I looked proudly at her as she walked by my side. It is not the custom to offer one's arm to a lady in Venice, but simply to support her by grasping her elbow as you go up and down the white marble stairways which confront you whenever you cross a canal. Juliette was so graceful and lithe in all her movements that I took a childish delight in feeling her lean gently on my hand as we crossed the bridges. Everybody turned to look at her, and the women, who never take pleasure in another woman's beauty, observed with interest, at all events, the refinement of her dress and her bearing, which they would have been glad to copy. It seems to me that I can still see Juliette's costume and her graceful figure. She wore a gown of violet velvet with an ermine boa and small muff. Her white satin hat framed her face, which was still pale, but so exquisitely beautiful that, despite seven or eight years of fatigue and mental unhappiness, no one thought her more than eighteen. She wore violet silk stockings, so transparent that one could see through them the alabaster whiteness of her flesh. When she had passed and her face could no longer be seen, people followed with their eyes her tiny feet, so rare in Italy. I was happy to have her thus admired; I told her so, and she smiled at me with a sweet, affectionate expression. God! how happy I was!
A gayly-decorated boat, filled with maskers and musicians, was coming along the Giudecca canal. I suggested to Juliette that we take a gondola and row near to it, to see the costumes. She assented. Several parties followed our example, and we soon found ourselves entangled in a group of gondolas and skiffs which, with ourselves, accompanied the decorated vessel and seemed to serve as an escort to it.
THE MEETING ON THE CANAL.
A gayly-decorated boat filled with maskers and musicians was coming along the Giudecca Canal. I suggested to Juliette that we take a gondola and row near to it, to see the costumes. She assented.
We heard the gondoliers say that the party of maskers was composed of the richest and most fashionable young men in Venice. They were, in truth, dressed with extreme magnificence; their costumes were very rich, and the boat was decorated with silken sails, streamers of silver gauze and Oriental rugs of very great beauty. They were dressed like the ancient Venetians whom Paul Veronese, by a happy anachronism, has introduced in several devotional pictures, notably in the magnificent Nuptials, which the Republic of Venice presented to Louis XIV., and which is now in the Musée at Paris. I noticed especially one man near the rail of the boat, dressed in a long robe of pale green silk, embroidered with long arabesques in gold and silver. He was standing, and playing on the guitar; his attitude was so noble, his tall figure so perfectly formed, that he seemed to have been made expressly to wear those rich garments. I called Juliette's attention to him; she looked up at him mechanically, hardly seeing him, and answered: "Yes, yes, superb!" thinking of something else.
We continued to follow, and, being crowded by the other boats, touched the decorated vessel just where this man stood. Juliette was standing by my side and leaning against the awning of the gondola to avoid being thrown backward by the shocks we often received. Suddenly this man leaned toward Juliette as if to see her more distinctly, passed his guitar to his neighbor, tore off his black mask and turned toward us again. I saw his face, which was beautiful and noble, if ever human face was. Juliette did not see him. Thereupon he called her name in an undertone, and she started as if she had received an electric shock.
"Juliette!" he repeated in a louder voice.
"Leoni!" she cried, frantic with joy.