The Seventh Function of Language

Then his corpse was stuffed and taken through the streets of the town on the back of an ox, before being sent to Constantinople.

But it is his skin inside the urn, a pathetic relic. How did it get here? The Latin inscription does not say.

Why was Sollers praying before this wall? Simon has no idea.

88

“I am not under orders to receive Venetian scum.”

Obviously, the Tuscan captain who says this to the chief admiral, Sebastiano Venier, gets into deep trouble; aware that he has gone too far and knowing the old Venetian’s reputation for severity, he resisted arrest and it all ended in mutiny, with the captain gravely injured then hanged as an example.

But he was under Spanish command, which implies that Venier did not have the right to decide his punishment and, above all, to summarily execute him. When Don John learns this, he seriously considers whether Venier should himself be hanged to teach him due respect for hierarchy, but the provveditore Barbarigo, second-in-command of the Venetian fleet, convinces him not to do anything that might compromise the entire operation.

The fleet continues on its way to the Gulf of Lepanto.

89

Tatko,

We have safely arrived in Venice and Philippe is going to compete.

The city is very lively because they are trying to revive the Carnival. There are people in masks and lots of things to see in the streets. And, contrary to what we were told, Venice does not stink. On the downside, there are armies of Japanese tourists, but that’s no different from Paris.

Philippe doesn’t seem too worried. You know him—he always has that unshakable optimism that sometimes verges on irresponsibility but, all in all, is a strength.

I know you don’t understand why your daughter let him take her place, but you must admit that in a situation like this—in other words, with a jury composed exclusively of men—a man will always have a better chance of winning than a woman of equal skill.

When I was very young, you taught me that a woman was notonly a man’s equal, but was even superior to him, and I believed you. I still believe you, but we cannot ignore this sociological reality (I have been afraid of it for some time now) known as male domination.

It is said that in the whole history of the Logos Club, only four women have ever attained the rank of sophist: Catherine de Medici, Emilie du Châtelet, Marilyn Monroe, and Indira Gandhi (and we can still hope that she will become one again). That is not very many. And none, of course, has ever been the Great Protagoras.