"Of course course I do! Skinny and warped as that cue stick of his, very butch, with b.u.t.tocks hard and red as a pair of billiard b.a.l.l.s and a face like a knuckled fist, who could I do! Skinny and warped as that cue stick of his, very butch, with b.u.t.tocks hard and red as a pair of billiard b.a.l.l.s and a face like a knuckled fist, who could forget forget the vicious little mangiapane?! So, tell me, whatever happened to the dear boy?" the vicious little mangiapane?! So, tell me, whatever happened to the dear boy?"

"He's! he's dead," gasps the old scholar, feeling afresh the loss and weeping now as he wept then. "He died as a! as a donkey. But - but why are you laughing -?! It was terrible -!" terrible -!"

"I'm - whoo! hee! - sorry, my love, I'm sure it was, I, ah, missed all that, you see. But you must must tell me what it was like - I mean, all those parts just tell me what it was like - I mean, all those parts just engorging engorging like that, stretching and filling so suddenly all by themselves, it must have been quite like that, stretching and filling so suddenly all by themselves, it must have been quite extraordinary!" extraordinary!"

"It hurt."

"Oh, yes, I know what you mean! Ha ha! I did try one once, a lovely little salt-and-pepper thing we'd once called Lucio. The pain was! exquisite! exquisite! Hoo, dear! If they hadn't shot him, I'd have Hoo, dear! If they hadn't shot him, I'd have died! died! Now where Now where are are those wretched servants?" he complains, jerking impatiently on the bell rope. "I those wretched servants?" he complains, jerking impatiently on the bell rope. "I do do miss dear old Marten, you know, it's been absolutely miss dear old Marten, you know, it's been absolutely impossible impossible around this place since you made me dismiss him, Pini!" He rises, wiping his hands on a velvet cloth. "It's well past time for your morning infusione and my corretto, dear boy, so you'll have to excuse me. It seems I must take care of it myself! But when I come back, I want to hear all about the donkey life!" around this place since you made me dismiss him, Pini!" He rises, wiping his hands on a velvet cloth. "It's well past time for your morning infusione and my corretto, dear boy, so you'll have to excuse me. It seems I must take care of it myself! But when I come back, I want to hear all about the donkey life!"

Ah well, the donkey life. Poor Lampwick summed it up in the last few words he spoke, lying there in the farmer's stinking straw, dying of hunger and overwork: "I am! not! who I am! Those s.h.i.ts! have stolen my life!!" Early in his career, in a monograph ent.i.tled "Reply to an Errant Friend on his Deathbed," modeled on the Epistolae Epistolae of Cicero and Petrarch and later reprinted as an appendix to the fifth edition of of Cicero and Petrarch and later reprinted as an appendix to the fifth edition of The Wretch, The Wretch, he chided Lampwick for blaming thieves for his own easy charity. "No one can steal what is only yours to give. Spiritual penury with its attendant despair is a willed choice, dear Lampwick, like any other. If a man were to lose his watch to pickpockets and then recover it, would he ever put himself at their mercy again unless he willed to do so? As Saint Augustine reminds his disciple in Petrarch's he chided Lampwick for blaming thieves for his own easy charity. "No one can steal what is only yours to give. Spiritual penury with its attendant despair is a willed choice, dear Lampwick, like any other. If a man were to lose his watch to pickpockets and then recover it, would he ever put himself at their mercy again unless he willed to do so? As Saint Augustine reminds his disciple in Petrarch's Secretum, Secretum, 'The deceived is never separate from the deceiver.' " Perhaps he'd shown too little respect for outright villainy, as some argued, or too little awareness of what those of a popular heresy of the day called "the conditioning power of social forces," but he saw these objections as little more than sophistical dodges, using the seemingly objective otherness of "history," a mere illusion of language, after all, to deny or undermine the individual will and its responsibilities, a package he came to call "I-ness," the uncompromising defense of which has brought him where he is today. Or was a week or so ago, anyway! 'The deceived is never separate from the deceiver.' " Perhaps he'd shown too little respect for outright villainy, as some argued, or too little awareness of what those of a popular heresy of the day called "the conditioning power of social forces," but he saw these objections as little more than sophistical dodges, using the seemingly objective otherness of "history," a mere illusion of language, after all, to deny or undermine the individual will and its responsibilities, a package he came to call "I-ness," the uncompromising defense of which has brought him where he is today. Or was a week or so ago, anyway!

How differently their lives have turned out, his and Lampwick's! Of course it helped that he got sold to the circus instead of to some pig of a farmer to be starved and beaten and worked to death. Clearly, the Blue-Haired Fairy had been watching over him, even in his donkey days. That she had a box seat for his debut as the "Star of the Dance," for example, could not have been an accident. He was so startled to see her there, dressed in mourning garments and flashing her medallion with its portrait of a defunct puppet at him, that, jumping through the hoop, he fell and lamed himself, thus bringing on, as though spelled, his own execution, but maybe that too was a part of her pedagogy, his fall a mark of promised grace, her medallion not so much an omen as a vivid image for a little beast who'd not yet learned his letters to let him know that much in him still had to die before he could be hers again. Or so he learned to read those awesome trials in retrospect. His "Golden a.s.s" theory of redemption, as some have called it, and with reason, for there was much in Lucius Apuleius' youthful asininity, his bufferings and sorrows, and his eventual transformational rebirth (though he merely ate and was not eaten) into lifelong devotion to his protectress' sacred service, that paralleled the professor's own strange formation and contemplative career, and took him far from Lampwick.

Whom, however, for all his waywardness, he has never ceased to mourn, for a friend, as Cicero said, is like a second self ("True, true," murmurs Eugenio, at his side once more and holding the cup of hot medicinal tea at his guests's cracked lips, "and old old friends, dear Pini - like old wood, old casks, old authors - are always best, especially when they are - ha ha! - all one and the same!"), and moreover, in Lampwick's case, as he explained in his great prose epic, friends, dear Pini - like old wood, old casks, old authors - are always best, especially when they are - ha ha! - all one and the same!"), and moreover, in Lampwick's case, as he explained in his great prose epic, The Transformation of the Beast, The Transformation of the Beast, a a sacrificial sacrificial second self whose death prepared the way for his own salvation: Lampwick, dying, was lying, so to speak, on the last straw, put there in his emblematic extremity, he came to feel, by the Fairy herself. As the light went out in Lampwick's eyes, the light came on in his puppet head, and he became forever after the very model of entrepreneurial industry and scholarly ambition, winning thereby the Fairy's ultimate blessing. "Despise not this lowly a.s.s," he wrote affectionately, many years later, "though he be in appearance the most hateful beast in the universe, for, as William of Occam observed long ago, G.o.d could have chosen to embody himself in a donkey as well as in a man, and who is to say that he did not?" second self whose death prepared the way for his own salvation: Lampwick, dying, was lying, so to speak, on the last straw, put there in his emblematic extremity, he came to feel, by the Fairy herself. As the light went out in Lampwick's eyes, the light came on in his puppet head, and he became forever after the very model of entrepreneurial industry and scholarly ambition, winning thereby the Fairy's ultimate blessing. "Despise not this lowly a.s.s," he wrote affectionately, many years later, "though he be in appearance the most hateful beast in the universe, for, as William of Occam observed long ago, G.o.d could have chosen to embody himself in a donkey as well as in a man, and who is to say that he did not?"

