"He is only fatigued," repeated La Foscarina. "He needs repose and quiet. And his daughter's singing is very soothing to him. Do you not believe, also, Effrena, in the healing power of music?"
"Certainly," Stelio replied, "Ariadne possesses a divine gift whereby her power transcends all limits."
The name of Ariadne came spontaneously to his lips to indicate the singer as she appeared to his fancy, for it seemed to him impossible to pronounce the young girl's real name preceded by the ordinary appellation imposed by social usage. In his eyes she was perfect and singular, free from the little ties of custom, living her own sequestered life, like a work of art on which style had set its inviolable seal. He thought of her as isolated like those figures that stand out with clear contour, far from common life, lost in mystic reverie; and already, before that impenetrable character, he felt a sort of passionate impatience, somewhat similar to that of a curious man before something hermetically sealed that tempts him.
"Ariadne had for the soothing of her griefs the gift of forgetfulness," said Donatella, "and that I do not possess."
A bitterness perhaps involuntary infused these words, in which Stelio fancied he detected the indication of an aspiration toward a life less oppressed by useless suffering. He guessed at her revolt against a certain form of domestic slavery, the horror of her self-imposed sacrifice, her vehement desire to rise toward joy, and her inborn aptitude for being drawn like a beautiful bow by a strong hand that would know how to use it for some high conquest. He divined that she had no longer any hope of her father's recovery, and that she was saddened at the thought that henceforth she could only be the guardian of a darkened hearth, of ashes without a spark. The image of the great artist rose in his mind, not as he was, since Stelio never had known him personally, but such as he had fancied the sculptor after studying his ideas of beauty expressed in imperishable bronze and marble. His mind fixed itself on that image with a sensation of terror more icy than that which the most appalling aspects of death could have inspired. And all his strength, all his pride and his ardor seemed to resound within him like weapons shaken by a menacing hand, sending a quiver through every fiber of his heart.
Presently La Foscarina lifted the funereal black curtain, which suddenly, amid the splendors of the festival, had seemed to change the gondola into a coffin.
"Look!" she said, pointing out to Stelio the balcony of Desdemona's palace: "See the beautiful Nineta receiving the homage of the Serenade, as she sits between her pet monkey and her little dog."
"Ah, the beautiful Nineta!" said Stelio, rousing himself from his wild thoughts, and saluting the smiling occupant of the balcony, a little woman who was listening to the music, her face illumined from two silver candelabra, from the branches of which hung wreaths of the last roses of the year. "I have not yet seen her this time. She is the gentlest and most graceful animal I know. How fortunate was our dear Howitz to discover her behind the lid of an old harpsichord when he was rummaging in that curiosity shop at San Samuele! Two pieces of good fortune in one day: the lovely Nineta and a harpsichord lid painted by Pordenone. Since that day, the harmony of his life has been complete. How I should like to have you penetrate to his nest! You would find there a perfect example of that which I spoke of this evening, at twilight. There is a man who, by obeying his native taste for simplicity, has arranged for himself with minute art his own little love-story, in which he lives as happily as did his Moravian ancestor in the Arcady of Rosswald. Ah! I know a thousand exquisite things about him!"
A large gondola, decorated with many-colored lanterns, and laden with singers and musicians, had stopped beneath the balcony of Desdemona's house. The old song of brief youth and fleeting beauty rose sweetly toward the little woman who listened with her child-like smile, sitting between the monkey and the lapdog, making a group like one of Pietro Longhi's prints.
Do beni vu gharè
Beleza e zoventù;
Co i va no i torna più,
Nina mia cara....