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jeweled buttons off his coat to give to them.
    But sometimes it was very late when the singers came. And sometimes they didn’t come at all. Maybe they were serenading ladies by commission, or singing to a pair of lovers on thecanal. He didn’t know. Sitting at the window, with his arms folded on the damp sill, he dreamed that he had found some cellar door no one knew and gone out with them. He dreamed he wasn’t rich, wasn’t a patrician. Rather he was some urchin boy free to sing and play the fiddle all night to the four corners of this dense stone fairyland that was his city rising tightly all about him.
    Yet there was a mounting sense in Tonio that something must happen.
    Life couldn’t get any worse for him, as he saw it.
    And then one afternoon, foolishly, Beppo brought Alessandro, the chief singer from San Marco, to hear Tonio sing with his mother.
    It seems some time before, Beppo had hovered on the edge of Marianna’s bedroom to ask when she might allow such a visit. Beppo was so proud of Tonio’s voice, and he adored Marianna as something of a seraph.
    “Why, bring him anytime,” she’d said gaily. She was on her second bottle of Spanish sack, and wandering about in her dressing gown. “Bring him in. I should love to see him. I’ll dance for him if you like. Tonio can play the tambourine; we’ll have a regular carnival.”
    Tonio was mortified. Lena put her mistress to bed. Of course Beppo should have understood. But Beppo was old. His little blue eyes flickered like uncertain lights, and several days after, there stood Alessandro in the main parlor, looking very splendid in his cream-colored velvet, and green taffeta vest, obviously delighted by this special invitation.
    Marianna was sound asleep, the blinds drawn. Tonio would sooner waken the Medusa.
    Running a comb through his hair and putting on his best coat, he went alone to welcome Alessandro to the house as though he were master of it.
    “I’m at a loss, Signore,” he said. “My mother is ill. I’m ashamed to sing for you alone.” Yet even at this little unexpected company, he felt elated. The sun was streaming in on the carved mahogany and damask that made up the room. And there was a pleasantness to it all, despite the faded carpet and the soaring ceilings.
    “Bring some coffee, please,” he said to Beppo. And then he opened the harpsichord.
    “Forgive me, Excellency,” Alessandro said softly. “I never expected to trouble you.” His smile was gentle and dreamy. He looked far from ethereal without his choir robes; rather he was a giant of a gentleman, on the very edge of gawkiness though a gliding rhythm rescued his every gesture. “I hoped only to sit to the side somewhere while you and your mother were singing, not to disturb you,” he said. “Beppo has told me so much about your duets, and I remember your voice, Excellency. I’ve never forgotten it.”
    Tonio laughed. He knew if this man left now, he would burst into tears, he was so lonely. “Sit down, please, Signore,” he said. He was relieved to see Lena appear with a steaming pot, and Beppo right behind her with a sheaf of music.
    Tonio felt desperate. A lovely vision sprang full-blown into his head of entertaining Alessandro so purely he would come back over and over again. He took up Vivaldi’s latest operatic score,
Montezuma
. The arias were all new to him, but he couldn’t risk something old and tiresome, and within seconds he was in the middle of a sprightly and dramatic piece, his voice warming quickly.
    He’d never sung in this place. There was more bare marble here than tapestry or drapery. A glorious amplification occurred, and when he finished suddenly the silence chilled him. He didn’t look at Alessandro. He felt a curious emotion welling up in him, an uneasy happiness.
    And then turning on impulse he beckoned to Alessandro. He was almost amazed to see the eunuch rise and take his place by the harpsichord. And then as Tonio pounded quickly into the