No cherubs out here tonight, alas. Climax is happening without them. Everything but, however: he is encircled by a crazed menagerie of the impossible, ma.s.sed up hundreds deep. The racket is deafening. There are bands playing, whistles blowing, flashguns popping, fireworks crackling, and the costumed revelers, the most terrifying of them wearing Pinocchio masks of their own, are dancing about drunkenly and shouting out his name: "Evviva Pinocchio!" "It's him! proprio lui!" "This is gonna be fun!" As he rolls through the bedlam of the square, lit up bright as day, he scans the crowds in vain for a friendly face, even the hint of a friend behind a face. Not even the Count or the Madonna, perhaps dead or chased off after all. Ah, this, this, this, my poor dear Fox, is the devil's very flour, he laments as paper streamers and confetti flutter overhead like tossed seasoning, and I am in it! my poor dear Fox, is the devil's very flour, he laments as paper streamers and confetti flutter overhead like tossed seasoning, and I am in it!

"Yes, you are truly b.u.g.g.e.red, my tender friend, becco e bastonato, and worse to come," Buffetto, who is perhaps not Buffetto after all, murmurs in his donkey ear. "But, as we say here, 'Zoga el coraggio a l'ultimo tagio!' Play your nerve at the final serve! At the last hand, old man, take a stand!"

He had hoped for a moment, back in the darkness behind the Palazzo dei Balocchi, that Buffetto, Francatrippa, and Truffaldino might be coming to his rescue, or at least to whisk him off, as planned, to his a.s.signation with little Bluebell, but this was not to be. "Ohi, direttore, what a terrible fight, we are dead!" they had cried, staggering up the alleyway on crutches, all bruised and bandaged, Truffaldino crawling along on all fours, and Eugenio, slapping his palm impatiently with a folded fan, had snapped fiercely: "If not, you soon will be, you worthless louts, unless you come with the news I want to hear! The hour is late! Quickly! What has happened to the Count!" What has happened to the Count!"

"We apprehended him, master!"

"We seized him!"

"We surrounded him!"

"Good!"

"But he escaped!"

"Escaped -?! I warn you -!"

"Tried to escape, direttore! We pursued him!" to escape, direttore! We pursued him!"

"Ah!"

"But he got away!"

"What -?!"

"But we caught him again! By the very throat! What a battle!"

"You can't imagine, direttore! That retinue! We were up against witches and wiverns and hundred-armed fiends from outer s.p.a.ce!"

"Gryphons and ghouls!"

"h.e.l.lhounds and harpies, master!"

"Yes, yes, and so -?"

"Enh, what could we do against such an army?"

"They were merciless!"

"They drove us back!"

"They what -?!" what -?!"

"Then we drove them them back!" back!"

"Aha!"

"Into the sea!"

"The sea?"

"Well, into the ca.n.a.l!"

"Very good! And -?"

"They had gondolas waiting!"

"They were swept away before you could blink an eye!"

"But surely, mere gondolas, you must have been able -"

"Motorized gondolas, direttore! One minute they were all drowning, the next they were roaring away!" gondolas, direttore! One minute they were all drowning, the next they were roaring away!"

"Into the fog!"

"You couldn't see them -!"

"You let the Count get away, you imbeciles -?!"

"No!"

"No! We, uh!"

"We!?"

"We chased him in the motor launch!"

"That's it!"

"Aha! Then finally you -"

"They sank it with their submachine guns!"

"They sank the motor launch -?!"

"We fired back and sank the gondolas!"

"It was frightful, direttore! There were bodies everywhere!"

"The ca.n.a.ls were full of them! You could walk right across without getting your feet wet!"

"The gondolas couldn't move even if we didn't sink them!"

"What do you mean? Did you sink them or didn't you?"

"Well, the fog!"

"All those bodies!"

"It was confusing!"

"If you didn't, didn't, you fools, you fools, it's Marten's fate for you!" it's Marten's fate for you!"

"We did!"

"Pum! Pof!"

"Blew them right out of the water!"

"The ca.n.a.ls were running with blood, direttore!"

"And guts! Blood and guts, direttore!"

"It was a fight to the death!"

"It was hand-to-hand!"

"And foot-to-foot!"

"I was killed at least eleven times, master!"

"But the Count, the Count, Count, you d.a.m.nable wretches -?!" you d.a.m.nable wretches -?!"

"Who?"

"Don't 'who' me! I'll have your heads -!" heads -!"

"Ah, the Count! He's dead."

"The Count's dead? You're sure -?"

"He must be! Everybody was dead!"

"But you didn't see him -?"

