La Foscarina fell behind him a step or two, because her resolute heart was weakening; she lifted her face to the sky, now flecked with white clouds like floating plumes. The raucous shriek of a siren whistle prolonged itself in the estuary, becoming fainter by degrees until the sound was as soft as the note of a flute. It seemed to the woman that something rose from the depths of her heart and escaped with that prolonged note, as a poignant grief gradually changes into a tender memory.
"Yes, Spring has already arrived at the Tre Porti."
Once more they floated aimlessly along the lagoon, that water as familiar to their thoughts as is the web to the weaver.
"Did you say at the Tre Porti?" the young man cried, enthusiastically, as if his soul were reawakened. "It is there, near the lower bank, at the setting of the moon, that the sailors take the Wind prisoner, and bring it, chained, to Dardi Seguso. Some day I will tell you the story of the Archorgan."
His air of mystery in describing the action of the sailors made La Foscarina smile.
"What story?" she asked, enticed by his significant tone. "And what does Seguso do here? Has the story anything to do with the master glassblower?"
"Yes, but a master of a former day, who knew Latin and Greek, music and architecture, who was admitted to the Academy of the Pellegrini, whose gardens are at Murano; he was often invited to sup with Titian in his house in the Contrada dei Biri; was a friend of Bernardo Cappello, of Jacopo Zane, and other ancient Petrarchists. At Caterino Zeno's house he saw the famous organ built for Matthias Corvinus, King of Hungary, and his magnificent idea came to him in the course of a discussion with that Agostino Amadi who succeeded in adding to his collection of instruments a true Grecian lyre, a great Lesbian heptachord, rich with gold and ivory. Ah, imagine it, that relic of the school of Mitylene, brought to Venice by a galley which, in passing through the waters of Santa Maura, caught and dragged the body of Sappho as far as Malamocco, like an armful of dead grass! But that, too, is another tale."
Again the nomad woman recovered her youthful spirits enough to smile, pleased as a child to whom one shows a picture-book. How many marvelous stories, how many delightful fancies had not the Visionary conjured up for her on those waters, during the long hours of the afternoon? How many enchantments had he not known how to weave for her, to the rhythm of the oar, in words that made all things seem reality? How many times, seated beside her beloved in the light boat, had she not enjoyed that sort of waking dream in which all cares were banished, carried away on waves of poetry?
"Tell it to me," she begged.