CHAPTER IX.
How beautiful is night in Venice! Then music and the moon reignsupreme; the glittering sky reflected in the waters, and every gondolagliding with sweet sounds! Around on every side are palaces andtemples, rising from the waves which they shadow with their solemnforms, their costly fronts rich with the spoils of kingdoms, andsoftened with the magic of the midnight beam. The whole city too ispoured forth for festival. The people lounge on the quays and clusteron the bridges; the light barks skim along in crowds, just touchingthe surface of the water, while their bright prows of polished irongleam in the moonshine, and glitter in the rippling wave. Not a soundthat is not graceful: the tinkle of guitars, the sighs of serenaders,and the responsive chorus of gondoliers. Now and then a laugh,light, joyous, and yet musical, bursts forth from some illuminatedcoffee-house, before which a buffo disports, a tumbler stands on hishead, or a juggler mystifies; and all for a sequin!
The Place of St. Marc, at the period of our story, still presented themost brilliant spectacle of the kind in Europe. Not a spot was moredistinguished for elegance, luxury, and enjoyment. It was indeed theinner shrine of the temple of pleasure, and very strange and amusingwould be the annals of its picturesque arcades. We must not, however,step behind their blue awnings, but content ourselves with theexterior scene; and certainly the Place of St. Marc, with thevariegated splendour of its Christian mosque, the ornate architectureof its buildings, its diversified population, a tribute from everyshore of the midland sea, and where the noble Venetian, in his robeof crimson silk, and long white peruque, might be jostled by theSclavonian with his target, and the Albanian in his kilt, while theTurk, sitting cross-legged on his Persian carpet, smoked his longchibouque with serene gravity, and the mild Armenian glided by himwith a low reverence, presented an aspect under a Venetian moon suchas we shall not easily find again in Christendom, and, in spite of thedying glory and the neighbouring vice, was pervaded with an air ofromance and refinement, compared with which the glittering dissipationof Paris, even in its liveliest and most graceful hours, assumes acharacter alike coarse and commonplace.
It is the hour of love and of faro; now is the hour to press your suitand to break a bank; to glide from the apartment of rapture into thechamber of chance. Thus a noble Venetian contrived to pass the night,in alternations of excitement that in general left him sufficientlyserious for the morrow's council. For more vulgar tastes there was theminstrel, the conjuror, and the story-teller, goblets of Cyprus wine,flasks of sherbet, and confectionery that dazzled like diamonds. Andfor every one, from the grave senator to the gay gondolier, there wasan atmosphere in itself a spell, and which, after all, has more to dowith human happiness than all the accidents of fortune and all thearts of government.
Amid this gay and brilliant multitude, one human being stood alone.Muffled in his cloak, and leaning against a column in the porticoof St. Marc, an expression of oppressive care and affliction wasimprinted on his countenance, and ill accorded with the light andfestive scene. Had he been crossed in love, or had he lost atplay? Was it woman or gold to which his anxiety and sorrow wereattributable, for under one or other of these categories, undoubtedly,all the miseries of man may range. Want of love, or want of money,lies at the bottom of all our griefs.
The stranger came forward, and leaving the joyous throng, turned downthe Piazzetta, and approached the quay of the Lagune. A gondoliersaluted him, and he entered his boat.
'Whither, signor?' said the gondolier.
'To the Grand Canal,' he replied.
Over the moonlit wave the gondola swiftly skimmed! The scene was amarvellous contrast to the one which the stranger had just quitted;but it brought no serenity to his careworn countenance, though his eyefor a moment kindled as he looked upon the moon, that was sailing inthe cloudless heaven with a single star by her side.
They had soon entered the Grand Canal, and the gondolier looked to hisemployer for instructions. 'Row opposite to the Manfrini palace,' saidthe stranger, 'and rest upon your oar.'
The blinds of the great window of the palace were withdrawn.Distinctly might be recognised a female figure bending over therecumbent form of a girl. An hour passed away and still the gondolawas motionless, and still the silent stranger gazed on the inmates ofthe palace. A servant now came forward and closed the curtain of thechamber. The stranger sighed, and waving his hand to the gondolier,bade him return to the Lagune.