By Its Cover by Donna Leon Page A

the Devil was not capable of corrupting …”’ She opened her eyes, looked at him, and gave him a shark’s smile.
    ‘Or, if you’d like more about women, there’s my special friend Augustine.’ Again she slipped into trance mode and, after a moment, said, ‘“How much more agreeable it is for two male friends to live together than for a man and a woman.”’ Coming back to the present, she asked, ‘Isn’t it time all these guys came out of the closet?’
    ‘That’s an extreme position,’ he said, though he had pointed this out to her countless times and treasured herbecause she defended so many such positions. ‘I think he was talking about conversation in that passage, that men speak together more easily than they do with a woman.’
    ‘I know that. But it’s always seemed strange to me that men can say things like this about women – dare one call it holding “extreme positions”? – and yet become saints.’
    ‘That’s probably because they said a lot of other things, as well.’
    She shifted towards him on the sofa and said, ‘I’ve also found it strange that people can be made saints for what they say, when what we do is so much more important.’ Then, with one of those sudden changes of subject that still managed to surprise him, she asked, ‘What are you going to do?’
    ‘I’ll call the Americans tomorrow and see if it’s a real passport. And ask Signorina Elettra to contact the other libraries in the city to see if this Nickerson has paid any of them a visit. Call this university in Kansas to see if he really worked there. And I’ll see if I can locate Tertullian.’
    ‘Good luck. I’m curious about a man who would read him.’
    ‘So am I,’ Brunetti said, wondering if there might be a copy of Tertullian in the house and whether he should take it to read in bed. Because that would mean putting aside his current book, The White War , an English history of the war in Alto Adige, a war in which his grandfather had fought, Brunetti resisted the not very strong temptation. He decided to return to the rocklike stupidity of General Cadorna, he of the eleven futile battles of the Isonzo, the man who returned to the Roman idea of executing every tenth man in any battalion that retreated, the general who led half a million men to their deaths for little purpose and no gain. Would Paola be comforted, Brunetti asked himself, by the fact that almost all of thevictims of Cadorna’s savagery had been men, not women? Probably not.
    As he walked to the Questura the next day, Brunetti reflected on the press and began to wonder if he had been precipitate in mentioning it to Patta. Dottoressa Fabbiani was certainly not going to notify them, and he suspected that Sartor was sufficiently loyal to keep his mouth closed. Only Dottoressa Fabbiani and Sartor were certain about what had taken place in the library, and only they had seen the papers with the names of all of the books Nickerson had consulted, although she and Brunetti were the only people who had seen all of the vandalized books. It was in her best interests to keep this quiet until she found some way to inform the Contessa. Brunetti was a public official and could imagine how the press would treat this, so he saw no reason to inform them of the thefts. The authorities had been alerted: the press could go to hell.
    The first thing he did when he got to his office was call Dottoressa Fabbiani, who told him, not at all to his surprise, that Dottor Nickerson had not returned to the library that morning. He thanked her and called the American embassy in Rome, identified himself, then explained his need to verify Nickerson’s passport, saying only that the man was a suspect in a crime and the passport the only identification they had. He was transferred to another office, where he again explained his request. They told him to wait, after which he found himself speaking to a man who did not identify either himself or his office, although he asked