"Ho ho! G.o.d in a donkey suit! I love love it, Pini!" chortles Eugenio crossing himself hastily, then squeezing the old scholar's knee "Rather it, Pini!" chortles Eugenio crossing himself hastily, then squeezing the old scholar's knee "Rather changes changes the holy manger scene, doesn't it, and makes one wonder just the holy manger scene, doesn't it, and makes one wonder just what what the Holy Family had been the Holy Family had been up up to, eh? But to answer your question, my boy, there's the testimony of our own precious Saint Mark, for one," he adds, gesturing with a sweep of his hand at the saint's great water-masked square before them. to, eh? But to answer your question, my boy, there's the testimony of our own precious Saint Mark, for one," he adds, gesturing with a sweep of his hand at the saint's great water-masked square before them.

"Who has no manger scene, honors the a.s.s, and ends his evangel with the terror of his witnesses," replies the professor, sipping at the hot infusione infusione held at his lips. held at his lips.

"Ah, is that so! Well, of course, I've never read it!"

The floodwaters in the Piazza are receding. A slate-gray line now cuts like a smudge through the reflected arches of the Procuratie Nuove, a kind of dry spine down the middle of the porous Piazza, higher than the rest, and there the pigeons and tourists gather as though on a crowded strip of beach, feeding each others' appet.i.tes, a scene he gazes upon this morning with a certain affection, for only yesterday those pigeons in their appet.i.tive innocence saved his life. Pinioned in blankets and tipped out like a seedpod into s.p.a.ce by the vindictive Marten, he could only, with that "horror of heart" said by Ruskin to have been this city's original creative principle, gaze helplessly down upon the pale blank countenance of stony Death, rushing upwards, when least expected, to kiss him cruelly face to face. Even as he began to plummet, however, Death's face was all at once darkly scrawled, as though moustachioed by a mischievous boy, as a ma.s.sive swarm of pigeons rose up, roaring round like a sudden black tornado, alarmed, it seemed, by the striking of the great bronze bell above his head: twice, though it was not yet noon. He'd heard the Moors' two reverberant strokes as a personal knell, signaling, as did the Maleficio of the Campanile in the old days, his imminent execution, not knowing what the pigeons knew: that it was in truth a dinner bell, the city having traditionally fed its feathered mendicants, at public expense and for generations beyond number, each day precisely at nine and two, occasions that called for, in this ceremonial city, a ceremonial ascent, orbit, and processional descent to table. He fell, light as a coc.o.o.ned moth, upon their arched backs and, bounced from one to another by their beating wings as though being blanketed, was lofted to within reach of the jaws of the stone Lion of Saint Mark on the clock tower - or perhaps the great creature, screened by the pigeons, left his pedestal and joined the flight, it was hard to say, certainly there was an awesome flopping about overhead, as though a helicopter might be hovering, and afterwards the old fellow, though poised as before with his paw on the book when next he looked, recognizing him now as the very beast that had pursued him through the snow his first night here in Venice, his nose flattened as though from hitting too many bell towers, did seem desperately winded, snorting and blowing like a beached walrus - and from the Lion's jaws, he was flung back into his wheelchair, or dropped there, much to his relief, having been, on top of his terror, nearly asphyxiated, just as Eugenio arrived, beaming sunnily, from Sunday Ma.s.s.

"Well, well!" he exclaimed with his jolly pink-cheeked smile, his slicked-back hair gleaming on his round head like a shiny plastic cap. "You're looking much better, my friend! So wide awake! The fresh air seems to have done you good!"

"I-I was thrown! out into the middle! the middle middle of it!" he squeaked clumsily, still dizzy from the vertigo of the fall, the pigeons' tossing, and the Lion's blindingly foul breath. of it!" he squeaked clumsily, still dizzy from the vertigo of the fall, the pigeons' tossing, and the Lion's blindingly foul breath.

"In the middle? In the middle of what, what, dear boy?" dear boy?"

"I'm afraid, eh, the old fellow was actually asleep the whole time, direttore," growled Marten sotto voce. "He seemed to be having nightmares, so finally I woke him. You can see he's still confused -"

"No! There! I was out there there!" he gasped, pointing, his arms bound, with his nose.

"What? You mean, in midair -?"

"He speaks metaphorically, padroncino," chuckled the servant with a conspiratorial wink, trying to bundle the blankets around his mouth. "As Checco Petrarca from up the street once said, some of us sc.r.a.pe parchments, write books, correct them, illuminate and bind them, adorn their surface; superior minds look higher and fly above these mean occupations!"

"Ah! Quite so! Well said, Marten!"

"No!" he cried, gagged on cashmere, tears stinging his eyes. "He - choke! - choke! - - threw threw me out there -!" me out there -!"

"Ah! See how he trembles, master. He may have a dangerous fever -!"

"He-he tried to kill kill me!" me!"

"Who tried to kill you, dear boy?"

"This-this-this-that -!"

"He lies, direttore."

"Lies? My friend Pinocchio?" Eugenio exclaimed, arching his tufted brows and peering closer with his little eyes. "There, my good man, I think you may have overstepped yourself."

"The! the Lion -!" he managed to gasp, "- saved me!"

"Just protecting the citizens below," the Lion rumbled grumpily from his pedestal, still puffing and wheezing. "We Venetians welcome strangers with open arms, but not at thirty-two feet per second per f.u.c.king second."

"Aha. So that explains the mischief of the bells!"

"Don't mind your drowning these wormy old dog-c.o.c.ks out behind the a.r.s.enale," the Lion went on, "no one gets hurt that way, but dumping the t.u.r.ds in my Piazza is going to get some some fat little sporcaccione fat little sporcaccione stepped stepped on!" on!"

"Now you see the trouble you've caused, Marten? The next time this happens, I am going to have to discipline you most severely -!"

