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Do you come by motorboats for the Grand Canal? In short, we were like rats in a trap."

"Ouch!"

"Ouch yes. You risk reading in the 'Gazzettino:' After the summer holidays, after the temporary transfer of the custodians of Ca 'Rezzonico to the Venice Biennale, after the subsequent strike of the same until the Christmas holidays, this spring the museum reopened to the public. In its majestic halls, a certain Ivancich has been found, long hair and nails. And in good physical condition having fed on scabs (of pictures)."

"Ouch! I risked not meeting you in Latisana. And then what happened?" 

"After having beaten and shouted for a couple of hours (in the meantime the British, with less and less energy and more and more hunger, had collapsed into the eighteenth-century armchairs) here creak-creak* the door opens. Someone had heard us and had gone to look for the keeper."

"And what did the keeper say?" 

"He said that when he didn't see us anymore (we poor things were visiting the top floor) he thought we had already gone out and he anticipated closing time to go and eat." 

"Then?"

"And then we went to breakfast too, and how hungry! You will understand why for some time I have tried to avoid the Venetian museums." Taking the Fondamenta I stopped for a moment to look at the canal. "You know, I like to wander aimlessly, like today. Sometimes, slipping into the arcades, into the darkest wrinkles, into the narrowest alleys, I try to get lost in order to discover new corners. Venice is always beautiful in every season. '...Venice has shut itself up in the humble garment of fog and silence. / But for me, who have always given her love / and more alive, more real / so...

*the only reference to the word croc that I could find which included a translation was from a folktale called Crack, Crook and Hook (Cricche, Crocche e Manico d'Uncino) where Crook's name in Italian is Croc. Which is a highly un-academic rendering but one that perfectly fits my constitution.