Andrea Delfin

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Andrea Delfin, by Paul Heyse (1830-1914)
Translated by Gunther Olesch in 2000.
(C) 2000 Gunther Olesch.
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Title: Andrea Delfin

Author: Paul Heyse

Translator: Gunther Olesch

Release Date: April, 2002 [Etext #3156C]
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[The actual date this file first posted = 01/14/01]

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Language: English

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Andrea Delfin (1859)

by Paul Heyse (1830-1914)

Translated by Gunther Olesch in 2000 from the HTML files available at http://gutenberg.aol.de/heyse/delfin/delfin.htm

Translator's Comments

Paul Johann Ludwig Heyse was born on March 15, 1830, in Berlin. His father was a professor of philology and his mother was a relative of Mendelssohn-Bartholdy, the composer. Thus, Paul Heyse grew up in an atmosphere of appreciation for the fine arts. He studied classical philology, art history, and Romance philology, obtaining his doctorate in 1852, and became a widely respected authority on literature.

In 1910, Paul Heyse was awarded the Nobel Prize for literature and was ennobled as Paul von Heyse. He died on April 4, 1914, in Munich.

Trying to find out whether English translations of Paul Heyse's work were already available, I turned to the online catalog of the Library of Congress. Aside from many German editions, I found the following books, which seem to contain English translations:

1867-68 Good stories … [various authors: N.Hawthorne, F.J.O'Brien, H.Zschokke, P.J.L.Heyse, W.M.Thackeray.] 1867 L'Arrabiata and other tales. Tr. by Mary Wilson. 1870 The solitaires. A Tale. 1878 In paradise; a novel. 1879 Tales from the German of Paul Heyse. 1881 Doomed. 1881 Fortnight at the dead lake, and Beatrice. 1882 Barbarossa, and other tales. 1882 L'Arrabiata, and other tales. 1882 The witch of the Corso. Tr. by George W. Ingraham. 1883 Children of the world. 1886 Selected stories. 1888 Words never to be forgotten and The donkey. Tr. by Abbie E. Fordyce. 1890 Masterpieces of German fiction. [various authors: R.Lindau, F.Lewald-Stahr, E.Eckstein, A.v.Wilbrandt, P.J.L.Heyse, H.Hopfen.] 1894 The children of the world. New ed., rev. 1894 At the ghost hour. The forest laugh. 1894 At the ghost hour. Mid-day magic. Tr. by Frances A. Van Santford. 1894 At the ghost hour. The fair Abigail. Tr. by Frances A. Van Santford. 1894 At the ghost hour. The house of the unbelieving Thomas. Tr. by Frances A. Van Santford. 1894 Children of the world. 1894 A divided heart, and other stories. [A divided heart.— Minka.—Rothenburg on the Tauber.] Translated into English with an introduction by Constance Stewart Copeland. 1900 Mary of Magdala: a drama in five acts. Tr. by Alexis Irénée du Pont Coleman. 1902 Heyse's L'Arrabbiata in English, ed. Warren Washburn Florer. 1902 Mary of Magdala; an historical and romantic drama in five acts, adapted in English by Lionel Vale. 1903 Mary of Magdala; an historical and romantic drama in five acts, the translation freely adapted and written in English verse by William Winter. 1916 L'Arrabbiata, literally tr. by Vivian Elsie Lyon.

The most striking aspect of this list is that it ends in 1916. It seems as if for the larger part of the 20th century no English translations of Paul Heyse's stories have been published. Perhaps, my translation of "Andrea Delfin", contained in this file, might inspire someone to dig up some of those older translations and to prepare them as etexts for the Project Gutenberg.

According to www.nobel.se/literature/laureates/1910/press.html, Andrea Delfin, written in 1859, is part of a series of novellas, which Paul Heyse had published between 1855 and 1862 in four volumes.

The story of "Andrea Delfin" is set in 18th century Venice and contains a few, mostly Italian, expressions which might require an explanation. I have looked up the most important ones and compiled a very short list here:

bora: A strong, cold wind, blowing from the mountains to the
Adriatic Sea.
Bridge of Sighs: The bridge on the east side of the Doges'
Palace, leading across a narrow canal to the prisons.
doge: Duke, the head of state in Venice from 697 to 1797.
felucca: A small ship with two masts, equipped with sails as well
as oars, a smaller type of galley.
faro: A game of cards, also spelled "pharaoh" in English.
lido: A sandbank, which separates the lagoon of Venice from the
sea. There are several settlements on these sandbanks
(but the one called Lido did not exist yet at the time of
this story).
Piazzetta: A small square near the Piazza San Marco. The
administration of the Venetian republic resided in the
buildings surrounding these squares. The entrance to the
Piazzetta was the ceremonial landing spot for high
officials and is marked by two massive granite columns.
procurator: One of the nine highest ranking officials in Venice,
among which the doge was elected.
Procurators' Offices: These buildings are on the northern and
southern sides of the Piazza San Marco.
Angelo Querini: This is not a fictional character, but an actual
historic person.
Rialto: A corruption of "Rivo Alto", this is the oldest and most
central part of Venice.
sbirro: A member of the secret police.
signoria: The highest public authority in Venice.
tarock: A game of cards, usually played by three people with a
deck of 78 cards.
Terraferma: The land under the control of Venice, outside of the
city itself. It stretched from the borders of Milan in the
west to the Istrian Peninsula in the east and from the Alps
in the north to the Po River in the south.
zecchino: A gold coin (ducat), produced in Venice since 1284,
until the beginning of the 19th century.

—————————————————————————————————

Andrea Delfin

A Venetian novella

by Paul Heyse

Original title: Andrea Delfin, eine venezianische Novelle

[Translated by Gunther Olesch in 2000]

In that Venetian alley which bears the friendly name of "Bella Cortesia", there was, in the middle of the past century, the simple, one-story house of a common family; over its low portal, framed by two wooden spiral columns and a baroque ledge, resided an image of the Madonna in a niche, and an eternal flame flickered humbly behind its red glass. Entering the lower corridor, one would have found oneself at the foot of a broad, steep staircase, which, without any bents, went straight up to the rooms upstairs. Here also, a lamp burnt day and night, which hang by shiny, delicate chains from the ceiling, since daylight could only enter inside, whenever the front door happened to be opened. But in spite of this everlasting gloom, the staircase was the place where Signora Giovanna Danieli, the owner of the house, liked to sit the most. Since the death of her husband, she inhabited the inherited house together with Marietta, her only daughter, and let a few unneeded rooms to quiet lodgers. She maintained that the tears she had cried for her dear husband had weakened her eyes too much to be still able to withstand direct sunlight. But the neighbours said about her that the only reason for her continued presence at the top of the stairs, from morning until nightfall, was to enable her to start a conversation with everyone leaving or entering the house and not to let him pass, before he had payed his dues to her curiosity and her talkative nature. At the time when we are now about to make her acquaintance, this could hardly have been the reason for her preferring the hard seat of the stairs over a comfortable armchair. It was in August of the year 1762. For half a year, the rooms she used to let were empty, and she had only little contact with her neighbours. Furthermore, night had already fallen, and a visit at this time of day would have been quite unusual. Nevertheless, the little woman sat persistently at her post and thoughtfully looked down the empty corridor. She had sent her child to bed and had placed a few pumpkins by her side, to take out the seeds before she would go to sleep. But all kinds of thoughts and ideas had made her forget her task. Her hands rested in her lap, her head was leaning against the banister; it had not been the first time that she had fallen asleep in this position.

Today, it had almost happened to her again, when three slow, but forceful, thumps to the front door suddenly made her start. "Misericordia!" said the woman, as she was getting up, but remained standing there motionlessly, "what's this? Have I dreamt? Could it really be him?"

She listened. The thumps of the knocker were repeated. "No," she said, "it isn't Orso. His knocks sounded differently. It aren't the sbirri either. Let's see what heaven sends." - With these words, she sluggishly walked down the stairs and asked without opening the door who would wish to enter.

A voice answered that there was a stranger outside, looking for lodgings here. The house had been highly recommended to him; he hoped to stay for a long time and the landlady would probably be satisfied with him. All of this had been said politely and in good Venetian, so that Signora Giovanna, in spite of the late hour, did not think twice before opening the door. The appearance of her guest justified her confidence. He wore, as far as she could make out in the gloom, the decent, black garments of the lower middle class, carried a leather portmanteau under his arm, and held the hat modestly in his hand. Only his face made the woman wonder. It was not young, not old, the beard was still dark brown, the forehead without wrinkles, the eyes lively, but the expression of his mouth and the way he talked was tired and worn out, and the short hair was, in a strange contrast with his still youthful features, completely gray.

"Kind woman," he said, "I've disturbed you in your sleep, and perhaps even in vain. For, let me say it right away, if you have no room with a window above the canal, I won't be your lodger. I've come from Brescia, my physician has recommended the damp air of Venice to me for my weak chest; I've been told to live above the water."

"Well, thank God!" said the widow, "so here, for a change, comes someone who'll respect our canal. Last summer, I've had a Spaniard, who moved out, because, as he said, the water had a smell as if rats and melons had been cooked in it! And it has been recommended to you? We do say here in Venice:

"The channel's water will harshly cure what's ill.

"But this has a hidden meaning, sir, an evil meaning, considering how often, at the command of the rulers, a gondola has set out to the lagoon with three persons on board and returned with only two. Let's not talk about this any more, sir - God save us all! But is your passport in order? Otherwise, I wouldn't be able to let you stay."

