THE PALIO TO THE SIENESE HILLS
1726
XLI
Who created us? Was it Alaric the Goth? Was it Attila the Hun? Did we rise from the sea malformed? Surely it could not have been in God"s plan to create us. Venetians are neither fish nor fowl, nor are we fully human. We have grown from marshes and water. We have driven posts into the lagoon bottom to give us legs. We have oars for gills, spires for feathers and Mother Mary for a soul. We cannot walk very far without having to cross the water and that water is full of salt, killing us if we drink it. Are we a joke, a Divine Comedy? Is a Venetian always a stranger in a strange land? If so, Moses, then, is my father. And like him, I am doomed never to see the Promised Land. [Antonia, 1739]
Antonia and Orlando lay in their greening place looking at
