Pinocchio in Venice Part 4

"Bah!" barks Alidoro. "I s.h.i.t on sacred missions!" And he squats right where he is in front of a barbershop to make his point.

"That's easy for you you to say," replies the professor wryly, gazing blurrily upon the squatting dog. "If I try to make that kind of argument, your friends will want to throw me in jail again." to say," replies the professor wryly, gazing blurrily upon the squatting dog. "If I try to make that kind of argument, your friends will want to throw me in jail again."

"To some son, to some - unff! unff! - stepson," Lido grunts cheerfully, then lifts his rear, kicks a foot, and walks away. "Ciao, Mario!" - stepson," Lido grunts cheerfully, then lifts his rear, kicks a foot, and walks away. "Ciao, Mario!"

"Ciao, Lido!" shouts the barber, rushing out to spread sawdust on the t.u.r.d.

"In Venice, Pinocchio my friend, in case you hadn't noticed, there is always always a double standard. It goes with the scenery." a double standard. It goes with the scenery."

The professor is momentarily transfixed, however, by the mastiffs sawdust-sprinkled t.u.r.d, sitting upon the glittering white pavement with all the authority of a papal announcement. Or a gilded prophecy. "Mine," he says dismally, his depression creeping over him again, "are coming out that way. There's!"

"Eh?" The dog turns back to nose his t.u.r.d quizzically.

"That stuff! there's something wrong inside!"

"Mm, the sawdust, you mean! flour of your own bag, was it? Last night I was wondering!"

"The devil's devil's flour!," he sighs, trying to make light of it, but feeling tears p.r.i.c.k the corners of his eyes. And standing there staring down upon Alidoro's t.u.r.d, he feels the pang of his loss penetrate him once again to the very core, releasing afresh all those bitter memories of the more distant past, those times that heartless pair had cheated him, and lied to him, and set fire to the tree he was hiding in, then tried to murder him with knives and ropes. "After that," the abased traveler says, or perhaps adds, not sure whether he's been talking out loud or not, "the villains made me bury my money in the Field of Miracles. They took, then as now, everything I had!" flour!," he sighs, trying to make light of it, but feeling tears p.r.i.c.k the corners of his eyes. And standing there staring down upon Alidoro's t.u.r.d, he feels the pang of his loss penetrate him once again to the very core, releasing afresh all those bitter memories of the more distant past, those times that heartless pair had cheated him, and lied to him, and set fire to the tree he was hiding in, then tried to murder him with knives and ropes. "After that," the abased traveler says, or perhaps adds, not sure whether he's been talking out loud or not, "the villains made me bury my money in the Field of Miracles. They took, then as now, everything I had!"

"Ah, that that infamous patch, infamous patch, that that pesthole - I'm afraid that's another story, my fr -!" Alidoro begins, but he is suddenly interrupted by a strange spindly fellow who comes leaping out of nowhere, black coat-tails flying, and lands with both feet - pesthole - I'm afraid that's another story, my fr -!" Alidoro begins, but he is suddenly interrupted by a strange spindly fellow who comes leaping out of nowhere, black coat-tails flying, and lands with both feet - SPLAP! SPLAP!- on Lido's snow-frosted t.u.r.d: "Got you!" "Got you!" he cries, laughing horribly. "Stamping out he cries, laughing horribly. "Stamping out wisdom!" wisdom!" he shrieks at the postered wall, shaking his fist vehemently at it. Then he whirls abruptly on Pinocchio, startling him with his manic ferocity, and, staring straight through him, screams: he shrieks at the postered wall, shaking his fist vehemently at it. Then he whirls abruptly on Pinocchio, startling him with his manic ferocity, and, staring straight through him, screams: "Heads up! Heads up! Here she comes!" "Heads up! Heads up! Here she comes!"

"What -?!" gasps the old professor, ducking, as the wild-eyed creature flings himself flat out in the t.u.r.d-stained snow, crying "WAAHH-H-hhh!" "WAAHH-H-hhh!" Then he springs to his feet again and bellows into the swirling snow: Then he springs to his feet again and bellows into the swirling snow: "Go to the devil, you ungrateful cold-a.s.sed nanny! You c.u.n.tless wh.o.r.e! You endless nightmare! Oh, what madness!" "Go to the devil, you ungrateful cold-a.s.sed nanny! You c.u.n.tless wh.o.r.e! You endless nightmare! Oh, what madness!" He throws himself at the wall, kicks it, rips off an impasto of overlaid posters and heaves it at the sky, crying out his "Woe! Woe! Woe!", his He throws himself at the wall, kicks it, rips off an impasto of overlaid posters and heaves it at the sky, crying out his "Woe! Woe! Woe!", his "Guai! Guai! Guai!" "Guai! Guai! Guai!" (or maybe it's (or maybe it's "Mai! Mai! Mai! "Mai! Mai! Mai!- Never! Never! Never!"), and then, declaiming solemnly with a quavering voice, "I shall not leave until I tell you a great truth," the lunatic goes bounding off into the falling snow, the black tatters of his suit fluttering behind him like unpinned ribbons, and, at the far end of the little calletta, disappears into the storm suddenly like a candle snuffed in the wind.

"Poor old fellow," rumbles Alidoro, his rheumy eyes following his nose.

"I - I think I saw him last night," gasps the professor, still doubled over from having ducked, his knees creaking with their trembling. "He was beating his head on a church wall."

"Could have been. But Venice is full of them, my friend, you see them everywhere, bawling and squalling and abusing the masonry. Must be the water. Every campo has one. We call them our Venetian grillini, our little talking crickets, because they're always entertaining us, especially on balmy summer evenings. Days like this, I'm afraid, they don't last long." He sighs and seems to shudder. "Nor will we if we don't soon make bundle and - eh? What's the matter? Did you lose something?"

"No, I - I can't straighten up! I ducked and -"

"Ah! Here, lean on me, old man," says Alidoro, crawling under him. "Now, just relax!" The dog rises slowly, straightening him up. More or less. He is still leaning dangerously like a Venetian campanile, his nose dipping at belt level. "That's better! Don't give up, compagno! Get your soul between your teeth and bite down hard, we have to show a good face to a bad game!"

"It's - it's getting worse, Alidoro! Everything is seizing up!"

"Yes, hmm, but it won't do to stop moving, not in this weather. Hang on to my coat now and follow along as best you can, and I'll tell you about the real gold in the Field of Miracles."

"Real -?"

"If you'd left your money there, you'd be another Solomon today."

"Like those wretched beggars the Fox and the Cat, you mean," he gasps drily, stumbling along beside his friend, clutching his thick coat with frozen fingers, stiff as sticks.

"Those two," rumbles the mastiff, "must be the world's most unfortunate swindlers. Shortsighted is what they are, and shortchanged is what they got. Better an egg today than a chicken tomorrow was the way La Volpe always figured it, especially when the chicken might be plucked before it was born, so the minute they got an offer, fools that they were, they sold the field off."

"Hmm. It's true, she did tell me that a rich man had bought the field, that was why we had to hurry."

