Alexander Theroux - Darconville’s Cat

—I’m sure it’s fun.

—Tyin’ on favors? Steppin’ on big ol’ balloons? Puttin’ up the RCA? O.

—You’re enjoying yourself.

—Enormously, ( pause ) Enormously.

—Please. How is Isabel getting along?

—So well.

—Would you tell her I called?

—I will. I pointedly will — to use one of your big writin’ words.

—I called all last week. I rang and rang.

—Pet.

—I miss her.

—We all do.

—

—You’ll have to speak up louder.

—I — love her.

—You cain’t bleeve how much that’ll mean to you when I tell her.

—I’m sorry?

—Don’t be. Maybe it’s female trouble, this mopin’ about. That’s my p’effunce. Thrums or something, that kind of thing. The thrums come on me, I take a drink—

—Mrs. Shiftlett? Hello?

—Did you ring off? I thought you rang off, until I saw myself, what, fussin’ with my glass where the receiver was. Hello?

— ( sigh ) I’m right here.

—Isn’t it wonderful.

—What?

—Bein’ there. Harvard? I just say the name.

—You couldn’t look again, Mrs. Shiftlett, for Isabel, perhaps again in her bedroom? ( pause ) Are you there?

—Oh yes, but I’m afraid I cain’t talk to you now, Darconville, I’m on the phone.

—So — so am I.

—Why, of course, don’t mind me. I’m a-sloppin’ and a-sloshin’ about here like a rubber pig in a winter suit. But hold on, let me first put down this fool drink. ( dial tone )

A LITIGATION, in the meantime, had been resolved in the province of Veneto. The attorney-in-fact, appointed by a magistrate of the Court of Appeal, conducted an investigation by locating not without difficulty and eventually obtaining the most recent judgments rendered in a dispute between the alleged heir of a small estate located in the City of Venice and the State of Italy and then sent the results ahead which from Quinsyburg were forwarded to Cambridge, Mass.

The affair began long ago, at the outset of the eighteenth century, when in 1718 and within that republic a certain “ benefizio semplice di patronale- laicale ” dedicated to San Marco, patron saint of Venice, had been created. In essence, the so-called benefit ( benefizio ) was established by one or more owners of certain lands ( patroni ) by execution of a deed assigning forever their income from said lands to an ecclesiastical entity, such as a church, in return for the perpetual obligation of the priests, as designate by the patroni and from time to time in charge of said church, to say Masses for the souls of the owners, their families, and successors. The church ( capellano ) was entitled to receive from the cultivation of the owners, fishermen in this case, a share of the produce (normally 1/5) and to administer the land for this purpose; the pescatori , i.e., the fishermen, were entitled to retain the residual 4/5ths share of the produce. An inspection of this benefizio by ecclesiastical authorities ascertained that, with the seizure of the city in 1797 by the French, destroying its independence, it ceded to the state. The patroni were sent down that judgment, the deed was dissolved, and their names faded into oblivion.

At the union of the republic of Venezia with the Kingdom of Italy, several new laws were then enacted, principally aimed at suppressing the old ecclesiastical entities and transferring their rights to the state demesne. Soon thereafter, law No. 1464 of August 17, 1873, established, in the absence of any notarial deeds, owners, or assignees, various civic tenancies in the benefizio in question — a piece of land with dwellings located, as it was, off the Canale della Misericordia. The particular palazzo on the Corte del Gatto, one division, was declared by favor of the above law, and in suppression of the full benefizio , an orfanotrofio di stato —an orphanage — in settlement. A Venetian notary fixed its yearly allocation at Lir. 200.000 (about $230). The foundlings taken in were given uniforms and arbitrarily assigned surnames that were taken from herbs.

A corrupt official during those years, channeling the annual apportionment of the orphanage to his own ends — engaging, all the while, in a scandalous liaison with one of the young girls there — arranged to close the home with the claim that the lost (read: stolen) assets disallowed by default any settlement pursuant to the 1873 law, and not only for the sudden eviction of its charges but also in view of the brisk maritime trade through the Adriatic, he schemed a graft, attributed the grantorship to his own office, and proceeded to open a house of assignation off the large canal. It flourished.

In the meantime, a certain Alessandro Dittami, a boy randomly named from an aromatic plant which grows in the area of Mount Dicte, found his way to the United States, specifically to New York City, where, in his teens and insolvent, he slept in what Italian immigrants there called the “Hotel Pepino” (i.e., beneath the stars under Garibaldi’s statue in Washington Sq. Park) and assumed the trade of a tailor. He taught himself English, worked hard, and saved his money. With the passing years he came to learn the dark fate of the orphanage in which he had once lived — the child of a romantic and illegitimate love between a local senator there and a girl in service— and to which, after his own small success abroad, he had in the best of faith sent back charitable sums. The monies, unknown to him, were being converted of course to foul ends, still, however, under the guise of state control. Alerted, eventually, to the misappropriation of his gifts, Dittami worked desperately to re-establish the orphanage to the proper powers, less in the name of justice than as a simple act of compassion growing out of his childhood memories, and yet, while he learned that there was no way to effect this other than by looking back into the original benefizio , it was brought to his attention that, as the initial claim of anyone to the benefit had long ago dissolved, the state had every right to continue to assert title to the realty, unless, of course, a patrono could be proved to exist as to matters of letters-patent, grant, lease, custodiam, or recognizance.

Vigorously, he cast around to find ways to vindicate a claim, to free the estate of scandal and taint, and to accede now to full ownership which he sought to do not only by dint of his contributions but also because, as the benefit was essentially of a lay nature ( laicale ), it could not legally have been appropriated by the state in the first place under whatever jurisdiction or for any reason whatsoever. The issue was debated for the following half-century in several suits brought before different courts which rendered conflicting judgments, until the dispute was temporarily settled by the Court of Appeal at Veneto in a decision which gave full force and effect to the original compact between clergy and laity — but not before Dittami passed away. But what, in fact, had been decided? His widow — Darconville’s maternal grandmother — was judicially prevented from the satisfactory conclusion of her husband’s dream, for while it was adjudged that the state demesne had wrongly subrogated the patroni years back and taken possession of their rights, an unlawful abridgment of the formal laicale , there could be given no final resolution of tenancy and/or ownership for want of evidence as to legal continuance. An irony of a legal nature followed: the appellant was awarded temporary jurisdiction, but it was over little more than a financially exhausted, debt-ridden, overspoliated palazzo, a large account duty — substantial charges and assessments — falling upon it coincident with the enormously devaluated lire of several terrible wars. She returned nevertheless to Venice upon her husband’s death where, for the memory of her husband and in the interest of Darconville, her sole heir, she reactivated the dispute on her own, both as to claim and cadastre. Continuance followed continuance.