Glorious Ones Read online

  The Glorious Ones

  A Novel

  Francine Prose

  TO MY FAMILY

  CONTENTS

  I Armanda Ragusa

  II Brigbella

  III Pantalone

  IV Francesco Andreini

  V Dottore Graziano

  VI Columbina

  VII Isabella

  About the Author

  I Armanda Ragusa

  IN THE MIDDLE OF the journey of our life, I came to myself in a dark forest. Wild boars lined the wayside, gnashing at my feet. Hissing adders, looped around the branches, spat venom in my face. But I, Flaminio Scala, the Captain, Prince of Warriors, Bravest of the Brave, First to Battle, Last to Flee—I, Flaminio Scala, the most courageous man in Christendom—I, Flaminio Scala, was not afraid.

  Slicing through the underbrush with my sword, I forged ahead until the road I traveled forked in two. And there, at that dim parting of the ways, I encountered a most amazing phenomenon.

  One of the paths was marked “Fame,” the other, “Obscurity.”

  “Virgin Mary the Whore!” I cried, running headlong down the trail which seemed to promise my heart’s dearest wish. Yet soon my characteristic prudence and intelligence caused me to reconsider:

  It was all too simple, too perfect; I sensed a trap.

  Slowly, cautiously, I traced my way back to the fork—where, now, a small, fair-haired boy was seated on a granite boulder.

  “What is the trick?” I asked him, assuming, of course, that he would know.

  “There is no trick,” he replied, with a smile of angelic sincerity. “Go whichever way you please.”

  For some reason, I believed him, and continued on my journey. I became famous, and believed him until the moment of my death. But here, in this old prison, where unremitting contentment makes the very saints long for hell, I have begun to understand the trick.

  I see now that the boy was Francesco Andreini, and that his reassurance was only the first of many deceptions. And, looking down from above, I can finally see the true way of those paths.

  I have learned that both roads, followed long enough, eventually merge in the same dank, overgrown swamp of Obscurity.

  How disquieting, this new knowledge of mine! How clever of the gods, to have devised such a perfect punishment for Flaminio Scala!

  Each day, I contemplate the future of the world, and my stomach starts to churn. I see us dead, discarded, our spirits parodied by wooden marionettes. Perhaps you might think that the peace of heaven would have tempered my desire for eternal fame. But it is not that way.

  And that is the reason I am troubling you on this hot, sticky evening, Armanda, in this dream which causes you to toss and moan. Remembering your beautiful spirit, I am inclined to think that you are the only one among them who might still heed my voice. I pray that you still remember me—my handsome face, my figure, the touch of my hands on that night we spent so sweetly in each other’s arms. I pray that, in recalling that night, you will see it as our secret, our password—by which you may know that the voice in this vision cannot be that of an impostor.

  For now, after so many years of silence, I would like to give you one last direction.

  Remember our history, Armanda, and write it down—in detail, not in outline, as we used to plan the scenes. Make the others promise to say it again and again, to tell it to their children and grandchildren, to anyone who will listen. Collect every remnant and memento of our great career. Keep them with you all your life, then entrust them to a monastery, for safekeeping.

  Then, if we are lucky, the memory of Flaminio Scala and his Glorious Ones will not vanish so quickly from the earth.

  That was my vision of you, Flaminio Scala. I woke up sweating, the blood frozen solid in my veins. “Captain!” I screamed. “Is that you, crouching near the door? Are you making those rustling noises in my trunk?”

  Yet I knew that the room was empty, and the trunk was full of mice. Longing to find you in another dream, I closed my eyes; but I could not sleep.

  Flaminio Scala, I thought, how clever of you to call on me. Who else but Armanda Ragusa would be lying awake like this, straining to see your face in the darkness? And how wise of you to see that Armanda Ragusa was the only one worthy of your trust. Who else owes you such a debt?

  Rest easy, Captain, you can rely on me to obey your last command. For, if I failed you now, it would mean that I had forgotten how you saved me from the Orphanage of the Blessed Brides of Christ. And how could I forget the man who rescued me from a place in which small children were obliged to spend the nights of Lent in stone coffins lined with moss?

