He stood pale, with circles round his eyes: he looked to be in a kind of trance. Balbi kept feeling his neck and breathed with difficulty after the fright he had suffered. He mumbled through his cracked and gritted teeth.
“I understand, Giacomo. I understand now, the devil take you. I recognize the fact that you are a Venetian. But if you lay your hands on my neck again I’ll bite your nose off.”
“I wasn’t going to hurt you,” replied Giacomo, laughing. “You can run and play now if you want. We shall spend a few days in Bolzano because I have things to do here: first, I must write a letter to Bragadin and wait for his answer, and while we are waiting we should get some new clothes because, without finery, even a Venetian nobleman looks like a beggar. Yes, there are things to do here in Bolzano, but by the end of the week we can be on the road again. I shall take you to Munich, so you may visit the order of which you are, alas, no longer a member. My destiny as a writer calls me further afield. Revenge can wait. The thought of it is deep in my heart, though, and will never fade. You must nurture revenge as you would a captive lion, by feeding it daily with a little raw flesh, the bloody remnants of your remembered insults, so as not to blunt its taste for blood. Because I will return to Venice one day! But in the meantime, no one but me will be allowed to curse her. The fires of revenge will continue burning, but that is a matter between the two of us: between myself and the Inquisition, between myself and the first secretary, myself and the Venetians. If you value your life at all, you’ll not raise a finger against Venice. I will take care of her in due course, don’t you worry. And, mark my words, Balbi, by Venice I do not mean the Venetians. No one knows them better than I who was born among them, who is blood of their blood, the blood of those who humiliated me and cast me out. Who should know them better than the man who introduced the male prostitute to the cardinal? The man who obtained a state loan for the senator responsible for artistic affairs by raiding the state funds reserved for the orphans of the republic? The man who introduced the castrato singer to the gracious head of the supervisory committee? The man who saw the exalted, the high-minded, and the pious, masked and with their collars turned up, sneaking through the notorious doorways of Madame Ricci’s house after sunset? The man who knows that, in Venice, the price of a man’s life is five gold pieces? The man who knows the precise addresses of hired assassins who spend their days hanging about the taverns in the side streets by the fishmarket and who are just as openly eager to place their poisons and daggers at the disposal of the exalted, the high-minded and the pious as the religious-goods vendors are their candles and icons? Who else knows what happened to Lucia, the adopted daughter and secret lover of his grace, the papal delegate? How did she vanish? Who is in a better position to know from whom, and from where, they bought the needle, the thread, and the sacking with which, on Michaelmas night, they stitched up the body of Paolo, the wild son of His Most High Excellency?… Who is in a position to reveal what still lies rotting in the cellars of certain Venetian houses and which head belongs to which torso as they both drift down the Grand Canal on the day after the Carnival? These are the people!…” he cried and grabbed the table whose great oak top shook as he touched it. “These are the people who judged me! Patricides, murderers of their own sons, usurers, gluttons, parasites, living off orphans’ tears and sucking the blood of widows with their taxes — and these are the people who dared pass judgment on me! Murderers! Thieves! Exploiters! Mark my words, Balbi! One day I shall return to Venice.”
“Yes,” agreed the friar and crossed himself. “But I wouldn’t like to be traveling with you when you do, Giacomo!”
They glared at each other. Then, still staring into each other’s eyes, they started to laugh and were soon shaking with uncontrollable hilarity.
“Send for the barber,” said Giacomo. “And for a cup of chocolate. And ink, a finely-cut pen, and some paper to write on. I must write to Signor Bragadin, who was father to me when I had none. I might be able to squeeze a hundred or so gold pieces out of him. Look sharp, Balbi: don’t forget you are my secretary and manservant. We might have to spend a few more brief days in Bolzano. Go carefully, keep your eyes open, don’t spend all your time sniffing round the skirts of kitchen-maids because, for a plump pigeon like you, there is always a cage like the Leads, ready and waiting. And I won’t pull you out through the bars again. Get a move on. There is a banker in the town, a man called Mensch, a well-known moneylender. Find out his address.”