"Yes, a quick turnover, that was always her game, so when the Little Man made her an offer -"

This does straighten him up, with a noise like a squeaky rocker: "What -?! Who -?!"

"The Little Man - L'Omino, you know, that little fat guy who ran the donkey factory here, where -"

"Toyland? Here -? But -?!" Here -? But -?!"

"That's right. In fact, we just pa.s.sed the old dockyards where they corralled the little a.s.ses before shipping them out - but who am I to be telling you, eh? Anyway, as it turned out, the old Fox outfoxed herself on that one. The Little Man had found out somehow that there was good water running deep below it, so he bought the field and then resold it to petrochemical and electrometallurgical industries and steel plants and oil refineries and made himself a billion. It's called Porto Marghera now, you can see it from the Giudecca Ca.n.a.l. It's what you see in that direction instead of sky. Talk about your miracles! Sucking up all the sweet water sank this sinkhole another half meter into the sea and dried up all the wells."

"But wait! Do you mean to say -?"

"Oh, I'm not finished, my friend! For when the Little Man died, the Sons of the Little Man - Omino e figli, S.R.L., as they call themselves, the scheming little b.a.s.t.a.r.ds - filled in the lagoon for more industry and airports and gouged out channels for tankers and that changed the very tides, eroding all the foundations. If you stand still and watch, you can actually see pieces of the city split off and fall into the ca.n.a.ls. Some days now the sun turns red and yellow and even green, and all the walls are being eaten as if by invisible maggots. And I'm sure the Sons of the Little Man have more miracles in store for us yet!"

"But wait, Alidoro! Please!" he gasps, tottering under the dizzying impact of this new information. He lets go of his friend's coat. "Do you mean to say that this - this is Playland, too? This is the Land of Toys -?!" This is the Land of Toys -?!"

The old mastiff pauses, peers down at him quizzically. "You didn't recognize it? Hm. You've been away a long time, vecchio mio." So! They were all all here, then: the Three Kingdoms, as he has called them in his writings. Not "points on a moral compa.s.s" (his sanctimonious phrase) but overlays, a montage, variations on a theme! "Of course, the original operation is pretty much shut down - not much use for donkeys these days. And toys are a dime a dozen, the ca.n.a.ls are clogged with them - ecologically, there's nothing worse in this town than another Christmas. Locally, the Sons of L'Omino are into tourist skins now - or Venetian sheepskins, as they're called - along with pederasty, restoration rackets, retirement scams, World Fairs, and the reinvention of Carnival. That's how the Little Man got started, you know: nothing more than a seedy Carnival sideshow down on the Riva degli Schiavoni in the old days. The landing place is still called the Street of the Donkey Cart, it's just behind the Piazza." Yes, this was Fools' Trap with its Campo dei Miracoli, this was the Island of the Busy Bees, and this was also Toyland - Pleasure Island, as they called it in the movie, and not so wrong at that. He had thought when he first visited those places he was seeing the world. But he was simply turning around in circles. On a moving stage. It was the world that was seeing him! "There are a few other landmarks - the Ca.n.a.l of the Virgins, the Fondamenta of the Converts, the House of the Incurables, where they put the transformations that didn't quite come off, the Streets of the Hoof and the Chains and so on, a couple of theaters, some old graffiti here and there - but the Sons of the Little Man, imitating the old doges and their gangs, are mostly international merchant bankers now, their deceptions and rapacities hidden away in corporate computers." here, then: the Three Kingdoms, as he has called them in his writings. Not "points on a moral compa.s.s" (his sanctimonious phrase) but overlays, a montage, variations on a theme! "Of course, the original operation is pretty much shut down - not much use for donkeys these days. And toys are a dime a dozen, the ca.n.a.ls are clogged with them - ecologically, there's nothing worse in this town than another Christmas. Locally, the Sons of L'Omino are into tourist skins now - or Venetian sheepskins, as they're called - along with pederasty, restoration rackets, retirement scams, World Fairs, and the reinvention of Carnival. That's how the Little Man got started, you know: nothing more than a seedy Carnival sideshow down on the Riva degli Schiavoni in the old days. The landing place is still called the Street of the Donkey Cart, it's just behind the Piazza." Yes, this was Fools' Trap with its Campo dei Miracoli, this was the Island of the Busy Bees, and this was also Toyland - Pleasure Island, as they called it in the movie, and not so wrong at that. He had thought when he first visited those places he was seeing the world. But he was simply turning around in circles. On a moving stage. It was the world that was seeing him! "There are a few other landmarks - the Ca.n.a.l of the Virgins, the Fondamenta of the Converts, the House of the Incurables, where they put the transformations that didn't quite come off, the Streets of the Hoof and the Chains and so on, a couple of theaters, some old graffiti here and there - but the Sons of the Little Man, imitating the old doges and their gangs, are mostly international merchant bankers now, their deceptions and rapacities hidden away in corporate computers."

And yet, he thinks, the numbness in his feet having spread to his chest, is it really such a surprise? To what extent all these years, he must ask himself, has he truly believed in the physical separation of the Three Kingdoms because he wanted wanted to? It was convenient, after all. His "psychogenetic geography," as he called it, to general acclaim - and he has to? It was convenient, after all. His "psychogenetic geography," as he called it, to general acclaim - and he has liked liked the acclaim, the acclaim, liked liked being the famous professor and revered emeritus, whose exemplary pilgrimage moved the world. Would he have given all that up for so small a thing as the truth? He staggers, his knees sagging under the weight of his plummeting spirit. He squints up at the next bridge they must mount with a certain horror. He seems to see three bridges, piled on one another like a cartful of plague victims. Ah. No. Can't! being the famous professor and revered emeritus, whose exemplary pilgrimage moved the world. Would he have given all that up for so small a thing as the truth? He staggers, his knees sagging under the weight of his plummeting spirit. He squints up at the next bridge they must mount with a certain horror. He seems to see three bridges, piled on one another like a cartful of plague victims. Ah. No. Can't!

"You remember Eugenio, that ragazzo you laid out with your math book the day they sent me chasing after you -?"

"It - it wasn't me -!" he whispers faintly.

"He's running the show now. You should've killed him."

He stops. He can go no further. It's as though these revelations have peeled more of his skin away, exposing him yet more ruthlessly to the petrifying cold. He can hear the wood cracking and splintering in his limbs with each step. "Alidoro, my dear friend, I - I!" In his pockets, his hands are frozen like claws around ears now as hard as golden coins. And for some time now, he has been feeling something like loose marbles at his waistband. He shudders, and they rattle about down there. The dog gazes over at him from the foot of the bridge with his rheumy eyes. "Alidoro," he says, his chattering teeth clacking like wooden spoons, "I think I just froze my nipples off."

