what seemed like minutes of sleep, I saw Hafeza enter, carrying the most enormous spray of flowers I had ever seen. Blue-white lilies stood erect beside blood-red roses while a profusion of star-shaped buds encircled them like gossamer. They were beautiful. I climbed out of bed as Hafeza placed them in a vase. I found a card tucked among them. I didn’t even recognise the name. Filled with superlatives and hyperbole, it made me laugh. But it also delighted me. When Hafeza left, I began to dance around the room, only to be brought to a standstill when she reappeared seconds later with yet another bunch.
‘More?’ I’d asked incredulously.
Hafeza nodded and left, returning again and again.
I gave up trying to sleep and, after a hasty wash, went to the portego for my morning cafe. Every few minutes, a strange gondola would arrive at the door over the water-stairs and Salzi would rush to open it and take receipt of whatever was being delivered. Even our land door was beseiged as couriers and servants under instructions to deliver their masters’ gifts and pledges ran along the calles.
After a week, my room and the entire casa were brimming with sweet-scented bouquets and bottles of perfume and oils. My dresser was laden with poems, paste brooches, jewelled pins, silken shawls, wildly decorated masks, embroidered handkerchiefs and a host of other tributes – most of which were golden or made from the precious metal itself – along with outrageous declarations of love and devotion. I didn’t know what to make of any of it. I giggled, blushed, pretended indifference. But after I’d retire to my room each night, I would pace the floor and read the accompanying cards and savour the poems – some of which were original – all over again. The one thing they had in common was how they referred to me.
Signorina Dorata had captured not only hearts, but the public imagination as well.
Giaconda wasted no time in placing orders for more clothes with Signor Tedeschi. I am not sure how the small man accomplished it, but within days, additional dresses arrived – more than I would need in a lifetime, all cut from golden fabrics, all stitched with beads dipped in molten gold or painted to match. Masks, hats, gloves, even my zoccoli were now made from golden materials. I would pull out each new garment with the same excitement as if it were my first, clutching them to my body, twirling before the mirror, parading around.
It was only when my wardrobe was organised that Giaconda allowed me to reappear in public. From now on, I would dress only in gold. So it was, that a few days after the function, I rode in the gondola once more. The snow, which had fallen steadily since that night, abated, and a thin, sickly sunlight pierced the clouds. Dressed in all my golden finery, I sat in the prow, a new mask firmly in place, my cape thrown back so the sheen of my dress could be seen. Giaconda sat in the doorway of the felze, content to let me be the focus.
As Salzi pushed us along the canal, the talk began. What started as whispers, with the occasional shout of recognition, soon became a roar. People crowded bridges, ran along the fondamenta, all to catch a look at me. It was such a far cry from the last time I was chased, and I found it hard to reconcile at first. But all too soon, as the days went by and I took to the waters every afternoon, I became used to the attention. I even relished it. We rowed the Circolo whenever the weather would allow, rousing excitement. I became part of the attractions of Carnivale.
When Giaconda and I promenaded through the piazza on Nobiles’ Rise over a week after the ball, Signor Maleovelli between us, our arms resting lightly upon his, our heavy heels cracking the snow that coated the flagstones, people paused in their step, parting to allow us to pass. Daring children ran up to me, running their fingers along my gown, my cape, keen to touch me. ‘Signorina Dorata,’ they whispered, awe in their little voices.
I longed to stroke their sweet faces, to thank them, but Giaconda said I must not. ‘They’re insignificant. Ignore them. You are above them. Be proud. Touch only where it will count. Where and when we tell you.’
How could I explain to her that these bambini were not insignificant to me?