Dr Greysteel and Aunt Greysteel wished Strange success with his magic and Miss Greysteel reminded him that he had promised to go with her one day soon to look at a pianoforte which they had heard was for hire from an antiquarian who lived near the Campo San Angelo. Then the Greysteels went on to the rest of the day’s pleasures while Strange returned to his lodgings near Santa Maria Zobenigo.

Most English gentlemen who come to Italy nowadays write poems or descriptions of their tour, or they make sketches. Italians who wish to rent apartments to these gentlemen are well advised to provide them with rooms where they can pursue these occupations. Strange’s landlord, for example, had set aside a shadowy little chamber at the top of his house for his tenant’s use. It contained an ancient table with four carved gryphons to serve for its legs; there was a sea-captain’s chair, a painted wooden cupboard such as one might find in a church and a wooden figure two or three feet tall, which stood upon a pillar. It represented a smiling man holding something round and red in his hand, which might have been an apple, might have been a pomegranate or might have been a red ball. It was difficult to imagine quite where this gentleman could have come from: he was a little too cheerful for a saint in a church and not quite comical enough for a coffeehouse sign.

Strange had found the cupboard to be damp and full of mildew and so he had abandoned it and placed his books and papers in heaps about the floor. But he had made a sort of friend of the wooden figure and, as he worked, he constantly addressed remarks to it, such as, “What is your opinion?” and “Doncaster or Belasis? What do you suggest?”⁵ and “Well? Do you see him? I do not,” and once in tones of extreme exasperation, “Oh! Be quiet, will you?”

He took out a paper on which he had scribbled a spell. He moved his lips as magicians do when they are reciting magic words. When he had finished, he glanced about the room as though he half-expected to find another person there. But whomever it was that he hoped to see, he did not see them. He sighed, crumpled the spell into a ball and threw it at the little wooden figure. Then he took another sheet of paper – made some notes – consulted a book – retrieved the first piece of paper from the floor – smoothed it out – studied it for half an hour, pulling at his hair all the while – crumpled it up again and threw it out the window.

A bell had begun to toll somewhere. It was a sad and lonely sound which made the hearer think of wild forlorn places, dark skies and emptiness. Some of these ideas must have occurred to Strange because he became distracted and stopped what he was doing and glanced out of the window as though to reassure himself that Venice had not suddenly become an empty, silent ruin. But the scene outside was the usual one of bustle and animation. Sunlight shone on blue water. The campo was crowded with people: there were Venetian ladies coming to Santa Maria Zobenigo, Austrian soldiers strolling about arm-in-arm and looking at everything, shopkeepers trying to sell them things, urchins fighting and begging, cats going about their secret business.