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to Le Havre, so he has written in that same letter. They are giving him the gift of ubiquity. If only he had: I'd be happy if he were here with us..."

"I'd be happy too." Toto said. "He's so nice. And funny: I'll never forget the bullfight at Ciro's, with Mary and the bull and Aspasia screaming, 'Ole! Ole!' It was the first time I ever gave flowers to a queen. The first and also the last, actually." He bent down to look at Bemelmans' cuffs: "How beautiful ..." he said.

"Don't cling to anything: dust we are, dust we will return" smiled Bemelmans and with a quick gesture he took one out and threw it outside the wall of the terrace. "But... but it looked like gold..." Toto turned pale.

"Eighteen carats. Van Cleef. To anyone who finds the fallen one, I'll give them both."

I never imagined Toto's shutter speed. Immediately followed by Luigino who nearly overwhelmed a waiter with a tray. I abandoned my chicken salad to look out on the terrace. I saw the two darting from the Danieli's door and frantically searching among the legs of the people strolling along the Riva degli Schiavoni. Of them you could see only the curved backs. Every now and then someone turned to look at them.

I returned to the table. I sat down. "A way like no other to be able to spend a few minutes with you, without your bodyguards." smiled Bemelmans. Then he ordered a bottle of champagne and lit a cigar.

A few months later Bemelmans returned to Venice. We were sitting at a table in the front row of Caffe Lavena when he said, "You haven't told me about the Bestegui Ball yet."

I smiled remembering what Papa had written to me: "From the Snows of Kilimanjaro they made a film and Zanuck said that and a third Hemingway, A THIRD ZANUCK, and a...