11. ART AND THE SPIRIT.

The monster fish that swallowed Jonah, sucking him up as a raw egg is sucked, was a pious creature devoted to virtue and orthodoxy, a kind of blubbery angel, conjured up by a G.o.d who liked to flesh out his metaphors. He - or she, the anatomy is uncertain, "belly" perhaps a euphemism - kept the runaway prophet dutifully in his or her belly or whatever for three days and three nights, long enough for Jonah to get a poem written and promise to do as he was told, and then, with a kind of abject courtesy, vomited him up, if that is not also a euphemism, on dry land. This is what Bordone's dark stormy picture, sitting like a mummy-brown bruise on the stone wall near the front entrance, is trying to show: Jonah disgorged like the metaphor's tenor emerging gratefully from its vehicle. He has often tried to see his own experience in the same light. In his now-lost Mamma Mamma chapter, "The Undigested Truth," for example, he has compared his brawling, boozing, recalcitrant father with the wicked Ninevites whom Jonah was reluctant to exhort, and from whom the prophet felt even more estranged once he'd saved them, has asked whether it was really truancy that landed Jonah in the fish's entrails, or whether G.o.d, like the Blue-Haired Fairy in her goat suit, might not somehow have lured the prophet into his crisis for reasons of pedagogy, and has indicated thereby how both his and Jonah's maritime adventures, often interpreted symbolically in Christian terms of baptism and rebirth, or else Judaic ones of exile and return (in Hollywood, quite literally: the raw and the cooked), might be understood more accurately - and more profoundly perhaps - as violent forms of occupational therapy. They were also living demonstrations of vocation's fount in the viscera: only he and Jonah - and perhaps poor Saint Sebastian up there, standing like a twisted tree with an arrow through his - could fully understand what a gut feeling really is. chapter, "The Undigested Truth," for example, he has compared his brawling, boozing, recalcitrant father with the wicked Ninevites whom Jonah was reluctant to exhort, and from whom the prophet felt even more estranged once he'd saved them, has asked whether it was really truancy that landed Jonah in the fish's entrails, or whether G.o.d, like the Blue-Haired Fairy in her goat suit, might not somehow have lured the prophet into his crisis for reasons of pedagogy, and has indicated thereby how both his and Jonah's maritime adventures, often interpreted symbolically in Christian terms of baptism and rebirth, or else Judaic ones of exile and return (in Hollywood, quite literally: the raw and the cooked), might be understood more accurately - and more profoundly perhaps - as violent forms of occupational therapy. They were also living demonstrations of vocation's fount in the viscera: only he and Jonah - and perhaps poor Saint Sebastian up there, standing like a twisted tree with an arrow through his - could fully understand what a gut feeling really is.

Unfortunately, his own fish was not so decorous and accommodating as Jonah's. Attila was a decrepit, foul-smelling, asthmatic old tub of lard who slept heavily, snorting and eructating all night with his mouth open, airing his adenoids. Crawling out through his gorge was not so much dangerous as it was merely nauseating. His old man, he discovered, had been in and out many times. Old Geppetto had adjusted to the life and come to like it, brewing up his own lethal grappa in the fish's digestive juices, devising recipes for the tons of stuff the monster sucked up, one of his favorites being a cold porridge made out of mashed cuttlefish, live sea slugs, and walrus dung, and dressing up grandly in the uniforms of drowned sea captains. As far as he was concerned, he'd never had it so good. As a hobby, he'd taken up p.o.r.nographic and religious scrimshaw, with which he decorated his chambers, ampler than any he'd ever known before. The place stank, but so had every other place he'd lived in. He'd fashioned playing cards out of bleached sea wrack, dice and pipes out of conches, smoked cured kelp. He'd developed, as though in imitation of his monstrous host, an Oriental pleasure in the swallowing of whitebait and polliwogs live to feel them tickle his throat as they died going down - that's what the old buzzard was doing when he discovered him in there and ran to give him a hug, getting in return a faceful of spat-up live fish and a smack on his tender nose. Mostly, though, his father just sat around hallucinating on his evil brew. It was this grappa that steeled his heart, as it stole his mind, and made him refuse to budge. He thought he'd never get the besotted wretch out of there. When he tried to plead with him, his father turned nasty, walloping him with an oar handle if he came too close and threatening to set him alight and smoke his herrings with him.

"This s.h.i.t is magic, finocchio mio! It's the only magic I've ever known!"

"But what about me, babbino mio? Your little talking -"

"You, you little s.p.u.n.k, you sap, you sucker, you nutless wonder! You twist of tinder fungus! You're a thorn in my side! a splinter in my eye! a sprit up my a.s.s! You stick in my craw! One step closer, knothole, and I'll make toothpicks out of you!"

Finally he had to pretend to go along with him, throw a party, tell stories, get him blind drunk and carry him out through the snoring fish on his back, the old stew by now completely demented and raving at the top of his voice about the snakes in Saint Peter's green beard and the treachery of stars and fink pigeons and about being impaled on the devil's nose, which he envisioned apparently as appearing miraculously on the Virgin's shiny cerulean and enigmatically uncleft behind, the poor brute having tried desperately at the last minute, when he realized what was happening, to drink up his entire production before having to abandon it forever. When he woke up in the Fairy's cottage three days later, he thought he'd died and it was the Second Coming. In fact, he never quite got this idea out of his crazed old head after, and insisted on being called San 'Petto ever after.

Maybe he should have just left the old ingrate in there. But already, unredeemed woodenhead though he still was, he had started reading his many trials as edifying metaphors, the didactic strategies of his blue-haired preceptress, and in their light he knew he had to bring his babbo out with him. Their light, with significance, has lit all all his actions, without it his life would have been as dark and cold as this poor martyred church of a twice-martyred saint wherein, huddled in his tattered coat, shawled by his scarf, his ears in his pockets and his nipples at his belt, the old scholar sits, waiting for his friend Alidoro's return, frozen to the core and unsure even of his next minute - yet he can no longer say for certain whether the source of that imperiously guiding light was, all these years, without him or within. Did G.o.d, to put it another way, truly have plans for the Ninevites - they were spared, after all, nothing happened at all as Jonah said it would - or did Jonah, despairing of his own mortal condition, find himself invoking both G.o.d's plans and his own trials in reply, not to a luminous command from tempestuous skies, but to some inner storm of his own, his own career-engendering transformational wet dream, so to speak? A mystery frightening to ponder! his actions, without it his life would have been as dark and cold as this poor martyred church of a twice-martyred saint wherein, huddled in his tattered coat, shawled by his scarf, his ears in his pockets and his nipples at his belt, the old scholar sits, waiting for his friend Alidoro's return, frozen to the core and unsure even of his next minute - yet he can no longer say for certain whether the source of that imperiously guiding light was, all these years, without him or within. Did G.o.d, to put it another way, truly have plans for the Ninevites - they were spared, after all, nothing happened at all as Jonah said it would - or did Jonah, despairing of his own mortal condition, find himself invoking both G.o.d's plans and his own trials in reply, not to a luminous command from tempestuous skies, but to some inner storm of his own, his own career-engendering transformational wet dream, so to speak? A mystery frightening to ponder!

