Robert Coover - Pinocchio in Venice

But then, when the sad news came that poor blind Gattino, without his companion, had walked off the wrong side of a vaporetto in the fog ("When the tipo hollered out the stop, Il Gatto repeated it loudly and stepped off the other side! He never came up, master, all they found was his white cane…"), he made another urgent appeal for La Volpe's release, fearing for her when she got the news, begging Eugenio to help him drop the charges, but his friend threw up his hands in despair, crying: "Madonna! We've worked so hard to catch the infamous whore! How can you ask for such a thing after all she has done to you — ?!"

"I forgive everybody! I forgive even you, Eugenio!"

"How nice, dear boy, I forgive you, too — but this is completely bizarre! And look at the hour! I can't do anything now!"

"But — !"

''Tomorrow, Pini! Maybe! For now, I tell you, we haven't a minute to lose!"

He had to accept that, his own costume was not even begun, and already the bands were playing in the Piazza and the darkening square was filling up with masked revelers, exciting him with a sense of romance and adventure not felt since he first heard the pi-pi-pi and zum-zum-zum of Mangiafoco's magical marionette theater in the last century. He had sold his primer then for a ticket and he would sell it again now, together with all his degrees and books and honors, only to have Bluebell's cheek next to his once more.

His excitement was evidently contagious, the entire Palazzo dei Balocchi has seemed abuzz with it all day, the staff, the clientele, the visitors, and its Director, too, alias the Queen of the Night, giddy as a schoolchild about his big party this evening (he has been dropping hints he may have acquired Casanova's bones for his great Mardi Gras Gran Gala tonight after all, for he is also laying plans for elaborate Ash Wednesday obsequies on the morrow, inviting, it would seem, the whole world to them, as though reluctant to let the glorious season come to an end) and priding himself on being the new owner and resident-soon-to-be of the Doges' Palace. He has already ordered up new stationery. When the professor expressed his doubts about the authenticity of Count Agnello Ziani-Ziani Orseolo's deed, Eugenio replied that "a country which has happily accepted the legitimacy of fantasy titles purchased by mail order from a remote German king, my love, can as easily accept the legitimacy of this entertaining document!" Various charges have been brought against the Count by the city meanwhile, including "the illicit erection of a public display intended to violate the true Christian meaning of Carnival" and "contributing irresponsibly to an increased risk of acque alte," and Buffetto, Francatrippa, and Truffaldino have been sent out this afternoon to supervise his arrest by the authorities, Eugenio assuring them that, if by some unfortunate circumstance the Count should be martyred in the course of his pursuit, an appropriate plaque would be mounted on a wall of the Ducal Palace, commemorating his historical visit here and specifically honoring all emissaries of the occasion.

By the time they roll the old scholar out of the meat locker, his new hide, as it might be called, has cooled as firm as a body cast, though he is stinging all over as if his cauterized flesh might have become suffused somehow with the baked pizza dough. His head hangs limply from its weary neck like a turtle's dangling from its shell, and his breaths are coming in short dry patches as though they might be his last. "Ah, that's better!" gushes Eugenio, lifting his former school-chum's drooping chin up and wiping his tears with a scented handkerchief. It is dark outside, bands are playing, and the crowd noises have mounted: there are shouts and screams coming in through the windows, and bursts of wild laughter and, underneath it all, the intense rumble of anticipation, as in a stadium before a big match. "It is almost time now for your great adventure, you old rogue! She is already out there waiting for you!"

"Out — ? Out where?"

"In the city, dear boy, where else? That fabulous house of pleasure, that opulent place for perfect licentiousness, that lubricious refuge of love with its illusion of the incredible, its wondrous aura of fairyland — !"

"But you said a salon — !"

"But of course, Old Sticks! Have I ever said otherwise? And look at you! Beautiful! I am in love with you myself! Ah, but one last thing to make you perfect!"

Eugenio, whistling a happy little tune, bores a hole in his rear with an apple corer and works in a jauntily upright tail made of long crisp cannoni, filled with sweet ricotta. Then, following the Director's instructions, the kitchen staff move him from the trolley onto one of the wine carts from yesterday's procession, perhaps the one the old Lion slept on, it smells like it, securing him to it by way of ropes around the neck and butt of the creature in whom he now resides. Earlier today, the old professor was convinced he was ready for this. Now he is not so sure. Only Bluebell's whispered wish sustains him. But if this is how she expects to find him, what is it she expects to do? He tries to conjure up stimulating memories of his ride on the Apocalypse, his snuggle with her in the mask shop, but it is as though, in his present position, his memory has plummeted into his sinuses somehow, closed to recall, merely making his head heavier on his tired neck. Carnival, perhaps, is not meant for everyone

They lower the professor, imbedded in his donkey-shaped pizza loaf, to street level in the freight elevator, joined by two bleary-eyed old ladies who squat in a corner to pee, and at the bottom they roll him out into the Sotoportego del Capello, the dimly lit alleyway behind the palazzo. Through the narrow underpass there, he can see the bright lights and the massed crowds of the decorated Piazza San Marco, but back here it is damp and silent, like the darkened wings of a musty theater. He has supposed they would be heading down an obscure calle or corte somewhere: isn't that where assignations are always held? Eugenio, however, bubbling with excitement, seems prepared to march them all out upon the raucous Piazza. This is not good news. Does he mean to inaugurate the Bridge of Sighs tonight? The two ancient ladies, a Russian princess and the heiress to a rubber fortune, clients of the palazzo, have exited the elevator with them and wandered confusedly off into the night, somewhat shackled by their drawers, and now two soft splashes are heard at the far end of the Sotoportego del Capello where the gondolas dock at night. Eugenio sends instructions out into the square to commence the fanfare and then carefully fits the donkey mask over his old friend's face, attaching fresh white camellias behind the upright ears. "And now, my dear little mammifero," he says, peering in at him through the eyeholes with a look full of loving kindness, his voice like honey oozing from the comb, "the rest depends on you!"

Before they can set off, however, they are interrupted by the clamorous arrival of Buffetto, Francatrippa, and Truffaldino, staggering down the alleyway, wailing and groaning, their clothes torn and bloodstained, their arms and heads bandaged, Buffetto and Francatrippa on crutches, little Truffaldino crawling toward them on all fours. "Ahi, direttore! What a terrible fight! We are dead!"

He knows everything now. What's happened to him. What happens next. Forget secret assignations. Forget dreams come true. Remember instead the words of Melampetta as attributed by her yesterday to luckless Pierre Abelard in his presumed exegetical marginalia upon Saint Bernard of the Cisternian beekeepers, "known in the underworld," as she (or perhaps he) put it, as "Doctor Mellifluus": "Honey in the mouth, amico mio, sting in the culo!" "But he has been so good to me!" he'd protested, and she'd growled back: "If I know the Little Man, compagno, you've been good to yourself!" That's right, he thinks now, staring out upon the demonically Carnivalized Piazza through the eyeholes of his donkey mask with increasing apprehension and terror, there's probably nothing wrong with the mails either. His retirement funds may well have just bought the Doges' Palace. His old classmate's "recent windfall" was a pinenut. He has probably lost everything but the clothes on his back. So to speak.