"What did he look like?"

"Short fellow with a bald head and a wrinkled -?"

"Enough! Enough!" Enough!" Eugenio screamed, his mascaraed eyes flashing in fury. "You'd better take confession tonight, you insolent vermin, Eugenio screamed, his mascaraed eyes flashing in fury. "You'd better take confession tonight, you insolent vermin, your afterlife begins tomorrow!" your afterlife begins tomorrow!" And he turned sharply on his high heels to stamp out into the noisy and luminous Piazza San Marco, crying: "Now follow me, you little s.h.i.ts! And bring that wretched thing there on the wagon with you!" And he turned sharply on his high heels to stamp out into the noisy and luminous Piazza San Marco, crying: "Now follow me, you little s.h.i.ts! And bring that wretched thing there on the wagon with you!"

The three servants, anxious to please, threw away their crutches and, with Buffetto pulling, Francatrippa pushing, and Truffaldino helping at the side, they rolled the little wine cart into the tiny underpa.s.s leading to the Piazza. In the momentary darkness there, before the light and roar beyond, Truffaldino hopped nimbly up onto the professor's donkey back, then leaned down to whisper into his pointed ear: "La Volpe is dead, dottore!"

"What -?! Dead -?!" Dead -?!"

"Hanged herself. With her own tail. Isn't that funny? When they told her about Il Gatto. And your charges against her."

"Ah!"

"She left a note for you. In her pocket. Shall I read it?" The old scholar could not reply. He knew the nausea overwhelming him was human nausea, a.s.sociated with his human flesh, what was left of it. " 'To my dear friend Pinocchio,' it says. 'Do not judge your old traveling companions too harshly. Remember that it is more shameful to distrust friends than be deceived by them.' " He hated the tears running down his cheeks, the lump crowding his less than wooden throat. He wanted no more of it, he wanted it all gone, wanted to be free of this appalling human sickness once and for all. Why did he ever want to be a boy? Why did he let them do this to him? Who talked him into it? Running away with Lampwick, though they didn't run far enough, was probably the wisest thing he ever did. Even being a donkey, a real one, was better than this. " 'As proof of my love for you,' she writes, 'I would like to return your watch, but, worse luck, Gattino was wearing it when he made his final blunder. All I have left is my old tail, which is yours, dear friend, as soon as I am no longer using it.' Signed, 'Yours in the bran, La Volpe.' "

He was bawling by now, his heaving sobs catching in his imbreaded throat. He knew what it sounded like. He knew what he was.

"Poor Pinocchio, I am really sorry for you," whispered Truffaldino in a voice suddenly familiar to him. "Be brave, dear friend. Whatever happens!"

"Colombina!?" But his voice was drowned out by the tumultuous uproar that greeted them as they emerged from the underpa.s.s and, under a blazing explosion of floodlights, filed out here into the eerily transformed Piazza: "Pinocchio! It's Pinocchio! Here he comes!" they screamed, and scream still, raising their voices above the din. " Pinocchio davvero!" "Hooray!" "It's the Star of the Dance!" "It's the Star of the Dance!"

As they rumble along now in the gaudy tumult, headed for the circus ring, they pa.s.s two tall caped carabinieri, mustachioed and thin as sticks, perhaps the same ones who chased him during the puppet band bust, now helping to keep the crowds back for his grand entry. Between them, on a leash, is a dog, masked by a steel muzzle: it is Melampetta, a friend at last! He aches to reach out to her, but he cannot move inside his bready cast. On seeing him, or perhaps, more correctly, on smelling him behind the pizza, the old watchdog throws her muzzled head back and lets out a pathetic wordless howl, for which she receives a whistling slash of a horse crop from one of her trainers. "Stop! Don't -!" "Stop! Don't -!" the professor gasps, but of course he cannot be heard in the demented cacophony of the square, nor would they listen to him if he could be. Melampetta's miserable howl continues, as do the dialectical whip strokes, fading into the general pandemonium that fills in around him as they lift him off the cart and onto the stage. He is pa.s.sed ceremonially through the great golden hoop, stretched with tissue crisp as old silk - the professor gasps, but of course he cannot be heard in the demented cacophony of the square, nor would they listen to him if he could be. Melampetta's miserable howl continues, as do the dialectical whip strokes, fading into the general pandemonium that fills in around him as they lift him off the cart and onto the stage. He is pa.s.sed ceremonially through the great golden hoop, stretched with tissue crisp as old silk - pfUFff! pfUFff! - and, to a crescendo of applause and wild howling cheers, is deposited finally on a little round platform, rotating slowly in the center of the ring. - and, to a crescendo of applause and wild howling cheers, is deposited finally on a little round platform, rotating slowly in the center of the ring.

