The Duel (review)

REVIEWS497 Giacomo Casanova. The Duel. Foreword by Tim Parks. London: Hesperus Press, 2003. xvi + 109pp. £6.99. ISBN: 1-84391-032-2. Casanova's posdiumous reputation was made by the publication (in French) of his autobiography (completed in 1798, the year of his death), but during his lifetime the Italian adventurer was known for the events related in two short narratives: Histoire de mafuite desprisons [...] de Venise { 1788), the history of his escape from the infamous Venetian Piombi in 1756, and Il Duello (1780). The latter, which recounts Casanova's 1766 duel widi a minor Polish nobleman named Branicki, has now been published by Hesperus Press in a fine translation byJ.G. Nichols, along with Nichols's new translation of die chapter (volume 10, chapter 8) from Histoire de ma vie, where Casanova later rewrote the same episode. Unlike the second, explicidy autobiographical version, the story of The Duel is told entirely in the third person, with Casanova systematically referring to himself as "the Venetian." According to Casanova's accounts, Branicki provoked the duel bywarning him off a Venetian dancer—then appearing at court in Warsaw—and publicly expressing such undisguised contempt for him and the Venetian nation that Casanova ultimately had no choice but to challenge "the PodstoIi " (or buder: Branicki was a member die Equestrian Order ofGrand Podstoli to the Crown) to a duel. The conflict between Casanova's frequent ironies about titles, the nobility, and monarchs (he also makes fun of Marie Leszczynska 's power to make chicken fricassé into the most fashionable dish in France, pp. 12-13) and his own claim to nobility—not to mention his worship ofLouis XV—is not the least ofthe many paradoxes in this story. TL· Dueloffers a delightful blend ofcynical observation (one learns, for example, how to succeed at court in Russia, why military decorations are both foolish and useful, and why monarchs must speak "straightforwardly and precisely"), observations on human nature (how to bear and exploit it), and applied philosophical reasoning (why pity is a heroic feeling, pace Rousseau, p. 61). If all of this reasoning and rationality were merely part of a constructive, demystifying project, as in coundess Enlightenment texts that aim to loosen the hold of religious thought upon the human mind, they would be simply amusing, but ultimately trivial. In Casanova's tale, however, there is something obsessively religious about rational operations: it is as if Casanova needed reason to conjure away the force of his own irrational behaviour. Should he challenge Branicki to a duel? The Prince Palatine, informed of die dilemma, advises Casanova to do "much or nodiing" (p. 18). Over die course ofseven pages (pp. 16-22), Casanova weighs the arguments for and against challenging Branicki to a duel: Whatwould Plato's Socrates have done? What would Christ have done? What ifBranicki refuses the challenge? And finally, for a man whose material comfort depends upon maintaining credit at court, does any of diis philosophizing matter? The answer quickly presents itselfin ostensibly rational form: "As a result of this reasoning, based on a knowledge of the human heart and the strength of prevailing prejudices, he ["the 498 EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY FICTION16:3 Venetian"] prepared without any loss oftime to send die knight a note which did in fact challenge him" (p. 22). Yet, however one mayjustify risking one's life in a duel, ultimately this can never be a rational decision. As Georges Bataille has shown, rationality is based, literally ( > ratio), upon calculation, upon a determination of die resources necessary to survive, whereas duelling is a "non-rational" operation. The willingness to risk one's life for the sake of honour was die classic mark ofnoble consciousness, in which a noble defined himselfas far above die vulgar, ignoble concern with survival. Although he does not mention it in TL· Duel, from 1760 Casanova had been calling himself "Casanova de Seingalt," a fact that would account for his repeated and apparendy unmotivated retorts, both at the beginning and end of the story, to accusations of having falsely represented himself at Court: "He was introduced [at Court] by no odier name than die one which he took from his humble birdi" (p. 6); "He would not...