Mr. Baum, house owner, chairman of the district council, honorary chief of the volunteer fire department, and possessor of various other distinctions—but to come to the point, Mr. Baum must have eavesdropped on one of my conversations with Ewald. It’s no wonder. He is the owner of the house my friend lives in on the ground floor. Mr. Baum and I—we know each other a long time by sight. The other day, however, the chairman of the district council stopped and raised his hat a bit—just enough for a small bird to fly out in case one had been trapped under it. Smiling politely, he initiated our acquaintance with these words:

“Do you sometimes travel?”

“Oh, yes,” I replied, a little absent-mindedly, “that could well be.”

Now he continued in a familiar tone, “I think we’re the only two around here who have been to Italy.”

“Oh,” I said, trying to focus a bit more clearly. “Well, yes, in that case it is of course urgently necessary for us to have a conversation.”

Mr. Baum laughed. “Yes, Italy, it’s really something. I always tell my children—take Venice, for example.”

“You still remember Venice?”

“Oh, but please,” he groaned, for he was a bit too fat to show indignation without effort, “how could I not? . . . once you’ve seen it . . . that Piazzetta . . . don’t you agree?”

“Yes,” I replied. “I especially remember with pleasure those rides through the canals, gliding soundlessly by those remnants of the past.”

“The Palazzo Franchetti,” he recalled.

“The Cà Doro,” I countered.

“The Fish Market—”

“The Palazzo Vendramin—”

“Where Richard Wagner . . .” he hastened to add as an educated German. I nodded.

“The Ponte, you know?”

He smiled with recognition. “Of course, and the museum, and let’s not forget the Academy, where a Titian . . .”

In this fashion Mr. Baum subjected himself to a kind of examination, which cost him a fair effort. It occurred to me to compensate him by telling him a story. And I began without further ado.

“When you ride under the Ponte di Rialto past the Fondaco de’ Turchi and the Fish Market, and you tell the gondolier, ‘To the right!’ he looks at you with surprise and might well even ask, ‘Dove?’ But you insist on going to the right, and you get out in one of those dirty little canals, bargain with him, tell him off, and walk away through crowded back streets and passages filled with black smoke toward an empty, open square. You do all this simply because that’s where my story takes place.”

Mr. Baum touched me lightly on the arm. “Excuse me, what story?” His small eyes moved back and forth somewhat nervously.