"I have already shown it three times, kind woman, in Mestre, out on the lagoon at the guard's gondola, and at the Traghetto. My name is Andrea Delfin, my profession is that of a notary's legal clerk, as which I've worked in Brescia. I'm a calm person and never liked having any business with the police."

"Just the better," said the woman, walking up the stairs again, ahead of her guest. "It's better to be unharmed than to be mourned, one eye on the cat, the other on the pan, and it's more useful to be afraid than to suffer the loss. Oh, those times we live in, Signore Andrea! One shouldn't think about it. Thinking shortens one's life, but worry unlocks the heart. There, look," and she opened a large room, "isn't it pretty in here, isn't it homely? There, the bed, I've sown it with my own hands, when I was young, but in the morning one wouldn't know the day. And there's the window going out to the canal, which isn't wide as you can see, but runs just the more deeply, and the other window over there is going out to the little alley, but you'll have to keep it shut, for the bats are getting more and more of a pest. Look there, on the other side of the canal, you can almost reach it with your hand, it's the palace of Countess Amidei, who's as blond as gold, and is just as frequently handed from one man to another. But here I'm standing and chatting, and you've neither any light nor water, and you'd also be hungry."

The stranger had inspected the room throughly with one swift look, as soon as he had entered; he had gone from one window to the other, and then, he threw his portmanteau onto an armchair. "Everything's perfect," he said. "We'll surely agree on the price. Just bring me a bite to eat and, if you should have any, a small glass of wine. Afterwards, I want to sleep."

There was something strangely commanding about his gesture, in spite of the mild sound of his words. Hastily, the woman obeyed and left him alone for a short time. Now, he instantly stepped back up to the window, leant out, and looked down at the very narrow canal, which showed no movement of its black waters, and thus by no means revealed that it had its share in liveliness of the great sea, in the breaking waves of the ancient Adriatic Sea. The palace on the other side rose before him as a heavy mass, all windows were dark, since the front was not facing the canal; only a narrow door opened to this side, down below, closely above the face of the waters, and a black gondola had been chained to a pole before its threshold.

All of this seemed to conform very well to the wishes of the new arrival, who also did not seem less pleased with the fact that through the other window, facing the blind alley, nobody would be able to look into his room. For on the other side ran a windowless wall without any other interruptions than a few ledges, cracks, and cellar-holes, and only cats, martens, and owls would have regarded these gloomy nooks as pleasant and habitable.

A ray of light shone into his chamber from the corridor, the door was opened and, holding a candle in her hand, the small widow entered again, followed by her daughter, who hurriedly had to get out of bed again, to assist her in welcoming the guest. The girl's stature was almost even smaller than her mother's, but nevertheless seemed, due to her most extreme daintiness and the hardly matured slenderness of all shapes, taller and as if she was gliding along on the tips of her toes, while in her face the resemblance, except for the differences accounted for by her age, was recognisable at the first sight. Only the expression on both faces seemed to be incapable of ever taking on any similarity. Between the dense eyebrows of Signora Giovanna, there was a tense trait, as if she was sorrowfully waiting for something, which even all experiences of growing older would not be able to place permanently on Marietta's clear brow. These eyes always had to be smiling, this mouth always had to be a bit open, to release any humorous remark without delay. It was infinitely cute to see how now, in this pretty face, cunningness, surprise, curiosity, and wantonness fought with one another. Upon entering, she tilted her head, the loose braids of which where wrapped in a scarf, to the side, to see the new fellow inhabitant of their house. Even his serious demeanour and his gray hair did not reduce her high spirits. "Mother," she whispered, while putting a large plate with ham, bread, and fresh figs onto the table, "he has a strange face, like a new house in winter, when the snow has fallen onto the roof."

"Be quiet, you evil witch!" the mother said swiftly. "White hair gives false testimony. He's ill, you know, and you ought to be respectful, because illness arrives on horseback, but leaves on foot, and may God protect you and me, for the ill eat little, but the illness devours everything. Just get a little bit of water, as much as we've still got. Tomorrow, we'll have to get up early and buy more. Look, there he's sitting, as if he was asleep. He's tired from his journey, and you're tired from sitting still. This is how different things are in this world."

During this quiet conversation, the stranger had been sitting by the window, holding his head in his hand. Even after he had looked up, he hardly seemed to notice the presence of the dainty girl, who was bowing to him.

"Come on, and eat something, Signore Andrea," said the widow. "He who doesn't eat his supper will suffer hunger in his dreams. Look, the figs are fresh, and the ham is tender, and this is wine from Cyprus, just as good as what the doge would drink. His cellarer has sold it to us himself, an old acquaintance of my husband. You've travelled, sir. Didn't you happen to meet him some time, my Orso, Orso Danieli?"

"Kind woman," said the stranger, pouring a few drops of wine into the glass and cracking open one of the figs, "I have never travelled beyond Brescia and don't know anyone by this name."

Marietta left the room, and she could be heard singing a song to herself in her clear voice, while rushing down the stairs.

"Do you hear the child?" asked Signora Giovanna. "One might think that she wasn't my daughter, though even a black hen might lay a white egg. Always singing and jumping about, as if this wasn't Venice, where it's a good thing that the fish can't talk, for otherwise they'd tell thing, which would make your hair stand on end. But her father was just the same, Orso Danieli, the foreman of Murano, where they make these colourful glasses, like nowhere else in the entire world. `A joyful heart gives red cheeks,' this was what he always used to say. And therefore, he said to me one day, `Giovannina,' he said, `I can't stand it here any more, the air of Venice is choking me, just yesterday, another one has been strangled and hung up on the gallows by his feet, because he's been speaking out freely against the inquisition and the Council of Ten. Everyone knows where he's been born, but not where he'll die, and there are many who think they'd be riding high on their horses, though they're sitting on the ground. So, Giovannina,' he said, `I want to go to France, my craft will win me favours, and petty cash chases the big money. I know my trade, and once I'll have made it out there, you'll join me with our child.' - She was eight years old then, Signore Andrea. She laughed, when she kissed her father for the last time; this made him laugh, too. But I cried, so he had to cry along, though he left quite happily in the gondola, I even still heard him whistling, after he had already turned around the corner. One year passed. And what happened? The signoria asked where he was; nobody from Murano was allowed to practice his craft abroad, so that the tricks of the trade wouldn't be copied; I was told to write him, that he should return or face the death penalty. He laughed about the letter; but the gentlemen of the tribunal didn't think that this was funny. One morning, when we were still in bed, they came for me, and the child as well, they've dragged us up to the cells under the lead roofs, and I had to write him again where I was, I and our child, and that I would stay there, until he came personally to Venice to get me out. It didn't take long, until I received his answer, he didn't feel like laughing any more, and he'd follow the letter as fast as his feet would carry him. Well, I hoped daily that he'd make it true. But weeks and months passed, and the pain in my heart as well as the sickness in my head grew more and more, for it's hell up there, Signore Andrea, my only comfort was the child I had with me, who didn't comprehend any part of this misery, except that she ate little, and felt hot during the day; but nevertheless, she sang, to cheer me up, so that I was utterly overwhelmed to hold back the tears. Only after three months, we were released; they said the glass-blower Orso Danieli had died in Milan from a fever, and we could go home. I've heard others say so, too - but he who'd believe this, doesn't know the signoria. Dead? Would a man die when he has a wife and a child sitting under the lead roofs and is supposed to get them out?"

"And what do you think, happened to your husband?" asked the stranger.

She gave him a look, which reminded him that the poor woman had lived under the lead roofs for several long weeks. "It isn't right," she said. "There are many who are alive and still don't return, and many are dead, but do return. But let's not talk about that. Indeed, if I'd tell you, who'd give me the guarantee that you wouldn't go ahead and tell the tribunal all about it? You look like a galantuomo; but who's still trustworthy, nowadays? One in a thousand, none in a hundred. No offence, Signore Andrea, but you might know what we say here in Venice:

"With lies and tricks you will not die,
With tricks and lies you will get by."

There was a pause in the conversation. A while ago, the stranger had already pushed the plate aside and had eagerly listened to the widow.

"I can understand," he said, "that you don't want to confide your secrets in me. Furthermore, they are none of my business, and I wouldn't know how to help you anyhow. But why, good woman, do you nevertheless put up with this tribunal, under which you have suffered so much, you and the entire people of Venice? For I do know little about the local situation - I never took a deep interest in political matters - but still I've heard that much that just last year, there was an rebellion in this town, which sought to abolish the secret tribunal, that even one of the aristocrats spoke out against it, and that the Great Council elected a commission to deliberate the matter, and that everyone was very excitedly arguing for and against it. Even in my office in Brescia, I've heard about it. And when, in the end, everything remained the same and the power of the secret tribunal came out stronger than ever, why did the people light bonfires then in all of the squares and mocked those aristocrats, who had voted against the tribunal and now had to fear its revenge? Why was there no one to prevent the inquisition from banishing its bold enemy to Verona? And who can tell whether they'll let him stay alive there, or whether the daggers have already been sharpened to silence him forever? I - as I've already said - know only little about this; I also don't know this man, and I feel very indifferent about everything which happens here, because I'm ill and probably won't stay in this colourful world for much longer. But I'm nevertheless astonished to see these fickle people, which one day call those three men their tyrants and rejoice the next day, when those perish who wanted to put an end to this tyranny."