  You think heaven is a prison, Flaminio? At the convent orphanage, we longed for heaven; in contrast to our earthly home, it seemed like a circus of sinful delights. Imagine what it was like for us there: endless granite corridors, dripping wet. Pale tapers, glowing dimly in the chapel. Ice water from the well. Stiff, starched linen.

  Now imagine what it was like for us to see you and The Glorious Ones for the first time! You were so beautiful! We had never seen anyone like you before! On that bright October morning, as we stood in the courtyard, watching you come up the road, our eyes bulged out, our knees buckled with awe!

  Imagine, Flaminio: in that world of coarse, black smocks and grey vestments, the only colors we had ever seen were the blue of the sky, the green of leaves, the pink of our own mouths. And suddenly, out of nowhere, you and The Glorious Ones were riding toward us with those scarlet hose, those violet capes, those emerald velvet caps with peacocks’ plumes. Your horses had silver ribbons plaited in their tails; your brilliant, silken banners fluttered in the wind.

  And the women? My God, they were dressed in gowns of orange and red striped satin! Could those creatures really have belonged to the same race as our prioress?

  Imagine: in the convent, we had been taught that a mouth open in laughter was a mouth pursed to receive the devil’s kiss. Yet you were all laughing, chattering, reaching out to touch each other’s bodies. One of the younger men spurred his horse and galloped in a circle away from the procession; smiling, the women tossed back their heads, and the sparkle of their earrings blinded us like suns.

  The girls of the orphanage truly believed that each lascivious thought fueled the fires of hell for ten thousand years—imagine the commotion which began when we noticed those giant codpieces, those half-naked breasts!

  But gradually, as you drew nearer, we all fell silent.

  You were riding in front, Flaminio, shouting commands and brandishing your sabre in the air. You sat up very straight, and, beneath the gold braid and silver medals, your chest seemed eight feet wide. Your arms were thicker than my body; I could have crawled into your full, black beard and hidden. Your face astounded me; your fierce eyes made my heart beat fast, as if I were in danger.

  At first, I assumed that other orphans were all staring at you, that you were the cause of that stillness which had fallen over the courtyard. Then, I realized that they had not even noticed you, for their gaze never left the woman who was riding just behind you. Is it her beauty which so fascinates them, I wondered—her blood-red lips, her low-cut bodice, that gleaming mane of curly hair which covers her like a cloak? A moment later, I understood.

  Whenever the jogging of her mare caused the woman’s hem to rise and sway, the orphans of the Blessed Brides of Christ were treated to an unmistakable glimpse of pink lace stockings!

  Pink lace stockings! How could they have imagined such a thing—those orphaned girls, whose feet burned perpetually in those rough wool socks!

  “Ah,” murmured one of the older girls at last, “Now I know who that is. It is the Whore of Babylon, and the Company of the Damned.”

  “No,” hissed Mother Maria Rosaria, o
ur prioress, as she herded us inside the convent. “It is something much worse. It is a company of actors—the most devious and clever of all Satan’s minions.”

  “In that case,” I answered, “hell must surely be a pleasant place to live.” I was famous for contradicting everything the Mother Superior said.

  But, if I did not believe the prioress then, I almost believed her half an hour later, when she emerged from a brief interview with you, and announced that we would soon be permitted to witness a special performance by Flaminio Scala and his Glorious Ones.

  What happened in that barren cell, Flaminio? Did you really bewitch Maria Rosaria? Is that what caused her face to shine with such pleasure? Could you possibly have cuckolded the Lord of heaven?

  I never asked you, Captain, I never knew. But, over the years, my curiosity and my weakness for daydreaming have led me to compose this small scenario.

  As the play begins, Flaminio Scala is standing stage right, beneath an iron crucifix. A moment later, the prioress enters the room.

