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We visited Venice every year.
In Rio de Janeiro, Tito used to walk with his therapist, but in Venice, in the holidays, he walked only with me.
He would go ahead of me, with his ungainly steps. I would be right behind him, ready to catch him if he should fall.
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Marcel Proust remarked that a walk in Venice had the power to “educate the spirit,” separating out the “intellectual aristocracy” from the “intellectual proletariat.”
Throughout In Search of Lost Time, he refers constantly to analogies between the “aristocratic” memories of Venice and the “proletarian” memories of his characters.
The streets of Combray are mirrored in the streets of Venice. The face of Albert Bloch is mirrored in a portrait of Gentile Bellini. Albertine’s dress is mirrored in a painting by Vittore Carpaccio. Domestic life in Aubervilliers is mirrored in a lost canal.
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In the last volume of In Search of Lost Time, the Narrator stumbles and almost falls in the courtyard of the Guermantes mansion.
The incident reminds him of Venice’s uneven paving stones.
Suddenly the events of his past life all fit together like a mosaic and he is filled with a sense of happiness.
He realizes that his memories of walking in Venice — along with the images and analogies they evoke — could give meaning to his life.
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At that moment, the Narrator decides to write a book about his past life, because in order to interpret his feelings it is necessary, above all else, to transform them into ideas, to transform them into “equivalents of understanding.”
The book he decides to write is In Search of Lost Time.
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On our walks through Venice, Tito was always stumbling.
When this happened, I was filled with a sense of happiness. Preventing Tito from falling in Venice gave meaning to my life.
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The book that transforms my feelings into their equivalents of understanding is this one.
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(Picture Credit 1.18)
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In the previous image: Marcel Proust, dead.
The photo was taken by Man Ray. It dates from 1922.
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In the weeks prior to his death, Marcel Proust ate just one croissant a day.
To go back to Tommaso Rangone: the food that proved to be most harmful to Marcel Proust’s health was the croissant.
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For Marcel Proust, a walk through Venice was the equivalent of reading Dante Alighieri’s Divine Comedy.
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In the Divine Comedy, Dante Alighieri is always counting the number of steps or paces from one place to the next:
There were less than a hundred paces between us.
Or:
We took ten steps to avoid the sand and the flames.
Or:
We walked a thousand steps along the solitary path.
Or:
We were separated by only three paces.
Or:
Even after we had gone a thousand steps, we were as yet as far from them as a good slingsman could throw a stone.
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Walking with Tito in Venice, keeping right behind him so that I could steady him if he should fall, I counted each step he took, as if I were reciting Dante Alighieri:
Uno … Due … Tre … Quattro … Cinque … Sei …
Sette … Otto … Nove … Dieci … Undici … Dodici …
Tredici … Quattordici … Quindici … Sedici …
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When Tito stumbled — and he always stumbled — I would stop him falling and start counting again from zero:
Uno … Due … Tre … Quattro … Cinque … Sei …
Sette … Otto … Nove … Dieci … Undici … Dodici …
Tredici … Quattordici … Quindici … Sedici …
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In the previous image: Tito and I are preparing to ascend — in circular fashion — Dante Alighieri’s Mount Purgatory.
The drawing is by Sandro Botticelli. It dates from 1480.
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The sixteen steps Tito took on 28 September 2005 became, some months later, twenty-seven steps. Some months later, the twenty-seven steps became forty-four steps. Some months later, the forty-four steps became seventy-one steps. Some months later, the seventy-one steps became one hundred and eighteen steps.
Each step Tito took was complete in itself. Each step Tito took was a brief chapter of his story.
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On 11 January 2008, Tito took three hundred and fifty-nine steps.
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I commemorated this event in a column:
Edmund Hillary died on 11 January. On the same day, my son took three hundred and fifty-nine steps. Climbing Mount Everest, as Edmund Hillary did, might seem just slightly more significant than my son taking three hundred and fifty-nine steps, but for someone who has cerebral palsy, as he does, taking three hundred and fifty-nine consecutive steps without help, without falling, without smashing his teeth, is an epic event, at least in our family mythography. If my son is Edmund Hillary, then I must be his sherpa, Tenzing Norgay. He lurches from side to side, progressing slowly and uncertainly meter by meter, I remain in the rearguard, pointing out the smoothest route and saving him from falling. My son walked those three hundred and fifty-nine steps during the holidays in Venice. We are already planning our next challenges. First, we will walk three hundred and fifty-nine steps on Corcovado.
Then, three hundred and fifty-nine steps in the Acropolis. Then three hundred and fifty-nine steps along the Great Wall of China. Then three hundred and fifty-nine steps in the Sahara desert. Then three hundred and fifty-nine steps on Mount Everest. My son and I will travel round the world on foot, three hundred and fifty-nine steps at a time.
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Tito’s steps became my unit of measurement. I began calculating all our journeys based on them.
In Venice during the holidays, the return trip to Bar da Gino took one thousand, one hundred and ninety-four steps. The trip from our house to Fondamenta delle Zattere, via Calle Querini, where Ezra Pound lived, was much shorter: five hundred and twenty-seven steps.
In Rio de Janeiro, the route from our apartment to Posto 9 on Ipanema beach was four hundred and eighty steps. The route from our apartment to the swimming pool at the Hotel Fasano was five hundred and seventy-one steps.