"The way you talk, sir!" said the widow and shook her head. "You've never seen him, that Signore Avogadore Angelo Querini, who has been banished for declaring war against the secret justice? Well so, sir, but I've seen him, and the other poor people have so, too, and they all say that he was an honest gentleman and a very learned man, who has studied the old stories of Venice, day and night, and knows the law like a fox knows the pigeonry. But whoever had seen him cross the street or standing in the Broglio with his friends, leaning against a column with his eyes half closed, knew that he was a nobile from the feather on his hat down to the buckles on his shoes, and whatever he said and did against the tribunal, he didn't do for the people, but for the high and mighty gentlemen. But the sheep don't care, Signore Delfin, whether they are slaughtered or devoured by the wolf, and

"When the hawk fights with the kite,
The chickens can be free tonight.

"You see, my dear, that's why there was so much joy at their failure, when all of the tribunal's rights were confirmed and it wouldn't have to answer to anybody, just as before, except for God Almighty on judgement day and their own conscience every day of their lives. In Canale Orfano, there lie, out of the hundreds who have prayed their last Ave there, ten poor men next to ninety noble gentlemen. But supposed, aristocratic criminals and common ones would be sentenced and executed in public by the Great Council - misericordia! - we'd have eight hundred hangmen instead of three, and the big thief would hang the little one."

It seemed as if he wanted to reply, but uttered nothing more than a short laugh, which the landlady interpreted as an affirmation. At this moment, Marietta entered again, carrying a pitcher of water and a fumigating pan, on which pungently smelling herbs were smoldering and blowing their fumes into her face, so that, as she coughed, cursed, and rubbed her eyes, she made the cutest gestures. With small steps, she carried the fumigant closely by all four walls, which were covered by a huge number of flies and gnats.

"Get yourself away from there, you scoundrels," she said, "you bloodsuckers, worse than lawyers and doctors! Would you also like to eat figs before bedtime and enjoy a sip of Cypriot wine? You might as well laugh if you did and afterwards show your gratitude by stinging this gentleman all over his face, when he's asleep, you sneaky murderers! Just wait, I'll feed you with something which shall put you to sleep without supper."

"Do you always have to babble on, you godless creature?" said the mother, who was following every movement of her darling with overjoyed looks. "Don't you know that an empty barrel makes the loudest sound, and that she who talks much, says little?" - "Mother," the girl said laughingly, "I have to sing a lullaby for the gnats, and look how it works! Here, they are already dropping off the wall. Good night, you loafers, you worst of all company, not paying any rent and yet peeking into all pots. I'll take care of you tomorrow again, if you didn't get enough today."

She once again swung the almost burnt out herbs over her head as if she was casting a spell and poured the ashes into the canal; then, she made a quick bow towards the stranger and rushed out of the room as swiftly as the wind.

"Isn't she a witch, an ugly, naughty creature?" said Signora Giovanna, while getting up and starting to leave as well. "And yet, every female monkey likes her little monkey. And besides, however little and useless she may be, to the same extent she's also eager to help out, and it has also been said about her:

"Before the mother bends her back,
The herb is plucked, in the girl's sack.

"If I hadn't the child, Signore Andrea! But you want to sleep, and I'm still standing here, chatting away like a soup, cooking noisily over a hot fire. Sleep well, and welcome to Venice!"

Unemotionally, he returned her greeting and did not seem to notice that she was obviously still expecting him to make a kind remark about her daughter. When he was finally alone, he continued sitting at the table for some time, and his face grew more and more gloomy and pain-stricken. The light burnt on a long wick, those flies which had managed to evade Marietta's witchcraft, besieged the overripe figs in black clusters; outside, in the blind alley, the bats were flying against the window and collided with the bars - the lonely stranger seemed to be dead to everything around him, and only his eyes were alive.

Only after the clock in the tower of a nearby church had struck eleven, he rose mechanically and looked around. The pungent fumes of the fumigating herbs moved along the ceiling of his low chamber in gray strands and the smoke from the candle joined the cloud above. Andrea opened the window going out to the canal, to cleanse the air. In doing so, he saw a light on the other side, coming from a window, which was only half covered by a white curtain, and through the gap, he could clearly observe a girl, sitting at a table with a bowl and hastily devouring the remains of a large pie, putting the pieces into her mouth with her fingers, and drinking once and again from a small crystal bottle. Her face had a frivolous, but not enticing expression, being no longer in her earliest youth. Her negligent clothing and partially undone hair had something calculating and intentional about it, which was nevertheless not an unpleasant sight. She must have noticed already a while ago that the room on the other side had got a new inhabitant; but though she now saw him at the window, she calmly continued her feast, and only when she drank, she first swung the little bottle in front of herself, as if she was greeting someone who would drink with her. When she was finished, she put the empty bowl aside, pushed the table with the lamp on it against the wall, so that all of the light now fell on a wide mirror in the back of the room, and began to try on one costume after another from a colourful pile of clothes for a masquerade, which lay on an armchair, standing in front of the mirror, so that the stranger, to whom she had turned her back, had to see her reflection just the more clearly. She seemed to like herself rather much, wearing those disguises. At least, she most approvingly nodded to her reflection, smiling at herself, showing her brightly gleaming teeth and lips, frowning to act out a tragic or longing expression of her face, and secretly looking sideways towards her observer during all of this, also keeping an eye on him in the mirror. When the dark figure remained motionless and kept her waiting for the desired signs of applause, she became irritated and prepared her main assault. She tied a large, red turban around her temples, from which, attached to a shiny brooch, a heron's feather stuck out. The red colour actually complemented her yellow taint very well, and she gave herself a deep bow of appreciation. But when, even now, everything continued to remain quiet on the other side, she could not keep her patience any longer, and hastily, still wearing the turban on her head, she stepped to the window, pushing the curtain all the way back.

"Good day, Monsù," she said politely. "You're my neighbour now, as I can see. I only hope that you don't play the flute like your predecessor, who kept me awake half of the night."

"Beautiful neighbour," said the stranger, "I won't bother you with any kind of music. I'm an ill man, who also prefers not to be disturbed in his sleep."

"So!" - the girl replied in a stretched out tone of voice.
"You're ill? But are you at least rich?"

"No! Why do you ask?"

"Because it's so terrible to be ill and poor at the same time.
Who are you, anyway?"

"Andrea Delfin is my name. I used to be a clerk at the court in
Brescia and am looking for a quiet job with a notary, here."

This answer seemed to completely disappoint all of her hopes for the new acquaintance. Lost in thought, she played with a golden necklace, she wore around her neck.

"And who are you, beautiful neighbour?" asked Andrea in a tender tone, which completely contradicted the motionless expression of his face. "To have your charming sight so close to me, will comfort me in my sufferings."

She apparently felt satisfied, since he now turned to that tone which she had a right to expect.

"To you," she said, "I'm Princess Smeraldina, who is granting you the permission to long for her favour from afar. Whenever you'll see me putting on this turban, this shall be a sign for you that I'm inclined to chat with you. For I'm more bored than I could bear, considering my youth and my charms. You must know," she continued, suddenly dropping out of character, "that my mistress, the countess, won't permit me at all to have even the slightest love affair, though she herself changes her lovers more frequently than her shirts. She says that she had always thrown her confidante and chamber-maid out of her services as soon as she would have attempted to serve two masters, her and the little winged god. I now have to suffer under her prejudice, and if I wouldn't find some other satisfaction here, and if there wasn't, from time to time, a kind stranger living over there in your room, who'd fall just a little bit in love with me…"

"Who's the current lover of your mistress?" Andrea interrupted her in an unemotional tone. "Does she receive the high aristocracy of Venice? Are the foreign ambassadors among her regular guests?"

"They usually come wearing masks," Smeraldina replied. "But I know that much that young Gritti is her favourite, she likes him more than any other before for as long as I've been in her service; even more than the Austrian ambassador, who courts her so ridiculously much. Do you know my countess, too? She's beautiful."

"I'm a stranger here, dear girl. I don't know her."

"You should know," the girl said with a clever face, "she wears a lot of make-up, though she isn't even thirty, yet. If you'd like to see her some time, nothing's easier than that. A board can bridge the distance between your window and mine. You'll climb across, and I'll lead you to a place where you'll be able to observe her quite clandestinely. The things I'd do for a neighbour! - But for now, it's good night. I'm being summoned."

"Good night, Smeraldina!"

She closed the window. "Poor - and ill," she said to herself, while pulling the curtains completely shut. "Oh well, still good enough to kill the boredom."

He had also closed the window and was now pacing up and down his room in slow strides. "It's good," he said, "it fits well into my plans. If it should come to the worst, I'll be able to use it to my advantage as well."

The expression of his face proved that a love-affair was the furthest thing from his mind.

Now, he unpacked the portmanteau, which contained only little laundry and a few prayer-books, and put everything into the cupboard, standing by the wall. One of the books fell to the floor, and the stone plate made a hollow sound. Instantly, he put out the light, locked the door, and started to examine the floor more closely in the dusk created by the distant shimmer of Smeraldina's lamp. After some work, he succeeded in lifting the stone plate, which had been lodged into place to fit precisely, but without the use of any mortar, and he discovered a rather spacious hole underneath, as deep as the size of a hand and one foot wide in both directions. Swiftly, he threw off his outer garments and removed a heavy belt with several pockets, which he had worn around his waist. He had already placed it inside the hole, when he suddenly stopped to think. "No," he said, "it could be a trap. It wouldn't be the first time for the police to have such hiding places in rented apartments, to know later on, when searching the premises, where they'd have to poke at. This is just too enticingly arranged to be trustworthy."

