THE CICERONE
terns had been attached to the gondolas, floats were being decked,
and rumors, gay as paper flowers, promised a night of license, mask–
ing, and folly. A party of English tourists was expected; Miss Grabbe
was trying on eighteenth-century court costumes with the Commu–
nists across the Canal. Apparently, Mr. Sciarappa had set this as the
date of
his
own liberation, for at the aperitif hour he was not to be
seen, either at the hotel or, as he had stipulated, in the Piazza. The
two friends connected his disappearance with the arrival of the English
tourists, for at the first mention of their existence, his mind had ducked
underground, into the tunnel where his real life was conducted. They
had known him long enough to see him as a city of Catacombs, and
to interpret his lapses of attention as signs of the keenest interest; his
silences were the camouflaged entrances to the Plutonian realm of his
thoughts. Nevertheless, they felt slightly shocked and abandoned.
Like many intellectual people, they were alarmed by the confirmation
of theories-was the world as small as the mind? They telephoned
their hotel twice, but their friend had left no messages for them, and,
disturbed, they allowed Miss Grabbe to go off with her maskers while
they watched on the cold jetty the little gondolas chasing up and down
the Canal
in
pursuit of the great floating orchestra which everybody
had seen in the afternoon but which now, like Mr. Sciarappa, had
unaccountably disappeared.
Some time later, they perceived Mr. Sciarappa alone in a gon–
dola that was rapidly making for the pier. They would not have
recognized him had he not called out effusively, "Ah, my friends,
I am looking for you all over Venice tonight."
.
The full force of this lie was lost on them, for they were
k ·
astonished to find Scampi in a falsehood than to find him in a new
suit. In dark blue and white stripes, he stepped out of the gondola;
gold links gleamed at his wrists; his face was soft from the barbershop,
and a strong fragrance of Chane! caused passers-by to turn to stare
at them. The bluish-white glare from the dome of San Giorgio, lit up
for the occasion, fell on him, accentuating the moment. The heavier
material had added a certain substantiality to him; like the men in
Harry's Bar, he looked sybaritic, prosperous, and vain. But this
transfiguration was, it became clear, merely the afterglow of some
hope that had already set for him. Wherever he had been, he had
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