Venetian Masque

He found Vendramin there, flushed with the triumph he had scored. From the tribune of the vast hall of the Grand Council he had eloquently denounced the Senate's neglect to put the country in a posture of defence. Governors had been appointed: a Proveditor of the Mainland, a Proveditor of the Lagoons, a Proveditor of This and a Proveditor of That; officials had been multiplied, and money had lavishly been spent; but of effective preparation, as they now saw, there had been none.

Passionately he had formulated in detail his demand that troops be raised overseas and brought at once to garrison the cities of the Venetian mainland; that arms be furnished by supply and manufacture; that the Lido forts be properly equipped and manned, and that the same be done by the ships of the Serenissima; in short, that all measures be instantly taken to provide for a state of war to which the Most Serene Republic, despite her ardent and laudable desire for peace, might at any moment find herself constrained.

When he descended from the tribune, a sense of awe pervaded the great patrician multitude assembled under that fabulous ceiling with its gildings of purest gold leaf and its treasures from the brushes of Tintoretto and Paolo Veronese. From their portraits along the frieze the eyes of some seventy doges, who had ruled in Venice since the year eight hundred, looked down upon these their descendants in whose enfeebled hands lay now the destinies of a nation which once had been amongst the most powerful and opulent of the earth.

It was idle to take a vote, for it was known that the applauding barnabotti, of whom there were close upon three hundred present, had been marshalled by Vendramin to support him.

Lodovico Manin, trembling in his ducal chlamys, his countenance grey under the corno—the jewelled gold cap of his princely office—announced briefly and in a lifeless voice which was lost in those vast spaces that the Senate would take steps at once to carry out the wishes of the Grand Council, and for the rest he prayed God and Our Lady to have them in Their Holy Keeping.

The few stout patriots like Count Pizzamano, who placed the glory of the Serenissima above every earthly consideration, could feel at last that their feet were set upon the road of action, which was the road of dignity and honour.

Hence, that night, the Count's caressing manner towards Vendramin; hence the unusual civility towards him of Domenico, who had come from the Fort of Sain' Andrea di Lido to attend the Council; and hence, too, perhaps, the increasing wistfulness which Marc-Antoine detected in Isotta.

After supper, when they sought in the loggia the cool of the summer night, she hung behind, and took her way alone to the harpsichord placed under the window at the long room's other end. The strains of a sweetly melancholy air of Cimarosa's broke forth under her fingers, as if in expression of her mood.

Marc-Antoine, intolerably urged to bear her comfort, quietly rose, and, whilst the others were engrossed in their talk of the day's events and of the things to follow from it, went to join her.

She greeted his approach with a smile at once wan and tender. Her fingers mechanically found the familiar sequence of keys, and Cimarosa's air continued uninterrupted.

Since that morning when so audaciously she had sought him at his lodgings they had not exchanged above a dozen words, and these in the presence of others. But her murmur now was an allusion to his last utterance in that clandestine interview.

'You may order the Requiem, my Marc.'

Facing her across the instrument, he actually smiled.

'Not while the body lives; and it still does. I never trust appearances only.'

'There is more than the appearance here. Leonardo has performed what was required. Soon now he will claim payment.'

'Soon he may not be in a position to claim it.'

Her hands fell idle on the keys a moment. Then, lest the interruption should be observed, she resumed, and with the melody to mask her words, she questioned him.

'What do you mean?'

He had spoken upon impulse, uttering more than he intended. Just as he saw no reason in honour to raise a finger to frustrate Lallemant's scheme for the seduction of the barnabotto leader, so he also felt that he should do nothing to promote it. His part was to stand passively by and wait; to pick up the fruit when another shook the tree. Meanwhile both honour and prudence sealed his lips, even to Isotta.

'Merely that life is uncertain. Too often we forget it, preparing for joys that perish on the way, or trembling at evils that never reach us.'

'Is that all, Marc?' He caught the disappointment in her voice. 'This evil, this ... horror, my dear, is already on the threshold.'

'Often the mere utterance of a thought will raise its poignancy beyond endurance. So now with Isotta. Having given this expression to her besetting dread, she was forsaken by the little courage that had still upheld her.