the jewelers, the druggists, the milliners with their extravagant hats full of fruits and birds, the great French doll got up with the latest Paris creation.
But even the simple things delighted him, and he pushed on into the Panetteria full of bakeries, the fish markets of the Pescheria, and reaching the Rialto bridge, wandered among the greengrocers.
Of course Angelo wouldn’t hear of stopping in a café or tavern; and Tonio found himself famished for cheap meats and bad wine, simply because it all looked so exotic.
He was trying, however, to be clever.
Everything would come in time. Angelo never seemed so much the dried husk of a young man as he did now that he was shorter than his impetuous charge and easily led, when he didn’t have time to think, into some new devilment. Snatching a gazette from a hawker on the street, Tonio was able to read a considerable amount of gossip in it before Angelo realized what he was doing.
But it was the bookseller’s that held the strongest lure for Tonio. He could see the gentlemen gathered inside, with their coffee and wine, hear the occasional eruptions of laughter. Here the theater was discussed, people were debating the merits of the composers of the coming operas. There were foreign papers for sale, political tracts, poetry.
Angelo tugged him along. Sometimes they wandered to the very middle of the square, and Tonio, turning round and round, felt himself delightfully adrift in the shifting crowds, now and then startled by the flapping of the rising pigeons.
If he thought of Marianna at home behind the closed draperies, he would start crying.
* * *
They’d been going out for four days of this, each more entertaining and exciting than the one before, when they glimpsed Alessandro, and a small event occurred that was to pitch Tonio into consternation.
He was delighted to see Alessandro, and when he realized Alessandro was heading right for the bookseller’s, he saw his opportunity. Angelo couldn’t even catch up with him, and in minutes he was inside the cluttered little shop itself in the thick of tobacco smoke and the aroma of coffee, lightly touching Alessandro’s sleeve to get his attention.
“Why, Excellency.” Alessandro embraced him quickly. “How fine to see you today,” he said. “And where are you going?”
“Only following you, Signore,” Tonio said, suddenly feeling very young and ridiculous. But Alessandro, with a fluid courtesy, immediately told him how much he’d enjoyed their recent supper. And it seemed the conversation went on spiritedly around them so Tonio felt comfortably anonymous. Someone was talking of the opera, and this Neapolitan singer, Caffarelli. “The greatest in the world,” they said. “Do you agree with that?”
Then someone very distinctly said the name Treschi, and again, Treschi, but coupled with the first name Carlo.
“Aren’t you going to introduce us?” came the man’s voice again. “This is Marc Antonio Treschi, it must be.”
“Just like Carlo,” said someone else, and Alessandro, turning Tonio gently to the gathering of young men, gave a litany of their names as there came the nods, and then someone asked did Alessandro think Caffarelli was the greatest singer in Europe?
It seemed marvelous to Tonio, all of it. Yet Alessandro’s attentions were wholly turned to him, and in a sudden burst of exuberance he invited Alessandro to a cup of wine with him.
“A great pleasure,” Alessandro said at once. He’d scooped up two London papers, and paid for them quickly. “Caffarelli,” he said over his shoulder. “Well, I’ll know how great he is when I hear him.”
“Is this the new opera? Is this Caffarelli coming here?” Tonio asked. He loved this place, and even the fact that everyone had wanted to know him.
But Alessandro was guiding him to the door; several people had risen with a nod.
And then the meeting took place, which was to change the very color of the sky, the aspect of the snow-white clouds, and make the day take on a dark resonance.
One of the young patricians followed them into the arcade, a tall, blond man, his hair streaked with white and his skin darkly burnt by the sun as if he had been in some tropical land and was much the worse for it. He did not wear his ceremonial robes, but only the loose and sloppy tabarro, and there was about him an almost menacing air, though Tonio could not imagine why as he glanced up to him.
“Would you choose the café?” Tonio was just saying to Alessandro. This had to be done just right.