  She is a dour, forbidding woman; her wide, puffy face is perfectly expressionless, enlivened only by the occasional spasms of a sharp, nervous squint. Beneath her swollen lids are the cold blue eyes of a rat. Her body is massive, broad-shouldered, muscular; as she lumbers towards you, her step seems so graceless and ungainly that the audience begins to wonder if she is really a man in disguise, and a few brave spectators start to giggle.

  Bowing dramatically, Flaminio Scala strides across the cell to greet her, but she shrinks back, as if in terror. “I cannot imagine,” she whispers, in a voice so low that the audience must lean forward to hear, “why you have come to trouble our peace. In this convent, we drape black curtains over our windows to keep out the sight and sounds of men. Why, men, should I let my charges witness your filthy antics?”

  Suddenly, Flaminio Scala falls to his knees. Grabbing the hem of the prioress’ robe, he strikes his forehead on the granite floor. There is blood on his face, tears stream down his cheeks.

  “Mother,” he sobs, “have pity on me. I was once a lover of God, like yourself. Yet I let myself be lured down the path of temptation, abandoned in the forest of wickedness. Now, I stand before you, teetering on the precipice above the valley of despair. I feel that I have been cursed for eternity, doomed to a horrible fate.

  “If your innocent heart could comprehend an actor’s existence, you would know: by now, my sins are so enormous that no ordinary absolution could help me. If I had a mountain of gold, I would build the most exquisite cathedral in God’s kingdom. Were I a sculptor, I would carve a statue of Mary Magdalene, to remind Jesus of His love for repentant sinners. But I, Flaminio Scala, the most desperate man in Christendom, have none of those things.

  “Forgive me, Mother. I have nothing to offer Him but my art, and the desire to provide some innocent pleasure for His most unfortunate children. And I truly believe that you are the one to help me—you, Maria Rosaria, God’s dearest bride, a holy sister of compassion and mercy.”

  Flaminio’s pleas go on and on. Neither Mother Maria Rosaria nor anyone in the audience knows whether to believe him. But no one would dare doubt him enough to take responsibility for his soul.

  By the time he has finished speaking, the prioress is convinced that she is a saint of redemption, and a woman of exquisite beauty.

  But on the day you visited the orphanage, Captain, I had not yet made up that play. All I knew was that something very strange was happening in our convent.

  The nuns and the other girls—fools that they were—still believed that there were demons within our walls. Despite the prioress’ efforts to calm them, they giggled frantically and squawked like barnyard hens. A long time passed before they were able to reassure each other that the devils were not particularly ferocious; by then, you and The Glorious Ones had already built the platform in the courtyard, and begun your play.

  Eventually, however, the girls of the convent were clearly enjoying your comedy. They howled with delight when those masked old men raced around the stage, smacking each other with huge rubber bats; they cooed with sympathy when the hero lost all the money he had saved for his starving mother. They were surprised, but not alarmed, when the crescent moon floated down from the sky, bearing the pink-stockinged woman on its back. After all, they knew that devils could do anything!

  And I, Flaminio? I must confess that I remember very little of that performance; yet I can recall every word of your speeches.

  “I have trekked across the deserts of Araby,” you declaimed. “I have fought the fanged snake-men of Patagonia. I have bargained with the thousand-thumbed merchants of Morocco. But never in all my travels have I encountered a race of misers like the Italians.”

  You see, I do remember: you were playing the Captain, trying to cheat Pantalone out of his gold. But the truth was that you were my entire cast, my plot, my dialogue, my setting; when you were gone from the stage, I dreamed of the scenes in which you would return. Sitting on the cold flagstones, I stared hard at you, tense with concentration—as if I could have reached you with some power from my eyes. And I thought to myself: who else but a fool like Armanda Ragusa would have gone so lovesick over the first handsome man she had ever seen?

  Then, at the very end of the play, something occurred which actually convinced me that the prioress had been right all along. I began to shake with terror, for I knew that I had lost my heart to a demon.

  The other actors had left the stage; the nuns and orphans were cheering and applauding. All alone, you strode to the front of the platform, and bowed to us.

