She checked a ledger on her desk and wrote down several addresses. “Here are landladies who rent to students,” she said. “Many do not want to risk having students in their house because they drink and destroy the furniture, but I do not think you look like the type to behave in that way.”

I laughed. “I can assure you I have never been that way, even when I was a student in London years ago.”

I stared down at the list she had written for me. It was hard to read handwriting that was so different from my own. I looked up again. “Can you advise me which of these might be most suitable? I’m afraid I don’t know the addresses.”

She checked them with me. “That is in Cannaregio. Too far to walk and not near a vaporetto stop. And besides, it’s the Jewish Quarter. Not that I have anything against Jews personally, but you’d feel out of place.” She waited to see agreement in my face. “And the next—oh, you do not want the ground floor.”

“Why not?”

“Acqua alta , my dear.”

I understood the words but not their meaning. High water?

“In the winter, the city sometimes floods when high tides and heavy rain come at the same time. We are used to it, but you do not want to awake one morning to find your bed floating.”

“Oh dear, absolutely not,” I said hastily.

She ran her finger down the page. “Ah, this might be the one,” she said. “It is just across the bridge from here. In the sestiere of St Mark’s. Just off the piazza of Santo Stefano.”

“I know where that is,” I said. “I once stayed at the Pensione Regina, and I sketched in that square. It’s really close.”

“And relatively quiet,” she said. “The rent includes breakfast and dinner, so it seems quite reasonable. Of course, not all landladies are agreeable. You would have to get a feel for yourself of whether you would be comfortable there.”

“Yes,” I said.

She found two others if the first didn’t work. Both in Dorsoduro, the sestiere where the accademia is situated. “This is very much a quarter of working people and students,” she said. “The institute of commerce and economics is nearby, you see. The Ca’ Foscari. So it tends to be lively, especially around the Campo Santa Margherita. Lots of bars and cafés there. If you’d prefer a livelier scene, then maybe . . .”

“No thank you,” I said. “I’d prefer quiet. I’m not used to noise. I’ve led a rather sheltered life teaching at a girls’ school.”

“I understand,” she said. “And most of the students are not as . . . mature.”