He lowered the stone plate back into its place and searched for a safe container for his secrets. The window to the blind alley had bars in front of it, wide enough for an arm to fit through. He opened it, reached outside, and groped along the wall. Directly under the ledge, he found a small hole in the wall, which bats seemed to have inhabited in the past. It could not be noticed from below, and from above, it was covered by the ledge. Without making a noise, he widened the opening with his dagger, breaking out mortar and bricks, and soon, his work had progressed so far that he could easily fit the wide belt inside. When he was finished, his brow was covered with cold sweat. Once again, he tried to feel, whether there was no strap or buckle hanging out of the hole, and then he closed the window. One hour later, he lay, still fully dressed, on the bed and slept. The gnats were buzzing over his face, the birds of the night were curiously flapping about the hole outside, in which his treasure lay hidden. But the sleeping man's lips were closed too tightly, to betray any word of his secrets, even in his dreams.

The same night, a man was sitting in Verona by his lonely lamp and was unfolding, after having carefully locked the shutters and the door, a letter, which had been secretly handed to him today in the dusk by a Capuchin begging for alms, while he had been promenading near the amphitheatre. The letter bore no external inscription. But being asked how the messenger would know that he was putting the letter into the right hands, the monk had answered: "Every child in Verona knows the noble Angelo Querini like his own father." Having said this, the messenger had left. But the banished man, whose exile had been eased by the respect which had followed him into his misfortune, had managed to bring the letter back to his lodgings, unnoticed by the spies watching him, and he now read, while the steps of the guard in front of the house echoed menacingly through the silence, the following lines:

"To Angelo Querini.

"I have no reason to hope that you will remember the fleeting hour, when I met you in person. Many years have passed since then. I had grown up with my sister and my brother in the rural peace of our estate in Friaul; only after I had lost both of my parents, I left my sister and my younger brother. After just a few days, the seductive maelstrom of Venice had swallowed me whole.

"Then, one day, I was introduced to you in Morosini Palace. I still feel your glance, examining us young folks, one after another. Your eyes said: `and this is supposed to be the generation on whose shoulders the future of Venice shall rest?' - You were told my name. Unnoticed by the others, you turned the conversation with me to the great history of the state, to which my ancestors had devoted their services. Kindly, you failed to mention the present and the services which I still owed this state.

"Since that conversation, I read day and night in a book, which in the past I had not even regarded worthy of a single glance, the history of my native country. The result of these studies was that I, driven by horror and disgust, left this city forever, which used to rule over foreign countries and seas, but was now the slave of a deplorable tyranny, being as powerless in external affairs as it is internally miserable and violent.

"I returned to my siblings. I succeeded in warning my brother, in revealing the corruption of life to him, which seemed to be shining so brightly when seen from afar. But I never thought that everything I did to save him and us was to destroy us just the more surely.

"You know the jealousy with which the rulers of the city have always looked upon the aristocracy of the Terraferma. Even in times when it was regarded as an honour to serve the republic, they had never stopped fearing that the Terraferma might sever its ties with the city. Now, after self-made and unavoidable evils had brought about a change in the position of Venice in the world, this fear became the source of the most outrageous intrigues and misdeeds.

"Let me keep silent about what I have witnessed of the fate of those living in the neighbourhood of my province, about the cunning means by which they had sought to crush the sovereignty and independence of the aristocracy of Friaul, about the army of bravi, which had been sent against those who refused to comply, and which had been relieved even from the torments of their own conscience by numerous decrees of amnesty. How they sought to bring disagreement into the families, to poison friendships, to buy treason and betrayal even among those who were most closely tied by kinship, all of this you found out even earlier than I.

"And not for long, the fact that my frivolous habits were remembered in Venice even after I had left could protect me from the suspicion that I also might, one day, pose a threat. When I asked on my sister's behalf for the permission for her to marry a noble, German gentleman, the government categorically refused to give its consent. I and my brother were thought to be in agreement with the Kaiser's politics, and they decided to punish us for this.

"A complaint of the province against its governor, which I and my brother had signed among others, provided the inquisition with the pretext they needed to cast out their nets to catch us.

"My brother was summoned to Venice, to answer for himself. As soon as he had arrived, he was imprisoned under the lead roofs, and for many months, they sought, at times with threats and at times with seductive offers, to get a confession out of him. He had no reason to represent that one act we had committed in a more favourable light; it had been legal. There was nothing else for him to confess, since we had not committed any actions against the state. Thus, he finally had to be released. But they did not even consider to pardon him.

"I myself had asked him in a letter not to depart right away, to avoid raising new suspicions. We would rather be willing to miss his company for another few months. When he finally came, we were to lose him for ever after just a few days. He fell victim to a slow acting poison, which had been mixed into his food in one of these illustrious houses he used to visit.

"The stone over his grave had not even been set up yet, when the governor of the province proposed marriage to my sister. She rejected him, feeling deeply offended by the proposal; her pain made her utter certain words, the echos of which were then to be heard in the courtroom of the inquisition's tribunal.

"A new effort by the aristocracy of Friaul to improve the conditions in the country was discussed. I remained absent from their secret endeavours, since I was convinced of their fruitlessness. But the guilty conscience of the rulers of the republic made them think of me first, being the one who had been affected the most, the one who had to avenge a brother. At night, a gang of hired bravi attacked our remote estate in the mountains. I had only my servants for our defence. When this scum found us well armed and determined not to surrender thus easily, they set fire to the house in all four corners. Together with my people, I carried out a desperate counter-attack with my sister, also carrying a pistol, among us. Then suddenly, a blow to the forehead struck me down and rendered me unconscious.

"Only the next morning, I woke up. The place was an abandoned pile of ruins, my sister had perished in the blaze, some of my faithful servants had been slain, some were driven back into the burning house.

"For many hours, I just lay beside the smoking rubble and stared into the empty void, as which my future appeared before me. Only when I saw peasants in the valley, coming up towards mountain, I picked myself up. One thing I knew: For as long as I was believed to be alive, I would be regarded as an enemy and would be pursued to wherever I might go. The burning tomb was spacious enough; if I was to disappear, nobody would doubt that I also rested in there with those who had been close to me. Wandering aimlessly about the rocky mountainside, I found a wallet belonging to one of my servants, who had been born in Brescia and had travelled to all kinds of places. His papers were in it; I took them, just in case, and fled through the dense, craggy forest. I met no one, who would have been able to betray me. When I knelt, parched with thirst, by a murky lake in the forest, I saw that my appearance could not betray me either. My hair had turned gray during the night; my features had aged by many years.

"Arriving in Brescia, I could pass for my servant without any problems, since he had left the town when he was still a boy and no longer had any relatives there. For five years, I lived like a criminal who would shun the light of day and avoided the company of other men. My spirit had been clouded by a feeling of powerlessness, as if that blow which had struck me down had shattered whatever organ had been in charge of my willpower.

"That it had not been destroyed, but only paralysed, I felt when the news of you speaking out against the tribunal arrived. With a feverish excitement, which rejuvenated me and let me become aware of the energy of my living soul again, I followed the reports from Venice. When I heard about the failure of your high-minded venture, I fell back into the old, mind-numbing depression for just a short moment. In the next moment, something like a fire-storm penetrated all of my senses. My decision had been made, to carry out the work, which you had been unable to perform by the open means of justice and the law, by means of violence and a horrifying kind of self-defence, with the arm of the invisible judge and avenger for the salvation my precious native country.

"Since then, I have incessantly examined this decision and found that my intentions could not be condemned. I am solemnly aware of the fact that it is not hatred against those persons, not revenge for the pain I have suffered, not even the just sorrow for the woe which has come over my loved ones, which arms my hand against the tyrants. What moves me to take on the task of saving an entire enslaved people and to execute the sentence by myself, which in other times the collective will of a free nation used to pronounce over unjust rulers, who are out of the reach of the arm of a judge, - this is neither selfishness nor the vain lust for fame; it is merely a debt I owe for having spent my youth in idleness, and which your look, when we were in Morosini Palace, admonished my to pay.

"May God, whom I beseech to protect my cause, mercifully grant me, as the only replacement for all He has taken from me, that in a liberated Venice I shall once more be able to shake your hand. You will not reject my blood-stained hand, which will thereafter rest in no friend's hand any more; for he who has performed an executioner's duties has been consecrated to a lonely life and has to shun the sight of his fellow men. But if I should perish by my deeds, he whose respect I care for the most will know that the younger generation is also not entirely without men who know how to die for Venice.

"This letter will be delivered to you by a reliable man, who has exchanged the garments of a secretary of the inquisition for a monk's cowl, to atone by means of fasting and prayer for the sins of the republic, for which his pen had to serve. Burn this page. Farewell! Candiano."

After the banished man had finished reading the letter, he sat there for about one hour, regarding the fateful pages in deep grief. Then, he held them over the flame, scattered the ashes into the fireplace, and restlessly paced up and down the room until the early morning, while the unfortunate man, whose confession he had read, had long since fallen asleep like someone whose cause is just and who has heaven on his side. - -

The next day, the late arrival of the street della Cortesia, left the house early. Marietta's happy singing outside in the corridor might have let him sleep a while longer, but her mother's loud scolding, rebuking her for making a racket which could raise a dead man and would end up driving all guests out of the house, encouraged him fully. He tarried at the stairs, where his landlady was already sitting at her usual post, just long enough to inquire where a few notaries and advocates would live, whose names a friend had written down for him in Brescia. Once he had got this information, neither the widow's affectionate worries concerning his health, nor the red bow Marietta had put into her hair, could move him to stay any longer, and though the good woman at other times used to do her best to avoid any social contact of the lodgers with her daughter, it now gave her an almost dreadful feeling that the stranger was so persistently overlooking the dear creature, the apple of her eye. To her, his gray hair was only an insufficient explanation of this strange blindness. He had to have a secret sorrow or feel thus ill that the sight of freshly blossoming life would hurt him. Nevertheless, he walked firmly and swiftly, and his chest was broad and strong, so that the illness, he had talked about, had to reside deeply within his body. The colour of his face also gave no rise to suspicion. Striding through the streets of Venice, he attracted pleased looks from many a woman's eyes, and Marietta also, watching him as he left from one of the upper windows, was not without any feelings for him.

