"Molto piacere," said Sam politely.
"Piacere mio," said Bernardi, standing his ground.
"Thank you, Signor Bernardi," said Lucia, hoping he would have the intelligence to remove himself.
He did, but only slowly, looking back with suspicion and failing to close the door.
Lucia closed it gently herself, and smiled. "Do sit down and tell me what I can do for you."
Since yesterday Doctor Samuele Bell had been transformed from a reasonable person into a creature of impulse. Nothing mattered anymore. He could do what he liked. He put his hands on Lucia's desk and leaned forward as she sat down. Words came out of his mouth. He said, "Marry me. Please marry me."
There was only the slightest pause, and then Lucia said amiably, "Why, certainly. Oh, well, of course as it happens, I'm married already, but who cares about a little thing like that?" She glanced playfully around the room. "All we need now is a justice of the peace." She grinned at him. "Well, now that we've settled that, sit down and tell me what you're really here for. And please call me Lucia."
He sat down, feeling like a fool. It was all very well to tell himself that nothing mattered, but of course everything did matter. He had blundered into her office and smashed all the delicate china and behaved like an idiot. But Dottoressa CostanzaLucia!had forgiven him, she had made a joke of it.
He wanted to fall on his knees. "And you must call me Sam. It's an American nickname, because, you see, my father was an American." He could hear himself dithering. He stopped and began again. "My request is this." He cleared his throat and tried to speak formally, as one important official to another. "I hope you will give me permission to make a scientific examination of the sacred relics in the Treasury of San Marco in order to determine their authenticity. Your predecessor refused to consider the matter. I hope you'll be more open-minded."
"What? You want to examine the relics?" Lucia stared at him openmouthed, then threw back her head and laughed. It was a loud unmusical bray of a laugh. "You want to borrow all the holy relics in the basilica as if it were a public library? Dottor BellSamyou must be mad."
He laughed too. "Well, perhaps insanity runs in my family. But, Dottoressa Lucia, isn't it time someone took a careful look at all those miscellaneous bones and scraps of wood? Where do they come from? The saints' bones, per esempio, are some of them from dogs, cats, sheep? Are the pieces of the True Cross just miscellaneous scraps of wood from some carpenter's workshop? Look here, I'm not only a librarian, I've got a degree in natural science. I can tell a human bone from"
Lucia lifted her hand, smiling. "Well, it's absolutely outrageous, but I'll see what I can do." She turned her head as a saxophone in one of the distant swing bands on the piazza uttered a loud bleat, sending a squadron of pigeons flying up past the window. "Perhaps Father Urbano in San Marco would not be too shocked. He's a reasonable man. But"she turned back to Sam"you mustn't breathe a word of this to anyone else. There'd be a riot."
"A riot, of course. Yes, of course I promise to say nothing. And, Dottoressa, you're right about Father Urbano. He's only a priest, but he reminds me of that great humanist pope, Nicholas the Fifth. Thank you, Dottoressa."
"Lucia."
He murmured it obediently, "Lucia," and stood up to go, teetering a little in his excitement.
She stood up too, and asked a question of her own. "Isn't Signor Kelly a friend of yours?"
"Signor Homer Kelly? Why, yes, he is."
Lucia fell back in her chair. "He wrote me a letter. He tells me he's coming to your conference. But I think"once again she went off into a gale of laughter"I think he's another madman. Good-bye, Sam."
*3*
The letter with the prospectus had arrived last May in the small house on the shore of Fairhaven Bay in Concord, Massachusetts. Mary Kelly came home from monitoring final exams in Cambridge to find Homer in an ecstasy of excitement.
He had a torn envelope in one hand and its contents in the other. He shouted at her, but his words didn't make sense. They sounded like, "We've got to go to Venice."
"What? Wait, Homer, don't help me. I can take off my own coat."
"I tell you, we can't miss this. Our sabbatical starts next fall. It's the opportunity of a lifetime." Homer pushed Mary into a chair and thrust into her hand the pamphlet from the Biblioteca Marciana.
Dutifully she looked at the impenetrable Italian title.
UN CONVEGNO e UNA MOSTRAINTERNAZIONALE
dall' ETA dei MANOSCRITTI all' ETA della STAMPA:
I MANOSCRITTI del CARDINALE BESSARIONE