‘Air, air!’ demanded my heart, rent with the horrors of this place; and, entering the gondola, I flew with the speed of an arrow from the pale-red old palace, and from the columns of St. Theodoret and the Venetian lion, forth over the living, green water to the lagoons and Lido, that I might breathe the fresh air of the sea,—and I found a churchyard.
Here is the stranger, the Protestant, buried, far from his native country,—buried upon a little strip of land among the waves, which day by day seem to rend away more and more of its small remains. The billows alone wept. Here often sat the fisherman’s bride or wife, waiting for the lover or the husband, who had gone out fishing upon the uncertain sea. The storm arose, and rested again upon its strong pinions; and the woman sang Tasso’s songs, and listened to hear whether the man replied. But Love gave no return in song; alone she sat there, and looked out over the silent sea. Then, also, her lips became silent; her eye saw only the white bones of the dead in the sand; she heard only the hollow booming of the billows, whilst night ascended over the dead, silent Venice.
The dark picture filled my thoughts, my whole state of mind gave it a strong colouring. Solemn as a church reminding of graves, and the invisible saints stood before me the entire scene. Flaminia’s words resounded in my ear, that the poet, who was a prophet of God, should endeavour only to express the glorification of God, and that subjects which tended to this were of the highest character. The immortal soul ought to sing of the immortal; the glitter of the moment changed its play of colour, and vanished with the instant that gave it birth.... I silently entered the gondola, which bore me toward Lido. The great open sea lay before me, and rolled onward to the shore in long billows. I thought of the bay of Amalfi.
Just beside me, among sea-grass and stones, sat a young man sketching, certainly a foreign painter; it seemed to me that I recognized him. I stepped nearer, he raised his head, and we knew each other. It was Poggio, a young Venetian nobleman.
‘Signore,’ exclaimed he, ‘you on Lido! Is it the beauty of the scene, or,’ added he, ‘some other beauty, which has brought you so near to the angry Adriatic?... Such a blue, billowy plain,’ said he, pointing to the sea, ‘is not to be found in Rome! The sea is the most beautiful thing on the earth! It is also the mother of Venus, and,’ added he, laughing, ‘is the widow of all the mighty Doges of Venice.’
‘The Venetians must especially love the sea,’ said I, ‘regarding it as their grandparent, who carried them and played with them for the sake of her beautiful daughter Venetia.’
‘She is no longer beautiful now; she bows her head,’ he replied.
‘But yet,’ said I, ‘she is still happy under her sway of the Emperor Francis.’
‘It is a prouder thing to be queen upon the sea than a Caryatide upon land,’ returned he. ‘The Venetians have nothing to complain about, and politics are what I do not understand, but beauty, on the contrary, I do; and if you are a patron of it, as I do not doubt but you are, see, here comes my landlady’s handsome daughter, and inquires whether you will take part in my frugal dinner.’
We went into the little house close by the shore. The wine was good, and Poggio most charming and entertaining....