"Rispettabile ed irrispettoso pubblico!" cries the Director, stepping to the microphone and raising his pale plump arms, glitteringly bangled. "Welcome! Welcome, my dear fiends! All of you beastly boys and ghastly ghouls! Welcome to the cries the Director, stepping to the microphone and raising his pale plump arms, glitteringly bangled. "Welcome! Welcome, my dear fiends! All of you beastly boys and ghastly ghouls! Welcome to the Pizza San Marco!" Pizza San Marco!" The sudden roar is deafening and disturbingly appet.i.tive. The professor cannot turn his head, can only stare straight ahead at the strange masked faces slowly circling past as he rotates on the little platform. "Ah, what a moment, my n.o.ble and nubile congregation! Here we are in Venezia, the most magical city in the world! And it is Carnevale, Marted Gra.s.so, the most magical night of the year! Magic squared in the magic square! The sudden roar is deafening and disturbingly appet.i.tive. The professor cannot turn his head, can only stare straight ahead at the strange masked faces slowly circling past as he rotates on the little platform. "Ah, what a moment, my n.o.ble and nubile congregation! Here we are in Venezia, the most magical city in the world! And it is Carnevale, Marted Gra.s.so, the most magical night of the year! Magic squared in the magic square! What cannot happen?" What cannot happen?" The din of the Piazza seems not to diminish when Eugenio speaks but to mount from phrase to phrase like the heavy steps of an approaching monster. "And oh! oh! what a banquet we have for you tonight! A subtle delight, like our voluptuous metropolis itself, for The din of the Piazza seems not to diminish when Eugenio speaks but to mount from phrase to phrase like the heavy steps of an approaching monster. "And oh! oh! what a banquet we have for you tonight! A subtle delight, like our voluptuous metropolis itself, for all all the tender senses! For at this time I, the Queen of the Night, debauched trollop that I am, have the inestimable honor and license, as well as the infinite pleasure, naughty and otherwise, to present to you for your admiration and delectation, the feature attraction of our Gran Gala: our own Marco the Pole come home to us like so much drifting flotsam stumping back to his deepest roots!" Around him the deadpan masks blankly circle, belying the savage frenzy boiling up behind them. The three servants seem to have disappeared. He is alone on stage with the mellifluent Eugenio, who, with a sleight-of-hand flourish, has turned his fan into a little scarlet whip which he cracks now above his donkey rump to the rhythm of his exhortation: "A mere sprout of native undergrowth when he left here, a green little sap pegged for the pen, he penned his way, as he grew alder, to become the world's most distinguished woodenk.n.o.b, s.p.u.n.kily taking on all the knotty problems of the wormy world, branching out into his-tree, sophis-tree and rudiment-tree ribal-tree, a hack of all trades, and now, au currant, a seasoned sage laureled, lacquered, and lionized!" the tender senses! For at this time I, the Queen of the Night, debauched trollop that I am, have the inestimable honor and license, as well as the infinite pleasure, naughty and otherwise, to present to you for your admiration and delectation, the feature attraction of our Gran Gala: our own Marco the Pole come home to us like so much drifting flotsam stumping back to his deepest roots!" Around him the deadpan masks blankly circle, belying the savage frenzy boiling up behind them. The three servants seem to have disappeared. He is alone on stage with the mellifluent Eugenio, who, with a sleight-of-hand flourish, has turned his fan into a little scarlet whip which he cracks now above his donkey rump to the rhythm of his exhortation: "A mere sprout of native undergrowth when he left here, a green little sap pegged for the pen, he penned his way, as he grew alder, to become the world's most distinguished woodenk.n.o.b, s.p.u.n.kily taking on all the knotty problems of the wormy world, branching out into his-tree, sophis-tree and rudiment-tree ribal-tree, a hack of all trades, and now, au currant, a seasoned sage laureled, lacquered, and lionized!" Snap! crack! Snap! crack! goes the whip with each phrase, as Eugenio goads his delirious audience on, many of them now pressing toward the stage, leaping and bobbing and throwing themselves about like fiendish ecstatics. "So here he is, this most poplar fella and perennial favorite, for whom two's company and tree's a crowd, this legno da catasta who became a man of many letters, nine to be exact, the evergreen fantoccino who is n.o.body's dummy, with a cherry before and a cork behind, shy o'veneer but with balsa walnut and a peach of an ash, the puncheon from Puncheon Judy, our very own boneless bosky-boy, yew all know him of gorse: the one and only, the world-renowned, the great, that inimitable old chestnut, nose and all, goes the whip with each phrase, as Eugenio goads his delirious audience on, many of them now pressing toward the stage, leaping and bobbing and throwing themselves about like fiendish ecstatics. "So here he is, this most poplar fella and perennial favorite, for whom two's company and tree's a crowd, this legno da catasta who became a man of many letters, nine to be exact, the evergreen fantoccino who is n.o.body's dummy, with a cherry before and a cork behind, shy o'veneer but with balsa walnut and a peach of an ash, the puncheon from Puncheon Judy, our very own boneless bosky-boy, yew all know him of gorse: the one and only, the world-renowned, the great, that inimitable old chestnut, nose and all, Pinocchio!" Pinocchio!"

