Read The Thief of Venice for Free Online Page A

own, and then, to show that he too was acquainted with American slang, he said, "Well, here's dirt in your eye."
    Homer let it pass, and went back to the subject of the great cardinal. "Tell me, Sam, has the library got every single one of Bessarion's books?"
    "Oh, no. A great many are missing. The library didn't exist until long after he gave them to the city. So they were stored in crates here and there, and borrowed like library books, so some fell by the wayside. And then that blundering idiot Napoleon Bonaparte decided to found an Italian library, so a lot of Bessarion books sat around in Padua, waiting for it, only it never happened, and they began to disappear. That's what I've heard."
    "But what about the printed books? Are there any more of that divine Dream of Poliphilius still kicking around somewhere?"
    "Oh, yes, a few. They're outrageously valuable."
    Homer leaned back in his chair and looked at the row of portraits on the wall over Sam Bell's head. "Who are all those people? Your predecessors, I'll bet. Will your picture be up there someday, the distinguished conservatore dei libri rari , Dottor Samuele Bell?"
    Sam winced. He glanced up at the painted series of scholar-professors. He had known some of them in person. Not one of those dignified people, so far as he knew, had ever dreamed of abandoning his duties and embarking with a lady love for the fanciful island of Cythera, that blessed place sacred to Venus, where lovemaking lasted into eternity, and where there was no death.
 
    *10*
    The phone was ringing. Ursula picked it up and said a timid "Pronto?" A strong male voice asked for Dottor Samuele Bell, but at once her father picked up the phone in his study.
    Instead of hanging up, Ursula listened.
    When they were finished she went silently into her room and closed the door. After a while she came out again and checked to see if her grandmother had come home from shopping.
    No, she hadn't. Ursula hurried straight into her grandmother's bedroom and opened the drawer where Mrs. Wellesley kept pills, bottles of perfume, violet and green eye shadow, black mascara, false eyelashes, wrinkle-control creams, and a messy jewel box spilling over with bracelets, brooches, button earrings, old pairs of bifocals, and strings of cultured pearls.
    There was an envelope under the jewel box. Ursula extracted it and helped herself to a five-thousand-lire note. Then she tucked the envelope back where it belonged, closed the drawer gently, and slipped out of the room.
    Next day after school, she stopped in the shop.
    "Buonasera, piccola," said the man behind the counter. " Un altro, oggi? You must have quite a collection by now. Which one would you like today?"
    "That one, please," said Ursula.
 
    *11*
    Mary had been having a good time too. She had been going out every day to explore the city, not minding that the camera around her neck made her look like a tourist. After all, she was a tourist, an eager inquisitive tourist who consulted her guidebook at every street corner and struggled to unfold and fold her map while the wind blew its creases the wrong way.
    Before leaving Massachusetts she had bought ten rolls of film at a discount pharmacy. Now she had begun using them freely. Her camera was always at the ready. When in doubt, push the button. She didn't care how trite her subjects were, or how many other tourists were taking the same pictures. She envisioned the mills of Kodak grinding out enormous batches of identical shots of the same famous places. She didn't care.
    At first Mary had a plan. She would explore one part of the city at a time and keep a list of every picture she took. On the first day she had been scrupulous about recording every shot:
1.      Riva degli Schiavoni, statue of Vittorio Emanuele
2.      View of the lagoon with San Giorgio Maggiore
3.      Another view of the lagoon
4.      Gondolas carrying Japanese tourists under the Bridge of Sighs
    Tour groups from Japan were everywhere.