The Seventh Function of Language

But if Philippe wins the title, things will change for everyone: for him, as he’ll become one of the most influential men on the planet. For you, benefiting from his secret power, who will no longer have to fear Andropov or the Russians, and will be in a position to change the face of your country. (I would like to be able to say “our” country, but you wanted me to be French, and in that respect at least, my dear Papa, I exceeded your expectations.) And for your only daughter, who will gain another form of power and will reign supreme over French intellectual life.

Don’t judge Philippe too severely: recklessness is a form of courage and you know what he has agreed to risk. You always taught me to respect the journey from thought to act, even if the person making it treats it as a game. Without a tendency to melancholy, there is no psyche, and I know that Philippe lacks that, which perhaps makes him a poor player that struts and frets his hour upon the stage, as Shakespeare says, but that is probably what I like about him.

All my love, dear Papa,

Your loving daughter,

Julenka

PS: Did you receive the Jean Ferrat album I sent you?

90

“Ma si, it is a little approximate, vero.”

Simon and Bayard have just bumped into Umberto Eco on Piazza San Marco. It really does seem as if everyone has come to Venice. Simon’s paranoia now interprets any apparent coincidence as a sign that his entire life may be nothing but a fictional narrative; this muddles his analytical faculties and prevents him from thinking about the possible and likely reasons for Eco’s presence, here and now.

On the lagoon, a motley variety of boats maneuver in joyous disorder, to a soundtrack of colliding hulls, cannonades, and the roaring of extras.

“It’s a reconstruction of the Battle of Lepanto.” Eco has to shout to be heard over the noise of the cannonade and the cheers of the crowd.

For this second edition since its rebirth the year before, the Carnival is offering, among other colorful spectacles, a historical reconstruction: the Holy League, led by the Venetian fleet, alongside the Invincible Armada and the papal armies, affronting the Turks of Selim II, known as “Selim the Sot,” the son of Suleiman the Magnificent.

“Ma, you see that large vessel? It’s a replica of the Bucintoro, the ship on board which the doge, every year, on the Feast of the Ascension, would celebrate the sposalizio del mare, the marriage with the sea, by throwing a gold ring into the Adriatic. It was a ceremonial ship not at all intended to go to war. They took it out for official engagements, but it never left the lagoon and it has no business being here, because we are supposed to be in the Gulf of Lepanto on October 7, 1571.”

Simon is not really listening. He walks toward the dock, fascinated by this ballet of counterfeit galleys and painted skiffs. But when he is about to pass between the two columns that look like the uprights of an invisible door, Eco stops him: “Aspetta!”

Venetians never pass between the colonne di San Marco; they say it brings bad luck because it was here that the Republic would execute its prisoners before hanging their corpses by the feet.

At the top of the columns, Simon sees the winged lion of Venice and Saint Theodore flooring a crocodile. He mutters, “I’m not Venetian,” crosses the invisible threshold, and advances to the water’s edge.