Carnival at Viareggio

All would go back to their respective abodes in the mid afternoon for siestas but would be back on the beach for a second round of swimming exercises and sighing gawking in the late afternoon.

Then during the night, Eric would slip out of the hotel and lie under the young, sexy American antique dealer in the flat above his shop, expending lambskins at an alarming rate.

On the fourth afternoon, though, Eric came out of the surf holding his arm and nearly close to tears. Hugo rose from his canvas chair and came down to the surf to meet him.

“He’s scraped his arm on rocks,” Hugo explained to the others when the two came back to the line of umbrellas. “He swam too close to the rock breaker wall out there to the north of the beach.”

Dr. Mueller, full of concern, rose from his chair and went to Eric and examined the arm. “It doesn’t look too bad, but it’s easy to get infection from such cuts in this circumstance,” he said.

Hugo turned to Biddle. “Is there a clinic nearby?”