But he tended to his business in a self-absorbed manner, and though he had at length asked Signoria Giovanna for directions and was finally comforted by her, concerning his ignorance of the city, with the saying "Asking will get a person all the way to Rome", he nevertheless now seemed to be able to find his way through the network of alleys and canals without any help at all. He spent several hours visiting advocates, but with them his recommendation by a colleague from Brescia carried little weight, and he seemed to strike them as suspicious on account of his modest appearance. For there was actually a certain pride in the wrinkles of his forehead, telling anyone of the keener observers that he, under other circumstances, would have regarded the work he sought to be beneath his dignity. Finally, he reached a notary who lived in a side-alley of the Merceria and seemed to engage in all kinds of shifty business on the side. Here, he found a place as a clerk at a very modest salary, just on a trial basis, and the hasty manner in which he accepted gave the man the suspicion that he was facing an impoverished nobile, many of which would be willing to do any kind of work, without haggling over the price, just to be able to make a living.

But Andrea was evidently very content with the result of his efforts and entered, since it was already noon, the next inn, where he saw people from the lower classes sitting at long tables without linen, who were spicing up their very simple meals with a glass of turbid wine. He took his seat in a corner near the door and ate the slightly rancid fish without any complaint, while, on the other hand, he left the wine untouched after having taken a sip. He was already about to ask for the bill, when he found himself being politely addressed by his neighbour. The man, whom he had overlooked entirely until now, had already been sitting there for a long time with his half bottle of wine, eating nothing, only taking a sip once in a while, making a sightly wry face every time; but while he gave the impression of being so tired that his eyes had to be half closed, his keen looks wandered all across the large, gloomy room and stuck with particular interest to our Brescian, who, on his part, had noticed nothing remarkable about his observer. He was a man in his thirties with blond, curly hair, whose Jewish descent was not instantly recognisable since he wore black Venetian garments. In his ears, he wore heavy, golden rings, on his shoes, buckles with large topazes, while his collar was wrinkled and unclean, and his coat of fine wool had not been brushed for weeks.

"The gentleman doesn't like the wine," he said in a low voice, dexterously leaning over towards Andrea. "The gentleman seems to have wandered in here only by mistake, where they aren't accustomed to waiting on guests of a better class."

"I beg your pardon, sir," Andrea replied calmly, though he had to force himself to answer at all, "what would you know about my class?"

"I can see it by the way you eat that you're accustomed to a different kind of company than the one you would find here," said the Jew.

Andrea examined him with a firm look, from which the other lowered his spying eyes. Then, a thought seemed to rise in him, which suddenly caused him to approach this obtrusive man with some kind of openness.

"You are a keen observer of your fellow men," he said. "The fact didn't escape you that I had once seen better days and drank an undiluted wine. I also had entered into the better circles of society, though my family is from the lower middle class, and I have only studied a tiny part of the law, without obtaining a degree. This has changed. My father went bankrupt, I became poor, and a poor law-clerk and assistant of an advocate has no right to demand anything more than what he would find in this tavern."

"A learned gentleman has always a right to demand respect," the other one said with a very obliging smile. "It would make me happy, if I could do a favour for Your Grace; for I've always sought the company of learned men, and in my many business transactions, I've rather often had an opportunity to get close to them. With Your Grace's permission, I would like to suggest that we should drink a better glass of wine than what we would be able to get here…"

"I can't pay for any better wine," the other one said indifferently.

"I would feel honoured to demonstrate Venetian hospitality to you, sir, who seems to be a stranger in this city. If there's any other way I could also be of assistance to you, sir, with my properties and my knowledge of the city…"

Andrea was just about to give him an evasive answer, when he noticed the inn-keeper, who stood in the back of the room at the bar, motioning him vivaciously with his bold head to come over to him. Among the other guests, consisting of craftsmen, market women, and bums, there were also several who made clandestine signs at him, as if they would have liked to tell him something, which they could not have dared to say aloud. Under the pretext that he would want to pay his bill first, before he would respond to this polite invitation, he left his seat and approached the inn-keeper, asking loudly how much he would owe him.

"Sir," whispered the kind-hearted old man, "be on your guard against that fellow. You're dealing with a very bad character. The inquisitors are paying him to spy out the secrets of all strangers who might come in here. Don't you see that nobody else would want to sit in his corner? They all know him, and the day will come when he'll be thrown out the door, the God of Abraham would give His blessing to that! But I, though I have to tolerate his presence or else I'd be in trouble, still feel obliged to tell you the truth." "I thank you, my friend," said Andrea aloud. "Your wine is a bit turbid, but healthy. Good day."

With these words, he returned to his seat, took his hat, and said to his obliging neighbour: "Come, sir, if you please. They don't like you here," he added more quietly. "They think you're a spy, as I've been able to notice. Let's continue our acquaintance elsewhere."

The Jew's thin face turned pale. "By God," he said, "they misjudge me! But I can understand why these people are so watchful, for Venice is swarming with the bloodhounds of the signoria. My business affairs," he continued, when they were already in the street, "all of my many connections lead me to so many houses, so that it might appear as if I would pry into other people's secrets. May God let me live for a hundred years, but what do all these strangers concern me? As long as they pay what they owe me, I'd be a dog if I'd talk badly about them."

"But I'd think, Signore - what is your name?"

"Samuele."

"But I'd think, Signore Samuele, that you're thinking too badly about those who spy out the plots and assassinations of the citizens for the benefit of the state and who uncover conspiracies against the republic before they can do any harm." The Jew stopped walking, grabbed the other one's sleeve, and looked at him. "Why didn't I recognise you right away?" he said. "I should have known that you couldn't have come to this miserable tavern by accident, that I should have welcomed you as a colleague. Since when are you in office?"

"Me? Since the day after tomorrow."

"What do you mean, sir? Do you want to play a joke on me?"

"Truly not," Andrea replied. "For I'm perfectly serious in my plans to be accepted into your order as soon as possible. I'm badly-off, as I've told you, and I've come to Venice to improve my conditions. The salary I'm receiving since today as a clerk from a notary is not what I had hoped to obtain here with a bit of good luck and whatever little wits I've got. Venice is a beautiful city, a fun-loving city; but there is a golden sound in the laughter of the beautiful women which always reminds me of my poverty. I think, this can't go on like this forever."

"Your trust honours me very much," said the Jew with a thoughtful expression. "But I have to tell you that these gentlemen don't like accepting strangers, who have just recently arrived in the city, into their service, before they haven't passed a trial period and haven't looked around a bit. If I could help you out with my purse until then - I take low interests from my friends."

"I thank you, Signore Samuele," Andrea replied indifferently. "Your protection is more valuable to me, for which I'd like to ask you hereby in the most sincere manner. But this here is my house; I won't intrude upon you by asking you inside, because I've still more than enough work to do for my new employer. Andrea Delfin is my name. When the time has come for me to be of any use, think of me: Andrea Delfin, Calle della Cortesia."

He shook the strange friend's hand, who kept standing outside for a while longer, taking a close look at the house and the area around it, while mumbling to himself with a face full of doubt and cunning ideas, which revealed that he would not so quickly vouch for the Brescian before he had not passed his trial period.

When Andrea ascended the stairs, he could not get past Signoria Giovanna without answering to her. She was not content with the fact that he had only found such inferior employment. She said she would not rest until he had abandoned it and found a more profitable and more honourable position. He shook his head. "It will do, good woman," he said gravely, "for the little time I've still left."

"What's this talk!" the woman scolded him. "To approach the good and to let the bad come by itself, that's the thing to do for a man, and for honey you are licking, while the vermouth has you spitting. Look at the pretty sun outside, and be ashamed for coming home thus early, while there's music on the Piazzetta and those who are handsome, rich, and noble are strolling up and down the Piazza San Marco. Your place is among them, Signore Andrea, not in this room."

"I'm neither handsome, nor rich, nor noble, Signoria Giovanna."

"Doesn't it give you any joy, to see the beautiful part of the world?" she asked eagerly, looking around to see, whether Marietta might, by any chance, be nearby. "You wouldn't be lovesick?"

"No, Signoria Giovanna."

"Or might you even regard it as a sin to enjoy life? There are those little books, you've got lying on your table; I'm just saying this, because you're the first guest who has brought a religious book into my house, let God hear how I lament this! But nowadays, the young people think: Live audaciously and die piously, this is the way to spoil the devil's fun, and around Christmas time, even the sparrows on the roof are fasting."

"Kind woman," he said with a smile, "you're very worried about me, but nobody would be able to help me. When I'm sitting quietly at my work, I'm feeling most comfortable, and you could do me a favour by getting me an inkstand and a few sheets of paper."

Soon afterwards, Marietta brought what he had asked for to his room, where he was sitting silently by the window, staring into the empty space. She found him in the same position, when she brought him the light in the evening, and being asked by her what he wanted to eat, he only ordered bread and wine. She did not have the courage to ask him, whether the gnats were bothering him and whether he wanted to have the room fumigated again. "Mother," she said, sitting down on the stairs next to the old woman, "I won't go into the room again while he's there. He has such eyes, like the martyr in the small chapel of San Stefano. I can't smile, when he looks at me."

