Free Night Journey by Winston Graham Page A

warn me of the dangers of romantic self-deception. There was also the danger that a love affair, even of the most innocent kind, would confuse judgement and undermine my courage.
    â€œMind you,” said the gondolier, “at the outset I addressed him politely. ‘ Luigi,’ I said, ‘ Luigi Martelli, you must know that I have stood in this place these ten months past, and my father before me. Fair is fair, and I must ask you to move.’ He refused, signore , and in the heat of the argument that followed he called me the son of a bitch .”
    Now I was tired and without hope. Suddenly I could perceive how pathetic the delusion was, how body and mind, threatened in their integrity, clung to a sudden notion of romantic love as a support and an escape. So long as she was with me the fantasy was just conceivable. As soon as she was gone the very frame collapsed. I knew the truth and already had no reserves to face it.
    â€œThe tale is not finished yet, signore ,” said the gondolier, clutching my arm as I got up. “As yet there is no ending. After this pig, this Martelli, had climbed out of the canal, he saw fit to report me to the police——”
    But I had bowed to him and left. I wished I had had the recklessness to get drunk; but nothing must blur the faculties now; I did not know what might await me round the corner at my hotel.
    The old pale city was quiet in the moon-grey night, and water lapped against its ancient stone. Two cats quarrelled on a nearby wall.
    My thonghts were like cats: they moved in darkness, sometimes predatory, sometimes sexual, sometimes sleek, more often fearful, always on guard. “As yet thexe is no ending,” the gondolier had said. There never could be in this life. My father had once said: “There is no safety but death.”
    He had found it, and—perhaps as a true Christian should—at the hands of his enemies.

Chapter Eight
    The church of San Giorgio dei Greci is on a canal running in from the lagoon just beyond the Bridge of Sighs. It has a leaning tower which looks as if it is going to pitch into the canal, and early the following evening I entered its cool dark interior with the air of yet another tourist doing the rounds.
    The weather was still poor; only once since I arrived had I seen the lagoon its usual paint blue; and at lunch I had heard a man say there had been snow in Como.
    I had been in the church barely two minutes when a small man attached himself and, finding me not too hostile, immediately took on the duties of official guide. He was a poor little specimen, with polypus and no front teeth, so that his Italian, which had a strong accent anyhow, was difficult to understand.
    He explained to me that this was a Greek Orthodox church, and he took me round to see the golden crosses and the glittering ikons and the handsome doors of the inner altar. There were one or two other people in the church praying and genuflecting, and just as a bearded priest in his black robes and high black hat came from behind the hidden altar I felt a small roll of paper pressed into my hand. I had not made myself known in any way, but had gone into the church just when the clocks were striking six, and no doubt Giorgio had been furnished with an accurate description.
    We went all round the church, and he seemed in no hurry to finish his descriptions but at length I was able to tip him and get away. Outside I sat in a café and bought a newspaper and read about the latest Italian naval successes, and behind the pages read the note. “Calleto Veneto, No. 3. Major Berczik. To-morrow morning at 7. You will not be followed. Go out to-night. A long walk after 10 p. m. Destroy this.”
    I rubbed the piece of paper into a ball no bigger than a pea and thought of tossing it into the convenient canal, but changed my mind. Though no one could salve it, someone might see it go. Better burned.
    I stayed there a time reading the paper through, then