"The next next time -!" squawked the professor in disbelief, his blood rising, or his sap, whatever: "The next time I'll be time -!" squawked the professor in disbelief, his blood rising, or his sap, whatever: "The next time I'll be dead!" dead!" Then, before he could stop himself, he blew up into a wild unseemly temper, screaming indignantly about "a.s.sa.s.sins and murderers" and "depraved prevaricators," castigating the entire city of Venice and all of its duplicitous and tyrannical history, accusing the grizzled old servant of everything from imposture, insurrection, and criminal neglect to pigeon poaching and senicide, even raging about Palladio and the cruelty of the climate and the Lion's halitosis, he'd never so lost control of himself since they'd tried to curb his franking privileges back at the university. It was shameful, really, a throwback to the ill-mannered tantrums of his days as a woodenhead, but effective. Though Eugenio was clearly reluctant to let his longtime servant go ("He doesn't steal Then, before he could stop himself, he blew up into a wild unseemly temper, screaming indignantly about "a.s.sa.s.sins and murderers" and "depraved prevaricators," castigating the entire city of Venice and all of its duplicitous and tyrannical history, accusing the grizzled old servant of everything from imposture, insurrection, and criminal neglect to pigeon poaching and senicide, even raging about Palladio and the cruelty of the climate and the Lion's halitosis, he'd never so lost control of himself since they'd tried to curb his franking privileges back at the university. It was shameful, really, a throwback to the ill-mannered tantrums of his days as a woodenhead, but effective. Though Eugenio was clearly reluctant to let his longtime servant go ("He doesn't steal from from me, Pini, he steals me, Pini, he steals for for me -!"), two policemen finally appeared on the balcony and, at a snap of Eugenio's fingers, hauled Marten away between them. "All right, Pini, calm down, you've had your way," sighed Eugenio wearily when they were gone. "I hope you realize only a true friend would render such a great service! For you, of course, Old Sticks, it was a pleasure, but," he added, leaning toward him with a sly forgiving wink, "just don't eat rabbit in Venice for a while!" me -!"), two policemen finally appeared on the balcony and, at a snap of Eugenio's fingers, hauled Marten away between them. "All right, Pini, calm down, you've had your way," sighed Eugenio wearily when they were gone. "I hope you realize only a true friend would render such a great service! For you, of course, Old Sticks, it was a pleasure, but," he added, leaning toward him with a sly forgiving wink, "just don't eat rabbit in Venice for a while!"

Now, his grappa-laced espresso finished, his great friend and benefactor snores contentedly at his side. There are traces of rouge in his ancient cheeks and a dusting of powder around his eyes, a tender vanity. His thin slicked black hair catches light from the Piazza almost as a mirror might, hard and glittering. Out there, the dry spine in the middle has become a broad isthmus, once more populated by the familiar crowds of clicking and posing tourists, many of them already in Carnival masks and costumes. There are devils out there and royal couples, wild beasts and b.u.t.terflies and ghostly spectres. The Caff Quadri below him and Florian's across the way are setting out their tables again, and the orchestras are tuning up. At the edge of the receding waters and reflected in them, a camera, seemingly without an owner, stands on its tripod, the colorful film-advertising cloth thrown over it hanging silently in the bright still day, as if in its spindly solitude to speak to his condition or else perhaps to mock it. An illusion, of course. Nothing is being said. Not far away, a Harlequin approaches, hobbling on a cane, so fat his hairy behind sticks out from the rear of the costume, and accompanying him is a squat bent-backed Columbine with a moth-eaten tail who entertains the crowd by walking into stacked platforms and falling over cafe tables. Sooner or later, they will hit the camera and knock it down, he knows, and that, too, will have a certain meaning, and at the same time, none at all.

In that fractional moment, somewhere between the first stroke of the bell and the second, when, tossed from his chair, he hovered up there in the icy air as though afloat, the Piazza below appeared to him as an open book, a book he'd read a thousand times before, or perhaps a thousand books he'd read before compressed to one, its text dizzyingly complex yet awesomely simple, readable at a glance, yet somehow illegible, and it recalled to him his first terrifying encounter, when still a puppet, with his abbicc, abbicc, which (the Fairy said) promised him the world and more but gave him (under "N" of course, and this was the page he'd come to once again) which (the Fairy said) promised him the world and more but gave him (under "N" of course, and this was the page he'd come to once again) niente. niente. Nothing. And this, he thinks, slipping peacefully into a nap of his own, snug in his silk pajamas and monogrammed velvet robe, was the Miracle of the Mis-struck Hour: the pigeons rose and turned the page. Nothing. And this, he thinks, slipping peacefully into a nap of his own, snug in his silk pajamas and monogrammed velvet robe, was the Miracle of the Mis-struck Hour: the pigeons rose and turned the page.

19. AT L'OMINO'S TOMB.

"It's! it's a long story," he replies hesitantly.

"What do you say?" Eugenio calls out over the start-up roar of the motor, as they lower him into the launch.

"He says it's quite long!" long!" shouts Francatrippa. shouts Francatrippa.

"Aha! And I suppose, Pini, it gets longer longer the more it goes on!" the more it goes on!"

"I'd say it stands stands to get to get harder harder the more it goes on, direttore!" laughs Buffetto. the more it goes on, direttore!" laughs Buffetto.

"No, no, the more it goes on, direttore," pipes up Truffaldino in his squeaky voice, hopping aboard, "the more it grows grows on you! The more the tension on you! The more the tension rises rises and the plot and the plot thickens!" thickens!"

"Ha ha! Very good, my child!" laughs Eugenio, holding on to the wheel with one hand as they pull away from the island and out into the lagoon, reaching behind him for Truffaldino's backside with the other.

"But even when he stretches stretches the the truth, truth, direttore," adds Truffaldino, backing down into the cabin and holding out his fist in a sailor's cap for Eugenio to pinch, "his moral is always direttore," adds Truffaldino, backing down into the cabin and holding out his fist in a sailor's cap for Eugenio to pinch, "his moral is always rigidly upstanding!" rigidly upstanding!"

"He gives it to you straight, straight, direttore!" direttore!"

"With a hard snout!"

"Right in your ear!"

"But tell tell me, dear boy, please do," Eugenio has just pleaded, the immediate cause of all the raillery, "tell me the tale of your me, dear boy, please do," Eugenio has just pleaded, the immediate cause of all the raillery, "tell me the tale of your nose," nose," the professor himself having just previously remarked in a rare moment of candor, touching upon that subject which has always remained, though unhideable, hidden: "It was as obvious, you could say, as the nose on your face. I was probably the last person in the world to figure it out, slow learner that I am - I mean, I was fifty-seven years old before I suddenly realized other people had nostrils!" Not true, though, that he's a slow learner. No, he's more like a fast learner and a fast forgetter! the professor himself having just previously remarked in a rare moment of candor, touching upon that subject which has always remained, though unhideable, hidden: "It was as obvious, you could say, as the nose on your face. I was probably the last person in the world to figure it out, slow learner that I am - I mean, I was fifty-seven years old before I suddenly realized other people had nostrils!" Not true, though, that he's a slow learner. No, he's more like a fast learner and a fast forgetter!

It has been a day for candor, spent upon the moody emptiness of the wintry lagoon, touring Eugenio's varied enterprises, and lastly upon San Michele, the Island of the Dead, where Eugenio has taken him to visit the mausoleum of the Little Man and to lay fresh flowers there. "I've something special to show you, Pini," he'd said, and so he had, and there in that somber place, surrounded by vast gardens of graves and walls of stacked tombs like immense stone filing cabinets, there before an image that brought tears to his eyes, Eugenio has opened his heart to his old friend, telling him all about his long active life on these islands, his relationship with L'Omino, the Little Man, and his own boyhood experiences in Toyland. Which were different from his.