A moment ago, crossing the square, the old professor, much honored for a fleshly condition he now abhorred, that condition's alleged wisdom not excluded, had the impression, trusting that fleshly wisdom as he knew he should not and thinking, as usual, about himself, about his present fate and how he got here, all on his own, in the old way, bad company, drifting attention and all that, that he knew everything now. He was, once again - oh, how he weeps! - mistaken. For, with the platform's slow turning amid the mounting lunacy of the Piazza, he has seen his love again, somber amidst the maddened merrymakers, dressed in mourning and wearing his ear like a memorial medallion on a long gold chain around her neck, only the whites of her eyes showing and her head slowly spinning on her shoulders as though in derisive parody of his revolving platform. Around and around it goes, seven times, then stops and goes the other way. And so, though her curls are still mostly blond, he knows her now, a new and bitter knowing that makes all other knowing the merest trifle. He feels his heart shrink to the size of the deathwatch beetle gnawing at it. He waits for the platform to bring him around again that he might, though it be his last breath and unheard in the thunderous furor, cry out his loathing of her, that all the world might know her for what she truly is: a.s.sa.s.sina! a.s.sa.s.sina!

"You all know his story, he's held nothing back, his life as they say is an oaken book, he's logged it all! You know how he came to this island all those years ago, brought here then by donkey cart, soon to become a donkey himself, headed for the circus life as the Star of the Dance, trained to play dead, jump through a hoop, and dance the polka on his hind feet! You know how he lamed himself, was sold to a peasant for his hide, and thrown into the sea to drown, but was rescued by a school of fish that nibbled away his donkey flesh, revealing the puppet still within like the stick in a lollypop! Well, we had hoped to have the radiculose little p.e.c.k.e.rwood here in his glorious person tonight - in the bark, as it were - but, by juniper, wooden you know it, as you can see, the little sucker has done it again!'" the little sucker has done it again!'"

Whoops and howls m.u.f.fle the hour being struck hollowly up on the illuminated Clock Tower, a nebulous blur in the high rolling fog, as the platform slowly wheels him round again toward the Blue-Haired Fairy, she who, whipping him with guilt and the pain of loss, has broken his spirit and bound him lifelong to a crazy dream, this cruel enchantment of human flesh. In effect, liberated from wood, he was imprisoned in metaphor. Even his shabby career has been a sham, for, all these years, he has really only had an audience of one. Millions have read him, only because they too were all puppets like himself, hapless creations of the insidious Blue-Haired Fairy. But, though on his last legs, all four of them, trapped in pizza dough and confronting, he knows full well, an imminent horror, he will at last repudiate her. He will, though crushed by chagrin and sorrow, be free! He will do, dying, what he - but what's this but what's this - -?! Too late! She is gone! Vanished. And her being gone is worse than all the things she has done to him, a final devastating punishment. She has lured him to his terrible fate, then mockingly abandoned him. His heart, still there after all, withered raisin though it be, is agonizingly wrenched, his eyes fill with tears, his mind with a blackness deep as the midwinter night beyond the fog! Too late! She is gone! Vanished. And her being gone is worse than all the things she has done to him, a final devastating punishment. She has lured him to his terrible fate, then mockingly abandoned him. His heart, still there after all, withered raisin though it be, is agonizingly wrenched, his eyes fill with tears, his mind with a blackness deep as the midwinter night beyond the fog!

"But alas, my hale, h.e.l.lish, and hearty friends, there are no little fish here tonight, it is we who must eat the little a.s.s out of his sorry plight! We must be of good mouth and do the little shoe, as they say, we must lick the poxy platter clean! Don't be shy! Dig in! You know the saying: If you touch wood, it's sure to come good! So come now, my ostrich-bellied butchers, and put your fangs into it! A capriccio! He's as good as bread, as they always said, da cima a fondo! Ammiratelo! And judge for yourself! Al pa.s.so! Al trotto! Al galoppo, you c.r.a.pulous maniacs! Let the feast begin!" Let the feast begin!"