Paolo Veronese, whose church this is, having claimed it in the end with his very bones (his funerary bust gazes sternly down from the wall behind his painted organ upon its sickly visitor, shivering in his pitiable rags, and admonishes him with its straight cla.s.sic nose, its unpocked flesh, its handsomely draped breast, its n.o.ble and contented demeanor, looking much like the benign host of some great and sumptuous feast, from which the visitor, though he may ogle, is forever excluded), toys with this problem of the light's source in his central altar painting, in which Saint Sebastian's pierced groin is vividly lit up, but his tormented face is cast in shadow by the thick cloud at the Virgin's feet. She hovers just above him with the infant Jesus as though in someone else's vision, stealing the scene, as it were bathed in a golden Technicolor light not quite real and attended by angels fussing about like dressers, while the saint, his view obstructed (and looking a bit fearful that, what with all his other problems, something awesome might be about to fall on him), turns black with death and doubt.

Though it speaks in some ways to the abused traveler's embittered mood, this is not the cla.s.sical Venetian Sebastiano. Veronese, as usual, has taken liberties. Traditionally the martyr is shown standing contented as a wooden post, bathed in golden light himself, and stuffed with arrows as though he might be sprouting them like twigs, an image that, while often ridiculed, once touched the professor deeply, especially as painted by his beloved Giovanni Bellini. The image - "a piercing of eternity's veil," as he called it - led him into his early Venetian monographs on traumatic transfiguration and on toys as instruments, simultaneously, of death and wisdom, and eventually lay at the heart of his controversial theoretical work, Art and the Spirit, Art and the Spirit, the central theme of which was the absorption (the punctured flesh) of Becoming, fate, action, multiformity, naughtiness, discord, theatricality, bad temper, extrinsicality, evil companions, carpentry, negation, ignominy, and ultimately Art itself (the wooden arrows) by Being, will, repose, unity, obedience, peace, the eternal image, aplomb, intrinsicality, saints, teaching, affirmation, beatification, and all in the end by the transcendent Spirit (the languid gaze). the central theme of which was the absorption (the punctured flesh) of Becoming, fate, action, multiformity, naughtiness, discord, theatricality, bad temper, extrinsicality, evil companions, carpentry, negation, ignominy, and ultimately Art itself (the wooden arrows) by Being, will, repose, unity, obedience, peace, the eternal image, aplomb, intrinsicality, saints, teaching, affirmation, beatification, and all in the end by the transcendent Spirit (the languid gaze).

That languid gaze, he felt, had something to do with the mysterious shimmering light light of Venice, a light that, paradoxically, seemed permanently to fix before the eye the very flux that excluded all fixity, patterns and archetypes emerging from the watery atmosphere like Platonic ideas materializing in the fog of Becoming, and so spellbinding the gazer in a process that more or less mirrored that of the moviegoer lost conversely to seeming life in the flickering sequence of lifeless film frames, movement there emerging from fixity, the viewer's rapt gaze seduced, not by eternal Ideas, but by illusory angels cast up by the enchantment of "persistence of vision," as they called it. And as he called it, too, when speaking of the Venetian masters, borrowing from the then-disreputable cinema industry, another revolutionary and controversial - "mischievous," as his adversaries bitterly remarked - critical act. The illusory, that is to say, of Venice, a light that, paradoxically, seemed permanently to fix before the eye the very flux that excluded all fixity, patterns and archetypes emerging from the watery atmosphere like Platonic ideas materializing in the fog of Becoming, and so spellbinding the gazer in a process that more or less mirrored that of the moviegoer lost conversely to seeming life in the flickering sequence of lifeless film frames, movement there emerging from fixity, the viewer's rapt gaze seduced, not by eternal Ideas, but by illusory angels cast up by the enchantment of "persistence of vision," as they called it. And as he called it, too, when speaking of the Venetian masters, borrowing from the then-disreputable cinema industry, another revolutionary and controversial - "mischievous," as his adversaries bitterly remarked - critical act. The illusory, that is to say, was, was, for the great Venetian painters, for the great Venetian painters, what was real. Change what was real. Change was was changeless, changeless, Becoming Becoming was was Being. For them, "persistence" of vision was active, not pa.s.sive: they Being. For them, "persistence" of vision was active, not pa.s.sive: they saw through. saw through. Theirs was the art of the intense but reposeful acceptance of the turbulent wonderful. Theirs was the art of the intense but reposeful acceptance of the turbulent wonderful.

This ground-breaking work, dismissed at the time as the "malicious prank of an irredeemable parricide," was to be sure an audacious frontal a.s.sault (though never, in obedience to the Blue-Haired Fairy's precepts, disrespectful to his elders) upon the established dogma of the day, a dogma that reduced Venetian painting to mindless decoration, mere theater sets for cultic spectacle, as it were, "unperplexed by naturalism, religious mysticism, philosophical theories" and "exempt from the stress of thought and sentiment," as the paterfamilias of aestheticians put it, but, disturbing as his youthful iconoclasm was, it turned out to be less controversial than the book's many alleged parallels with his own life story. In those long-ago days of faith still in progress and pragmatism, personality was seen as a hindrance to "pure science," and "spirit" of course was a dirty word, "I" anathema. He was accused of feeding, with works of art, "the great maw of a monstrous ego." His theories were ridiculed as "thin laminations, scarcely concealing a deep-rooted psychosis." "The confused work of a split personality," another said. "Dr. Pinenut cannot see the forest for the tree."

He could not entirely deny these charges. He was himself a product, after all, of his father's rude art and a transfigured spirit; the t.i.tle had not come to him by accident. The quest for the abiding forms within life's ceaseless mutations was his his quest, had been since he burnt his feet off; he too, rejecting all theatricality, sought repose in the capricious turbulence - freedom, as it were, from quest, had been since he burnt his feet off; he too, rejecting all theatricality, sought repose in the capricious turbulence - freedom, as it were, from story. story. Even his decision to study the Venetians had to do with his own origins. If the beginnings of Venetian painting, as that same father figure of the priesthood who had dismissed Venetian art as "a s.p.a.ce of color on the wall" argued, "link themselves to the last, stiff, half-barbaric splendors of Byzantine decoration," how could he help, pagan lump of talking wood that he once was, but be drawn to these magicians of the transitional? No, his reply to all these accusations in his germinal "Go with the Grain" manifesto was: Even his decision to study the Venetians had to do with his own origins. If the beginnings of Venetian painting, as that same father figure of the priesthood who had dismissed Venetian art as "a s.p.a.ce of color on the wall" argued, "link themselves to the last, stiff, half-barbaric splendors of Byzantine decoration," how could he help, pagan lump of talking wood that he once was, but be drawn to these magicians of the transitional? No, his reply to all these accusations in his germinal "Go with the Grain" manifesto was: "All "All great scholarship is a transcendent form of autobiography!" "It-ness," he declared (this was the first time he was to use the concept later to be made world-famous in great scholarship is a transcendent form of autobiography!" "It-ness," he declared (this was the first time he was to use the concept later to be made world-famous in The Wretch), "contains The Wretch), "contains I-ness!" The victory was his. Even physics would never be the same again. I-ness!" The victory was his. Even physics would never be the same again.

