It was opened by a young man I hadn’t seen the last time I had visited. He was thin to the point of being almost gaunt. I told him who I was and that I’d like to see the contessa. He frowned as if he was having a hard time understanding me, and I wondered if he only spoke Venetian. Surely my Italian was now pretty good. I had chatted easily with the family at the festa. I repeated my request, slowly. He bowed and went away, returning to usher me into a room at the back of the house. It had a wonderfully high ceiling, tall arched windows. The blinds were drawn, giving it an aquarium-like feel so that it was hard to see the colour of the furniture or the paintings that filled the walls. But it was delightfully cool. An electric fan was running, and the contessa was lying on a chaise longue, listening to Mozart on the gramophone.

She opened her eyes, sat up and gave me a big smile. “My little English lady. You have come. How lovely. Josef, tell Umberto to bring citron pressé and cake.”

He nodded, then left us. She motioned for me to take a chair, and I sat facing her. She was wearing a dark-green Japanese kimono and no makeup, so that her face had a skull-like appearance in the gloom.

“You have a new footman?” I asked. “I don’t remember seeing him when I visited you a month ago.”

“You wouldn’t have. He is quite new,” she said. She looked away from me, staring out into her beautiful garden. A palm tree was swaying in the breeze. When she turned back, she said, “You are English. Clearly of a good family. You were brought up to do the right thing.”

“Yes,” I replied, feeling confused and wondering where this conversation might be leading. Then she beckoned me closer, as if someone might overhear. “I’ll let you in on a little secret, because I feel I can trust you. I am usually a good judge of character.” There was another pause, and I wondered what could possibly be coming next. “My footman,” she began. “He is not a footman at all. He is a Jewish painter from Germany. Nobody must know this. I am doing my best to smuggle out as many as I can—painters, writers, poets—those who are most at risk of being rounded up and transported God knows where. They have nowhere else to run, poor things. America is not accepting them, nor Britain, and France is too dangerous. Too close. So I bring them here, on the grounds of offering them employment. Then I work on their Italian and find them suitable jobs in Italy. Unfortunately, I can only bring one at a time, every now and then. I’d like to save them all, but I can’t.”

“It’s a very noble thing you do,” I said.