The guest of honor, unable even to flinch in his c.u.mbersome infrumentation, can only gape in wide-eyed terror at the mayhem that erupts at the edge of the stage and gradually closes in upon him, as the revelers, many with painted faces or their masks flung aside, their eyes aglow with a b.e.s.t.i.a.l appet.i.te, their sharp teeth bared, battle each other for first bite. There is only one pizza pie. There are thousands of snapping and laughing and frothing mouths. Eugenio stands rooted in the crazy melee, a bit alarmed by the anarchy he has unloosed, but giggling so hysterically he seems about to pop his corset stays, his colorful wig bouncing gaily on his sleek round head. The professor catches only the briefest glimpse of all this - and then he is upside down, there are hands grabbing at his legs, trying to tear them from his body, he is dragged one way, then another, is tossed and thrown, he sees someone eating his papier-mache mask, another with her mouth full of half-chewed camellias, others rabidly biting each other, and then he is lost in the sea of rending teeth. It is not like the time with the little fish. This time there is no sensation of his body wanting to rise from within. No delicious nibbling, no thrilling tingle, no ecstasy of release. And the fish at least knew when to stop.

27. THE FATAL MATH BOOK.

"In the old days, I never even knew little p.i.s.s-pockets like this existed in the city, but probably they were here all along, dark and filthy as an old wh.o.r.e's c.u.n.t, the swampy cold creeping up through the cracked flagstones like death sticking a finger up your a.s.shole, and so quiet you can hear a pigeon s.h.i.t," rumbles his companion, stretching his stony wings briefly and fluttering them to shake the damp out. The rattle they make bounces off the crumbling brick wall facing them and then slowly dies away through the black labyrinth of ca.n.a.ls in a fading echo that sounds like dry cackling laughter. "But now I know better. I know now this is the real Venice, has been all along, ever since that first desperate w.a.n.ker, p.i.s.sing himself with fright, nested here like a marsh bird a couple of millennia ago - no, f.u.c.k all the famous pomp and grandeur, the b.l.o.o.d.y glorious empire and all the tedious s.h.i.t that went with it and made such strutting ninnies of us all, all that was just for show, a kind of mask the old Queen put on to hide her cankers and pox pits, her true face was back here all the time, just like the devil's true face is on his a.r.s.e. And you know what, my little cazzo buffo? It's f.u.c.king beautiful. I love it!"

The old Lion takes a long meditative suck from the grappa bottle and hands it to what remains of the senescent professor, now huddled, shivering, in the great beast's gritty fossilized mane, and naked as Saint Mark himself at the arrest of Jesus, nothing left but a few b.l.o.o.d.y tatters of flesh and flakes of pizza dough still clinging to his wooden frame. The grappa is cheap raw stuff, but, vile as it is - "Good for clearing the pa.s.sages," the Lion growled, pressing it on him, "burns the moss out of your throat and kills off the vermin that crawl in!" - he soaks it up, fuel against the bitter nighttime chill, deadener of the ache in his heart. What's to happen next, he does not know. That he is still here at all is a miracle in itself, short-lived as its effects are apt to be. And, except for his "new feet," as he has always called them, the ones Geppetto made for him when the original ones got burned off and now nothing more than raggedy gnawed-off stubs, he is still amazingly "all of a piece," as his old friend Captain Spavento del Vall'Inferno put it, helping to smuggle him out of harm's way, Colombina responding: "True enough, compagno, but a piece of what?" what?" But then, no sooner rescued and he was in trouble again, terrible trouble, and now they are on the run, having escaped here to this secluded little corner after flying hastily out of the uproar of the Piazza just before the police arrived to arrest him. It was Brigh.e.l.la's idea: "Get him as far as the Teatro Malibran! We'll take it from there!" So here they crouch, the decrepit puppet and the venerable marble Lion, outlaw and monument, pressed together in the wet shadows and dense eery silence under the unadorned pediment at the back entrance of a derelict theater with a plaque on its wall commemorating another wayfarer of mixed fortunes who allegedly once lived here, the two of them sharing a half-liter flask of his winged redeemer's fiendish spirits and waiting for he knows not what. But then, no sooner rescued and he was in trouble again, terrible trouble, and now they are on the run, having escaped here to this secluded little corner after flying hastily out of the uproar of the Piazza just before the police arrived to arrest him. It was Brigh.e.l.la's idea: "Get him as far as the Teatro Malibran! We'll take it from there!" So here they crouch, the decrepit puppet and the venerable marble Lion, outlaw and monument, pressed together in the wet shadows and dense eery silence under the unadorned pediment at the back entrance of a derelict theater with a plaque on its wall commemorating another wayfarer of mixed fortunes who allegedly once lived here, the two of them sharing a half-liter flask of his winged redeemer's fiendish spirits and waiting for he knows not what.

