'I don't think so,' I said.

'A shame. But she won't mind. If you express your doubts, all she does is smile at you in a pitying manner. Blind fools, who do not see the obvious even when it is in front of their very eyes. It is your loss, not hers, if you cut yourself off from the pleasures of the astral planes and the higher wisdom they offer.'

'A bit like alienists, then,' I said with some relief.

'Exactly like alienists,' he agreed jovially. 'What is more, the Marchesa doesn't talk like some charlatan. This is what makes her so fascinating. Her madness is entirely logical and reasonable. So much so, that she is very convincing. Mrs Cort seems to have fallen under her spell, for example. I use the word spell metaphorically, you understand.'

'Do you believe all women are insane? You must know some who are not so?'

Marangoni considered the question, then shook his head. 'Taking all things as equal, no. All women are insane at one level or another. It is merely a question of when – or if – the insanity will manifest itself.'

'So if I come across a woman who is entirely normal and balanced . . .'

'Then she merely has not yet manifested the signs of madness. The longer she remains in a state of apparent normality, the more violent is the underlying insanity. I have wards full of them. Clearly, some women hide the symptoms all their lives, and the insanity never rises to the surface. But it is always latent.'

'So being sane is a proof of insanity? In women, I mean?'

'I fear so, alas. But I am not dogmatic on the subject, unlike some of my colleagues. Tell me,' he continued, abruptly changing the subject, 'is money still your main occupation in life?'

'Why do you say that?'

He shrugged. 'It was always obvious that you were never going to be one of the poor of this world,' he replied with a smile. 'You were always too watchful. If I said calculating you would take it as an insult, which I do not intend. So let us say too aware, and too intelligent.'

'Yes. Let us say that then. I do have some financial interests.'

'Which you are not pursuing here?'

'No.'

'I see.' He smiled again, which I found annoying. There is something acutely irritating about men whose expressions depict a sort of omniscience, who pretend to be able to read the minds of others. 'I never thought of you as a man for holidays.'

'It is time to think again then. Although you are right, in general. My inactivity does weigh on me a little.'

'But you are staying here.'

I nodded. 'Perhaps there are other things to do in Venice than look at buildings.'

'Such as?'

I shrugged. I was beginning to find him irritating. 'Build them?'

'I see you are not minded to say more,' he said after he had considered my face for a few moments. 'You leave me to work it out for myself.'

'Precisely.'

'Very well. Give me a week, and a few meals together, and we will see. If I guess your purpose, you buy me a meal. If I fail, I buy you one.'

'Agreed,' I said with a faint smile. 'And if you will excuse me, I must see to my packing. The Marchesa expects me by six.'

'Willingly. I must go as well. I have a new patient who was brought in this morning.'

'Interesting?'

He sighed. 'Not in the slightest.'

CHAPTER 7

Until I made that response to Marangoni about building, I had not thought at all seriously about the vague ideas that had passed through my mind. It was only because of this chance conversation that it became a fixed purpose; a small project that might give me occupation, and end the purposeless wandering that I was beginning to find disturbing.

To that end, I needed to find an appropriate site. A preferred option would have been to buy some ground in the centre of the city and demolish all the buildings to make way for a modern and efficient structure. I soon learned, however, that such a proposal was unlikely to come to anything. Permission had to be gained from the council for any work of that nature, and the local government had the instinct to oppose anything which smacked of the modern. Permission to demolish half a dozen palaces on the Grand Canal (however magnificent the result) was unlikely and, in any case, the initial cost of purchasing the site would have been prohibitive.

Nonetheless, I hired a gondola for the next morning and instructed the rower to go wherever he wished. It was a pleasant enough pastime, idling along broad canals and narrow ones, watching the water carriers fill the wells, the faggot vendors selling wood, all the business of the city carried out in the strange way that must evolve in a city drowned in water. Listening to the echoes of voices against tall narrow buildings, made slightly sharper and more diffuse by the effect of the water, began to bring back to me the mood of odd peacefulness that had overcome me my first evening, and which was so opposite to my supposed purpose.

In brief, I indulged in all sorts of fantastical notions. This happened time and again during my stay. My wonder was, not that the citizens of Venice were now so idle, but rather that they had once been sufficiently energetic to raise themselves from the lagoon, and turn their wooden huts on mud flats into the great metropolis that had once ruled the Mediterranean. Had the Venetians of old been more like me in mood then, they would still be paddling about in silt up to their knees.

I write as I remember, and give some sense of my mood that fine September morning, as the gondola slowly turned a corner, and I saw Mrs Cort walking along the side of the canal we had now entered. It was easy to recognise her; she looked and walked in a way which meant she could only be English – more upright, and with more bearing than Venetian women, who do not discipline their bodies into deportment.

On top of that, she was dressed in the same manner as when I had met her, eschewing a top coat in honour of the fine weather, and wearing only a hat to guard her fine white skin from the sun. I called out to her and gestured to the gondolier to pull over to the side, where there were some landing steps.

'I have been to the pharmacist for some cough medicine,' she said once we had exchanged greetings. It did not matter what she said. I noticed that her eyes were bright and met mine when we spoke. She stood closer to me than I would have expected from a woman I hardly knew.

'And is this your son?' I asked, gesturing at an infant in the arms of a stocky peasant woman standing a few feet away. The child looked sick and was whimpering. The other woman – a nurse or nanny of some sort – rocked it gently in her arms and sang a crooning song in its ears.

'Yes. That is Henry,' she said, scarcely giving him a glance. 'He is very like his father.'

The conversation faltered. I was pleased to see her, but had nothing to say. That easy talk which passes between men, or couples of long acquaintance, was not possible. Neither of us wanted to go on our way, but neither could think how to prolong the interview.

'And you are seeing the sights?' she said eventually.

'After a fashion, although I do believe I have been down this canal three times already. Or perhaps not; they all begin to look the same after a while.'

She laughed lightly. 'I can see you have not benefited from Mr Longman's expertise,' she said. 'Otherwise you would know that that house on the corner,' she gestured behind me, and I turned to look at a nondescript pile that looked long deserted, 'was once the home of the lady with the skull.'

She smiled at me as I looked again. 'Do you want to hear the story as he told it to me?'

'By all means.'

'I do not know when it happened,' she said. 'Most stories in Venice have no date to them. But, a long time ago, a man was walking down an alley a short way from here. He was thinking of the woman he was about to marry, and his happy thoughts were disturbed by a beggar, asking for money. He was angry, and kicked the man for his insolence, and caught him on the head with his boot. The beggar rolled over into the canal, struck dead, and the young man ran off.