"'"How could you think of such a thing?" said the Doge, in anger; and, turning his back to Bodoeri, he looked out of the window. "It is a long time to Ascension Day. By that time, I trust--the enemy being conquered--victory, honour, new wealth, and brighter power will have fallen to the share of the sea-born Lion of the Adriatic. My chaste bride should find her bridegroom worthy of her."
"'"Ah!" said Bodoeri; "you are speaking of the grand Feast of Ascension, when you have to cast the golden ring from the Bucentoro into the waves, and consider that you wed yourself to the Adriatic Sea. But, Marino, you, who are the sea's kinsman, can you think of no other bride than that cold, treacherous element, which you fancy you command, but which rebelled against you in such a threatening manner only yesterday? What pleasure can you imagine there should be found in the arms of such a bride--a foolish, self-willed thing who, as soon as you, gliding along in the Bucentoro, did but gently caress her chill, blue cheek, rose up in storm and wrath? No, no, Marino; my notion is that you should marry the loveliest daughter of earth that can be discovered."
"'"My old friend," said Falieri, in a murmur, "this is a mere senile dream of yours." As he spoke, he still looked out of the window. "An old man of eighty, bent and worn with labour and anxiety, who has never been married, can hardly be capable of love."
"'"Stay," answered Bodoeri; "do not calumniate yourself. Does not winter, for all his rawness and cold, at last stretch arms all longing towards the beautiful goddess who comes to him borne on the wings of the warm, gentle zephyrs? And when he clasps her to his chilled breast, and the soft rapture runs through his members, where are his ice and snow? You say you are nearly eighty; and it is true. But do you reckon man's age merely by his years? Do you not hold your head as high and walk with as firm a tread as you did forty years ago? Or perhaps you feel (though I know you do not) that your strength has begun to fail; that you have to wear a lighter sword; that a rapid pace wearies you; that you cough and fetch breath as you mount the steps of the ducal palace?"
"'"By Heaven, I do not!" Falieri interrupted his friend, leaving the window, and striding up to him with a rapid, vigorous step. "No, by Heaven! I trace nothing of that."
"'"Well then," said Bodoeri, "enjoy, with an old man's enjoyment, and with all your capacity for enjoyment, all the earthly pleasures which are appointed for you. Take to you, as your Dogaressa, the wife whom I have found for you; and in her the ladies of Venice will have to recognise their first and foremost, in beauty and in every virtue, just as the men must acknowledge you their master in valour, intellect, and power."
"'Here Bodoeri began to sketch the portrait of a lady; and he blended the colours with such skill, and laid them on with such vividness, that old Falieri's eyes sparkled, and his lips smacked as if he were savouring beaker after beaker of fiery wine of Syracuse.
"'"And who," he enquired, "is this paragon of loveliness?"
"'"No other than my beloved niece," Bodoeri answered.
"'"Your niece!" cried Falieri. "Why she was married to Bertuccio Nenolo when I was Podesta of Treviso."