"It is he, verily, who hath painted our Blessed Lady for the barca of the Lady Caterina; for Madonna Fiorenza is almost a saint—and devote——! She hath the heart of a carità within her."
"They come now from the palazzo of the Cornaro," cried the little peasant-mother eagerly. "Hearest thou, my bimbo?" She moved the restless hands to and fro, the round eyes following the motion. "Clap thy hands for the Regina—thou too, give thy greeting; thou wilt remember it when thou art old. May the holy Madonna bless her!"
The shouts to which Caterina landed were deafening: the children screamed for very ecstasy.
The lagoon, from the Riva far out toward the islands was a dense mass of floating craft of the poorer sort, for below the Piazza there had been no restriction, and the waters were crowded with islanders—old people grateful for this nearness to the pageant, with a chance of separation from the standing, jostling crowd, and proud of lending the color of their pennons and painted sails for their share of the glory of the day. If one could see nothing, it was good to be there to hear the shouting—one would understand the better when Tonio should be taking his bit of supper and free to talk—for he was no good to his old mother now, with watching the tacking and the people. And one might as well be dead as to stay far off in Burano on a day like this! Cielo, but the bells and the shouting were divine! It made one young again.
"A king, thou sayest? Who is the king that the child is going to marry? What is he like, Tonio? I cannot see so far."
"Not there? Holy Mother, but it is a strange wedding! There would have been the gossip of all the islands to answer if there hadn't been two to a wedding when I was young. But the Signori Nobili must have everything after their own new fashions. And to miss his own sposalizio! San Marco is not good to him—he'll never see another half so fine. Is she so young as they say—like Maria, there?"
"Ah, to be Signori just for to-day!" sighed the little peasant-mother in the crowd, as the dazzling cortège passed out of sight into the golden glooms of San Marco. "To go with the nobili into the Duomo where one may behold the Pala d'Oro and the wonderful golden candlesticks which the Serenissimo hath given—to see the Serenissimo take her for the Daughter of the Republic—wonder of wonders! And then to the Palazzo Ducale for the Betrothal—Pazienza, one must wait; they will come again later, my bambini. Ah, but the beauty of it!" For the brave little woman was weary, and there was nothing like enthusiasm for keeping up one's courage, "and Heaven alone knew where Zorzi was with the barca!"
The crowd relaxed and grew restless, losing some of the gaiety of its temper when a weary neighbor settled back a little too roughly on a fellow-shoulder, or the babies who had been put down on the ground to rest lost the last sweet morsels they had been munching and clamored in vain for more—too much excited by the unusual noises and happenings to deign to notice the brothers of the next size who were busily turning somersaults in their behalf.
But it would not be long before the procession came again; for the last of the sumptuous nobles who made this holiday for the people had disappeared under the portico of San Marco.
The bells were chiming now in soft low undertones, a very ripple of sound—like the breath of the summer-breeze upon the sea—stilling the shrill voices of the people in the Piazza, calming the exuberance of their motions. For it was a signal. They knew that within the Duomo, before the great altar where slept their patron-saint, ablaze now with lights and the marvel of the Pala d'Oro which was not for the sight of the eyes save on days of a festa like this, the child of the Cornaro was waiting to be made the Daughter of Venice.