The end probably, there being no imaginable future. Though, if the end, at least not the one he had seemed fated, only a short while ago, to suffer, there in the Piazza San Marco in that collective maw of omnivorous mouths and gnashing teeth - getting swallowed by Attila was, relatively, a civilized experience. Trapped in his donkey suit and pinned to the cold slick paving stones by all the crazed revelers who fell upon him and upon each other and by his own crushing despair, he could do nothing but surrender to the horror of raw human appet.i.te, helpless as the day he ended up on the Green Fisherman's plate. By the time his friends from the theater intervened, he had lost all hope, had even forgotten what hope in such a world might be. Most of the pizza pie had by then been eaten away or ripped off and pa.s.sed around and now the delirious celebrants were trying to do the same with what no doubt looked to them like yet another costume: nothing could be that grotesque and live. They munched at his wooden limbs, tore off sc.r.a.ps of flesh with their teeth, bit his face and hands, chewed his feet up altogether, their prey meanwhile, though in mortal agony, sinking deeper and deeper into himself, as though to distance himself from the dish of the day he had become, his gaze locked on the top of the Campanile, glimpsed flutteringly beyond the bobbing heads of banqueters as though in slow-cranked film frames, half lost in the fog, which swirled about up there like teasing wisps of bluish hair, and seeming (or perhaps he wished it so with the last wish left him) to lean toward them, ready to come crashing punitively down upon their mad ruthless feast.

Then, suddenly, there was a tremendous explosion, and when the smoke had cleared, Buffetto was standing over him on one side gripping an immense blunderbuss and, on the other, Il Zoppo with a huge hole in the crotch where Lisetta's head should have been, masked and painted faces peering through the hole in stunned alarm from the other side. Il Zoppo, eyes crossing, toppled over like a felled tree, scattering startled merrymakers, and, before they could recover, Francatrippa came leaping over the fallen body, wielding a scimitar with both hands. "Stand fast, you craven t.u.r.d, and measure swords! I'm a man of blood and, not to strain courtesy, you've stroked me up the wrong way with your gutless b.u.g.g.e.ry! Prepare now to pitch and pay and pray your paternosters, you perfidious poltroon! En garde!" En garde!" Buffetto raised his blunderbuss to fire again, and Francatrippa, crying out, "Death to all tyrants! Liberty for the people!" and "Viva Inter!", slashed Buffetto's hand off at the wrist. Buffetto raised his blunderbuss to fire again, and Francatrippa, crying out, "Death to all tyrants! Liberty for the people!" and "Viva Inter!", slashed Buffetto's hand off at the wrist.

There were shouts and screams and outbreaks of panic at the fringes of the mob, boos from Juventus fans in the ma.s.ses beyond. Buffetto, undaunted, drew a saber of his own with his remaining hand and, remarking that "those who try to s.h.i.t t.u.r.ds bigger than their a.s.sholes end up with tears in their eyes," commenced a furious blade-clashing duel with Francatrippa over the remains, as it were, of the communal repast, their dangerous leaps and strokes, though agile and successful in driving the crowds back, threatening to do more damage than all the mad ravening revelers had done. In one such parry and thrust, though the erstwhile Star of the Dance felt nothing in his benumbed desolation, Francatrippa seemed to trip over what was left of him and fell, dropping his scimitar. "Haha! Time to let the gas out, you pompous fartbag!" laughed Buffetto, jabbing his saber at Francatrippa's breast, but before he could drive it home, little Truffaldino came swooping in from overhead, clinging to a rope of some kind, and, reaching out as he pa.s.sed by, cut off Buffetto's nose with a rapier. By the time he had swung away and back again, both Buffetto and Francatrippa were waiting for him: slick! slack! slick! slack! went Truffaldino's ears in twin strokes, and then, went Truffaldino's ears in twin strokes, and then, zzzip! zzzip! the head, both blades crossing each other as they sliced through the neck, the headless body, now fountaining blood like popped champagne, still hanging on the rope and swinging like a gruesome pendulum. the head, both blades crossing each other as they sliced through the neck, the headless body, now fountaining blood like popped champagne, still hanging on the rope and swinging like a gruesome pendulum.