Before that, a day that began cheerfully enough, with Eugenio, in an ebullient mood quite out of keeping with the dour misty weather, or perhaps in resistance to it, offering to take him on a tour of his many civic projects, an offer inspired in part by his heated telephone negotiations before lunch with the government of Czechoslovakia, Eugenio seeking to recover the bones of Venetian native son Giacomo Casanova in time for reburial next week during the climax of Carnival, which was already well under way in the Piazza outside his windows. "If I don't get those bones for our Gran Gala, Eccellenza, siamo fottuti!" fottuti!" he'd shrieked wildly, slamming the phone down when he got disconnected, but then as quickly, spying the alarm on the professor's face, he'd broken into a warm ruddy smile and added: "Ah, but why make it a cause for war, eh? Where you cannot climb over, as the Little Man himself used to say, you must crawl under, there are other fish to skin, after all, other cats to fry - if we cannot retrieve that sinner's wormy remains, we might still have time, per esempio, to wrest dear Santa Lucia's eyes from the Sicilians to go with the rest of her we have here, steal them if we have to, pop them in place perhaps at the very moment of the midnight unmasking! Why not? Indeed, the world of scattered holy relics offers us an infinitude of opportunities! Even with what we already have here in Venice, we might be able to piece together a kind of saint of saints to preside over the festivities, and to the devil with that quasi-Bohemian minchione's disloyal and profligate bones! Eh? And, besides, in this dark solst.i.tial season, are we not more than amply enriched by your own luminous presence, my friend?" he'd shrieked wildly, slamming the phone down when he got disconnected, but then as quickly, spying the alarm on the professor's face, he'd broken into a warm ruddy smile and added: "Ah, but why make it a cause for war, eh? Where you cannot climb over, as the Little Man himself used to say, you must crawl under, there are other fish to skin, after all, other cats to fry - if we cannot retrieve that sinner's wormy remains, we might still have time, per esempio, to wrest dear Santa Lucia's eyes from the Sicilians to go with the rest of her we have here, steal them if we have to, pop them in place perhaps at the very moment of the midnight unmasking! Why not? Indeed, the world of scattered holy relics offers us an infinitude of opportunities! Even with what we already have here in Venice, we might be able to piece together a kind of saint of saints to preside over the festivities, and to the devil with that quasi-Bohemian minchione's disloyal and profligate bones! Eh? And, besides, in this dark solst.i.tial season, are we not more than amply enriched by your own luminous presence, my friend?"

"A relic intact, you mean," he'd replied, adding gloomily: "More or less," and Eugenio had laughed his honeyed laugh and said: "You exaggerate, dear boy! To put you you together again would be beyond even my considerable powers! Nor, were it possible, would I wish it so, for to tell the truth, dear Pini, I love you more each day, the less of you there is! But come now, let us escape these vaporous old stones and make our way out upon the open waters, and I will show you the empire that Toyland has built!" together again would be beyond even my considerable powers! Nor, were it possible, would I wish it so, for to tell the truth, dear Pini, I love you more each day, the less of you there is! But come now, let us escape these vaporous old stones and make our way out upon the open waters, and I will show you the empire that Toyland has built!"

But before they could even get started the palazzo was thrown into an uproar. Buffetto and Francatrippa, sent to the private hospital owned and operated by the Sons of L'Omino to bring back the personal effects of a deceased client, brought back the patient instead, very much alive, grinning dippily and still wired up to all his medical paraphernalia, which looked suspiciously like something made out of Lego blocks, colored balloons, a Meccano set, and birthday party straws. "No no, you fools, you went too soon, soon, he wasn't he wasn't ready ready yet!" Eugenio screamed, and in his rage he heaved an antique bejeweled chalice from Thessalonica at Buffetto, who ducked, the chalice striking the patient on the head instead, widening his witless smile and setting his ancient dilated eyes to spinning. "Must I do everything yet!" Eugenio screamed, and in his rage he heaved an antique bejeweled chalice from Thessalonica at Buffetto, who ducked, the chalice striking the patient on the head instead, widening his witless smile and setting his ancient dilated eyes to spinning. "Must I do everything myself?!" myself?!"

It was the sort of uproar all too frequent since the arrival at the Palazzo dei Balocchi of the new servants, hired to replace Marten and his brothers, summarily dismissed, if not worse (just yesterday Buffetto said to him: "Eh, professor, I saw my predecessor the other day!" "Marten? How - how was he -?" "Tasty!"), such that hardly a day has pa.s.sed without Eugenio erupting with fresh fury and complaining about the loss of his beloved old valet and reminding the professor bitterly of his own instigating role in that unfortunate decision. Indeed, this morning's incident was not unlike that of a day or two ago, when an English lord, who had supposedly drowned after slipping off the walkway at the back of the a.r.s.enal walls and whose tragic and untimely death had been duly lamented in the evening newspaper, found his way back to the palazzo in time for supper after wandering the city all day in senile confusion, expounding thunderously to all the gondoliers upon the greater glory of the British fleet and declaring that if this was NATO, he'd have none of it, little Truffaldino meanwhile returning draped in sewage and seaweed and bawling like a baby, having fallen in in the n.o.bleman's stead, an event that would have elicited even more wrath than it did, had not Truffaldino with his sweet musical voice and soft winsome ways so swiftly become Eugenio's newest favorite.

The Palazzo dei Balocchi, the professor has come to understand, is operated by Eugenio on behalf of his charities as a sort of aristocratic retirement hotel, catering to banking magnates, oil barons, the n.o.bility, former munitions makers and Third World presidents, gambling czars and diamond miners, all the successful diggers and owners and traders of the world, now purchasing for themselves in their final days a foretaste of paradise in paradisiacal Venice, he himself being housed in the royal apartments of this generous establishment, though as a friend of course, not a client. Not only are all the creature comforts provided, but much more besides, and always with Eugenio's characteristic touches of elegance and serendipitous antic.i.p.ation of every need and appet.i.te. Thus the professor, for example, while having little interest in the theaters and nightclubs, restaurants, regattas, shops, casinos, masked b.a.l.l.s, and gondola serenades so sought after by the others, has discovered that sitting on the Grand Ca.n.a.l under the blue-and-white-striped awnings of the Gritti Palace terrace bar, across from the sweet golden serenity of the incomparable Ca' Dario, dressed in a clean silk suit and an ascot tie puffed up like a cloud at his throat, his feet dangling in their new shoes and his macabre condition otherwise hidden behind hat, scarves, and soft kid gloves, sipping a small gla.s.s of the official papal grappa made in the Picolit region while watching behind subtly tinted spectacles the water traffic go rumbling by, a book in his lap and pen and fresh paper before him, is precisely what he has wanted to do all his life and was in fact the very reason, though he may not have expressed it in just this way, for his decision to return here in the first place, something only Eugenio could have, tacitly and wonderfully, intuited and, without asking, acted upon. "Whatever you want, dear boy," Eugenio has insisted over and over, "I can arrange it. Trust Trust me." And who, so blessed, not merely with comforts but with such fraternal understanding, would not? me." And who, so blessed, not merely with comforts but with such fraternal understanding, would not?

