At seven, they walk out on to the duckboards and rise above sea-level as they pass the Accademia and find a small restaurant near the Fenice. It has been recommended by an online website but Jomier pretends that he knows it of old. It is not wholly a pretence. Jomier certainly ate at a restaurant like this restaurant somewhere around the Fenice when he was in Venice with Tilly thirty years before. Over supper he confesses to Judith that this might not be the same restaurant or, if the same restaurant, it may be under new management. Judith smiles. She does not complain. They are both hungry. The food is not bad. Mozzarella and tomato salad, risotto ai funghi, scaloppine al limone for Judith: bresaola, linguine napolitana and a veal chop for Jomier. A bottle of Chianti. No pudding. No coffee. No grappa. No sex once they are back at the hotel. An early night. Reculer pour mieux sauter . . .

The next morning the waters have subsided: a mournful African is mopping up the muddy residue in the lobby of the hotel. They check out and move to the five-star Hotel Palazzo Solaia. Jomier has told Judith that he will pay. She has said ‘nonsense’ but with less conviction than before. ‘Well, I’ll pay for the upgrade,’ said Jomier. They are offered a ‘Christmas package’ by the hotel: two nights in a deluxe double room, complimentary buffet breakfasts, a bottle of prosecco, home-made sweets and biscuits on arrival, a Christmas surprise, and Christmas lunch in the hotel restaurant to include wine. Judith hesitates. Jomier can see a ‘Isn’t this rather vulgar and horribly expensive?’ look on her face. Jomier jumps at it. €670 per person plus the extra nights at a special rate.

Judith is happy. Jomier is happy. Judith is happy because there is a bath tub, not just a shower; Jomier is happy because there is a multi-channelled 18-inch TV. Judith does not take a bath. Jomier does not switch on the TV. It is only eleven in the morning. Culture comes first. They start at the Piazzetta San Marco, water still glistening on the flagstones from yesterday’s flood. Jomier points to the four bronze horses on the portico in front of the cathedral and tells Judith how they were taken from the Forum in Rome to Constantinople, then stolen from the Byzantines and brought to Venice, then taken by Napoleon to Paris and only returned to Venice after his fall. Sic transit gloria mundi. Not mass transit but transit of the spoils of war. The bronze horses. The relics of St Mark, plundered from Alexandria.