By now there was general panic spreading throughout the Piazza, and when Count Agnello Ziani-Ziani Orseolo, his gigantic member clad in gleaming armor, stepped into the fray, shouting "Terrorists! Terrorists! It's the Puppet Brigade! Stand back or we'll all be killed!", "Terrorists! Terrorists! It's the Puppet Brigade! Stand back or we'll all be killed!", the stampede was on. The Madonna added to the pandemonium by flinging about her organs, which exploded in great magical puffs of colored smoke wherever they fell, and in the confusion which followed, the moribund dancing donkey emeritus found himself being strapped secretively to the underside of the Count's phallus by Buffetto and Francatrippa, the Pulcinella half of Il Zoppo holding the thing up at the head, Lisetta whispering in his ear through the blasted hole in the white linen pantaloons: "Time to cut and run, dear friend!" And before they could even say it, they were out of there, a disappearing act so deft even Eugenio had wanted to know later how they had done it. the stampede was on. The Madonna added to the pandemonium by flinging about her organs, which exploded in great magical puffs of colored smoke wherever they fell, and in the confusion which followed, the moribund dancing donkey emeritus found himself being strapped secretively to the underside of the Count's phallus by Buffetto and Francatrippa, the Pulcinella half of Il Zoppo holding the thing up at the head, Lisetta whispering in his ear through the blasted hole in the white linen pantaloons: "Time to cut and run, dear friend!" And before they could even say it, they were out of there, a disappearing act so deft even Eugenio had wanted to know later how they had done it.

"It used to be bigger, this place, you know," rumbles the old Lion, pa.s.sing him the grappa flask and lapping his stony jowls melancholically with his rough tongue. The coa.r.s.e wet grating sound is echoed faintly by the inky waters of the Rio di San Lio lapping at the stone steps below them. "There was a time you couldn't fly from one f.u.c.king end of it to the other. I mean, literally. I wasn't sure I could say what its limits were then, any more than I could tell you how long G.o.d's devious pox-ridden c.o.c.k was. Of course, I was just a cub then, I wanted to hump everything in sight and was eager for action, I took a lot of detours - Dalmatia, Crete, Byzantium, Cyprus, Crimea, and Galilee - I'd head out after breakfast, wouldn't get back for three years. So I admit I wasn't all that good a judge of distances. But, look: that guy Polo whose house used to be here somewhere? The restless coglione dragged his a.s.s all the way to f.u.c.king Mongolia, other side of the world somewhere, came back and wrote a book about it, Il Milion, Il Milion, they called him, because of how the c.u.n.t stretched the truth, or else for all the money he made. But ask him if he'd seen all of Venice, he'd tell you straight to your face: Impossible. No one has or can. The distances are unimaginable. That's true, that's how it used to be, mate. I s.h.i.t you not!" they called him, because of how the c.u.n.t stretched the truth, or else for all the money he made. But ask him if he'd seen all of Venice, he'd tell you straight to your face: Impossible. No one has or can. The distances are unimaginable. That's true, that's how it used to be, mate. I s.h.i.t you not!"

The naked wayfarer, hovering disconsolately in the beast's abrasive mane, takes a deep pull on the grappa bottle, pincering it between both hands, having lost a few fingers back there in St. Mark's, and, trying not to cough or wheeze, hands it back, recalling the grandeur and seeming infinitude of the stage upon which, when young, he too had strutted, a spatial concept which he has often defended as being "an intimation of Being, ultimately dimensionless, and therefore therefore real." Rising up out of the demented frenzy of the Piazza astraddle the Lion's slippery back, polished slick by the centuries, and clinging desperately to the mane with his mutilated fists, he had seen in one vertiginous glimpse how small it all was, how illusory the fantasy of "Being." "Un cazzo di niente," as the old warrior piloting him would say. "A lotta bullp.o.o.p": someone else. And yet, he knew, too, that in thousands of hidden corners of thousands of hidden artworks in all the hidden churches and museums in all the hidden alleyways throughout that disintegrating but multilaminous island down there, there were whole discreet worlds to be found like DNA cl.u.s.ters or nested microchips, belying their material limits. Ah well, the "real." He is coming to the end of a long life devoted intransigently to a pursuit of it, and, truth to tell, he still doesn't know what it is. All he knows is that, whatever it is, he is in it. And soon won't be! real." Rising up out of the demented frenzy of the Piazza astraddle the Lion's slippery back, polished slick by the centuries, and clinging desperately to the mane with his mutilated fists, he had seen in one vertiginous glimpse how small it all was, how illusory the fantasy of "Being." "Un cazzo di niente," as the old warrior piloting him would say. "A lotta bullp.o.o.p": someone else. And yet, he knew, too, that in thousands of hidden corners of thousands of hidden artworks in all the hidden churches and museums in all the hidden alleyways throughout that disintegrating but multilaminous island down there, there were whole discreet worlds to be found like DNA cl.u.s.ters or nested microchips, belying their material limits. Ah well, the "real." He is coming to the end of a long life devoted intransigently to a pursuit of it, and, truth to tell, he still doesn't know what it is. All he knows is that, whatever it is, he is in it. And soon won't be!

