In the Company of the Courtesan by Sarah Dunant Page A

there…
    (Ah—see! So it happens: inch by inch, thought by thought, the slip-slide from the spirit to the flesh.) The air is grown stuffy now, and the priest’s voice drones on. I shift a little to give myself more space, and as I do so I spot her, five or six rows away, upright amid a sea of slumped shoulders, her fine head high in the air. Of course, I knew she was there—I mean, I had noticed her before, when she first came in, how could I not?—only I had promised myself that today I would not…Well, never mind. We have sorted things out, God and I, and a man deserves a little pleasure now and then. I give myself time to really look at her, and she is indeed lovely: ruby dark hair—how lush it would be cascading down her back—golden skin, full lips, and the glimmer of flesh as she adjusts her shawl where it has slipped a little over her breast. Oh, she is so lovely that you might think God himself has put her here so I could appreciate the sublime perfection of his creation.
    And now—oh my, and now—she moves her head in my direction, though she is not looking at me directly. I see the hint of a smile and then, then, the slow flick of her tongue moving to moisten her lips. She must be thinking of something, something pleasant no doubt. Something very pleasant. And before I know it, I am hard as a rock under my coat, and the line between redemption and temptation is already behind me, though I cannot for the life of me remember when I crossed it. Just as I don’t really think about the fact that those moistened lips and that secretive smile are not for me only but also for the banker on my left, who has already enjoyed more than her looks and is eager to see her roll her tongue for him, not to mention the young admiral’s son five rows behind, who is recently parted from a lady and is on the lookout again.
    And so, as my lady would put it, “Without a word being said, the fish swim into the net.”
    Â 
    Mass ends, and the church is filled with busyness as the crowd starts to push out. We move fast and, once outside, place ourselves on the small stone bridge overlooking the
campo,
from where we can watch the final act of the performance. It is cold and the sky threatens rain, but that does not deter the crowd.
    The space is so perfect for courtship that you might think the women had designed the
campo
themselves. To the right of the church as you leave, the shining new façade of the Scuola of San Marco is an excuse for all kinds of dalliance, since to appreciate the cleverness of its marble reliefs, you have to loiter in certain places, moving your body a little to the left or the right, tilting your head until you get the exact effect. You’d be amazed how many young, sweet things are suddenly aflame for the wonder of art. Farther into the center, other knots form around the great horse statue. The rider was some old Venetian general who left his fortune to the state on condition they immortalize him and his horse. He asked for San Marco, but they gave him Zanipolo instead. He sits up here now, all bellicose and bronze, boastful, oblivious of the action underneath him as young men and women exchange looks while pretending to study the straining muscles in the horse’s metal thighs. I like the animal better than the man, but then Venice is a town that favors mules as much as horses, and while I’m safer on the streets these days, I still miss the stomping, snorting power of the great Roman breeds.
    My lady’s metaphor of the fish is an apt one, for now the whole congregation is out, with small shoals gathering around the more exotic species. Some of the men swim straight in; others hover at the edge, as if they have not yet decided in which direction they are headed. At the center the women turn and float, keeping track of all around them. They carry handkerchiefs or fans or rosary beads, which sometimes slip from their fingers to fall at the feet