Whatever would she have said, if she had entered the room a few hours later? While the nightly winds were blowing across the canal, he stood at the window, talking to the maid on the other side, eagerly trying to give his eyes a worldly look.

"Beautiful Smeraldina," he said, "I couldn't bear waiting for the time when I was to see you again. Passing by a goldsmith's store, I've thought of you and bought you a pin, a filigree, which is certainly too inferior for you, and is still more genuine than the brooch on your turban. Open the window, then I'll throw it to you, hoping that I'll soon take the same course through the air and fall at your feet."

"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?"

"No, beautiful friend. Just wait a moment, and I'll be ready."

Andrea put out the light, bolted the door of his room, listened whether they were all asleep in the house, and then he went back to the window. Smeraldina seemed to be experienced in building these kinds of bridges, for the board was at hand and, in a few moments, the firm path was bridging the chasm, resting evenly and safely on the ledge on both sides, being just barely wide enough to support a man. She stood on the other side, happily waving at him. Swiftly, he climbed onto the ledge, stepped onto the board, assessing the depth with firm eyes, and with a single, calm step, he had reached the window on the other side. She caught him in her arms as he jumped down, and her lips touched his cheek. But he preferred to put on a shy face and to pretend as if the closeness of his girl-friend gave him the feeling of being confined into the bounds of reverence, to which she reacted with some astonishment. The board was pulled back in, the cards and the wine were taken from the cupboard, and a table was pushed in front of the opened window, by which the strange couple took their seats, conversing in confidence. During all of this, the girl kept on wearing the red turban, which had, while she was building the bridge, slanted a bit to the back of her head, and she had pinned Andrea's present, the filigree, daintily to her breast.

She was just helping herself to her second glass of wine and was scolding her guest for drinking so slowly and not really getting into the spirit of it at all, when a bell was forcefully rung inside the house.

"Look," said the girl, getting up and throwing the cards away in anger, "that's my life; I never have a quiet hour! First, she sends me away, saying that she'd want to undress alone tonight, and now she's disturbing me at such a late time. But be patient for just ten minutes, my friend; I'll be back with you right away."

She slipped out, and he seemed to try to get over his loneliness. He stepped to the window and took a keen look at the wall on the other side between his window and the canal. It was not more than about twenty feet high; almost everywhere, the limestone was weathered due to the dampness, and the bare stones were rough enough to enable him to climb up at them, if needs be. Under the maid's room, as he had already noticed on the first evening, some stairs extended down to the water, and there was a small gondola chained to the high pole on the side, so that a second gondola would only barely be able to pass by. All of this visibly satisfied him.

"I wouldn't have been able to arrange it better for my purposes," he mumbled to himself.

Lost in thought, he looked down the canal, flowing between its steep, windowless banks of houses in perfect darkness. Then, he saw a faint shimmer of light at its very end downstream, moving closer, and, after a while, he heard the sound of oars striking the water. A gondola slowly came closer and stopped down below at the stairs. Carefully, the observer above leaned back, to avoid being noticed, but was still able to see with half a glance that a man rose from his seat and stepped onto the stairs. The knocker below sounded with three heavy blows, and soon afterwards, he heard a voice inside the house, asking from behind the door who would wish to enter.

"In the name of the exalted Council of Ten," was the answer, "open up!"

The servant below instantly obeyed, and the waterfront entrance closed again, after the nightly visitor had passed through.

Shortly afterwards, Smeraldina returned to her chamber, excited, without her turban, and with blushed cheeks. "Did you hear this?" she whispered. "Oh God, they'll take our countess away, they'll strangle her, or drown her, and who'll then pay me the six months' wages she owes me?"

"Rest assured," tender-hearted girl, he said swiftly. "As long as you've good friends, you won't be left on your own. But you'd be doing me a favour, if you'd want to hide me somewhere, where I could hear what the high council wants with your mistress. I confess, that I'm curious, as a stranger may very well be. Furthermore, I might be able to help you and the countess, since I'm working for an advocate and, if things are turning towards a public indictment, I'd like to offer my humble services."

She thought about it. "I'd know an easy way to do it," she said. "The place is safe, and I've been sitting there myself several times, not trusting my ears. But if it would nevertheless be discovered?"

"Then, I'll take all the blame on myself, my love, and no one will find out by which way I had gained entrance into the house. Look," he continued, "here are three zecchini, just in case I won't be able to thank you afterwards. But if all goes well, you shall see that I'll be happy to share what little possessions I've got left with such a clever friend."

Without any ado, she put the gold into her pocket, swiftly opened the door, and listened out into the dark corridor. "Take your shoes off," she whispered, "give me your hand and don't hesitate to follow me to wherever I'll go. Inside the house, they are all asleep, except for the porter."

She put out her light and scurried ahead, through the corridor, pulling him along by his hand. They stepped through several large, dark chambers; then, the girl opened the door of a ball-room, which was faintly lit by the dusky light coming in through three high windows in the front side of the palace. On one side, a narrow staircase went up to the estrade where the musicians would play. "Walk softly!" the girl warned, "the stairs creak a little. I'm leaving you alone here. Up there, you'll find a crack between the panels, through which you'll be able to see and hear sufficiently well. For the reception-room of the countess is right behind this wall. When the visitor will be gone, I'll come back to get you. But don't you stir from this spot, before I'll come."

Thus, she left him alone, and without hesitation, he climbed up the few steps and softly groped his way along the wall, heading for the strip of light, which came through the narrow crack. The large room was separated from the next chamber only by a wooden wall, since, in times of greater splendour, both rooms had formed a single, large festive hall. The shimmering light came from a silver chandelier, which stood below on the table in front of the countess's couch, and cast the portraits on the wall only in a flickering light. Andrea had to get down on his knees, to be able to look down into the room. But however uncomfortable this position was, many would surely have liked to take his place, though they would have cared less for what he got to hear than for what there was to see.

Even though the chamber-maid was right, saying that her mistress was in the habit of using a lot of make-up, she probably did so more for the sake of fashion, than because she would have had to to be regarded as beautiful. She sat on the couch, dressed as if she had not expected such a late caller, the extremely ample hair, with a slight touch of red in its colour, was loosened and unstyled; since she had wept, her eyes were glistening wonderfully, with traces of her tears still being visible on her full, pale cheeks. The man, sitting opposite to her in an armchair and turning his back to Andrea, seemed to observe her keenly; at least, he moved his head not very often and listened to even the harshest words of the beautiful woman, without interrupting her with a single gesture.

"Indeed," the countess said, and her features expressed the same painful bitterness as the tone of her voice, "I'm truly astonished that you still dare to show your face in here, after having violated your most solemn promises in such a shameful manner. Did I perform so many a service for you, just to have you treat me with such cruelty, such hostility, now? Where have you put him, my poor friend, the only one I cared about, and whom you've promised to spare under all circumstances? Was there no one but him, to satisfy your desire to fill the void in your prisons? And what incriminating evidence have you found against him, what sin has he committed against the mighty republic, for which there was no lesser punishment than exile, and none other which would have been less hard on me? For I had openly admitted to you that I had set my heart on him, and that whoever would but hurt a hair on his head would be my enemy. Return him to me, or I'll cut off all ties with you, once and for all, and I'll leave Venice, to seek my friend in exile, and make you feel how much you've lost by this betrayal, this shameful act. Oh, how could I ever allow myself to become the instrument of your schemes!"

"You're forgetting, countess," said the man, "that we've got means to prevent your escape, and that, even if it would be successful, our arm is long and strong enough to be your ruin, wherever you might have thought you had found a refuge. Young Gritti has deserved his punishment. In spite of the warning we had given him, he has kept in steady contact with the secretary of the Austrian ambassador, a young man with knowledge of very confidential matters. The laws of Venice prohibit such a contact most strictly, as you know well enough. Furthermore, a letter by Angelo Querini has been intercepted, in which the careless young man is mentioned with some praise. It was a fatherly disciplinary measure to send him into exile, before he became even more guilty. But at the same time, we know what we owe you, Leonora. And therefore, I've been sent to you, to give you this information and some advice, how you, if you're reasonable, could repair the damage."

"I'm tired," she said harshly, "of listening to your orders. This day has shown me that it'll be my ruin, sooner or later, if I should put my trust in you and delude myself into believing that for all of my sacrifices for your interests, I would ever get any thanks, or even be protected from but the basest of insults and humiliations. I don't need you; I don't want anything from you; it's all over between me and the high government, who casts friends as well as enemies aside with equally little consideration."

"Too bad," he interjected, "that you're still needed, that you're still supposed to do something, and that, therefore, it can't be over between us for now. You'll understand, Leonora, that there would be some objections against letting you, knowing about so many secrets of the republic, travel into foreign countries, where you might soon succumb to the wide-spread fad of our time to write your memoirs. Venice and you are inseparably connected, and you have sufficiently proven that you possess a high intelligence, taming your female whims, so that it won't take elaborate persuasion to reconcile you once again with Venice."

"I don't want ho hear anything about a reconciliation!" she exclaimed passionately, and, once again, tears came to her eyes. "And what good would it do, if I wanted to? I'm good for nothing, I'm unable to grasp even the simplest thought, as long as I don't have my poor Gritti."

"You shall have him, Leonora. But not right away, since his sudden return would foil our plan."

