It is Christmas Eve. Jomier and Judith, well wrapped in overcoats and scarves, walk out into the street. Elegant decorations hang from the palazzos; bright shop windows display their wares festooned with glitter and tinsel. They dawdle at a Christmas fair – little stalls vividly lit selling biscuits, panettone, sugared fruit, glazed chestnuts, orange segments coated in dark chocolate. They walk on. They choose a restaurant at random. It is warm. The waiters are friendly. They eat well. They come out of the restaurant into the crowded street. They follow the flow of people and find themselves in St Mark’s Square. People are making for the basilica.

‘Midnight Mass,’ says Judith. ‘Shall we take a look?’

‘Why not,’ says Jomier. A folkloric experience. Fine music, perhaps. A free concert.

The basilica is dark and filled with people. Banks of candles and the dim bulbs of huge chandeliers cast a faint trembling light on the arches and domes. The smell of candlewax and incense thickens the air. The Mass has started. A booming chant comes from the darkness. The vestments of the patriarch and his acolytes sparkle at the high altar. Judith peers over shoulders. She is entranced by the spectacle. Jomier too is impressed: here is something that transcends tourism. Marco Polo, Christopher Columbus, Vivaldi, Casanova – all would have seen what he is seeing if they had stood where he stands now. Little has changed in a thousand years. He looks at the faces of the Venetians around him. Have they been drawn by the spectacle? By tradition? Or do some of them, like his friend Theodor, believe?

More singing. More scuttling around the altar. Chanting in Latin. Readings in Italian. Jomier starts to feel claustrophobic – suffocated by the smoky air. He leans down and whispers into Judith’s ear: ‘Shall we go?’ She hesitates, her eyes still fixed on the glittering figures at the altar. Then, as if with an effort of will, she turns away and says: ‘OK.’

They push through the crowd to reach the door of the basilica. Out on St Mark’s Square, Judith takes Jomier’s arm. ‘Wasn’t it beautiful?’

‘Yes, but . . .’

‘I know. The incense. It makes one dizzy. I had the feeling that the whole thing was genuine.’

‘Yes, though . . .’

‘What?’

‘I wonder how many in that crowd actually believe?’

Judith squeezes his arm. ‘You’re so literal. I mean, one can believe in the sense of accepting that an ancient and touching myth about a child born in a manger is true because it is beautiful like a painting or a poem or a sonata.’

‘Born of a virgin?’

‘Yes, well, that’s perhaps not so beautiful if it is taken to demean sex. But Christmas celebrates the birth of Jesus, not his conception – immaculate or otherwise.’