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It was a respectable sum, but Archimboldi put the check in his pocket without a word. Then they began to talk. They ate Venetian sardines with slices of semolina and drank a bottle of white wine. They got up and walked around a Venice that was very different from the snowy wintertime Venice they ha…

How silly, she was thinking, to use the word ready. When can you be ready for anything? Or is life, in fact, a continuum of things you must prepare for, and only with perfect preparation can you exist in the present?

[...] The wind sped through the morning sky, transporting soft clouds; the clouds arrayed themselves in cirrus festoons, then in cumuli; toward nine-thirty there was a rain shower, and the pluviometer collected a few centiliters; there followed a partial rainbow, of brief duration; the sky darkened…

[...] When I went back to my children—a long time ago now—the days became heavy again, sex a sporadic and therefore quiet practice, without expectations. Men, even before exchanging a kiss, made it clear to me, with polite conviction, that they had no intention of leaving their wives, or that they …

“A picture. Maybe the drugstore.” The studied way she avoided his eyes told him boys would be present. Natalie was boy-crazy, and Tabby had grown prettier than Dexter would have liked. Not that he wished ugliness on his only daughter, but showy beauty was an invitation to dependence. He’d have like…