Carnevale [antikvár]

PrologueBefore you hear about it at Florian, let me tell you what happened next.It was night, and noiseless except for the waves, the brusio of the mosquitoes and brulichio of the water rats and the secret corpses shifting gently in the dark silt of the Grand Canal.I was cleaning the squirrel-fur brushes. I did not hear him enter. He was so slight that, in the long shadows of the room, I did not see him until he was standing with his small, white hand on the back of my chair. Then the air curdled around me, and he took my neck in that hand, hard.'Show me your Casanova,' he said, seven years apart unacknow-ledged.'Is that why you have come?' Neither, then, would I acknowledge them.'Show me your Casanova, and I will show you why.''I have a hundred Casanovas here.''Then I want to see them ali.'