“Then it is the beauty of Venice that impresses you both?” he was saying. “The beauty! I am weary of the cry. Let me tell you that there is something infinitely more appealing to one than beauty in Venice, if one knows precisely how to look for it and where.”
“And what is that?” asked Mrs. Gordon, as St. Hilary paused.
“It is its mystery,” he said impressively.
“Its mystery!” repeated vaguely Jacqueline’s aunt. “And why its mystery?”
“Listen. I wish you to understand. It is night. You are quite alone–you and your gondolier. And it is late–very late. All Venice is asleep. You drift slowly down the Grand Canal. You hear nothing but the weird cry, ‘stai-li oh,’ as a gondolier approaches a corner. Above are the stars, and in the dark waters about you are stars–a thousand of them–reflected in a thousand rivulets. On this side and on that–dumb as the dead–are the despoiled palaces. They suffer in silence. They are desecrated. Their glory is departed. Some of them are lodging-houses, a glass-factory, a post-office, a shop of cheap and false antiquities. But Pesaro and Contarini once dwelt in them. Titian and Giorgione adorned their walls. Within was the splendor of the Renaissance–cloth of gold–priceless tapestries–bronzes–pictures–treasures of the East–of Constantinople, of far-off Tartary. Everything of beauty in the whole world found its way at some time within those barred gates.
“But where is it now–all that treasure, that beauty? Has every temple been ravaged? Has the vandal prowled in the very holy of holies? Are only the bare walls left? Only the very skeletons of all that pride of the flesh? Or, somewhere, hidden perhaps centuries ago–in some dark cranny–in some secret chamber–is there some forgotten masterpiece–some beauty of cunning hand, some jewel patiently waiting for one to pluck it from its obscurity? There must be. I know there is. Do you hear? I say I know. There, madame, you have for me the mystery of Venice.”
“For you,” placidly replied Mrs. Gordon, “simply because you are a dealer in antiquities. But why is Venice in that regard more mysterious than other great cities?”
I thought Mrs. Gordon right. St. Hilary’s enthusiasm was far-fetched. The dapper little man, with his black, snapping eyes, his face the color of parchment, and lined as the palm of one’s hand, agile as a puppet on strings, neat as a tailor’s model, was in earnest, absurdly in earnest, in this idle, quaint fancy of his.
“Perhaps so,” he sighed. “Say that it is the passion of the collector that talks and not the sober judgment of the dealer. And yet, and yet, it is this hope that sends me to impossible places in Persia, to Burma. Yes; it has brought me now to Venice.”
“To Venice!” I cried, astonished. “You allow yourself to be mastered by a whim, as vague, as visionary as this?”