Farewell to the Flesh Read Online Free PDF

thinking of taking some time-lapse of the Virgin over there. The ridiculous Italian woman staying at the Casa Crispina says she saw a bright halo around the head yesterday. I’d like to give her proof of how foolish she is.”
    â€œI doubt if Xenia Campi would accept photographs as proof of anything but what happened not to be there at the time they were taken.”
    Gibbon’s immediate laugh had an unpleasant, conspiratorial ring to it. Before Urbino could make it clear that they didn’t share a condescending attitude toward Xenia Campi, however, the photographer excused himself and started up the ladder.

6
    Josef Lubonski, an attractive man in his early forties with short sandy-colored hair and prominent cheekbones, lay in bed beneath several layers of blankets, His face was haggard, and his blue eyes were clouded with dark circles beneath them. He was hardly able to muster a smile of greeting.
    â€œI feel weak like a baby,” he told Urbino. “It makes me want to have my mother here, even an old man like me.”
    Lubonski’s mother was in Cracow. He phoned her every week and regularly sent her money. Even in these freer days for Poland, Lubonski preferred not to go back, and his mother, close to eighty, wasn’t well enough to visit him.
    â€œDon’t worry about anything, Josef. Carnevale is still young. As for the fresco, it will wait for you.”
    A ghost of a smile flickered over Lubonski’s face.
    â€œI know the fresco will wait, Urbino. But can you?”
    â€œTo be honest, I was just looking at the fresco—but yes, I can wait.” Urbino meant it. No more climbing up the ladder and poking around. “Don’t worry about me or anyone else. Just get well. Besides, the photographer will be able to finish his work more easily without either of us around.”
    â€œI hope he knows he must not flash the bright lights all over!” Lubonski said with vehemence. “He has already given too much light to the three saints. He knows how to take pictures of rich people. He knows how to do it very well, I think. But frescoes and paintings, I am not sure.”
    A few moments later a sister came in to give Lubonski his medication.

7
    Urbino was pushed almost the entire length of the exit ramp at the San Marco boat landing by the crush of passengers behind him. The trip down the Grand Canal had been like a floating party with wine bottles being passed around and couples dancing in the aisle to the music from a transistor radio.
    As Urbino reached the end of the ramp, a muzzled cocker spaniel was almost trampled by a huge woman in a Borsalino and a kimono-style robe splashed with vibrant geometrical patterns. The dog’s owner, an elderly woman in a fur coat, snatched the dog up and drew as close to the side of the building as she could to let the crowd pass around her.
    Urbino joined the flow of people moving exuberantly up the calle past Harry’s Bar. Although he had never worn a full costume or “cracked the whip” in the Piazza along with a long line of revelers, he seldom tired of the spectacle of this “feast of fools,” as it had been called in the Middle Ages. The Contessa assumed that he had been corrupted by all the Mardi Gras back in New Orleans, all the parades and balls, all the business about Mystical Krewes and Comus and Rex.
    It was true, but “corruption” wasn’t a word he would have used. Some of his happiest memories were of sitting safe and secure on his father’s shoulders watching the floats on Canal Street. And even as he had got older he had enjoyed watching the festivities more than taking an active part in them—something that had caused pointless arguments between him and his ex-wife, Evangeline, who had been Queen of Comus before their marriage.
    Urbino ducked into the shelter of a shop at the end of the calle where it funneled into a main route to the Piazza. Here he had a good view.
    An