But since Buffetto, Francatrippa, and Truffaldino joined the staff, things have not been the same. Sheets have been shorted and sugar salted, room and sauna a.s.signments have been alarmingly confused, bringing on palazzo mini wars with international reverberations, purses and gondolas alike have sprung inopportune leaks, medicines are now jumbled together and dispensed at random from a golden punch bowl, with spectacular and sometimes explosive consequences, and Eugenio's best vintage Barolos, when uncorked, have been found to be mysteriously filled with ca.n.a.l water. The professor himself has discovered a live squid in his hot water bottle, chewing gum on the seat of his portantina, and dog hairs in his grappa, though these latter were left, Francatrippa insisted, by "some irascible old mutt who keeps coming by here looking for you, lucky she didn't raise her leg in it before the boss chased her off." Contessas hired to throw tour-group parties at their Venetian palazzi have been stood up, the guests appearing in rowdy Mestre discos instead, the roulette wheel at the Casino has stopped repeatedly on the same number for five nights running, forcing it to close its doors right in the middle of Carnival season, a group of randy old widowers from Bavaria, taken ostensibly to a house of pleasure, had their lederhosen down before they realized they were actually in the cloister of a convent, and only last night a group of American retirees from Nebraska disrupted a performance of La forza del destino La forza del destino at the Fenice, apparently encouraged to believe it was a public sing-along. at the Fenice, apparently encouraged to believe it was a public sing-along.

Still, though Eugenio fires the three of them every day, he hires them back every day as well, either from necessity, as he claims, or from some perverse attraction to the very perversity he pretends to deplore, or perhaps merely out of his dreamy-eyed infatuation for little Truffaldino, who today, when his companions were not only discharged but turned over to the police, arriving ominously as suddenly as summoned, fell to his knees at Eugenio's feet and, weeping copiously, begged forgiveness and pardon for his two friends, insisting that the fault was really his and that if the questurini must take someone away it should be him. "Ah, what talent!" exclaimed Eugenio, his heart softening, and he opened his arms affectionately. "You are a good brave boy! Come here, my little piscione, and give me a kiss!" Truffaldino leapt up, straddled Eugenio's globe of a belly, gave his master a magnificent wet smack on the end of his nose, then bounced away again before the kiss could be returned or in any way elaborated upon, wherewith Eugenio not only rehired them all but invited them along on this afternoon's excursion, explaining that he wished to instruct them in seamanship, speedboat handling, and the sailor life.

And so after lunch they had set off, the professor, still unable to get about on his own, ported to the motor launch in his sedan chair by the three servants, Eugenio waddling along beside them, expounding grandly on the glories of his city and pointing out the many prized possessions of Omino e figli, S.R.L., and its affiliates. Indeed every second building seemed to belong to one or another of Eugenio's enterprises, many of the banks and businesses as well, innumerable palazzi, even several churches and bridges and historical monuments, it being the enlightened policy of the city government, in which he and his friends, due to their deep sense of civic duty, are also active, Eugenio explained, to turn over to private enterprise the terrible responsibility of maintaining these landmarks in the face of the awesome challenges that Venice, for all her beauty, daily presented. He fell just short of laying claim to the Doges' Palace, but added with an intimate wink that, thanks to a recent windfall, negotiations were in fact under way to make his fondest dream come true, and that, if successful, the first thing he was going to do was add a penthouse for his own personal quarters and for his dear friend Pinocchio.

They roared away from the Molo, sending gondolas bobbing and flopping and vaporetti grinding into reverse and blowing their horns, out into the magnificent Bacino di San Marco, Buffetto at the wheel, swerving wildly at full throttle between the strapped posts which serve as channel markers and which looked to the professor like grieving old men consoling one another, but which Buffetto compared to ball players in a huddle, Francatrippa to stacked rifles, Truffaldino to clasped lovers, and Eugenio to cazzi incatenati, cazzi incatenati, as he called them, chained c.o.c.ks, each then shouting out his own interpretation of the black tips or hoods of the posts and the little white gulls perched on each of them as though by a.s.signment from the Tourist Office. They flew next up the Giudecca ca.n.a.l, slapping against the water churned up by other craft escaping their path, the encircling faces of the Palladian churches glowering at them in gape-mouthed disapproval, but Eugenio responding with squeals of unabashed joy - "Ah, this thrice-renowned and ill.u.s.trious city! This precious jewel, this voluptuous old Queen, this magical fairyland! Love of my life and forger of my soul! I wish only to clasp it to my bosom! Una vera bellezza! Ah! as he called them, chained c.o.c.ks, each then shouting out his own interpretation of the black tips or hoods of the posts and the little white gulls perched on each of them as though by a.s.signment from the Tourist Office. They flew next up the Giudecca ca.n.a.l, slapping against the water churned up by other craft escaping their path, the encircling faces of the Palladian churches glowering at them in gape-mouthed disapproval, but Eugenio responding with squeals of unabashed joy - "Ah, this thrice-renowned and ill.u.s.trious city! This precious jewel, this voluptuous old Queen, this magical fairyland! Love of my life and forger of my soul! I wish only to clasp it to my bosom! Una vera bellezza! Ah! Ah! Ah! Mother of G.o.d, I think I am Mother of G.o.d, I think I am coming! coming! Faster, my Faster, my boy, faster!" boy, faster!" - while Truffaldino entertained them all with astonishing acrobatics on the cabin roof, even as they tipped and swerved and bounced through the busy ca.n.a.l. "Ah, life, - while Truffaldino entertained them all with astonishing acrobatics on the cabin roof, even as they tipped and swerved and bounced through the busy ca.n.a.l. "Ah, life, life!" life!" Eugenio cried, hugging his belly as though he had just named it. "It's so much Eugenio cried, hugging his belly as though he had just named it. "It's so much fun!" fun!"

With like and in truth infectious delight, his round appley face flushed and black eyes twinkling, he pointed out to the professor his many projects for the lagoon, beginning with his desire to tear down the Giudecca and rebuild the entire island in the old aristocratic style of rich villas and exotic pleasure gardens that had characterized it in the time when Michelangelo stayed there, perhaps converting the old Stucky mill at the far end into a private academy or university to be named after the professor himself ("No, no, do not object! You deserve no less, my friend!"), and certainly reclaiming the famous Convent of the Converted Ones, now a women's prison, and restoring it as it was at the turn of the century when the Little Man used it as a marketplace for auctioning off his donkeys. "Our friends at Disney are definitely interested!" he exclaimed secretively above the roar of the speeding boat, clapping his little fat hands.

