And so, as though arriving at the final destination on that ticket purchased so impulsively back in America, he has come at the end to the beginning, to the very foundations of this mysterious enterprise and of his own as welclass="underline" back to the slimy ooze and the ancient bits of wood, driven deep, holding the whole apparition up. "La strada č pericolosa," a creature once warned him, long ago on that fateful Night of the Assassins. "It is dangerous out on the road! Turn back!" Yet, though it has been brought home to him, now as then, that the failure to take such advice is, in the world's judgment, a capital offense (even as he struggles upward against his heavy clothing, his toes forebodingly touch mud), and though it may be true, as he has so often been told, that those who, in an excess of passion, rush into things without precaution rush into their own destruction, a sensible person never embarking on an enterprise (all the advice taken through the years is now passing before his drowning eyes as though it were his life) until he can see his way clear to the end of it, what is one to do, he asks petulantly, his wind giving out, his heart beating wildly in his chest, with failing eyesight? Stay at home? Faint heart and all that, remember! Better faint than defunto, fool! When will you ever learn? But I have learned, he rages, arguing thus with himself while trying to claw his way to the surface, which is not far above him, but the sludge is too thick and he is too weak: even as he kicks at the mire below him, his feet sink into it. I have done nothing but learn! It's not enough to learn — ! He is still managing to hold his breath, he was always good at this, the girls in Hollywood used to throw him in the pool and see how long they could hold him under, they said it made them wet between their legs just counting the bubbles, and he let them, associating it with the excitement he had felt as a drowning donkey, but now it's over, he's not the youth he was then, his ancient chest is beginning to spasm involuntarily, he can't hold it any longer o babbo mio! o Fatina! — and then, just when all seems lost, something hooks him under his collar and hauls him, snorting and choking and webbed in slime, halfway out of the water.
"Have a good bath, signore?" rumbles a gravelly old voice above him.
"Help! Help — !" he splutters, floundering about in thick icy water. From what he can see through the muck and tears, he appears to be dangling from the end of a pole held by a hulking figure wearing a straw gondolier's boater with the braid torn at the brim, tilted rakishly over a sinister red mask with hornlike brows. "Save me!"
"Hmm, I must think about that, signore. Why should I succor one who is running from the police? Save the hanged man and you'll be hanged by him, as they say — "
"I am not running — splut! glub! — from anybody! I am a decent law-abiding citizen! It's all a — gasp! — mistake!"
"So you say, signore! But why should one believe you?"
"But you must! I am the most truthful person in the world — !"
"Yes, yes, and you've got the nose of a titmouse, too! Ha ha!"
"But can't you see? I am an American — glurp! — professor! A professor emeritus! Everyone knows me! I am a — blub! — good man! Un gran signore!"
"Oh I can see the great man you are through the holes in your clothes, Eccellenza! Che spettacolo! Perhaps the little fish have been feeding on your 'poor festered amorettos' — ?"
"Oh, shut up, you damned fool, and get me out of here!" he cries and — thplup! — finds himself under water again, this time unfortunately with his mouth open. "Please — !" he gurgles when next brought to the surface. "I'll pay!"
"Ebbene, at your service, padrone!" replies the devilish oarsman with a bow, lifting the professor out of the canal at last and, as though landing a crab, depositing his sodden catch on the black leather cushions of his gondola. "One must not be too hasty, you can never tell a tree by its bark, as I always say, or a pocket by its pants. So will it be the grand tour, signor professore, or famous murders, masterpieces, and executions, or perhaps the Venezia esotica of the poets and their param — ?"
"No, no! I only want I want " What? He is dying. And soon. He knows that now. And what he wants, what he longs for, as he huddles there on the stiff black cushions, drenched through and trembling in the wintry wind, are his old down comforter, his snuggies, his hot water bottle. He wants a bed, a soft warm bed. "Did you see go past a young woman ?"
"Ah! Una bambina — ?"
"Yes — "
"Bella — ?"
"Yes, yes!"
"Wearing a hat — !"
"No "
"I mean, hair — "
"Yes "
"Dark — "
"Ah — "
"But not too dark — ?"
"Well "
"You might almost say blond — "
"Yes!"
"Eh, how much money do you have, signore?"
"I–I don't know " He tries to reach into his soggy pockets for the few notes that Alidoro and Melampetta stuffed there, but his hands are frozen into inflexible claws.
"Permesso!" the gondolier growls soothingly, and reaches in to help himself, pulling out a hairy handful of cheese, wet bread, a few soaked lire, and an ear. He cocks his head to peer at this collection through one of the eyeholes of his mask, the mask's expression of fiendish menace giving way at this angle to something more like red-faced bewilderment. "Is, eh, is this all there is?" he asks, sniffing the ear.
"It's all I have left," he whimpers through chattering teeth. The tears are starting. He isn't going to make it. "It's not my fault! I am not a poor man! I have been the — sob! — victim of a cruel deceit! I have lost everything! Please help me — !"
"Well, on a day like this, I suppose, somewhat is better than nothing," sighs the gondolier, tossing the ear and bread over his shoulder with a shrug, pocketing the lire, and popping the cheese behind the mask into his mouth with a slurp before setting off. "A little wood, as the saying goes, will heat a little oven."
As the gondola turns and noses its way up the canal, the oar splashing sluggishly in the snow-clotted water, the professor, slumped desolately in his wet rags and deprived even of the somewhat, describes through his tears, because, like the gondolier's proverbial bit of wood, it seems to warm him a little to do so, how those two ruthless thieves last night stole all his earthly possessions, leaving him alone and homeless in the bitter weather. "They threw me to the lions! Literally! It's true! Sniff! I was even chased by one! They took my clothes, my money, my papers, my medicines, my traveling garment steamer — "
"Ah, it is a terrible story, professore, my heart weeps for you!" commiserates the gondolier, reaching under his mask as though to wipe a tear, or perhaps to pick his teeth. "What a world we are condemned to live in, eh? Where can we gentle folk find a safe shelter? Well, but here we are! Step out, please!"
"What — ? Already? But — !" They have bumped up against a small open campo, he sees, in front of a church whose bare façade today is striped with snow, giving it the appearance of a circus tent. They have not even left the area of the police operation. It is just across the canal, they have only circled around it, he can still hear the screams, the shouts, smell the smoke, people are fleeing this way, then turning around to watch the action on the other side. "But wait, this isn't — ! You promised — !"