You cheer, people, but you do not know for what. A beautiful toy? Undoubtedly you think so. Shout yourselves hoarse, you who have conquered the sea, do you underestimate the air? Joke, laugh, purblind populace. You have been vouchsafed an awful vision, and you do nothing but clap your hands.
That is over, and here is Pantalone calling to you. "Going—going—I am selling my furniture. Two dozen chairs of fine holland; fourteen tables of almond paste; six majolica mattresses full of scrapings of haycocks; a semolina bedcover; six truffled cushions; two pavilions of spider-web trimmed with tassels made from the moustaches of Swiss door-keepers. Oh! The Moon! The Moon! The good little yellow moon, no bigger than an omelet of eight eggs. Come, I will throw in the moon. A quarter-ducat for the moon, good people. Take your opportunity."
Great gold horses, quietly stepping above the little mandarin figures, strong horses above the whirling porcelain figures, are the pigeons the only birds in Venice? Have the swallows told you nothing, flying from the West?
The bells of Saint Mark's Church ring midnight. The carnival is over.
In the deserted square, the pavement is littered with feathers, confetti, orange-peel, and pumpkin-seeds. But the golden horses on the balcony over the high door trot forward, without moving, and the shadow of the arch above them is thrown farther and farther forward as the moon drops toward the Lagoon.
Bronze armies marching on a sea-shell city. Slanted muskets filing over the passes of tall Alps. Who is this man who leads you, carven in new bronze, supple as metal still cooling, firm as metal from a fresh-broken mold? A bright bronze general heading armies. The tread of his grenadiers is awful, continuous. How will it be in the streets of the glass city? These men are the flying letters of a new gospel. They are the tablets of another law. Twenty-eight, this general! Ah, but the metal is well compounded. He has been victorious in fourteen pitched battles and seventy fights; he has taken five hundred field pieces, and two thousand of heavy calibre; he has sent thirty millions back to the treasury of France. The Kings of Naples and Sardinia write him friendly letters; the Pope and the Duke of Parma weary themselves with compliments. The English have retired from Genoa, Leghorn, and Corsica.
Little glass masks, have you heard nothing of this man? What of the new French ambassador, Citizen Lallemont? You have seen his gondoliers and the tricolore cockade in their caps? It is a puzzling business, but you can hardly expect us to be alarmed, we have been a republic for centuries. Still, these new ideas are intriguing, they say several gentlemen have adopted them. "Alvise Pisani, my Dear, and Abbate Colalto, also Bragadin, and Soranza, and Labbia. Oh, there was much talk about it last night. Such strange notions! But the cockade is very pretty. I have the ribbon, and I am going to make a few. Signora Fontana gave me the pattern."
Columbus discovered America. Ah, it was then you should have made your cockades. Is it Bonaparte or the Cape of Good Hope which has compassed your destiny? Little porcelain figures, can you stand the shock of bronze?
No, evidently. The quills of the Senate secretaries are worn blunt, writing note after note to the General of the Armies. But still he marches forward, and his soldiers, dressed as peasants, have invaded Breschia and Bergamo. And what a man! Never satisfied. He must have this—that—and other things as well. He must have guns, cannon, horses, mules, food, forage. What is all this talk of a Cisalpine Republic? The Senate wavers like so many sea anemones in an advancing tide. Ascension Day is approaching. Shall the Doge go in the Bucentoro to wed the sea "in token of real and perpetual dominion"? The Senate dictates, the secretaries write, and the Arsenalotti polish the brasses of the Bucentoro and wait. Brightly shine the overpolished brasses of the Bucentoro, but the ships in the Arsenal are in bad repair and the crews wanting.
It is Holy Saturday in Venice, and solemn processions march to the churches. The slow chanting of choirs rises above the floating city, but in the Citizen Lallemont's apartments is a jangling of spurred heels, a clanking of cavalry sabres. General Junot arrived in the small hours of the night. Holy Saturday is nothing to a reformed Frenchman; the General's business will not wait, he must see the Signory at once. Desert your churches, convene the College in haste. A bronze man cannot be opposed by a Senate of glass. Is it for fantasy that so many people are wearing the tricolore, or is it politeness to the visiting general? But what does he say? French soldiers murdered! Nonsense, a mere street row between Bergamese. But Junot thunders and clanks his sabre. A sword is a terrible thing in a cabinet of biscuit figurines. Let that pass. He has gone. But Venice is shaken. The stately palaces totter on their rotting piles, the campi buzz with voices, the Piazza undulates to a gesticulating multitude. Only the pigeons wheel unconcernedly about the Campanile, and the great horses stand, poised and majestic, beneath the mounting angels of Saint Mark's Church.