"Hail to the Victorious One!" Stelio stood up and cast his flowers at the threshold of the palace door.
"On! On!" he cried.
Urged by this sudden impatience, the gondolier bent to his oar, and the light craft threaded its way along the stream. A brown sail passed silently. The sea, the rippling waves, the laughing cry of the sea-gulls, the sweeping breeze arose before his desire.
"Row, Zorzi, row! To the Veneta Marina, by the Canal dall'Olio!" the young man cried.
The canal seemed too narrow for the expanse of his soul. Victory was now as necessary to his spirit as air to his lungs. After the delirium of the night, he wished to prove the perfection of his physical nature by the light of day and in the sharp breeze of the sea. He did not wish to sleep. He felt a circle of freshness around his eyes, as if he had bathed them with dew. He had no desire for repose, and the thought of his bed in the hotel filled him with disgust. "The deck of a ship, the odor of pitch and of salt, the flutter of a red sail.... Row, Zorzi!"
The gondolier redoubled his efforts. The Fondaco dei Turchi disappeared from their view, a vision of marvelously yellow old ivory, like the only remaining portico of some ruined mosque. They passed the Palazzo of the Cornaro and the Palazzo of the Pesaro, those two giants blackened by time as by smoke from a fire; they passed the Ca' d'Oro, a divine marvel of air and stone; and suddenly the Rialto bridge showed its ample back, laden with shops, already bustling with life, sending forth the odor of vegetables and fish, like a great horn of plenty pouring out upon the shores the fruits of earth and sea to feed the Queen of Cities.
"I am hungry, Zorzi, I am very hungry!" said Stelio, laughing.
"A good sign when a wakeful night makes one hungry; it makes only the old feel sleepy," said Zorzi.
"Row to shore!"
He bought at a stall some grapes of the Vignole and some figs from Malamocco, laid on a plate of vine-leaves.