Oh, she would have been proud of him, she who had launched his great quest with her little Parable of the Two Houses, here on this very island, all those many years ago. He'd been cast up by a storm and was begging at the edge of town when she found him. She offered him a supper of bread, cauliflower, and liquor-filled sweets in exchange for carrying a jug of water home for her. He'd last seen her as a little girl, and moreover presumed her dead, so he didn't recognize this woman, old enough to be his mother, until she took her shawl off and he saw her blue hair. Whereupon he threw himself at her feet and, sobbing uncontrollably, hugged her knees. "Oh, why can't we go home again, Fairy?" he wept. "Why can't we go back to the little white house in the woods?" Her knees spread a bit in his impa.s.sioned embrace, and the fragrant warmth between them drew him in under her skirts. He wasn't sure he should be in here, but in his simple puppetish way he thought perhaps she didn't notice. He felt terribly sleepy, and yet terribly awake, his eyes open but filled with tears.

"Let me tell you a story, my little illiterate woodenk.n.o.b," she said above his tented head, "about the pretty little white house and the nasty little brown house - do you see them there?" He rubbed his eyes and running nose against her stocking tops and peered blearily down her long white thighs. Yes, there was the dense blue forest, there the valley, and there (he drew closer) the little house, just hidden away, more pink than white really, and gleaming like alabaster. But the other -? "A little lower!" She pushed on his head, sinking him deeper between the thighs, until he saw it: dark and primitive, more like a cave than a house, a dank and airless place ringed about by indigo weeds, dreary as a tomb. She pushed his nose in it. "That is the house of laziness and disobedience and vagrancy," she said. "Little boys who don't go to school and so can only follow their noses come here, thinking it's the circus, and disappear forever." He was suffocating and thought he might be disappearing, too. She let him out but, even as he gasped for breath, stuffed his nose into the little white house: "And here is the house for good little boys who study and work hard and do as they are told. Here, life is rosy and sweet, and they can play in the garden and come and go as they please. Isn't that much better?"

"Yes, Mamma!" he said, and it was was better, but he was still having trouble breathing. He tried to back out but he was clamped in her thighs. better, but he was still having trouble breathing. He tried to back out but he was clamped in her thighs.

"Don't be idle!" she scolded, and she gave him a spank on his wooden bottom that drove him in deeper. "Look around! Idleness is a dreadful disease, of which one should be cured immediately in childhood; if not, one never gets over it."

What he saw when he looked around was a glistening little snail peeking out under the eaves. "What are you doing there, with your nose in the door?" she asked, laughing. Or someone did, he wasn't sure, he was confused, and thought he might be about to faint.

"I odly wadt to stop beigg a puppet and becubb a little boy," he wept. "Wod't you help be, little sdail?"

"And will you ever tell a lie again?"

"Ndo!" he cried desperately and, alarmingly, his nose began to grow again as it had done the last time he'd been in the little white house when the Fairy was still just a girl. That time she'd unloosed on him a thousand p.r.i.c.kly woodp.e.c.k.e.rs to peck it all away, a pecking he still sometimes felt out beyond his face like a nervous tingle as Il Gattino once told him he still felt his missing paw. he cried desperately and, alarmingly, his nose began to grow again as it had done the last time he'd been in the little white house when the Fairy was still just a girl. That time she'd unloosed on him a thousand p.r.i.c.kly woodp.e.c.k.e.rs to peck it all away, a pecking he still sometimes felt out beyond his face like a nervous tingle as Il Gattino once told him he still felt his missing paw.

"Oh!" the Fairy gasped, giggling and wriggling about so, she seemed this time to be trying to break his nose off at the root. "A lie about lying, that's the worst kind, you naughty boy!" And then she began to spank him for real. No more playful smacks, she really let him have it.

When she finally let him out, he was too weak to argue: he promised that he would mend his ways and study till his eyes fell out and always be good and tell the truth and be the consolation of his aged father. "How nice," the fairy sighed vaguely. He was lying flat out on the floor with his little wet red nose in the air and the Fairy was sprawled spraddle-legged in the chair above him. He looked up at her dear sweet face, hoping she might be smiling down upon him, and then he saw it, the image that would haunt him for the rest of his life: the languid gaze.

Ah, Fairy! He can see it now! Not literally of course, not in here - no such languor on the face of Veronese's pinned Sebastian, nor in his other altar paintings of the twice-martyred saint either. The gaze is gone, most of the arrows as well, being used apparently to cross all the double-S initials of the saint which, looking like pairs of skewered serpents, decorate the church like a kind of company logo. Veronese's Sebastian is a man of action, a warrior, a politician of sorts who plays to the galleries, striking operatic poses (why didn't he he get muscles like that, the old professor wants to know, sunk in his misery; why, when he put on flesh, did he still have to look like a spindly unstrung puppet, no bigger than a pennyworth of cheese, a veritable insult to the rules of human proportion - where was the heroic frame, the hairy chest, get muscles like that, the old professor wants to know, sunk in his misery; why, when he put on flesh, did he still have to look like a spindly unstrung puppet, no bigger than a pennyworth of cheese, a veritable insult to the rules of human proportion - where was the heroic frame, the hairy chest, where where - someone has a lot to answer for! - - someone has a lot to answer for! - were the powerful thighs?), were the powerful thighs?), a kind of professional athlete who is used to pain, who has trained for it in effect and now receives the arrow like a gold medal. Still, for all the theatrics, the hedonism and decorative frivolity (this artist once likened his vocation to that of "poets and jesters"), there is something restful about Veronese, it is as though the languid gaze might have pa.s.sed from painted to painter, invading the entire canvas, and the colors, flowing from that languor, are as soft and lush as old tapestry and vaguely warm him, much as the painting on his father's wall used to do. a kind of professional athlete who is used to pain, who has trained for it in effect and now receives the arrow like a gold medal. Still, for all the theatrics, the hedonism and decorative frivolity (this artist once likened his vocation to that of "poets and jesters"), there is something restful about Veronese, it is as though the languid gaze might have pa.s.sed from painted to painter, invading the entire canvas, and the colors, flowing from that languor, are as soft and lush as old tapestry and vaguely warm him, much as the painting on his father's wall used to do.

He is, after all, even should this prove to be his final hour, exactly where his heart, in such extremity, would have placed him: back in one of those fine Italian Renaissance churches which he once proclaimed to be the acme and paragon of Western art, its glory and (because its moment was forever past, Western art now nothing more than, like scrimshaw, a decorated fossil) also its tragedy. His throat is raw and tickling him as if he were swallowing some of his father's live whitebait, his eyes keep watering up, his chest is rattling, and everything below that is still numb, but his eyes can still discern beauty, his fingers have come unlocked from his thawed ears, and his nose has begun to relax and hang from his face in the usual way. If anything, it is now a bit hot, at least at the tip. In his pockets, along with his ears and the rumpled money Melampetta and Alidoro gave him, he has found some bread and a wet sack of fresh mozzarella that Lido must have tucked there when they said goodbye, and he nibbles gratefully at these offerings now.

