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night. Little or nothing to cover and on the neighboring island a stinking fertilizer. When Garet-el-Fendis began to float again, not even a thread of drool. When the wind picked up, it did a few zigzags with the sails flapping and immediately went into a shoal. In short, we left at 10 and returned at 6 the next morning."

"It seems easier to navigate the Gulf Stream than the Venetian Lagoon." 

"It is certainly easier. The lagoon is full of pitfalls and if you go out sailing you can be sure that the calm will fall immediately. Look... Luchino Visconti." I said, pointing to a man with a medal profile and bushy eyebrows passing in front of him. "He doesn't know that I could be his granddaughter in five years."

"Grandchild?" 

"Jackie and I are friends of Bany and Cady, his brother's sons. In the summer they lived in Palazzo Papadopoli, one of the rare houses with a garden, ideal for playing Indians. But alas, too often our governesses would drag us up and down the Riva degli Schiavoni, a great bore for us children. I remember that one day, while walking, we wondered what we would do when we grew up. Cady said that he would become a redskin, Jackie would become the Pope so as to have the Swiss carry him in a colored armchair and I would become a saint."

"Not a small commitment" Papa smiled. 

"Yeah. In fact, Jackie immediately said that I could never become a saint because I teased him too much. But I was determined - I had just taken my first communion - I would resist the temptation to spite him and I would become a saint. No, he did not think I would resist, Jackie had retorted. I would resist instead, at the cost of locking myself in the big room of the boiler to look at the fire, thinking of hell and thus ward off temptation. No, I would never lock myself up in the big room, he had of...