The walk was always the same. First down along the Zattere, past the lonely vaporetto stations. Just before the Stazione Marittima I would turn into the calle leading to San Sebastiano, Veronese’s church, and a bar for stazione workers that was always open by the time I got there, the windows already moist with steam hissing from the coffee machines. The other customers, in blue workers’ coveralls bulked with sweaters underneath, would nod from their spots at the bar, taking in the army coat, then ignore me, turning back to their coffee and cigarettes, voices kept low, as if someone were still sleeping upstairs. Even at that hour a few were tossing back brandies. The coffee had been cut with something-chicory? acorns? — but was still strong enough to jolt me awake, and standing there with a first cigarette, suddenly alert to everything-the steamed windows, the whiff of scalded milk, isolated words of dialect-it seemed to me that I’d never been asleep at all.

Outside there were a few more people-a boy in a waiter’s uniform heading toward one of the hotels, an old woman in a fur coat coaxing a dog to pee, a priest with his hands in his sleeves, staying warm, all the insomniacs and early risers I’d never seen before I became one of them. I supposed that if I headed over to the Rialto I could see the fish stalls being set up and the boats unloading, the early-morning working world, but I preferred the empty dream city. From San Sebastiano it was a straight path, only slightly angled by bridges, to Campo San Barnaba. No produce market yet, just a man hurrying toward the traghetto station, perhaps still not home from the night before. Then right toward the Accademia, following the natural course of the streets the way water runs in canals, looping finally around the museum, then through the back alleys toward Salute, not a soul in sight again, past the great swirling church and out along the fondamenta to the tip.