The Venetian. Frank J. Morlock

      BORGO PRESS BOOKS BY ALEXANDRE DUMAS

      Anthony

      The Barricade at Clichy

      Bathilda

      Caligula

      The Corsican Brothers

      The Count of Monte Cristo, Part One: The Betrayal of Edmond Dantès

      The Count of Monte Cristo, Part Two: The Resurrection of Edmond Dantès

      The Count of Monte Cristo, Part Three: The Rise of Monte Cristo

      The Count of Monte Cristo, Part Four: The Revenge of Monte Cristo

      A Fairy Tale (with Adolphe de Leuven and Léon Lhérie)

      The Gold Thieves

      The Last of the Three Musketeers; or, The Prisoner of the Bastille (Musketeers #3)

      Lorenzino

      The Mohican’s War

      Napoléon Bonaparte

      Queen Margot

      Richard Darlington (with Prosper Dinaux)

      Sylvandire

      The Three Musketeers (Musketeers #1)

      The Three Musketeers—Twenty Years Later (Musketeers #2)

      The Tower of Nesle (with Frédéric Gaillardet)

      The Two Dianas (with Paul Meurice)

      Urbain Grandier and the Devils of Loudon

      The Venetian (with Auguste Anicet-Bourgeois)

      The Whites and the Blues

      The Widow’s Husband; and, Porthos in Search of an Outfit

      Young Louix XIV

      Related Dramas:

      The Queen’s Necklace, by Pierre Decourcelle

      The Seed of the Musketeers, by Paul de Kock & Guénée (Musketeers #5)

      The San Felice, by Maurice Drack

      The Son of Porthos the Musketeer, by Émile Blavet (Musketeers #4)

      A Summer Night’s Dream, by Adolphe de Leuven and Joseph-Bernard Rosier

      The Widow’s Husband; and, Porthos in Search of an Outfit: Two Dumasian Comedies, edited by Frank J. Morlock

      PUBLISHING INFORMATION

      Copyright © 2004, 2012 by Robert Reginald

      Published by Wildside Press LLC

      www.wildsidebooks.com

      DEDICATION

      To Sami Caldwell,

       my good friend in San Miguel

      CAST OF CHARACTERS

      The Bravo

      Salfieri

      Count de Bellamonte

      Luigi

      Maffeo

      Marquis de Ruffo

      A Senator

      A Bailiff

      A Gondolier

      Theodora

      Violetta

      Michelemma

      Two Masked Ladies

      ACT I, SCENE 1

      The Proscribed.

      The interior of the Bravo’s house, in a secluded section of Venice. Open window giving on the gulf lit by the moon.

      BRAVO

      So, Milord, the visit you are paying me this evening is to speak to me of the affairs of Your Excellency and not those of the Republic.

      COUNT

      It’s a service that I have to ask of you, and I don’t doubt for a moment that—

      BRAVO

      I will be at your orders, right? As I am those of the Council of Ten.

      COUNT

      Of which I am one—don’t forget.

      BRAVO

      What can I do for Your Excellency?

      COUNT

      A lot.

      BRAVO

      I am listening.

      COUNT

      I’m in love.

      BRAVO

      With the Courtesan, Theodora, I know.

      COUNT

      And how’s that?

      BRAVO

      A week ago, at the foot of the Lion column, where I habitually hang out, I saw you pass by, as a member of a cortege which ordinarily accompanies the Venetian to church.

      COUNT

      Yes, it’s true. I had, like all there is noble and elegant in Venice, placed myself at the feet of this woman as strange as she is beautiful, a modern Aspasia, who intends to see at her knees all the celebrities of her century, to adorn herself with lovers as other women adorn themselves with jewels. Theodora overwhelmed me with her good graces—but this easy happiness tired me, and I’ve discovered behind the Bridge of La Paglia, facing the house of the Gondolier Luigi, a diamond.

      BRAVO

      There are few diamonds in Venice which are not for sale, Your Excellency, is rich and can buy the one he desires.

      COUNT

      She’s refused all my offers.

      BRAVO

      Double them.

      COUNT

      No use—I have to deal with an old geezer who is guarding her—who is her father or something like that—He’s made of honor, delicacy, rigid virtue.

      BRAVO

      (with irony)

      The wretch!

      COUNT

      And he’s gone so far as to tell me that if I reappear in the street, although he’s old and a plebeian, and I am young and of the nobility—he will find a way to get rid of me.

      BRAVO

      (with irony)

      The insolent.

      COUNT

      I cannot involve myself with this man, you understand?

      BRAVO

      Surely—these sorts of folks ought to be very happy when a lord of race and birth, like you, deigns to covet his wife or his daughter; that dishonors them but that ennobles them.

      COUNT

      Well! Now that’s what he fails to understand.

      BRAVO

      The beast.

      COUNT

      Then I thought of you to rid me of this man: arrived only a few days ago in Venice, he doesn’t know anyone and public rumor announces that he raised this delicious creature from charity, and she has, outside this old geezer, neither friends nor relatives under heaven.

      Now the young girl is orphaned; the Republic, which is a good mother, adopts the abandoned child. A powerful man, a member of the Council of Ten, I, for example, I take responsibility, for the love of Humanity of placing her in a convent—I’ll pay her dowry—I’ll make a gift of a Raphael or a Titian to the Chapel of the monastery and the young