Whipping around by the Lido, Francatrippa now gleefully at the speedboat's controls, Eugenio pointed out the projected location of the new lagoon entrance tidegates, told him of his plans to seek commercial sponsorship of the gondolieri and sell advertising s.p.a.ce on their shirts and straw hats, and described for him how, by digging between Malamocco and Marghera a channel deep enough for sixty-thousand-ton tankers, they could create what he called the Third Industrial Zone, making the Veneto region the rival of Osaka, Manchester, and New Jersey, though he admitted that, having done much the same thing twice before, even though the project would be immensely profitable, worth more perhaps than all their other investments put together, his heart really wasn't in it. "Besides, it would only increase the size of the working cla.s.s, un fottio di cazzi as it is, G.o.d knows, a veritable plague, my dear, which is ruining the democratic process and turning the world into a f.u.c.king dungheap - no, no, I ask very little of this world, being at heart a modest man, only let me live the rest of my days, the few that remain, among the superrich! That's who this n.o.blest of cities, sole refuge of humanity, peace, justice, and liberty, is truly for and they are the only ones who will save it! But just the same, my love," he added, leaning close and wrapping an arm around his old friend to wheeze into his earhole: "if you're looking for a hot real estate tip, you could do worse than to buy in to Malamocco!"

"I used to think it was the end of the world!"

They were now barreling through the triumphal arch of the Great Gateway, past the statue of a lioness, strangely elongated like stretched taffy, and into the main ca.n.a.l of the a.r.s.enal Vecchio, and, as they went ripping past the huge brick barns and rusting drums and the thick bunkers skulking like cement elephants, spray flying from the prow, Eugenio explained to him how he hoped to convert this great Renaissance workshop, once civilization's most famous shipyard and now little more than a rotting hulk, into a vast eighty-acre marina for the world's most luxurious private yachts: "It has a bigger basin than Monaco, Pini! Think of it! It will create a whole new generation of seagoing pleasure craft! Venice will again rule the waves! It will take money, of course, but not only are we rich in public funds right now, we also have the whole world's hearts in our pockets and our hands in theirs, and, so long as our Socialist Party stays in office, I can promise you, we shall not lose sight of this n.o.ble goal!"

As they came plowing out through the low arch cut into the crenellated wall at the back end, Francatrippa and Buffetto now fighting like schoolboys over the wheel, Truffaldino at the same time hugging it head downward and a.r.s.e high and, feet kicking, demanding his own turn, the launch reeling drunkenly through the lagoon and slicing a straying gondola clean in two ("He'll drown!" drown!" the professor cried in alarm, craning around to watch, but Eugenio only laughed and said: "Nonsense, my boy! You forget how shallow the lagoon is - he can the professor cried in alarm, craning around to watch, but Eugenio only laughed and said: "Nonsense, my boy! You forget how shallow the lagoon is - he can walk walk home!"), the cemetery island of San Michele with its trim brick walls and cypress canopy suddenly loomed into view, and Eugenio, taking over the boat's controls so as to avoid hitting it, leaned over toward the professor and, Truffaldino having barely escaped getting bit on the bottom before scrambling away, stage-whispered above the motor's diminishing roar: "I have something to show you over here, Pini! something special!" home!"), the cemetery island of San Michele with its trim brick walls and cypress canopy suddenly loomed into view, and Eugenio, taking over the boat's controls so as to avoid hitting it, leaned over toward the professor and, Truffaldino having barely escaped getting bit on the bottom before scrambling away, stage-whispered above the motor's diminishing roar: "I have something to show you over here, Pini! something special!"

They moored next to the vaporetto landing stage and, after stopping to buy flowers just inside the cemetery walls, Eugenio led them in a little procession down the long cypress-lined gravel paths to the far end of the raftlike island where the route became increasingly mazy as though in imitation of the neighboring island these dead once called home. Along the way, women, carefully tending graves as though they were pieces of heirloom furniture, washing them, brushing them, shining up the photographs, changing the flowers and the water in the pots, paused to greet Eugenio as he pa.s.sed, a regular visitor here, it would seem, and taken as one of their own. The professor could not help remarking how dry-eyed they all were, by contrast to his own wild unrestrained grief at the tomb of the Blue-Haired Fairy. In fact, he felt it again now, churning up inside afresh, that old graveyard fever, punctual as saliva.

"They are making their husband's beds," Eugenio murmured, his voice hidden behind the labored rumble of heavy earth-moving equipment digging somewhere nearby, "the beds they had in truth been making for them all their lives. They are happy now, this is their true vocation. When I am feeling morbid, Pini, I sometimes wish I had one of the dear things!"

The twisting path, leading them down narrow labyrinthine pa.s.sageways between stone condominiums of the dead, stacked five deep and sometimes two or three to a niche, opened out suddenly upon a splendid little campo, lined with cypresses and rosebushes and dominated by an immense yet graceful semicircular mausoleum built like a kind of marble stage with a raised platform, ceremonial central stairs, shielded wings protected by poised angels, and a recessed proscenium arch supported by fluted Corinthian columns like a ring of folded curtains. In the middle of the stage was the tomb of the Little Man, an ornately decorated marble sarcophagus, laden with fresh flowers piled up sumptuously around a perpetually burning oil lamp in the center. Above the sarcophagus hung a crucified Jesus with the familiar sloping hips, smooth feminine limbs, and soft pierced abdomen, his face turned heavenward in agony, or perhaps in ecstasy, while around him plump naked cherubs played in melancholic abandon. The legend on L'Omino's tomb was that famous line of his which every little boy along his route had heard sooner or later, and one which even now caused the professor's heart to sink: "Are you coming with us or staying behind?" "Vieni con noi, o rimani?" "Vieni con noi, o rimani?"

"Io rimango," he thought to himself, recalling his futile resistance, as futile now as it was then: here still, but not for long. He was not getting well. He was feeling less pain, no doubt thanks to Eugenio's pharmaceuticals, and he was able, if carried, to get about a bit, but if anything his disease was worsening. The bits that had fallen off were gone for good, awash somewhere in the waterways of Venice, and more vanished every day, teeth and toes in particular, and the patches of flesh that kept flaking away, fouling his sheets with dusty excrescences sometimes as large as dried mushrooms. And what was left of him, once waterlogged, was twisting and splitting now as it dried out, he could hardly move without startling those about him, himself included (this is not me, me, he continued to feel deep in his heart, or whatever was down there, there in that dark place inside where all the weeping started, this he continued to feel deep in his heart, or whatever was down there, there in that dark place inside where all the weeping started, this can't can't be me!), with awesome splintering and cracking sounds, his elegant new clothing worn not merely to conceal the surface rot, but to m.u.f.fle the terrible din of the disintegration within. He would shed the rest of his flesh altogether and be done with it, but it sticks tenaciously and bloodily to his frame like a kind of stubborn reprimand, his attempts to sc.r.a.pe it off causing him excruciating pain. Far from transcending flesh, he was dying into it. Into the tatters of it. Only, as he shrank toward oblivion, his love for her and a certain bitter dignity remained! be me!), with awesome splintering and cracking sounds, his elegant new clothing worn not merely to conceal the surface rot, but to m.u.f.fle the terrible din of the disintegration within. He would shed the rest of his flesh altogether and be done with it, but it sticks tenaciously and bloodily to his frame like a kind of stubborn reprimand, his attempts to sc.r.a.pe it off causing him excruciating pain. Far from transcending flesh, he was dying into it. Into the tatters of it. Only, as he shrank toward oblivion, his love for her and a certain bitter dignity remained!

