"You're very courteous," the girl said with a smile and caught the gift, which he had wrapped in a piece of paper, with both of her hands. "Hey, what a good taste you've got! And still you've said you were poor? Do you know that today I'm particularly in need of some joy? We had to bear a lot during the day, the countess is in a bad mood. Her lover, young Gritti, the senator's son, has shunned her for a full twenty-four hours. She has sent servants to his house; and there he had also gone missing, and they believe that the tribunal had secretly picked him up and taken him prisoner. My countess is beside herself, she's receiving no callers, she's lying on her sofa and weeping like an insane woman, and she has hit me when I tried to comfort her."
"You've no idea what the young man has been accused of?"
"Not in the least, sir. I'd furthermore vow to remain a virgin forever, if he had even the slightest plot against the state on his mind. Good heavens, he was just barely twenty-three, and he had his heart set on nothing else but my countess and perhaps also gambling. But those gentlemen of the inquisition know how to turn cobweb into a rope, strong enough to strangle the strongest throat, and who'd know whether it isn't, this time, only directed against his father, the senator!"
"Speak more carefully of the highest authorities of this city," Andrea said quietly. "They've been appointed by the wisdom of the forefathers, and the foolishness of the grand-children shall not touch them."
The girl looked at him to find out whether he had spoken in earnest; it was not easy to solve the enigma of his features. "Stop it," she said, "you're getting serious, and I won't have it. You haven't been here for a long time yet; therefore, you're respecting the old dignitaries, pronouncing and executing their death sentences, who might seem very dignified when viewed from a distance or as a painting. But I've already seen them several times at close range, at the faro table, when my countess was keeping bank, and I can tell you, they are also just as human as Adam was."
"This may be so, dear girl," he answered, "but they have the power, and it is not a smart thing for a poor citizen like myself to do, to have such an incriminating conversation here through an open window. If the news should be spread to bad houses that the two of us regarded the justice incarnate of Venice as nothing better than a handful of mortal human beings, you, my dear Smeraldina, will be protected by the magic of your beauty; but I'll go the well-known path into a watery grave or will at least exchange my quarters in the Calle della Cortesia for a much more modest chamber in the wells [1] or under the lead roofs."
[1] The prisons under the bottom of the sea.
"Here, you can talk as you please," said the chamber-maid; "there are only a few windows opening onto the canal, and nobody has any business there at this time of day. Over on your side, there is now nothing but the bare wall; because whoever can afford a better place wouldn't choose our murky sewage down there for a mirror. But do you know what I'm thinking? You should come over here for an hour or so; this would surely make our chat more comfortable, and a glass of wine, good muscatel from Samos, and a game of tarock would very much sooth my nerves after the countess having slapped me."
"I'd like to come," he said, "but it would be noticed, and my landlady would hardly let me back in after midnight."
"Not like this," the maid laughed. "Such a roundabout way isn't necessary. I've got a board here, which we can, without much trouble, use to build a bridge. After all, we could reach out for each other's hands across the canal; why shouldn't our feet do the same? Or do you get dizzy?"