"Go through San Polo!" called La Foscarina to the gondolier, bending her head as under a storm, and shutting out the roar with her palms over her ears.
Again Donatella Arvale and Stelio Effreno looked at each other with dazzled eyes. Again their faces, lighted by the glare, glowed as if they were leaning over a furnace or a burning crater.
The gondola turned into the canal of San Polo, gliding along through the darkness. A cold shadow seemed suddenly to fall over the spirits of the three silent occupants. Under the arch of the bridge, the hollow echo of the dipping oar struck upon their souls, and the hilarity of the festival sounded infinitely far-away. All the houses were dark; the campanile rose silent and solitary toward the stars; the Campiello del Remer and the Campiello del Pistor were deserted, and the grass breathed there in untrodden peace; the trees, bending over the low walls of the little gardens, seemed to feel their leaves dying on the branches pointing to the serene sky.
CHAPTER VI
THE POET'S DREAM
"So, for a few hours at least, the rhythm of Art and the pulse of Life have again throbbed in unison in Venice," said Daniele Glauro, raising from the table an exquisite chalice, to which only the Sacred Host was wanting. "Allow me to express, for myself and also for the many that are absent, the gratitude and fervor that blend in one single image of beauty the three persons to whom we owe this miracle: the mistress of the feast, the daughter of Lorenzo Arvale, and the poet of Persephone."
"And why the mistress of the feast, Glauro?" asked La Foscarina, smiling in graceful surprise. "I, like you, have not given joy, but have received it. Donatella and the Master of the Flame: they alone merit the crown; and to them alone the glory must be given."
"But, a short time ago, in the Hall of the Greater Council," said the mystic doctor, "your silent presence beside the celestial sphere was not less eloquent than the words of Stelio, nor less musical than the song of Ariadne. Once again you have divinely carved your own statue in silence, and it will live in our memories blended with the music and the words."
Stelio shuddered as he recalled to mind the ephemeral flexible monster from the side of which had emerged the Tragic Muse above the sphere of constellations.
"That is true, very true," said Francesco de Lizo. "I, too, had the same thought. As we looked at you, we all realized that you were the soul of that ideal world which each of us forms for himself, according to his own aspirations and thoughts when listening to the mystic word, the song, the symphony."