It was Lido who led him out of the snow and into this old church, like himself a crumbling ruin succ.u.mbing to the Venetian climate, faded and damp and veiled with mildew and tarnish, telling him to wait here until he returned. "I should at least be able to get your watch back, touch iron," the old mastiff growled gently after the professor had given him a shortlist of essentials from the bags' missing contents. "One of those thieving c.u.n.ts must have s.n.a.t.c.hed it last night." When he tried to give Lido his money back, however, the dog shook his s.h.a.ggy old head and said: "Keep it, compagno. It's not much, but it might buy a warm hat or a hot meal. Besides, I don't have any pockets!" Which made him start to cry again - "I love you, Alidoro! You're the only real friend I have!" he sobbed into the mastiffs rancid coat, apologizing once again for all the stupid things he'd said this morning in the boat yard, but the venerable dog just lapped his nape tenderly and said: "Eh, vecchio, I've already forgotten, I told you I have a rotten memory. Now don't go away!"

Which was a joke. He can't even walk. When Alidoro left, he turned stiffly and, out of an old habit, started to genuflect. Or maybe something just gave way. Whatever, he went all the way down, knocking the marble floor crisply - ka-POK! ka-POK!- with his crippled knees. When he tried to straighten up, there was a cracking, splitting sound in his haunches that he felt all the way to the back of his neck. He had to crawl on all fours to a bench and pull himself up on it, still doubled over like a groveling penitent, an inconsolable mourner (oh, he was was repentant, he repentant, he was was desolate beyond repair, his desolate beyond repair, his Mamma Mamma gone, twice - thrice - over, his life gone with it: gone, twice - thrice - over, his life gone with it: Oh non mi fate pi piangere! Oh non mi fate pi piangere! he wept, hoping that the echoes he heard, bouncing up off the checkered marble floor, were only in his imagination), unable to see anything for awhile through his tears but his shoes down between his knees. Boredom alone, in the end, drove the old art scholar's head up. The rest, unfortunately, has not chosen to follow. Though he's not yet as stiff as the Bishop of Cyprus stretched out up there on his marble tomb, he still can't unbend his knees or elbows, his back has locked itself into a fair imitation of a Venetian footbridge, and his backside on the hard wooden bench has now gone to sleep along with the rest of his nether parts. Overhead on the organ doors, Jesus is healing lepers and cripples at some spa or other. Relatively, they all look in pretty good shape. he wept, hoping that the echoes he heard, bouncing up off the checkered marble floor, were only in his imagination), unable to see anything for awhile through his tears but his shoes down between his knees. Boredom alone, in the end, drove the old art scholar's head up. The rest, unfortunately, has not chosen to follow. Though he's not yet as stiff as the Bishop of Cyprus stretched out up there on his marble tomb, he still can't unbend his knees or elbows, his back has locked itself into a fair imitation of a Venetian footbridge, and his backside on the hard wooden bench has now gone to sleep along with the rest of his nether parts. Overhead on the organ doors, Jesus is healing lepers and cripples at some spa or other. Relatively, they all look in pretty good shape.

Look on the bright side, he admonishes himself, beginning to wheeze. No more deadlines. No more bibliographical evidence to ama.s.s. No more words. words. Up on the Nuns' Choir, there are representations of saints holding what he takes to be the instruments of their martyrdom. Some of them are holding books. He can appreciate this. A kind of plague, reading them maybe even worse than writing them, and no end to it. The terrible martyrdom of the ever-rolling stone. Saint Pinocchio. He and his father, a new heavenly host. And now think of it, for the first time in his long life, he does not have a book to write. That martyrdom at least is over. He is free at last. Which is probably just what they told poor Sebastian when they stripped his armor off him. "Free, my tortured Up on the Nuns' Choir, there are representations of saints holding what he takes to be the instruments of their martyrdom. Some of them are holding books. He can appreciate this. A kind of plague, reading them maybe even worse than writing them, and no end to it. The terrible martyrdom of the ever-rolling stone. Saint Pinocchio. He and his father, a new heavenly host. And now think of it, for the first time in his long life, he does not have a book to write. That martyrdom at least is over. He is free at last. Which is probably just what they told poor Sebastian when they stripped his armor off him. "Free, my tortured chiappie!" chiappie!" he seems to be yelling, as they stuff him, up there beside the altar, into his second death. Trouble is, as martyrdoms go, the first was better than the second. This one hurts more and the compensations are more obscure. And this time: this time, no one's watching. he seems to be yelling, as they stuff him, up there beside the altar, into his second death. Trouble is, as martyrdoms go, the first was better than the second. This one hurts more and the compensations are more obscure. And this time: this time, no one's watching.

"Oh my Ga-ahd!" Ga-ahd!" exclaims a loud nasal American voice, blowing in behind him. The professor makes a movement which to his own inner eye is that of shrinking down in his seat, though it may be invisible to others, as the intruder, stamping her feet and shaking herself audibly, comes bl.u.s.tering down the aisle. "Lookit exclaims a loud nasal American voice, blowing in behind him. The professor makes a movement which to his own inner eye is that of shrinking down in his seat, though it may be invisible to others, as the intruder, stamping her feet and shaking herself audibly, comes bl.u.s.tering down the aisle. "Lookit this! this! Brrr! What a creepshow, man! Everybody's Brrr! What a creepshow, man! Everybody's dead dead in here!" in here!"

12. IN THE HOUSE OF THE DEAD.

"Gee-whillikers, prof, I feel really flattered flattered to - to - pjfft! POP! pjfft! POP! - be able to talk with you all - be able to talk with you all alone alone like this about art and life and beauty and all that like this about art and life and beauty and all that great great stuff, I'm so excited, it's like first day in cla.s.s!" his former student gushes, squeezing his hands inside her sweater. It does not feel like flesh in there so much as a powdery cloud, like the materialization of his own flushed confusion. "You never know," his father used to rumble drunkenly, wiping the drool from his grizzled chops and tipping his yellow wig forward over his eyebrows, "in this world, boyo, anything can happen." It was about all the wisdom the old lout had: stuff, I'm so excited, it's like first day in cla.s.s!" his former student gushes, squeezing his hands inside her sweater. It does not feel like flesh in there so much as a powdery cloud, like the materialization of his own flushed confusion. "You never know," his father used to rumble drunkenly, wiping the drool from his grizzled chops and tipping his yellow wig forward over his eyebrows, "in this world, boyo, anything can happen." It was about all the wisdom the old lout had: In questo mondo i casi sono tanti, In questo mondo i casi sono tanti, so save your pear peels, they might come in handy. It had prepared the venerable professor for many of life's surprises, but it had not prepared him for this. Perhaps only Hollywood could have prepared him for this. "Everybody in cla.s.s was crazy about you, you know. 'The beak's unique,' we used to say around campus. 'The Nose Knows!' " so save your pear peels, they might come in handy. It had prepared the venerable professor for many of life's surprises, but it had not prepared him for this. Perhaps only Hollywood could have prepared him for this. "Everybody in cla.s.s was crazy about you, you know. 'The beak's unique,' we used to say around campus. 'The Nose Knows!' "

"I-I-I -!" he gasps. He feels, in such transport, like a fish out of water, his gills flapping wildly. His chest is shaken by violent spasms, which he is trying desperately to suppress. But his hands feel so wonderful he wants to cry.

