"We will go to San Donato, Zuanino mio," she said caressingly, as he nestled closer, "and I have thee, my bimbo!"
She put the little one gently down as they entered the triangular field where the grass grew green and long—whiteness of sand gleaming in irregular patches between the clumps of coarse blades; but to her this poor turf was something precious associated with that island sanctuary, restful and strange, and she drew a long breath with a sense of suppressed pleasure; for sometimes the water, with its shimmering, uncertain surfaces, wearied her, and unconsciously she craved something more positive.
The child, with uncertain steps, tottered toward the standard of San Marco, which floated proudly from the staff that rose from the rude stone pillar in the center of the campo, where other little ones were playing; in the corner by the well groups of women, from the cottages that bounded the campo on one side, were waiting to draw water for the evening meal, putting down their jugs and going first into the Duomo to say an ave, that the good Madonna might bless the cup.
A few feet only from the Duomo the campanile drew her vision skyward; the film of smoke was lighter here, and the sky seemed nearer—bluer. She turned to her little charge with a beaming face—her moods were so easily wrought upon by phases of nature, but slowly moved by personal influences. "See'st thou, bimbo, how it is beautiful here by the Duomo?"
But the little fellow, in one of his sudden spasms of pain, was striking the air impotently with small, clenched fists, frightening the children who were gathering around him, joining in his cries.
Her caress and passionate forgiveness were always ready for the paroxysm in which she was violently pushed away and combated with struggling feet and hands, before came the period of exhaustion in which he nestled close, panting from weakness. Then she carried him into the church, where, kneeling before the Mother of Sorrows, whose outstretched hands seemed to touch her own in responsive sympathy and gift of calm, she prayed and wept.
"O Holy Mater Dolorosa! Why need the children suffer?—they are so tender and so dear!"
She knelt with loving, protecting arms folded close about the little form now breathing softly and at rest, while an agony of questioning filled her prayer to that beseeching Mater Dolorosa, who, wrapped in the clinging folds of her long blue robe, still leaned forward from the marble background of the apse, compassionate for the suffering ones of earth, with imploring hands and ceaseless dropping tears, symbol of love abounding—a symbol, too, of the dignity of those who suffer and are pure in heart.
This sanctuary was almost a home to the maiden, who came hither to praise or question, for life was full of enigmas. Here, too, where she came from duty and deep devotion, with an intricate sensitiveness of conscience which often rendered her unintelligible to her confessor, she lingered for delight. For the tracery on the arches—the color, the wonderful delicacy of the sculpture—were of that time when art was suggestive and faint, in tint and meaning, like a dream, and its message was always spiritual.
"It is not Thou, O Christ," she said, "who willest pain; but thy children, who are not always loving!"