Casanova’s 1780 novella is, according to the flap copy, a “thinly-veiled autobiographical work,” and tells the story of a duel that took place in 1766 between Casanova and a member of the Polish court. Having left Venice at the age of twenty-eight, fleeing the law, “the Venetian” at the center of The Duel has made his way through a fair chunk of Europe (Munich, Paris, Holland, London, Berlin and elsewhere in Germany, Latvia, St. Petersburg) before landing in Warsaw. Here, “G.C.” does well enough for himself at court, as he’s done elsewhere, but the arrival in the city of a Venetian ballerina ends up being the start of his downfall. Count Xavier Branicki, part of the king’s court and a soldier, is one of this ballerina’s admirers; as he’s stopping by backstage to say hi to this ballerina and another dancer-friend after a play one night, G.C. has a run-in with the Count. The Count insults him, and G.C. indicates his anger by touching the hilt of his sword, thereby loosely challenging the Count to a fight. (This is fairly mind-boggling to me, the idea of a culture in which, you know, you have your sword at your hip for a night out at the theatre.) But the Count doesn’t show up at the stage-door immediately as G.C. thinks he will, so G.C, after having thought over whether he should let it go or not, formalizes things by writing the Count a letter the next day, challenging him to a duel (even though dueling is illegal in Poland). Since G.C. has already mentioned that the Count’s experience as a soldier had taught him “to prefer honor—which is an imaginary thing— to life, which is the sole actual thing that men possess,” it’s not surprising that the Count agrees to fight (11). The duel happens. Spoiler alert: no one dies, but both parties are injured. And G.C. later ends up banished from the Polish Court, slandered by anonymous letters.
The tone of this book struck me as sort of weird and distant: it’s narrated in the third person and feels, often, like a pretty dry chronicle, a straightforward progression of events. It’s not particularly atmospheric; it’s not a glitteringly detailed depiction of the trappings of a place and time in the way that a novel like Embers, which is about a similar culture, is. It has things to say about a culture of honor and dueling, and about G.C.’s experience of exile from Venice/traveling through Europe. And it has moments of humor, too. For example: on wearing “a battered Papal Order of the Golden Spur”: “Such a glittering medal is very useful to a man on the road, who may visit a different city almost every month. It is an ornament, a substantial decoration that elicits the respect of fools. And since the world is full of fools, all of them inclined to nastiness, and since there’s nothing like a medal to whip them into line and leave them confused, ecstatic, and humbled, you might as well show it off.” (9-10) The logistics of the duel have their humor, too: there’s this whole funny back-and-forth about the timing of the duel and what the weapons will be. The aftermath of the duel, to me, was funniest: there’s a great exchange between the injured G.C. and the King’s surgeons, who want to amputate his hand. G.C. is not having it:
SURGEON: But what about the gangrene?
VENETIAN: Where is it?
SURGEON: It is imminent.
VENETIAN: Very well then. But I want to see it. I am extremely curious about it. Once it appears, we can talk about amputating the hand.
SURGEON: It will be too late by then.
VENETIAN: Why?
SURGEON: Because it is progressing very rapidly, and by then it will be necessary to amputate your arm.
VENETIAN: Excellent. You will amputate my arm. But for the moment, please bandage me up and leave. (57)
If the whole book were like that passage, I would have loved it. As it was, it wasn’t quite for me. Meanwhile, this is a Melville House “HybridBook,” meaning that supplementary material related to the book is available for download from the Melville House website. In this case, that means a 92-page PDF file (it’s available in other formats too) that contains essays/snippets of essays about Casanova in general and this book specifically. This includes the version of the story of the duel that appears in Casanova’s Memoirs, with its first-person narration (which seems to me to be more detailed and more engaging than this novella, though I only skimmed it). There’s also a section on “Famous Duels, Duelists and Dueling Grounds,” including a list of “Ten People You Would Never Want To Duel” (number one: Andrew Jackson). I wasn’t interested in reading all of this, but I guess if I’d totally loved the book I might have been more interested than I was.
Leave a Reply