"Some years later," his companion goes on, swigging from the flask, "I went away for a while. I was pretty old by this time, and suffering from mange and anemia and buboes and crotch rot and delirium tremens and all kinds of depressing s.h.i.t, I couldn't even get it up anymore, I was just a useless f.u.c.ked-up old boozer, sick at heart, jerking off limply at the world's keyhole. Napoleon came here then, just walked in and kicked my miserable hemorrhoidal b.u.t.t around like he owned it, and n.o.body gave a moldering fig, not even me. Then he took me off to Paris for a while. And, though I hate to admit it, I had a pretty good time!" The old Lion tips back the bottle, finishes it off, tosses it into the black waters of the ca.n.a.l, belches resonantly. "When I got back, this place looked different somehow, shriveled up, tackier, f.u.c.king pathetic really. It was never ever the same after that." He lifts one paw and scratches himself ruefully between his hind legs, making a sound like bricks rubbing and clattering against one another, a sound that rebounds thinly from the wall across the softly plashing water, dimly lit by the single dull yellow bulb above. Drifting down the ca.n.a.ls toward them now with the wisps of cold fog as though carried on them come, faintly, the distant sounds of Carnival: music, laughter, whistles, horns, shouts, drumbeats, sirens. Then they fade away again. He stares at the little arched bridge a few meters up the ca.n.a.l from them as though to see the sounds lingering there, but there is only a bleak dark silence. Did his puppet friends get away, he wonders. Or!? He is afraid to consider the alternatives. "And now, s.h.i.t, I'm nothing but an emasculated flea-bitten old clown, I know that. A f.u.c.king joke, too old to merit another telling. Hrmff. Still got my figure though. Eh? Wurrp! Wurrp! d.a.m.n right! Not worth the dingleberries on a stray cat's a.s.s, but I'm still something to look at!" d.a.m.n right! Not worth the dingleberries on a stray cat's a.s.s, but I'm still something to look at!"

When they got back to the Palazzo, the three servants having unstrapped him from the Count's giant p.e.n.i.s and carried him gingerly up to his apartments, they found a gla.s.s coffin in the hallway outside his rooms, the rooms themselves stripped of his personal possessions, and a wizened Third World monarch, still wearing his crown, sleeping in his bed. They poked and prodded the ancient potentate but he seemed to be brain dead, so Buffetto and Francatrippa, peeling off their human masks to reveal themselves as his old Gran Teatro dei Burattini colleagues Brigh.e.l.la and Capitano Spavento del Vall'Inferno, dragged the royal person out onto the floor, while Colombina, whose head had popped up to replace Truffaldino's severed one, prepared now to remake the bed. "Yes, it's me, dear Pinocchio!" she laughed when she saw him staring up at her. "One of my most successful roles ever, though it hasn't been easy! I had a hard time keeping the Director from grabbing at something that wasn't there!" And she lowered her breeches to show him her hard hairless pubis, slightly cracked, knocking on it - bok! bok! bok! bok! - with her wooden fist. "Come in!" Brigh.e.l.la shouted ("In emergencies, I had to use everything from clothespins to broom handles!" Colombina was laughing), and the Captain muttered ominously: - with her wooden fist. "Come in!" Brigh.e.l.la shouted ("In emergencies, I had to use everything from clothespins to broom handles!" Colombina was laughing), and the Captain muttered ominously: "Cazzo! Il tristo nominato e visto!" "Cazzo! Il tristo nominato e visto!"

"What are you doing, doing, you idiots?!" screamed Eugenio, storming in in his disheveled Queen of the Night costume, no doubt red-faced under all the smeared paint. "Why is His Royal Puissant Majesty lying on the floor in his nightshirt? Are you you idiots?!" screamed Eugenio, storming in in his disheveled Queen of the Night costume, no doubt red-faced under all the smeared paint. "Why is His Royal Puissant Majesty lying on the floor in his nightshirt? Are you mad?! mad?! I come back to powder my nose and freshen my lipstick and what do I I come back to powder my nose and freshen my lipstick and what do I find -?!" find -?!"