They walked through the glorious vestibule, where Homer craned his neck to admire Titian's allegorical figure of Wisdom on the ceilingobviously a library enthusiast herself because she was consulting both a book and a scroll. Then they descended Sansovino's stupendous staircase, negotiated the open-air arcade, and walked up another set of stairs. As they climbed the second long flight very slowlySam was tired and Homer was out of shapeSam told himself once again that nothing mattered anymore. He could do whatever he wanted.
He could abandon everything, the whole damn thing, the exhibition and the conference and all his duties as caretaker of some of the most valuable books in the Western world. He could flee from all of that and embark in a little boat with Dottoressa Lucia Costanza, and its pink sail would be blown by a gentle wind, carrying them to the island of Cythera. It would be so easy, so simple. All he had to do was entice her away from the eminence of her procuratorship, burst her marriage chains, and make love to her at last in some flowery bower.
"What did you say, Homer? Oh, of course, here we are. Come right in."
The telephone was ringing in the outer office. Sam's secretary held up the phone and murmured, "Il sindaco."
"The mayor," said Sam apologetically, waving Homer on into the big room with its view of the lagoon. When he hurried in a few minutes later, he explained that the mayor was organizing a council to deal with acqua alta. "You know, consisting of everybody around the piazza."
"Acqua alta?" said Homer. "Oh, you mean high water. Right. Well, it's here already. It's not so bad."
Sam looked at him in disbelief. "Just wait, Homer," he said. "You haven't seen anything yet."
"Nothin'," said Homer, correcting Sam's English. "I ain't seen nothin' yet."
Sam looked puzzled. "But isn't that bad grammar?"
"You betcha," said Homer, grinning at him.
"Ah, a colloquial expression," said Sam. He poured bubbly wine into Homer's glass, lifted his own, and then, to show that he too was acquainted with American slang, he said, "Well, here's dirt in your eye."
Homer let it pass, and went back to the subject of the great cardinal. "Tell me, Sam, has the library got every single one of Bessarion's books?"
"Oh, no. A great many are missing. The library didn't exist until long after he gave them to the city. So they were stored in crates here and there, and borrowed like library books, so some fell by the wayside. And then that blundering idiot Napoleon Bonaparte decided to found an Italian library, so a lot of Bessarion books sat around in Padua, waiting for it, only it never happened, and they began to disappear. That's what I've heard."
"But what about the printed books? Are there any more of that divine Dream of Poliphilius still kicking around somewhere?"
"Oh, yes, a few. They're outrageously valuable."
Homer leaned back in his chair and looked at the row of portraits on the wall over Sam Bell's head. "Who are all those people? Your predecessors, I'll bet. Will your picture be up there someday, the distinguished conservatore dei libri rari, Dottor Samuele Bell?"
Sam winced. He glanced up at the painted series of scholar-professors. He had known some of them in person. Not one of those dignified people, so far as he knew, had ever dreamed of abandoning his duties and embarking with a lady love for the fanciful island of Cythera, that blessed place sacred to Venus, where lovemaking lasted into eternity, and where there was no death.
*10*
The phone was ringing. Ursula picked it up and said a timid "Pronto?" A strong male voice asked for Dottor Samuele Bell, but at once her father picked up the phone in his study.
Instead of hanging up, Ursula listened.
When they were finished she went silently into her room and closed the door. After a while she came out again and checked to see if her grandmother had come home from shopping.
No, she hadn't. Ursula hurried straight into her grandmother's bedroom and opened the drawer where Mrs. Wellesley kept pills, bottles of perfume, violet and green eye shadow, black mascara, false eyelashes, wrinkle-control creams, and a messy jewel box spilling over with bracelets, brooches, button earrings, old pairs of bifocals, and strings of cultured pearls.
There was an envelope under the jewel box. Ursula extracted it and helped herself to a five-thousand-lire note. Then she tucked the envelope back where it belonged, closed the drawer gently, and slipped out of the room.
Next day after school, she stopped in the shop.
"Buonasera, piccola," said the man behind the counter. "Un altro, oggi? You must have quite a collection by now. Which one would you like today?"
"That one, please," said Ursula.