"I loathe loathe small deaths," Eugenio was saying. "Death is our great master, but must be met with the grandeur it deserves!" The old professor, emerging from his revery, realized that Eugenio had been describing for him the magnificence of the Little Man's final rites, beginning with a great requiem Ma.s.s in the colossal church of Santi Giovanni e Paolo in the company of twenty-five dead doges and the skin of Marcantonio Bragadin, who was flayed alive by the Turks at Famagusta (perhaps Eugenio had told him this in response to his own complaints, or else, speaking his thoughts aloud, he had complained of his own slower flaying upon hearing of that of the hero of Famagusta, whose skin at least was whole enough to be saved as a relic and not shaken out each day with the changing of the beds), followed by a solemn funeral procession around to the Fondamenta Nuova with all the bells of Venice tolling (as, from over the lagoon, they were hollowly, as though in wistful remembrance, tolling at that moment), the hea.r.s.e drawn by sixty-nine leather-booted donkeys who were later driven into the sea and drowned. There, the Little Man's coffin was removed to a gold and black funeral gondola, heaped with orchids and roses and palm branches, and, followed by other gondolas carrying the statues of the angels now mounted on the tomb and all the thousands of L'Omino's admirers and lovers, brought across the Laguna Morta to this island, the church here draped that day in black and silver and bearing, freshly engraved on the cloister gateway under Saint Michael and the dragon, where it could be seen still, another of L'Omino's immortal lines: "While the world sleeps, I sleep never." small deaths," Eugenio was saying. "Death is our great master, but must be met with the grandeur it deserves!" The old professor, emerging from his revery, realized that Eugenio had been describing for him the magnificence of the Little Man's final rites, beginning with a great requiem Ma.s.s in the colossal church of Santi Giovanni e Paolo in the company of twenty-five dead doges and the skin of Marcantonio Bragadin, who was flayed alive by the Turks at Famagusta (perhaps Eugenio had told him this in response to his own complaints, or else, speaking his thoughts aloud, he had complained of his own slower flaying upon hearing of that of the hero of Famagusta, whose skin at least was whole enough to be saved as a relic and not shaken out each day with the changing of the beds), followed by a solemn funeral procession around to the Fondamenta Nuova with all the bells of Venice tolling (as, from over the lagoon, they were hollowly, as though in wistful remembrance, tolling at that moment), the hea.r.s.e drawn by sixty-nine leather-booted donkeys who were later driven into the sea and drowned. There, the Little Man's coffin was removed to a gold and black funeral gondola, heaped with orchids and roses and palm branches, and, followed by other gondolas carrying the statues of the angels now mounted on the tomb and all the thousands of L'Omino's admirers and lovers, brought across the Laguna Morta to this island, the church here draped that day in black and silver and bearing, freshly engraved on the cloister gateway under Saint Michael and the dragon, where it could be seen still, another of L'Omino's immortal lines: "While the world sleeps, I sleep never."

"I-I never realized," the old scholar stammered, filling the momentary silence, "he was so-so-so!"

"Loved? Oh yes, but it's not what I brought you here to show you," Eugenio replied with a sly vulnerable smile. "Lift him over here," he instructed the servants and, crossing himself as he pa.s.sed the tomb and genuflecting gently, he led them to the naked angel, stage right, poised balletically on one foot as though in imitation of the beautiful angel in blue on the Pala d'Oro. "Look, Pini. Do you recognize him?"

Not exactly an angel after all, he noted, for it had a little inch-long uncirc.u.mcised p.e.n.i.s and two tiny t.e.s.t.i.c.l.es like polished gla.s.s marbles which Eugenio now fingered affectionately. "I-I'm not sure! The, uh, face!"

"Yes, you have guessed it," Eugenio groaned, leaning his head almost shyly against the angel's pale thigh. "It is I, as I was, when L'Omino first loved me." He ran his finger in little loops through the artfully scrolled pubic hair, traced the contours of the childish abdomen, poked the tip of his finger into the deep navel. Yes, that's right, the creature also had a navel. "Now! now it sticks out like! like a little c.l.i.toris," Eugenio confessed, touching his own round tummy. He tried lamely to laugh through the tears that were now streaming down his cheeks. It's true, the professor thought, squinting up at the marble face with its pursed bow-shaped lips, its long-lashed eyes and flowing locks, it did did quite resemble the Eugenio he once had known, and in particular - perhaps in part it was the ghastly pallor of the stone, or maybe the halo, tipped back like a c.o.c.kily worn school cap, the wings attached to the shoulders like bulky bookbags - that Eugenio who lay sprawled on the beach that dreadful day, seemingly dead or dying after being struck down by the math book; but at the same time this was a quite resemble the Eugenio he once had known, and in particular - perhaps in part it was the ghastly pallor of the stone, or maybe the halo, tipped back like a c.o.c.kily worn school cap, the wings attached to the shoulders like bulky bookbags - that Eugenio who lay sprawled on the beach that dreadful day, seemingly dead or dying after being struck down by the math book; but at the same time this was a different different Eugenio, a more mature one to be sure, a more intense and self-a.s.sured one than the boy he had known, but also (he was gazing up at the eyes now, eyes not unlike those he had seen in certain paintings as the light of the Renaissance dimmed) one clearly in touch with the nuances and deceptions of power and exchange, one who had already come to know pleasures and the pitfalls of pleasure and who had ceased to search for something that could not be found, one privy - like an angel, one might say - to the world's bleakest secrets! and embracing them! Eugenio, a more mature one to be sure, a more intense and self-a.s.sured one than the boy he had known, but also (he was gazing up at the eyes now, eyes not unlike those he had seen in certain paintings as the light of the Renaissance dimmed) one clearly in touch with the nuances and deceptions of power and exchange, one who had already come to know pleasures and the pitfalls of pleasure and who had ceased to search for something that could not be found, one privy - like an angel, one might say - to the world's bleakest secrets! and embracing them!

The living Eugenio, the short b.u.t.terball one with the fat crinkly face and slicked-back hair, was running one thick bejeweled hand up a taut thigh, hugging it to him, while caressing the marble b.u.t.tocks, their l.u.s.ter attesting to the frequency of such devotions, with the other. "Ah, che culo!" he exclaimed throatily, covering it suddenly with pa.s.sionate kisses and wetting it with his freely flowing tears. "How I wish now, Pini," he blubbered, "I could f.u.c.k myself as I - choke choke - was then!" He bawled there for a moment, cheek to cheek, his arms around the statue's hips, and then, when he could, he gasped: "You see, dear friend, that sweet bottom won L'Omino's heart, and - - was then!" He bawled there for a moment, cheek to cheek, his arms around the statue's hips, and then, when he could, he gasped: "You see, dear friend, that sweet bottom won L'Omino's heart, and - sob! sob! - changed my life forever! It made me, fundamentally, in a word, what I am today! Che culo, we say: what luck, eh! And it gave good value. He beat it, bit it, slapped and tickled it, slept on it, sat on it, used it as a canvas, a pincushion, a footstool, a musical instrument, ate his supper off it, whispered his most intimate secrets to it and, as you might say, wrote his will on it. By the time its glory had begun to sag, L'Omino was dead and it was I who was choosing favorites!" - changed my life forever! It made me, fundamentally, in a word, what I am today! Che culo, we say: what luck, eh! And it gave good value. He beat it, bit it, slapped and tickled it, slept on it, sat on it, used it as a canvas, a pincushion, a footstool, a musical instrument, ate his supper off it, whispered his most intimate secrets to it and, as you might say, wrote his will on it. By the time its glory had begun to sag, L'Omino was dead and it was I who was choosing favorites!"