  “I thank you for your kindness,” you said, “and for your help in lightening my burden of sin. But, most of all, I would like to thank the Blessed Mother Maria Rosaria for having permitted me to adopt one of her precious charges into my troupe.”

  “So he has talked the prioress into letting him take one of us!” I thought. “Then the power of Satan is a million times greater than anything I’d suspected!”

  Yet, all of a sudden, I did not care if my savior was a demon; and, from then on, it was the old fairy tale come true for me.

  Do you know the story of the Princess in Rags, Flaminio? Her enemies, the wicked courtiers, imprison her in a coalbin when the handsome prince arrives to choose a wife. The girls of the palace are paraded before him, but he rejects them, one by one, until—drawn by some mysterious and irresistible force—he moves through the castle and finds his destined mate.

  “I want that one,” you said, pointing towards the corner in which the nuns were holding me back.

  And did I glide from my dungeon with the grace and presence of a natural-born queen? Did I greet you with the sweet half-smile of a goddess receiving her due? No, Captain, you know I did not. My mouth fell open; I felt dizzy, nauseated, sick; I tripped and stumbled my way across the courtyard, until, at last, I stood on stage, between you and the prioress. I was trembling, straining to understand: why in the world had you chosen me?!

  Mother Maria Rosaria was asking you the same question, as she held me by the shoulder with such distaste that her great meaty hand felt like dust on my sleeve.

  Of course, she could hardly demand to know why you had chosen the ugliest girl in the convent; no one in the convent was supposed to notice things like ugliness. Instead, she quietly suggested that perhaps you might be better pleased by one of the more devout young women. And she mentioned a beautiful girl whom I hated for her clear blue eyes and thick black hair.

  “On the contrary, Mother Superior,” you replied, running your eyes over my body like the coarse brushes with which the nuns made us scrub. “This one is perfect. How old is she?”

  “About fourteen,” answered the prioress.

  “Just as I thought,” you cried. “And yet, who would ever think to call this specimen a woman? Look at her flat chest, her short, stubby body, her rubbery skin! Look at that strawlike hair, those wandering, half-crossed eyes, that moustache on her upper lip! Perhaps, if we are lucky, she wi
ll grow a beard like mine.

  “Yes, this beauty suits my needs perfectly. Even without a mask, she will have my audience howling with laughter. And certainly, I could parade her naked across the stage, and the blessed pope himself would never accuse me of sins against chastity!”

  Sweet Jesus, Flaminio! What devil prompted you to say those things? Did you think I had no heart, no mind? Did you believe that a body like mine could not have a soul?

  I think you knew the truth, Captain, you with your famous eye for character. But why, why did you insult me that way?

  For five years, I asked myself that question, day after day after day. I whispered it into the mirror when I put on my makeup; I pestered the gypsies we met on the road. Sometimes, when I shrieked and somersaulted on stage, it was all an effort to drive the sound of it from my ears. For five years, that question echoed in my mind so loudly that I never heard the cheering, the applause. And yet, when I finally found the courage to speak it aloud, I whispered as softly as if I were at confessional, in church.

  Remember? It was the first thing I asked you on that morning I awoke to find you beside me. How strange! That question seemed so important that it kept me from saying how much you had pleased me; it kept me from thanking you for having reconciled me with my own flesh. Tell me, Flaminio—if I had said those things, would that have persuaded you to spend a little longer in my bed?

  But this is what I said: “Flaminio Scala,” I asked, “why did you say those terrible things about me, that day you saved me from the convent?”

  For a moment, you looked startled, confused. Then you sighed, and kissed me tenderly on the forehead.

  “Ah, my darling Armanda,” you said. “If only you had asked me earlier. How easily I could have explained this matter, which has obviously caused you great pain and confusion. For as always, the truth is far prettier than these loathsome scenarios we enact.

  “Rest easy, my dear. I only invented those lies to expose the hypocrisy of that vain and silly nun. I assure you, Armanda, my decision had nothing to do with your physical appearance. No, the real reason I chose you for my troupe was this.