"Yes, it began to love him after a time, particularly because of the scarlet thread that the master wore continually around his bare neck."
"And Perdilanza?"
"She was left alone, and languished in her grief. I will tell you more of her some day. Some day I shall go to the seashore of Palestrina, and I will write this fable for you in the golden sand."
"But how does the story end?"
"The miracle is accomplished. The Archorgan is raised at Temòdia with its seven thousand glass pipes, resembling one of those frozen forests which Ornitio—who was a little inclined to boast of the wonders it had met in its travels—declared it had seen in the land of the Iporborrei. At last comes the day of the Sensa. The Serenissimo, between the Patriarch and the Archbishop of Spalatro, goes out of the harbor of San Marco on the Bucentaur. So great is the pomp that Ornitio believes it must be the triumphal return of the son of Chronos. The fountains are set playing all around Temòdia; and animated by the eternal silence of the lagoon, the gigantic organ peals forth, under the magic fingers of the new musicians, a wave of harmony so vast that it reaches as far as the mainland and even to the Adriatic. The Bucentaur stops, because its forty oars have suddenly fallen at its sides, abandoned by the astonished crew. But suddenly the wave of harmony breaks into discordant sounds, and at last it dies away in a faint murmur. Dardi feels the instrument becoming dumb under his fingers, as if his own soul had failed. What has happened? The master hears only great shouts of jeers and scorn that come to him through the silent pipes—the sound of firing and the uproar of the populace. A group embarks from the Bucentaur, bringing the red-haired man, who bears a block and an ax. The blow is aimed exactly at the scarlet thread; the head falls, and is thrown into the water, where it floats like the head of Orpheus."
"But what had happened?"
"Perdilanza had thrown herself into the cataract! The water dragged her into the machinery of the organ. Her body, with its famous hair, lay across the great delicate instrument, and silenced its musical heart."
"But Ornitio?"
"Ornitio rescued the head from the water and flew away with it toward the sea. The swallows heard of its flight and followed it, and very soon a cloud of black wings and white surrounds the fugitive. All the nests in Venice remain empty after this sudden flight."