In Venice also there were joy-bells ringing; and to overflowing tables, spread in the water-storey of the Ca' Giustiniani, the people of Venice were freely bidden by silken banners floating legends of welcome above the open doorway. But now the expectant people were thronging the Piazza; the fondamenta along the Riva was alive with color, balconies were brilliant with draperies, windows were glowing with vivid shawls, rugs, brocades—tossed out to lean upon in the splendor that became a fête; above them the spaces were crowded with enthusiastic spectators in holiday dress; the children of the populace, shouting, ecstatic, ubiquitous, swarmed on the quay below.
The splendor of the pageant which brought a bride from Murano to the highest patrician circle of the Republic—to that house which held its patent of nobility from those days of the seventh century when an ancestor had ruled as tribune over one of the twelve Venetian isles—was long remembered, almost as a royal wedding fête, and for days before and after it was the talk of Venice.
They were coming over the water to the sound of the people's native songs and the echo of their laughter, the young men and maidens of Murano, in barks that were wreathed with garlands and brilliant with the play of color that the Venetians love.
"Maridite, maridite, donzela,
Che dona maridada è sempre bela;
Maridite finchè la fogia è verde,
Perchè la zoventù presto se perde."[4]
[4] Marry, maiden, marry,
For she that is wedded is ever fair;
Marry then, in thy tender bloom,
Since youth passeth swiftly.
By the port of the Lido many a royal pageant had entered into Venice, but never before had such a procession started from the shores of Murano; it made one feel fête-like only to see the bissoni, those great boats with twelve oars, each from a stabilimento of Murano, wreathed for the fête, each merchant master at its head, robed in his long, black, fur-trimmed gown and wearing his heavy golden chain, the workmen tossing blossoms back over the water to greet the bride, the rowers chanting in cadence to their motion:
"Belina sei, e'l ciel te benedissa,
Che in dove che ti passi l'erba nasse!"[5]
[5] Beautiful thou art, and may Heaven bless thee,
So that in thy footprints the grass shall spring.
A cry rang down the Canal Grande from the gondoliers of the Ca' Giustiniani, who were waiting this sign to start their own train from the palazzo; for the bridal gondolas were coming in sight, with felzi of damask, rose, and blue, embroidered with emblems of the Giustiniani, bearing the noble maidens who had been chosen for the household of the Lady Marina, each flower-like and charming under her gauzy veil of tenderest coloring. It was indeed a rare vision to the populace, these young patrician beauties whose faces never, save in most exceptional fêtes, had been seen unveiled beyond their mother's drawing-rooms, floating toward them in a diaphanous mist which turned their living loveliness into a dream.
The shout of the Giustiniani was echoed from gondola to gondola of the waiting throng, from the gondoliers of all the nobles who followed in their wake, from the housetops, the balconies, the fondamenta, mingled with the words of the favorite folk-song: