Off-the-cuff and unjustly doing:
"Cloaked in a residue of fog that neither dissipated nor densened into rain, somewhat defeated because of a torpid sirocco more atmosphere than wind, dozing in a past grand and splendid and surely also immodest verging on immoral, the city was full of muffled sounds, of smells stagnant in the turning of a lazy tide. Sun and moon revealed a different rhythm, and as if urged by dual flows of time, it waned eternally between the marble and the bricks, the sinking pavements, across beams and architraves and rambling arches, over the flights of too many pigeons, and above the restlessness of a myriad of rats multiplying in limbo. Of the inhabitants, each one carried within a mote of irremediable finality. They did the things of every other person, buying bread and newspapers, going to the courthouse or opening a shop or going to school or even to church, and with more tranquillity than was to be found elsewhere, with a laugh shrewd and civilised, they did these things in a semblance of comedy that moreover was, in fact, an invitation to a hastier death.
Later, one bell tower past another, the misty sky coalesced into midday, but insufficiently to bring joy to a moist November noon. Beyond the farce, whoever held sentiments and presentiments of small mirth had, perforce, to retain these. The Moors of the clock struck*, first the one for the count of each of the twelve hours, followed by the other, over the roofs and above the vast piazza of the evangelist saint**.
At the station, the 12 o’clock express arrived, braking with an unnatural gentleness at the end of track number four, minus any real noise until the whoosh of compressed air that opened the automatic doors was heard. Hurrying travellers alighted with little or no baggage: it was not the tourist season. Soon, nothing would remain on the platform except the teams of station attendants dashing along with ladders and buckets and brushes to clean the glass of the carriage windows, work they accomplished with an extraordinary alacrity, because afterwards they would be gone to eat lunch.
She descended last from the rear car and walked without evident hesitation, although with her head lowered, as if willfully oblivious to whether they had come to fetch her. She was dressed with a considered sobriety, in a woollen suit coloured somewhere between green and chestnut, and carrying a large leather bag and an umbrella which, when closed, was of minuscule dimensions. Around her neck, over the tobacco-toned blouse, she wore a simple string of pearls, perhaps not even genuine. It may have been that she had researched how not to appear too beautiful and too wealthy, but she was beautiful and her wealth flattered her. She advanced with an elegant step and softly falling hair, obstinately obscuring her face, and raised it only when she came to a halt before him. She was beautiful even though her countenance was no longer young, but her expression appeared closed, as a defense perhaps, to hide a fear that one guessed, regardless. Naturally, nothing of tenderness.
In his forties and scarcely older than she, he had been waiting for her, there: at the head of platform number four, where of necessity she would have to pass, on the understanding that she would be coming. She had come.
Now he regards her almost defiantly, she overly beautiful and stylish, while he, with his hair and lined face, his raincoat rumpled and shoes neither new nor clean, shows a sufficiency of the signs belonging to a genius having had little fortune. The eyes, however, firmly maintain an expression of tenacious irony, evidently a mood to which geniuses less fortunate have an incontrovertible entitlement.
And it is not without a tinge of irony that he succeeds in saying, "Thanks for coming."
She, refusing to understand, has averted her eyes and not returned her gaze. Certainly their past history agitates not only fear and irony, but also a wary weariness, at least for what it encompasses. “Could I have done any less?” She says, not as a question.
“At platform six,” he says, “the Orient Express leaves in thirty-two minutes.”
“If thirty-two minutes are enough for you,” she says, accentuating her wariness and weariness.
He hesitates, tempted to tell her yes, and go fuck yourself. “No,” he says.
“Well then, here I am.”
“Where do you want us to go?”
“Well, if you don’t know . . . how should I?”
It was not easy to know, since he was lacking clarity and determination as well. However, they walked along the concourse of the station, passed in front of some men wearing caps upon which was written, in letters of gold or silver, the names of little known hotels, men who offered, with an air of professional matchmaking, comfortably appointed rooms, although the reality was otherwise. Ahead, the misty glow of vastness hung above the boardwalk and the canal. The bells had ceased sounding and the city was once more napping in muted noises. He, rather miserably, struggled to maintain the appearance of luckless genius; he had not emerged victorious from their first verbal skirmish. But neither could she press an advantage, either because of exhaustion, or because she was too preoccupied with masking her overwhelming fear.
"I'm sorry the day’s weather is not so pleasant for you," he says as they exit at the top of the stone steps and face the Grand Canal with its comings and goings of boats and ferries and hydrofoils. People were only having to feed themselves, prosper, and lay themselves to rest. "Of course," he adds, "we’re almost in winter, so the weather is already like this. How was it in Milan?"
She shrugs, to underline the emptiness of such talk. But he doesn’t relent. "In Milan, it’s probably sunny. Such a beautiful city, Milan," he says, once more with a saddened sarcasm, before falling silent.
They descended the stairs and walked down the inclined path to the pier, both watching the pigeons that, only at the last moment and haughtily, scattered at their steps. By now, the birds were everywhere, not just in the piazza. He imagined a ravishing Venice, water at the level of the first floors, roofs and cornices crowded with skeletal pigeons and seagulls, as well as wasted ravens, nothing more of humans. On reflection, it was not beautiful."
*Atop the Tower of St Mark's is the bell, struck by "i Mori", two bronze figures now soot covered.
**St Mark.
(pp1-4).