Stone's Fall

I thought I was in love because I knew so little. I thought I loved my wife, but Louise showed me that was mere affection, with not even much respect to solidify it. And then I thought I loved Louise, not realising it was simply passion, untrammelled by knowledge. Only when I came to Elizabeth did I finally understand, and by then I was getting old; it was almost too late. She saved me from a dry and empty life. I had looked for someone perfect, but did not realise until then that was not the point. Only when you can know someone's every fault, failing and weakness and not care do you truly know what love is. Elizabeth certainly has her failings; every single one of them makes me smile with affection, or feel sad for her sufferings. I have known her now for nearly two decades, and every day I know her better, love her more. She is my love and more than that.

But then Louise Cort, the image and remembrance of her, filled my days and my mind, and tinted the city I daily grew to know ever better. I became lover and saviour; my pride and vanity grew as my association with her contrasted my nature all the more powerfully with that of Cort. The practical matters were easily disposed of; there was a man who worked at the hotel I had initially stayed in. Signor Fanzano spoke English and had struck me as a robust, commonsensical fellow, worldly and discreet.

'I have a certain requirement for accommodation,' I said, when I discovered him near the kitchens of the hotel. 'I need some rooms that are comfortable but private.'

He did not ask what I wanted such a thing for, merely applied himself to the matter. 'Do I take it you do not wish anyone to know you have these rooms?' he asked.

'Yes. That is the main necessity.'

'So not in the centre. Not in San Marco. But, presumably, not too far away either.'

'Precisely.'

'Do you have any particular price in mind?'

'None.'

'And how long would you need this for.'

'I do not know. I will happily pay for three months to begin with. They must be furnished and clean.'

He nodded. 'Leave it to me, Mr Stone. I will send a message when I have come up with something.'

Two days later I received a message to apply to a Signora Murtano in a small street close to San Giovanni è Paolo near the Fondamenta Nuova. She turned out to be one of Fanzano's relations (although everyone in Venice seems to be a relation of everyone else) with a sitting room and bedroom to rent in a dingy house which had fallen far from its days of glory, if it had ever had any. But it had a fireplace (wood extra, as usual), a separate entrance and only the cruellest luck might have caused me to encounter anyone I knew as I was entering or leaving. The price was exorbitant, not least because I had decided to give Fanzano a handsome reward both for his dispatch and for his discretion. It was a good bargain, as it turned out: it acquired the loyalty of a man who served me well for the next three decades, but nonetheless, I felt at the time that the price of love in Venice was steep.

Still, it was done, and the day after I had made the arrangement, I arranged for Louise to accompany me on another tour of the city. We visited San Giovanni together, and then I showed her my find.

She knew exactly what I intended as we approached the front door, and I was afraid that the practicality of it might affect her sensibilities. And so it did, but only to make her more wild and passionate.

'Don't open the shutters,' she said, as I moved to let some light into the rooms so she could see it better. We spent the next two hours exploring a new land far more exotic than a mere city of brick and marble could ever be, even if it does float in the ocean like some fading flower.

She was the most exciting woman I had known. She brought out a recklessness in me that I had never believed existed. Only very occasionally did things go awry between us, then and every time thereafter that she could steal away for an afternoon, an hour, even on one occasion a fumbling, desperate encounter of less than fifteen minutes when she tore at me as her husband waited below. That excited me, thinking of her returning to her duties as a wife, clothes immaculately in order, face calm and showing no sign of the way I had only a few moments before pushed her against the wall and pulled up her dress to make her cry out with pleasure. He could not do that. I half wanted him to know.

Once she pulled away as I was reaching for her, I grabbed her arm and she turned angrily away, but not before I caught sight of a red weal across her upper arm.

'What's that? How did that happen?'

She shook her head and would not answer.

'Tell me,' I insisted.

'My husband,' she said quietly. 'He thought I had misbehaved.'

'Does he suspect that . . .'

'Oh no! He is too stupid. I had not done anything amiss. It does not matter. He gets the desire to hurt, that is all.'

'That is all?' I replied hotly. 'All? What did he do to you? Tell me.'

Again a shake of the head. 'I cannot tell you.'

'Why not?'