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usual
bottega
for deliveries,” a general store around the corner from Giustiniana’s home, run by a friendly shopkeeper. When Andrea’s message could not wait—or if the urge to see her was irrepressible—he would appear at the window of Ca’ Tiepolo, the imposing
palazzo
across a narrow waterway from the Wynnes’ more modest house.
    Ca’ Tiepolo belonged to one of the oldest and grandest Venetian families. Its wide neoclassical façade stood majestically on the Grand Canal. From the side window of the mezzanine it was possible to look directly across to the Wynnes’ balcony. The ties between the Tiepolos and the Memmos went back many centuries. Andrea was a good friend of the young Tiepolos and especially close to Domenico, better known by his nickname Meneghetto, who was among the few to know from the start that Andrea’s love affair with Giustiniana was continuing in secret. Meneghetto was happy to help, and Andrea often dropped by after sending Giustiniana precise instructions. “After lunch,” he advised her in one note, “find an excuse to come out on the balcony. But for heaven’s sake be careful about your mother. And don’t force me to edge out as far as the windowsill because she will certainly see me.”
    Andrea’s portable telescope was very useful. He would point it in the direction of Giustiniana’s balcony from a
campiello,
a little square, across the Grand Canal, to check whether she was at home or to find out whether she might be getting ready to go out or, best of all, to watch her as she leaned lazily over the balcony, her hair wrapped in a bonnet, watching the boats go by. When he observed her from such a distance—about a hundred yards—Giustiniana was not always aware Andrea was spying on her. “Today I admired you with my
canocchiale
[telescope],” he announced to her mischievously. “I don’t really care if your mother saw me. . . . After all, the rules merely state that I cannot come into your house and that I cannot write to you.”
    From a purely technical point of view he was also within bounds when, thanks again to the benevolence—and the sweat— of his gondoliers, he came down the Grand Canal and signaled to Giustiniana from the water. On days when she was confined to the house and they had no other way of seeing each other, Andrea’s sudden appearance at her neighbor’s window or the familiar plashing of the Memmo gondola down below was a welcome consolation. “Come by the canal as my mother doesn’t want me to go out,” she would plead. “And make an appearance at Ca’ Tiepolo as well, if you can.”
    They developed their own sign language so they could communicate from a distance during the evening walk at the Listone or at the theater or, later in the night, at the gambling house. “Touch your hair if you’re going to the Ridotto,” he instructed her. “Nod or shake your head to tell me whether you plan to go to the piazza.” These little signals sometimes caused confusion if they were not worked out in advance. They also had to be given very discreetly, lest they set off Mrs. Anna’s alarm bells. “When you left the theater,” Andrea wrote anxiously, “you signaled something to me just as your mother turned around, and I think she might have noticed that. If this were the case it could damage us, since she might also have noticed all the other gestures we had made to each other from our boxes.” Despite his occasional burst of bravado, Andrea remained deeply worried not just by what Mrs. Anna might have seen but also by what she
thought
she might have seen. He went to such extremes to avoid creating false impressions that he sometimes sounded like an obstinate stage manager. “You must realize that if your mother catches you laughing with someone she can’t see, she will assume that you are laughing with me,” he once said to her in a huff. “So try to be careful next time.”
    Andrea fretted constantly about how dangerous it was to write to