We follow them with our eyes, as they go up the steep height over which falls the white foam of the clattering Reichenbach; and they wave their hands toward us and disappear upon the little plateau which stretches toward the crystal Rosenlaui and the tall, still Engel-Horner.
May the mountain angels guard them.
As we journey on toward that wonderful pass of Splugen I recall, by the way, upon the heights and in the valleys, the spots where I lingered years before—here, I plucked a flower; there, I drank from that cold, yellow, glacier water; and here, upon some rock overlooking a stretch of broken mountains, hoary with their eternal frosts, I sat musing upon that very Future, which is with me now. But never, even when the ice-genii were most prodigal of their fancies to the wanderer, did I look for more joy, or a better angel.
Afterward, when all our trembling upon the Alpine paths has gone by, we are rolling along under the chestnuts and lindens that skirt the banks of Como. We recall that sweet story of Manzoni, and I point out, as well as I may, the loitering place of the bravi, and the track of poor Don Abbondio. We follow in the path of the discomfited Rienzi, to where the dainty spire, and pinnacles of the Duomo of Milan, glisten against the violet sky.
Carry longs to see Venice; its water-streets, and palaces have long floated in her visions. In the bustling activity of our own country, and in the quiet fields of England, that strange, half-deserted capital lying in the Adriatic, has taken the strongest hold upon her fancy.
So we leave Padua and Verona behind us, and find ourselves, upon a soft spring noon, upon the end of the iron road which stretches across the lagoon toward Venice. With the hissing of steam in the ear it is hard to think of the wonderful city we are approaching. But as we escape from the carriage, and set our feet down into one of those strange, hearse-like, ancient boats, with its sharp iron prow, and listen to the melodious rolling tongue of the Venetian gondolier; as we see rising over the watery plain before us, all glittering in the sun, tall square towers with pyramidal tops, and clustered domes, and minarets; and sparkling roofs lifting from marble walls—all so like the old paintings—and as we glide nearer and nearer to the floating wonder, under the silent working oar of our now silent gondolier—as we ride up swiftly under the deep, broad shadows of palaces and see plainly the play of the sea water in the crevices of the masonry—and turn into narrow rivers shaded darkly by overhanging walls, hearing no sound, but of voices, or the swaying of the water against the houses—we feel the presence of the place. And the mistic fingers of the Past, grappling our spirits, lead them away—willing and rejoicing captives, through the long vista of the ages that are gone.
Carry is in a trance—rapt by the witchery of the scene, into dream. This is her Venice, nor have all the visions that played upon her fancy been equal to the enchanting presence of this hour of approach.
Afterward it becomes a living thing—stealing upon the affections, and upon the imagination by a thousand coy advances. We wander under the warm Italian sunlight to the steps from which rolled the white head of poor Marino Faliero. The gentle Carry can now thrust her ungloved hand into the terrible lion’s mouth. We enter the salon of the fearful Ten, and peep through the half-opened door into the cabinet of the more fearful Three. We go through the deep dungeons of Carmagnola and of Carrara; and we instruct the willing gondolier to push his dark boat under the Bridge of Sighs; and with Rogers’ poem in our hand, glide up to the prison door and read of—
——that fearful closet at the foot
Lurking for prey, which, when a victim came,