First Things First…
I didn’t even know the definition of “assignation” until I just looked it up. Needless to say, I’m clueless about this story. At least I’m finally coming off a Poe story I kinda liked, so I’m a little more optimistic after reading “MS. in a Bottle” last week.
3 Things I Like
3. The Husband Looms
Not too much is made of Mentoni, the husband of the Marchesa Aphrodite and father of the child that falls into the canal. But he’s there. He looms. He’s mysterious. And maybe it’s just me, but he seems vaguely sinister.
The first mention of him is right after the narrator describes Mentoni’s wife.
After calling her “…the adoration of all Venice—the gayest of the gay—the most lovely where all were beautiful—,” he finishes that thought by saying “… but still the young wife of the old and intriguing Mentoni…”
There’s nothing specifically bad mentioned there. But pair that with the gloomy evening and the dire circumstance—their baby has fallen in the canal and is struggling for its life beneath the water—and then consider that his wife is essentially described as a goddess who’s adored by the entire city, yet she’s married to a mysterious older man. It just gives me a peculiar feeling that something isn’t quite right in their relationship.
But that’s not all. A few paragraphs later, the description says…
“Many steps above the Marchesa, and within the arch of the water-gate, stood, in full dress, the Satyr-like figure of Mentoni himself. He was occasionally occupied in thrumming a gutar, and seemed ennuye to the very death, as at intervals he gave directions for the recovery of his child.”
So he’s looming and, even though he occasionally tries to direct people to rescue his child, he doesn’t move to do it himself. Even worse, he’s bored at the whole situation.
There’s definitely something off about this guy.
2. No Shame in Lavishness
The stranger’s apartment is the most lavish, ornate, gaudy place imaginable. There’s no thought given to taste or style. It’s just a feast for the senses. The art, the draperies, the perfumes, the furniture—it’s all too much. “It’s meant to dazzle and astound,” with no concern for how things fit together. It’s the opposite of a less-is-more approach.
This sounds like a place I’d absolutely hate. So why put it in this category?
Well, it’s fun to read about. But I also love what the stranger says about it shortly before he dies…
“Yet the effect is incongruous to the timid alone.”
It’s almost as if he’s saying the truly wealthy have no need to try to stylize their home. They can’t be overwhelmed. To them, all they want, all they need, is more. And it’s only those who can’t have it all who would find fault with someplace like this, and who make excuses why opulence is bad.
1. Overlooking the Clues
In hindsight, it should’ve been obvious, to both the narrator and to me, that the stranger who rescues the baby knows the Marchesa Aphrodite—intimately. Her reaction says it all. Receiving her baby seems to revive her. But it’s not just the typical things you’d expect a mother to react with, like tears. The narrator notices, too, and wonders about it…
“What other possible reason could there have been for her so blushing?—for the glance of those wild appealing eyes?—for the unusual tumult of that throbbing bosom?—for the convulsive pressure of that trembling hand?—that hand which fell, as Mentoni turned into the palace, accidentally, upon the hand of the stranger.”
Yet he chalks it up to the simplest possible reason—that, in her haste and unthinking terror of potentially losing her baby, she forgot to put on her slippers and put a shawl over her shoulders, and now she’s embarrassed by her improper appearance.
He doesn’t recognize there’s something to this meeting. It’s not by chance. And clearly she’s reacting to this stranger viscerally.
1 Thing I’m Mixed On
1. The Pact
It seems the stranger and the Marchesa Aphrodite created a lovers’ suicide pact. The story ends with a report of her being poisoned, followed by the narrator realizing the stranger hasn’t passed out from drinking too much wine, but that he, too, has drank poison.
It’s a twist that maybe I should’ve seen coming but didn’t. Poe deserves credit for that. But I wish I understood more about them that might’ve clued me into this.
For the Marchesa, there’s the specter of her husband. And, again, he’s also mysterious, so I don’t really know what’s going on with him, but something about him strikes me as sinister.
As for the dude, who knows? Is it just that this is his former lover who he can’t be with? That’s the only thing I can think of.
And then, what of the kid? Is the Marchesa cool with leaving the kid to her creepy husband—the one who didn’t even lift a finger to rescue him from the water? Again, I’d like to know more so I can understand how she came to this decision.
1 Thing I Don’t Like
1. How Bad Is the Fall?
I’m confused about how that child falls, and from what height.
The first mention of it says…
“A child, slipping from the arms of its own mother, had fallen from an upper window of the lofty structure into the deep and dim canal.”
“An upper window” makes me think, somehow, the mother dropped the baby out the window from, at minimum, a second-story room—probably higher. But mere sentences later, as numerous people have dived in and search in vain for the child, it says…
“Upon the broad black marble flagstones at the entrance of the palace, and a few steps above the water, stood a figure which none who then saw can have ever since forgotten. It was the Marchesa Aphrodite… the mother of that fair child…”
To be clear, you don’t want to drop a baby in a deep, dark canal regardless. But a fall from “a few steps above the water” is much different than a high window.
Tim Matassa