"We called you 'The Happy Honker,' you coulda had any girl you wanted - and probably at least half the guys as well. And what a dresser! A real zoot snoot, as we used to say, no disrespect intended - and speaking of which, your snoot, I mean, snuggle it down here, too, teach. Goodness sakes, but it's a mess! Is that an acorn acorn growing out the side of it? You poor dear man!" She puts an arm around him and hugs him to her bosom, which is alive and tremulous and fragrant as a Tuscan summer. Or an Iowa cornfield. Cape Cod in August. He doesn't even know where he is for a dizzying moment. He grabs hold so as not to fall, then nearly faints again to think of what he's clutching. "What you need, professor, is to let me take you back to my room and give you a good hot bath!" growing out the side of it? You poor dear man!" She puts an arm around him and hugs him to her bosom, which is alive and tremulous and fragrant as a Tuscan summer. Or an Iowa cornfield. Cape Cod in August. He doesn't even know where he is for a dizzying moment. He grabs hold so as not to fall, then nearly faints again to think of what he's clutching. "What you need, professor, is to let me take you back to my room and give you a good hot bath!"

"Oh, I can't -!" he squeaks, but his voice is smothered in fluffy blue angora. He tries to lift his head up, but she pushes it back down again. "I'm waiting for a frie - mwmpff!" mwmpff!" She lays one hand soothingly against his nose, settling it into the warm hollow between her b.r.e.a.s.t.s, stroking it gently. It's as though it were made for it, like a violin case for its own particular instrument. Even resistance feels good! She lays one hand soothingly against his nose, settling it into the warm hollow between her b.r.e.a.s.t.s, stroking it gently. It's as though it were made for it, like a violin case for its own particular instrument. Even resistance feels good!

What he'd felt when she first came storming in, disturbing his revery (his head had slumped again to his chest, for all she knew he might have been praying, had she no shame?), was more like outrage and repugnance and bitter vexation: To have traveled so far, to have suffered so much, and now, at the very end -! She'd swaggered brazenly through the place like she owned it, blowing bubbles with her noisomely scented chewing gum, hooting and snorting and loudly decrying the very sobriety that gave the church its celebrated beauty ("Stone corpses and little babies holding skulls - and lookit that skinny dude with the facefuzz - ffpupp! squit! SMACK! ffpupp! squit! SMACK! - hanging there like bagged game! Whoo, by his color I'd say he's not only dead meat, he's gone - hanging there like bagged game! Whoo, by his color I'd say he's not only dead meat, he's gone off!" off!"), a st.u.r.dy middle-American blonde in a red plastic windbreaker, blue jeans, and white cowboy boots. Luckily, she seemed not to see him, and he sank lower in the pew. "And lookit the cute little b.u.t.t on John-boy the Baptist there, and - hey, whoa, am I right? Has the Holy Virgin got her thumb up her kid's wazoo? Prodding his little p.o.o.p-shoot?! His itty-bitsy b.u.mbo?! b.u.mbo?! Yippee! What a diablerie! Or are these supposed to be the - Yippee! What a diablerie! Or are these supposed to be the - ffpLUP! ffpLUP! - good guys? - good guys? Murder!" Murder!"

She brushed the snow out of her blond hair with hands ringed and braceleted in cheap costume jewelry, and, her windbreaker rustling, leaned over the altar railing. Her tight jeans seemed almost to squeak as they filled up, the worn seams spreading, her honey-colored hair clinging in snow-dampened rings about her neck and temples. "Ouch! Bi-zzang! Right in his appendectomy scar! Musta missed his little d.i.c.kydoo by a Right in his appendectomy scar! Musta missed his little d.i.c.kydoo by a whisper! whisper! Well, what did it matter, what good's that old gap-stopper gonna - Well, what did it matter, what good's that old gap-stopper gonna - splurpp! snap! splurpp! snap! - do him now anyway, right? I mean, - do him now anyway, right? I mean, that that sucker's sucker's had had it! And, yikes, what're they trying to do to it! And, yikes, what're they trying to do to that that guy, give him an guy, give him an enema? enema? Weird!" She peeked into the side altars, stared up at the organ, gave the Veronese bust a high five, read the tomb inscription in the floor below it while blowing a huge rosy bubble. "I don't know," she sighed, sucking up the gum before it popped and turning around, "but it sure looks like a lotta heavy S and M to me, whips and bondage and dead bodies and all that, with some child p.o.r.n thrown in for the kinkos - whadda Weird!" She peeked into the side altars, stared up at the organ, gave the Veronese bust a high five, read the tomb inscription in the floor below it while blowing a huge rosy bubble. "I don't know," she sighed, sucking up the gum before it popped and turning around, "but it sure looks like a lotta heavy S and M to me, whips and bondage and dead bodies and all that, with some child p.o.r.n thrown in for the kinkos - whadda you you think, professor?" think, professor?"

He was thinking - had been - that she was an unspeakably rude and vulgar young loudmouth, but he was so startled by her addressing him directly like that, all he could do was raise his chin an inch and break into a wheezing cough. Under her windbreaker, he saw, she was wearing a gaudy blue angora sweater, still sparkling frothily with snow. She smiled, pushed out another enormous pink bubble. This one did pop, sticking to her nose and chin. She plucked it away with her fingers, looking cross-eyed at it, poked it back in, smiled again, chewing vigorously with her mouth open. She had even white teeth, the sort invented by American orthodontists, wide lips painted cherry red. "You are are Professor Pinenut, aren't you? I recognized you by the! by your!" Professor Pinenut, aren't you? I recognized you by the! by your!"

"Ah! Yes!," he coughed, shrinking abjectly into his miserable rags. He squinted up at her past his ducked and shame-enflamed nose. "But! Miss -?"

"Call me Bluebell," she said gaily, coming over, "the Underlying Princ.i.p.al of my graduating cla.s.s, as they said in the yearbook, that's me, dumb as they come and gobsa fun!" As she moved, she seemed almost to bounce. Or maybe it was his blurred vision. Perhaps I have a fever, he thought, his eyes wobbling. "I was a student way back when in your famous Art Principles 101 - Pinenut's a.r.s.e Pimples, as we called it - oh, I don't expect you to remember me, prof, those huge freshman cores, you know, a thousand and one faces, and no one in the whole auditorium giving diddly-eff-you-pee about anything except maybe sneaking in some shut-eye or pa.s.sing a joint, you were a saint to put up with us." She planted her soft behind on the back of the pew in front, her spangled and fringed white boot propped on the bench beside him. "We were awful. You called us the living dead."

"I did -?"

