Our gondola, far out on the lagoon, hardly moved. But neither Jacqueline nor I, under the red and white striped awning, cared much, and Pietro even dared to light a cigarette.

Silver-gray dome, campanile, and spire gleamed through the golden haze that hung over the enchanted city. A great stillness was over all–only the ripple of Pietro’s lazy oar, and faintly, very faintly, bells chiming.

“I have dreamed of it,” said Jacqueline. “Only the dreams were such futile things compared with the reality. I close my eyes. I open them quickly. I am afraid it will all be blown away, vanish in a single moment. But there it is, your dear, dear Venice–the green garden away up there; the white Riva, basking in the sunlight; the rosy palace; and the red and orange sails, drifting slowly along. We shall return to the Piazza presently, and St. Mark’s will be 2there, and the pigeons, and the white palaces. Oh, there is not a false note to destroy the perfect charm of Venice, not one.”

2

I aroused myself. While Jacqueline had been intoxicated with the beauty of Venice, I had been intoxicated with the beauty of Jacqueline. I must say something, and something prosaic, or I should be forgetting myself.

“Oh, favored of the gods,” I murmured, “to be dead to unpleasant sights and sounds. And yet, not in Paradise, not even in this Paradise, are they quite shut out. Look, there is a penny steamer making its blatant way from the Molo to the Giudecca. And that far-off rumble is the express crossing the long bridge from Mestre. And, whew, that’s the twelve-o’clock whistle at the Arsenal. There you have three notes of progress and civilization in this city of dead dreams and dead hopes.”

Jacqueline turned in her seat and looked at me curiously.

“My dear Richard, will you answer me one question?”

“Gladly, if it is not too difficult. But don’t forget, Jacqueline, Venice is not exactly an intellectual center.”

“Then tell me, please, why it is that when you were in New York, hardly two months ago, you 3talked so charmingly of your Venetian skies and still lagoons that you quite made me long for them. But now, when I am at last under one of your wonderful skies and on your wonderful lagoon, instead of helping me to love it all, and sympathizing with me, you insist on the horrible things that clash–things I would so gladly forget for the happy moment.”

3

 Prev. P 2/162 next