The Book of Night Women (43 page)

Entry the
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I’ve lost track of days and dates and time is a monster to me. Venice! Quinn impressed on me that pantaloons were quite common and knee breeches the mark of a true gentleman. I asked him how would he have known and this remark seemed to have wounded him greatly. I apologised and such was his good, cheery nature that he let bygones be. He makes me think of the West Indies and what it would be like. Maybe the Irish do have more fire in their chests. Ah, Venice, the Madonna of whores, the whore of Madonnas. The Piazzetta is enough to make Virgils or Blakes out of the most common of men. Alas, it is Carnevale and I venture forth to meet my destiny. Let her be pleasing in bosom and bawdy in speech, for this is Sodom. Onward!

 

Entry the
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Two days in Venice. Sodom AND Gomorrah.

 

Entry the
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Encountered a few of the fairer sex last night. Fairer than our Prince Regent’s own mistress, I daresay. But do I call them fair? They seemed ripe for the plucking, for the man with a fat purse, of course. One in particular strikes me, but alas I am not as bold as Quinn.

Entry the
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The most despicable of villains is better than I. Oh, the malcontent that resides in this poor, poor flesh. I regret that grief brings me to verse and makes a mockery of it. But how was I led? Oh God, but that this poor flesh. . . . None of this was my intention, but one day God will lord his judgement over me. The night was young and already filled with young men with the devil in their hearts and blackness in their souls. I will try to be curt. We came upon ladies of the night, women of the oldest profession, who spoke a smattering of English. One I took fancy to and I daresay it was mutual. She carried her fan in the right hand, across her face when she looked at me and I know the ways of Venice. I knew an arrangement was to be had. Then she placed the fan in her left hand and opened it. That confirmed her intentions, surely that must have been so! She led me to her boudoir. Quinn, out of magnanimity, took her friend, who was rather unfed and not as fair. She reached for my sword, so daring was she! and I, I will not repeat such things here, for they are best left out. But she was a thief and she played me for a fool. Thinking I was asleep she rummaged through my things until I made a noise and startled her. She ran for the door but I was swift and I caught her. She had a little knife. It felt like but a little prick but the little knife was deep in my shoulder. Maybe it was the sight of my own blood that made the devil possess me. I forgot all that was intelligent, decent and manly. She grabbed my face and scratched me. This made me even more furious and less sensible. My hands were the devil’s and they worked her. Quinn rushed in and used all of that Irish strength to pull me away. I would not be denied. I started to fight him as well, but he overpowered me. The woman cursed and cursed, saying that she will go for a magistrate for she knows we are British. Then go, you filthy whore, Quinn says and brushed her away. I’m no whore says she in English, sputtering, I remember. And right there both myself and Quinn realised that this lady, if she can be called that, knew or was perhaps accustomed to far beyond her station. A woman seeking her own pleasure was she, perhaps no different from us young men who come to Venice Carnevale with too much blood in our constitutions. There was no question that against two Britons this woman would be listened to. Oh, she went on about how she would tell how she was dragged from her lodgings and ravished, she a poor young lady of the city. And how these men were from the British Isles who were at war with their cousins the French. Quinn grabbed her by the hand and dragged her out the door. I was not listening for it, so the first clubbing sound shocked me to the very bone. Two more came hence. I looked towards the doorway and there was Quinn, wiping his cane and telling me that we must leave Venice that very night. He would arrange it. I try not to think of it. This demon within me. I had not been so furious, so bereft of good sense since I divested Thomas Thistlewood of his front teeth and punched his eye shut at that tavern in the East End. Quinn stopped me there as well. I remember that is how we met. Now he comes along, I daresay to save me from my own madness. Now resides inside me the hope that this will never be known and the fear that one day it will.