"Oh, we deserved it! I sure did, I was rotten student, I admit it, I sat through all your lectures - the ones I came to, I mean - doing my nails. But, hey, at least I was doing something artistic, artistic, right? You used to call on me sometimes when I was fluttering my hands about and blowing my nails dry, and my answers were so stupid, you used to say you admired the absolute purity of my mind which clearly no idea had as yet penetrated. Boy, the nicknames I got called after that!" right? You used to call on me sometimes when I was fluttering my hands about and blowing my nails dry, and my answers were so stupid, you used to say you admired the absolute purity of my mind which clearly no idea had as yet penetrated. Boy, the nicknames I got called after that!"

"Oh yes!" But he didn't remember. He tried to recall the fluttering hands. Right then they were crossed on her breast, as though to emphasize her sincerity, as she leaned toward him, making her jeans squeak again. The nails were painted luminescent orange. To go with the blue sweater.

"But some things I never forgot, prof. You really helped me, you know, you changed my life!" life!" She reached into her mouth, pulled out a long glistening ribbon of gum like a frog's tongue, rolled it up, and, turning back to the altarpieces, stuffed it back in her cheeks again. "I can see now, for example, how all these - She reached into her mouth, pulled out a long glistening ribbon of gum like a frog's tongue, rolled it up, and, turning back to the altarpieces, stuffed it back in her cheeks again. "I can see now, for example, how all these - schloopp! schloopp! - paintings are really like moving pictures. - paintings are really like moving pictures. Nothing Nothing stands still, so art, to be truthful, has got to move, too, right? It's why you said you - stands still, so art, to be truthful, has got to move, too, right? It's why you said you - yoomm! sploop! SPAP! yoomm! sploop! SPAP! - always loved the movies. And theater -" - always loved the movies. And theater -"

"No, I never!"

"I mean, 'images of eternity,' 'shadows of the divine perfection,' all that's just - ffplOP! ffplOP! - bullp.o.o.p, isn't it, Professor Pinenut? Like you always said!" - bullp.o.o.p, isn't it, Professor Pinenut? Like you always said!"

"I-I don't think you were, eh, listening very carefully!"

"And I can see now what you meant about churches being nothing more than fancy repertory theaters - I mean, just look around! - it's a place where you just expect expect something something wild to wild to happen -!" happen -!"

"I said nothing of the kind -!" he rasped faintly, coughing and snorting. He felt infuriated by these stupid travesties of his deepest convictions, but at some remove, far behind his sinuses, which had filled up painfully, making his head bob heavily on his feeble neck.

"All the bejeweled props and snazzy sets, the stage doors and costumes and all the music and magical stuff - I mean, what actor wouldn't go apes.h.i.t for the priest's gig, it's a real headliner, isn't it, it's got everything but dancing girls! And what with the whole amazing tonk dolled up in all colors of the rainbow, these glitzy dollar signs all over the joint, kissing putti in the front row, and those big chromos up there like crazy movie posters - what's a masterpiece but just a high-cla.s.s ad, a billboard for the bigots, like you always said, right, prof?"

"Oh, please -!" he squawked, racked by a rattling cough.

"Jeepers, professor! Are you okay?" She slid in beside him then, took his hand. "Hey, you're looking like a whoopee cushion that's lost its whoopee! What's happened to all your fancy threads?!"

"I-I have suffered a - wheeze! wheeze! - great misfortune! Now, please, Miss, go -" - great misfortune! Now, please, Miss, go -"

"And you're so cold! cold! Here, tuck your hands in here and get them warm!" Here, tuck your hands in here and get them warm!"

"What are you doing -?!" doing -?!" he yelped. "I - he yelped. "I - rurff! hawff! rurff! hawff! - I don't -! - I don't -! Kaff! Kaff! I never -!" But she had grabbed them both, stuffed them inside her sweater, it was already done. One of his hands was still clutched around an ear. He hopes she didn't notice. If it were still on his head, it would be burning with shame. In fact it feels a bit warm under his fingers right now. If that's his ear. Not much flesh left on his fingertips, can't be sure of anything any more. Not much in his head either, his faculties hardening, his memory turning to dust: who I never -!" But she had grabbed them both, stuffed them inside her sweater, it was already done. One of his hands was still clutched around an ear. He hopes she didn't notice. If it were still on his head, it would be burning with shame. In fact it feels a bit warm under his fingers right now. If that's his ear. Not much flesh left on his fingertips, can't be sure of anything any more. Not much in his head either, his faculties hardening, his memory turning to dust: who was was this student? All the dense airless lecture halls of his endlessly protracted career have blurred into one, his innumerable pupils into a vast shapeless, faceless ma.s.s. Waiting outside his office door. Waiting to have their little strings pulled. Day after day. That was life, what he knew of it. Closed now, that door. Forever. He nestles his nose deeper into the soft fleece, wondering, vaguely, if he might have missed something! Well, and even if he did, what did it matter? this student? All the dense airless lecture halls of his endlessly protracted career have blurred into one, his innumerable pupils into a vast shapeless, faceless ma.s.s. Waiting outside his office door. Waiting to have their little strings pulled. Day after day. That was life, what he knew of it. Closed now, that door. Forever. He nestles his nose deeper into the soft fleece, wondering, vaguely, if he might have missed something! Well, and even if he did, what did it matter? I casi sono tanti! I casi sono tanti!

"You know that Mary up there hanging out over the skewered saint, the one on the cloud holding up her little puppet," she says suddenly, so startling him that he sets everything jiggling around beneath his nose. "Hey! Be nice now, professor," she murmurs admonishingly through the scarf tied round his pate, and gives him a playful little smack on his behind. Which, to his joy, he feels. "Well, you used to show us a lot of pictures like that in cla.s.s. And what I noticed is that the Virgin is always sad." She hugs him closer. He is still, in his mind, protesting, but his body has completely surrendered. And the therapy is working: there is feeling now, quite wondrously, even to the tips of his toes. "I know what that's supposed to mean, that she has that faraway look because she foresees her little boy's tragic future, and that spoils the fun, but I think that's just dumb guys talking. What I I see in that look is a disappointed mother." Even the tickle in his throat and the wheezing convulsions of his chest have faded away. He feels so grateful he wants to kiss something. "It's like, I don't know, it's like having a perfect son is not enough!" She sighs, and her b.r.e.a.s.t.s lift and fall around his nose like animated powder puffs. "Is that what you think?" see in that look is a disappointed mother." Even the tickle in his throat and the wheezing convulsions of his chest have faded away. He feels so grateful he wants to kiss something. "It's like, I don't know, it's like having a perfect son is not enough!" She sighs, and her b.r.e.a.s.t.s lift and fall around his nose like animated powder puffs. "Is that what you think?"

"Yes," he lies. He is too happy to argue. The grat.i.tude wells up behind his eyes like the onset of a delicious sneeze. Before his eye, the open one, the tender blue hummock swells invitingly. Che bella! Che bella! He lifts a finger under the sweater to touch the pointy part. "Exactly!!" He lifts a finger under the sweater to touch the pointy part. "Exactly!!"

"Is - is something the matter, professor?" she asks in alarm.

"What -?!" he cries in panic, jerking his finger back and rearing his head up. It takes him a moment to remember where he is. "The matter -?!"