Then Eugenio wiped his eyes and blew his nose and, still embracing the statue affectionately, told the professor about his own life at the Land of Toys, which was not at all like the one he and Lampwick had known, nor could they even have imagined it. "It all began," Eugenio sighed, "that first night when the Little Man lifted me up onto his lap and let me hold the reins as we bounced down the road to Toyland. The other boys all envied me, but in truth, I soon felt shackled by those unfamilar straps tugging insistently at my hands. Such a strange dark journey, Pini, the little donkeys clopping along in front of us in their white leather boots, the only things you could see by that night's eery light, and making odd snuffling and whimpering noises, while the Little Man shushed them with ominous lullabies sung through clenched teeth and cracked them with the whip which whished terrifyingly past my ear from time to time. I tried not to cry, but I couldn't help it. I was trembling all over like a leaf in a temporale. The Little Man, in his fashion, consoled me. By dawn, I was no longer a virgin!" Eugenio sighed tremulously and stroked the statue's b.u.t.tocks tenderly as one might to soothe a tearful child, then went on to tell him how, when they arrived and all the other boys ran off to play, he was carried under L'Omino's arm like a pig from market, a.r.s.e forward, school knickers still in a twist around his ankles and blood trickling down his thighs, to the Little Man's private rooms, then in a modest corner at Venice's eastern tip near where the soccer field now stands, itself a commemorative gift to the city from Omino e figli, S.R.L. Here, L'Omino kept a little stable of his favorites whom he treated like donkeys but left, at least most of the time, in the shape of boys, the games they played being the sort one might a.s.sociate with a stable. "Well, tutti i gusti sono gusti, as the Little Man himself used to say, his own being mostly of the Tyrolean sort!"

Eugenio gave each cheek a misty-eyed farewell kiss, pocketed the rosary which he'd been fingering with his free hand, then, on the way back to the motor launch, took the professor on a quiet meditative tour of the cemetery island, describing for him as he waddled along, the old scholar ported at his side by the three servants, his long and happy life in Toyland, which he still held to be the most beautiful place in the world, a land of dreams, un paese benedetto, un paese benedetto, the very goal of human civilization, and he the preserver of its sacred flame, becoming over time L'Omino's dearest beloved, subjecting the adorable man in his declining years to his least whim and fancy, including his signature on the doc.u.ments that created Omini e figli, S.R.L. the very goal of human civilization, and he the preserver of its sacred flame, becoming over time L'Omino's dearest beloved, subjecting the adorable man in his declining years to his least whim and fancy, including his signature on the doc.u.ments that created Omini e figli, S.R.L.

"I was a good little boy, Pini, loving and obedient, and everything came true for me, just as the Little Man promised!"

The professor, somewhat befogged and guilt-ridden, as was his wont in the midst of tombstones, did not know what to answer to all of this, and finally, as they were making their way back to the landing stage, twilight by now dimming the sky and darkening the hovering cypresses, what he said was: "I-I have never known the careless freedom of youth!"

"Ah, poor Pini!" smiled Eugenio, taking over the controls as they reboarded the motor launch. "And now with your little thingie gone!"

"Well, it's - it's not exactly gone!"

"No? But when I was oiling you, I saw nothing there but a -"

"I mean 'it' wasn't! it it!"

Whereupon, the others urging him on as the launch, growling softly, slides out into the wet dreamy lagoon, the ancient wayfarer commences to tell them, with all the candor that the day has inspired, the tale of the world's only n.o.bel Prize-winning nose!

20. THE ORIGINAL WET DREAM.

"So it's all true, then," murmurs Eugenio in the echoey darkness, "all those old jokes!?"

"Yes, all the p.o.r.nographic films and comic books, the s.e.x magazine cartoons, the party songs and burlesque routines, just pages really out of a depressing case history. The boy who had to wear on his face what other people hid in their pants. Watch it misbehave. Watch it get punished. I always felt insulted by the names you called me in school, not recognizing at the time that it was not much worse than calling me 'Faceface' or 'Footfoot.' And people laughed at it, but they were afraid of it, too. It took a lot of abuse. What was old Geppetto's a.s.sault on it that day he made me, after all, but!?"

"My thoughts exactly, dear boy! An attempt to emasculate his own son! But that you should remember it all so vividly is most extraordinary!" Eugenio and the servants have become just faceless shadows hovering over him, faintly silhouetted against the distant glow of the city. The boat motor is off, the lights as well, and they bob silently now on the lap of the black lagoon, the cool night mist having gathered round them with a motherly embrace, as though to soothe away the anxieties aroused by their visit this afternoon to the island of the dead. "For the rest of us, our beginnings remain forever a strange unfathomable mystery. A bit terrifying in fact!"

"Actually, I forgot most of this when I became a boy. Only lately has it been coming back to me!" Not all of it, there are vague scary bits for him, too, mysteries he too cannot penetrate. But he does have a clear and precise memory of his babbo's clumsy affectionate strokes as he carved and fluted his wooden hair and whittled out eyes for him to see by, eyes he rolled mischievously at the old fellow just to make him jump and reach for his grappa, and he can almost feel still the impatient hewing and hacking up and down his body as Geppetto roughed out the rest of him: a mouth with its own mocking tongue, thumbed but fingerless hands with which to pincer away the old boy's yellow moth-eaten mop of a wig, feet for kicking him in the nose, and then a nose of his own, fashioned from sc.r.a.ps chopped out between his new legs and wedged into a hole gouged in the middle of his face, a nose that started to grow as soon as it was plugged in, a trick he had no control over and which frightened him nearly as much as it did the old man, who erupted into a kind of blind squeaky rage, accusing the thing of insolence and deviltry and slashing at it wildly with his rude tools, sending splinters flying about the room, bits and pieces of him lost forever, alas, he could use them now to patch up his losses. And still the perverse thing kept shooting out in front of his startled eyes, irrepressible as that infamous beanstalk, stretching and quivering, the tip of it sore where his father whacked madly away at it, but somehow itchy and tingling with fresh raw excitement at the same time, insisting upon its prefigured but ludicrous length even as Geppetto went on lopping it off. Even as he wept, loudly disclaiming it, he could feel himself coming to identify with it in some odd way, as though it