"And for how long shall I be patient?" she asked, regarding him with a deploring look.

"This depends on you," he replied. "How long will it take for you to make a young man lie at your feet, who previously enjoyed the reputation of a paragon of virtue?"

A hint of curiosity and interest became noticeable in her features, which, just a moment ago, had expressed nothing but pain and desperation. "Whom are you talking about?" she asked.

"That German, who was a friend of Gritti, the secretary of the minister from Vienna. You know him?"

"I've seen him at the last regatta. Gritti pointed him out to me."

"His master is a zero and he's the number one in front of it. We have reason to believe that he's secretly recruiting a large following among our opponents and is seeking to exploit, for the benefit of his sovereign, the discontent which the actions of Querini have left behind. He's unusually cunning. Out of the four observers, which we have taken on our pay-roll from among the ambassador's own men, not a single one has delivered even the smallest evidence into our hands yet. The inquisitors are placing all of their confidence in you, Leonora, that you'll find the key to this well locked mind, as you have already successfully done several times before. There was no hope for this, as long as Gritti was in the way. His exile smoothens the path and, at the same time, provides the pretext for you to approach this inaccessible man, who will now surely be moved to greater compassion towards his friend's girl-friend than before, since you're both mourning the same loss. The rest, I'll leave up to the power of your charms, which were never more irresistible than when they met with resistance."

She thought about it for a while. Her face became brighter, her eyes gained a daring, proud expression, her beautiful, full mouth opened a bit, and an absent-minded smile wandered across her lips. "You'll promise," she finally said, "that Gritti will be called back right away, as soon as I've surrendered the other one to you?"

"We promise."

"If that's so, it shall not be long, until I'll demand the fulfilment of your promise." She got up and threw away the handkerchief, which had become wet from the tears she had cried in the course of the day. From his hiding-place, Andrea could only observe her pacing up and down the room for a stretch of the way, since the crack was too narrow to get a full view of the room. He admired her royal posture, while she, as if contemplating new victories, walked slowly across the carpet of the chamber, her eyes wide open, her hair thrown back from her white temples. A strange feeling startled him, when her gaze, aimlessly looking about the upper part of the wall, brushed past him. Involuntarily, he shrunk back, as if it had been possible for her to discover him.

The man sitting in the armchair below got up, but seemed to be immune to her charms, for he continued in the most calm and business-like tone: "The nuncio has frequented your house less often in recent times. You've been to candid about your worldly tendencies, gambling in particular has taken too much room here. We would appreciate it, if you'd, once again, feel some spiritual needs and renew your once so busy acquaintance with his Eminence. For some time, the close relations of the papalists with France have become alarming."

"You can count on me," she replied.

"One more thing, Leonora. The money we still owe you for the supper with Candiano…"

She was petrified, as if she had been bitten by a snake, and suddenly turned pale. "By all saints," she said, "not a word about this, never mention it again, and donate the rest of the money to the church, they shall say Mass for his soul and - for mine. Whenever this name is mentioned, I always feel like hearing a trumpet of judgement day."

"You're a child," said the man. "The responsibility for this supper is ours, not yours. He was a criminal, and only his connections and the respect he got obliged us to execute the sentence in secret. He has died quietly in his bed, and no one was ever able to say that he had brought death with him, when he left your house. Or have you heard anything of the kind?"

She shivered and looked to the ground. "No," she said. "But at night, I'm awakened by a voice, whispering it to me. Oh! If I only hadn't done this one thing, not this one thing!"

"This is a passing delusion, Leonora; you'll get over it. I just wanted to tell you this one thing: the money is waiting for you at Marchesi's. Good night, countess. I see that I've already used too much of your time. Sleep tight, and tomorrow, don't cloud the sun of your beauty, but let it rise on the just as well as the unjust. Good night, Leonora!"

He made a little bow towards her and walked towards the door. Just briefly, Andrea was able to see his face while he left. His features were cold, but not hard, a face without a soul, without passions, only the expression of a powerful will governed the forehead and his eyebrows. He put on a mask and threw the black cloak, which he had left at the entrance, around his shoulders. Then, he left the chamber, without waiting for her goodbye.

In this very moment, Andrea heard the girl's voice down below in the large room, quietly calling him to come down. He obeyed, after having had one last glance at the beautiful woman, who was still standing motionlessly in the middle of the chamber and was staring pensively at the door, through which the man had left. Unsteadily, like a man who had suffered a stroke, he descended from the estrade and followed, without speaking a single word, the girl who was leading the way with swift, but quiet, steps. In her chamber, the light had been lit again, the wine was still on the small table by the window, and nothing seemed to prevent them from continuing their interrupted game. But a frightening shadow had come across the man's face, which even intimidated Smeraldina's levity and quenched all of her hopes for this night.

"You're looking," she said, "as if you had seen ghosts. Come on, have a glass of wine and tell me what has happened. After all, they talked much more calmly than we had feared."

"Oh, certainly," he said, forcing himself to seem unemotional. "Your mistress is very much in their favour, and there is even a chance that you'll soon be payed the wages she still owes you. Otherwise, they were talking so quietly that I understood only a little, and now, I'm more than anything else very tired from kneeling on those hard boards. Next time, I'll appreciate your wine more, my dear girl. But tonight, I must sleep."

"You haven't even told me, whether you're thinking that she's just as beautiful as all the other people say she is," said the girl and tried to pout at her ungrateful, uncommunicative friend.

"As beautiful as an angel or a devil," he mumbled through his teeth. "I thank you, Madamigella, for enabling me to see her. Another time, I'll be good and stay with you, since I've suffered plenty tonight for my curiosity. Good night!"

He leaped up onto the ledge and stepped onto the board, which she had reluctantly put back over the chasm. Standing up there, he looked downstream along the canal, where in the distance, the gondola's light was just now disappearing. "Good night!" he called out to her once more, before carefully descending from the board into his room, while Smeraldina dismantled the bridge and endeavoured in vain to explain how the strangers unusual behaviour, his poverty, his generosity, his gray hair, and his lust for adventure would fit together.

One week passed, without Smeraldina seeing any particular consolidation in her relationship with her neighbour, whom she had thought she had conquered. Only once, after having got the porter on her side, she let him in through the door at night and, wearing a mask, conducted him to the small door on the waterside and entered the gondola with him, which he personally propelled through the dark labyrinth with slow strokes of the oar, in order to finally float along openly on a Great Canal for an entire hour. In spite of the good opportunity, he was not in a loving mood this time either, while she was constantly chatting and was trying to amuse him with tales from the world of the high society, in which the countess played her part. He was told that for the last few days, the secretary of the Austrian embassy had been paying long visits to her mistress, at which, undoubtedly, they were both discussing how they could go about affecting a withdrawal of young Gritti's exile. She said that the countess was in a better mood than ever and had given her generous gifts. Andrea seemed to listen to this only with half an ear and to concentrate solely on steering the gondola. Thus, even the girl had no objections when her taciturn companion turned the boat around and, on the most direct course, directed it back home. Without making a sound, he pushed the narrow vessel close to the pole, attached the chain after they had disembarked, and asked for the key, in order to lock it. She gave it to him and had already gone through the door when he called out to her that, in this haste, the small key had slipped out of his hand and had fallen into the canal. She was actually upset about this, but in her usual, light-hearted manner she comforted her friend, saying that a second key would be likely to be found in the house, and this time, he could not help but bid his farewell to her by giving her a casual kiss on the cheek, when she let him out at midnight through the main portal of the palace.

To his landlady, Signoria Giovanna, he said the next morning that there had been a lot of work to be done for his employer, so that they had to make use of the night. This was the only time he needed the key for the front door. Usually, he was already back at nightfall, only had some bread and wine, and put out his light early, so that the good woman praised him all over the neighbourhood as a paragon of hard labour and decent living. Only one thing she complained about: that he would not conserve his strength and that he, at his age, would not take part in any permissable entertainment, which would cheer him up and prolong his life. Whenever she talked like this, Marietta was quiet and look down into her lap. As soon as the stranger was in his room, she stopped singing, and quite generally gave the impression as if, since the stranger's arrival, she had spend more time pondering than she would previously have done in a year.

In the morning of the second Sunday which Andrea had spent in the widow's house, the woman entered his room in a hurry with a disturbed look on her face, dressed in her best clothes, just as she had returned from church. He sat at the table, was not fully dressed yet, and read in one of his prayer-books. His face was paler than usually, but his eyes were calm, and it seemed as if he disliked being disturbed in his meditation.

"What are you still sitting quietly in your room, Signore Andrea," she called out to him, "while all of Venice is up and about? Hurry up and get dressed and go out into the street for yourself, where you'll be able to see as many horror-stricken faces as there are pieces of grain in a mill. Holy Jesus! That I've got to live to see the day, and I've thought there was nothing else that could happen in Venice to surprise me!"

"What are you talking about, good woman?" he asked in an indifferent tone and put the book down.

She threw herself onto a chair and seemed to be very exhausted. "All the way to the Piazzetta, the crowd has been pushing me," she started again, "and there I saw the gentlemen of the Great Council climbing in droves up the huge staircase in the court of the Doges' Palace and the flags of mourning waving in the windows of the Procurators' Offices. Will you believe it? Tonight, between eleven and midnight, the most noble one of the three inquisitors of the state, the venerable lord Lorenzo Venier, has been murdered on the threshold of his own house."

"Has he lived to an old age?" Andrea asked calmly.

