, some domed and circular, some tapering to a peak like army tents. To one and all gaily coloured pennons were attached, indicating their purpose. Under the chandelier, where the light was brightest, was pitched a cluster of square tents meant for bridge, as their label, ‘Per far una partita’, testified. Beyond them, farther from the light, round and square forms alternating, were other tents reserved for conversation: ‘Per far la conversazione’ was the device they bore. Beyond them, where the light was fainter, was ranged another group, only big enough to hold two armchairs apiece: ‘Per far l’amore’ was the legend that these temptingly displayed. A gasp went up; had Loredana gone too far this time? And beyond these again, one in each corner of the room flanking the tall gothic windows, where the light from the chandelier hardly reached them, almost out of sight, were two much smaller refuges. These at once aroused the curiosity of the guests: what could their purpose be? They peered and peered at the labels, which were not coloured or cut into fantastic shapes, but sober rectangles of white cardboard, with plain black lettering on them. Then there was a chuckle, which sooner or later was taken up by everyone: ‘Per i misantropi’, they read, and soon the words were on every lip.
The first tents to be occupied were the bridge tents: the impatient players made straight for them, and within a minute or two the cards were being dealt. If some of the guests were too slow off the mark, and lost their places at the bridge-tables, they concealed their disappointment and joined the conversationalists. One or two paired off, and somewhat sheepishly and defiantly made for the tents of love: cries of encouragement followed after them. As far as Henry could make out, no man or woman chose to be self-proclaimed a misanthrope: the two lone tents remained unoccupied. But he had scarcely time to see, for it was like a game of musical chairs—one had to find one’s seat or be left standing, and the idea of standing was much less bearable to Henry even than the idea of talking. ‘Per far la conversazione!’ There was a vacancy: in he went and sank down in a chair. There were iced drinks in misted glasses on the table, and round it three people whom he knew quite well: it might have been much worse.
He it was who drew together the tent-flaps and tied them with gay bows of scarlet ribbon: if the tents were not mosquito-proof, as he suspected, they looked as if they were, which was a great thing: he could relax, he needn’t flap and flip, and screw his face up, or make other uncivilized gestures of the mosquito-ridden. Outside, no doubt, the creatures hummed, they must, for at both ends of the sala the windows stood wide open, and with two glittering chandeliers to guide them they couldn’t miss their way. No, it wasn’t too bad. The muslin kept out some of the air, of course, but how clever of Loredana to have thought of it all! She had turned those twin plagues, the heat and the mosquitoes, neither of which was funny in itself, into a joke. She had converted them into a social asset, she had countered them with a creation that was beautiful and strange. The party would be long remembered.
Fuddled though he was, and ready to accept unreality, Henry began to wonder where, in what muslin arbours, Annette and Maureen had taken shelter. The first question was quickly answered. Faintly, from below, came the strains of a dance-band.
‘You didn’t know?’ said someone. ‘They’re coming in after dinner to dance, a whole crowd of them. It’s we old-stagers who are sitting up here.’ He was an Italian and vecchietti was the word he used: ‘a little old’, such a nice word, there was no equivalent for it in English, we were less considerate to old age. Henry didn’t mind being a vecchietto. So Annette was accounted for: she would be downstairs dancing with a Nino, or a Nini, a Gigio or a Gigi. She would be sure to be enjoying herself.