"Misericordia! The way you talk! As if he had merely died in his bed. But of course, you're no Venetian and can't understand what this means: a member of the inquisition has been murdered, one of the tribunal. This is worse than if it had been a doge, of whom many have come to an unnatural death, for the tribunal has the power, and the doge has the robe. But the most horrible part of it is this: engraved in the dagger they've found in the wound it reads: `Death to all inquisitors'; all of them! Do you understand, Signore Andrea? This isn't just some scoundrel being payed by a bravo to do away with a single man, because he's keeping him from a love affair, a powerful position, or something else. `This is a political murder,' my neighbour the spicer told me, `and there is a conspiracy behind it and henchmen and that Angelo Querini with his followers.' He was rubbing his hands while saying this, but I felt my heart shivering in my body, for I don't want to say what I'm thinking, but I know: an evil deed is like a cherry, once one of them has been shook off a tree, twenty more will come after the first, and this blood will cost much more blood."

"Don't they have any lead pointing to the murderer, Signoria Giovanna? What good are those hundreds of spies, they are paying, for the tribunal?"

"Not even the shadow of a lead," answered the widow. "It was a dark night, the bora was blowing, and on the Grand Canal, which runs by his palace, there were no gondolas at all. Then, all by himself, he came home through one of the small alleys, and then, that invisible hand struck him down, and he only lived long enough to scare up the porter with his last sighs. Then, there was a deadly silence throughout the alley, and nobody was in sight. But I know what I know, Signore Andrea. Do you want me to tell you? You're decent and good and won't pass it on to anybody else and won't bring new hardship upon me: I know the hand which has spilled this blood."

He looked at her firmly. "Talk," he said, "if you've got to get it off your chest. I won't give you away."

"Don't you suspect anything?" she said, rising from her seat and stepping up close to him: "Haven't I told you that there are many who are alive and don't return and many who are dead and still return? Do you know it now? He hasn't forgotten about them who've dragged his wife and his child under the lead roofs and tortured them. But, for God's sake, don't say a word about this! If his spirit should have done it, the living would have to suffer for it."

"And what reason do have to believe in this?"

She took a frightened look around the room. "You should know," she whispered, "this house was haunted tonight. I've heard something rushing up and and down the walls, like the footsteps of ghosts, I lay in bed and listened, and there was a noise, secretly buzzing along the canal down below, and a rattling at your window, and scared beasts scurried through the adjoining alley until long past midnight. Only after the the bell had struck one o'clock, it was quiet; I know just too well, who had disturbed them. He came, after he had done it, to greet us, since we hadn't been able to say farewell."

His head had dropped to his chest. Now, he got up and said that he wanted to go out personally, in order to inquire what had happened. He had, as she would know, gone to bed early and had been particularly fast asleep, so that all of this fuss had not disturbed him. And besides, she should keep it to herself, for it was indeed dangerous to have received but a ghostly knowledge of such a crime. - Having said this, he got dressed in a hurry and went out into the city.

Agitated and busy crowds had gathered in the alleys, in a way which was even unusual for important holidays of the republic. Quietly, coming from the centre of the city, hasty groups of curious people moved through the narrow streets towards the Piazza San Marco, and whoever did not join them was at least standing by the door of his house, exchanging meaningful gestures and looks with acquaintances who were rushing by. It was plain to see that something outrageous and horrible had both upset and stunned these people, so that they were all following the general march without an individual plan, most of all being eager to see the event with their own eyes and to touch it with their hands. Nobody talked aloud, nobody laughed, whistled, or sighed even audibly; it was as if those honourable citizens felt the pile-work quaking, on which the city of the lagoon had been built.

In a seemingly careless fashion, Andrea walked among the crowd, his hat pulled deeply over his eyes, the hands placed on his back. Now, he stepped out into the Piazza San Marco, where, in numerous groups, all classes, intermingled with one another, had gathered under the clear summer sky, while at the halls of the Procurators' Offices the crowd streamed on, towards the Piazzetta, extending out to the wide basin of the canal, which is dominated by the two columns. The old Doges' Palace rose majestically above the agitated crowd. Behind the arched windows and in the arcades, weapons could be seen flashing in the sun, and a troop of soldiers had taken their post by the entrance, forming a cordon and presenting their arms to everyone who sought to enter the palace without being a member of the Great Council. For upstairs, in the wide hall, the walls of which are painted with the heroic deeds of the republic, the highest ranks of the nobility sat together in a secret meeting, and the people, shyly crowding down below past the heavy pillars of the old building, seemed to wait impatiently for the result of the meeting; whenever a nobile could be seen at a window, they were all murmuring and pointing and staring up, as if any moment, the verdict on the undiscovered perpetrator of this sacrilegious crime would be pronounced from the balcony. Andrea, who had crossed the long rectangle of this public place all by himself, was now also approaching the Doges' Palace, and in passing, he had a look inside the church of San Marco, where he saw the people standing tightly packed, even outside the portal, and listening to the sermon. Then, he managed to push his way through the crowd, towards the two columns, and stood by the quay of the Piazzetta, lost in gloomy thoughts, facing the busy multitude of black gondolas, the jagged steel bows of which reflected flashes of sunlight across the waves whenever they turned about. The Riva degli Schiavoni, which was to his left, was also densely crowed with people full of expectation. Behind a Turk's turban appeared a red Greek fez, the picturesque cap of a mariner from Chioggia, a triangular hat, or a powdered wig, and likewise the various tongues could be heard chattering all together, while the monotonous calls of the gondoliers, echoing from the waterside, told even the blind that the Great Canal of Venice flowed at their feet.

An open gondola, rowed by two servant wearing liveries with rich golden embroidery, sped by; a lady lay casually on the wide upholstery, her head resting on her hand. The fire of a large diamond ring, flashed among the red shimmer of her hair; her eyes were fixed on the face of a young man, sitting opposite to her, who was eagerly talking to her. Now, she lifted her head up and, with a proud look, examined the seething crowd on the Piazzetta above. "This is the blond countess," Andrea heard some of the people say; he had already recognised her from the start. Shrinking back, as if her mere sight would incur doom, he turned away and found himself looking at a familiar face, nodding at him like an old friend. Samuele stood behind him.

"Did you also go out for a change, Signore Delfin?" the Jew whispered to him in his thin voice. "In vain, I've sought to meet Your Grace again in all those days since. Your live is more secluded than that of a pregnant woman. If you'd like to come with me to where my business is calling me, I could tell you something which you might like to hear. Come! What are you standing here for, like all those other fools, who believe the Great Council would give birth to the salvation of the republic? The rats in the ship won't make it afloat again, once it has run aground. The real pilots have better things to do, now, than to chat. But let's go away from here, I'm in a hurry, and we'll be able to talk more comfortably in the gondola."

He hailed one of the taxi gondolas and pulled Andrea by the arm along with him. They embarked and sat under the black roof, having a full view of the canal to the left and the right through the windows of the narrow cabin. "What do you have to tell me, sir?" Andrea started. "And where are you taking me to?" "Don't go to your notary tomorrow," said the Jew. "It might be possible that someone might come for you, to send you on an errand which would be more profitable for you."

"What are you talking about, Samuele?"

"You know what has happened last night," the other man continued. "It's an outrage, that twelve hours have past since a murder in Venice, and no lead has been found, yet, pointing to the perpetrator. We have lost our credit with the signoria, with the people, with the visitors from out of town, who used to believe that the local police would perform miracles and have been expecting some signs. The Council of Ten thinks that they are getting a bad service. They'll look around for new eyes, which would do a better job peering into all corners. Your eyes, Signore Delfin, shall, if you're still thinking as you did ten days ago, soon get to read a finer hand that your notary's. Therefore, stay at home tomorrow morning. If there'll be something and I'll be able to put a word in on your behalf, I'd be glad."

"My mind is still unchanged; but I almost doubt in my abilities."

"Hush, hush!" said the other one and shook his index finger. "I'd have to be a poor judge of a person's face, or you've got yours under control, and he who's able to conceal what he's thinking has already half guessed what kinds of thoughts others seek to conceal."

"And who'll decide whether they'll be able to use me or not?"

"You must pass an examination by the tribunal; I can't do anything more than tell them that I know you and that I regard you as talented. Until tomorrow, I think, the tribunal will be complete again; right now, the ten are sitting together and are electing the third man. I can tell you, they could give me a lot of money to become an inquisitor of the state - I would still reject the honour. For the inscription on the dagger was not just engraved to pass the boredom, and a soldier sitting on a mine would eat his beard more calmly than one of the three rulers of Venice since last night."

"Nevertheless, there's probably no doubt that the elected man will take the office? Or is he allowed to refuse?"

"Refuse! Don't you know that the republic severely punishes everyone who evades serving it?"

Andrea said nothing and watched the surface of the canal through the hatch with a glum look. Many black gondolas, too numerous to see them all, went into the same direction between the palaces, and there were quite a few which came towards them from the Rialto. Now, both groups met and crowded towards a wide flight of stairs by the waterside, where they landed as quickly as they could and put their passengers ashore. It was Venier Palace and the dead man lay upstairs.

One look and Andrea know where they were. Using all of his willpower, he kept his emotions under control and said: "Do you have any business here, Samuele, or are you just curious to see a murdered inquisitor lain out on his bed of state?"

"I'm on duty," replied the Jew. "But it could be useful for you as well to come along. I'll introduce you to some of my friends, for one out of ten here knows what he's looking for. But let's pretend we wouldn't know each other. You know, I'd bet, that there are probably quite a few of the conspirators among these mournful faces. Who knows, perhaps the killer is just now stepping out of one of these gondolas! He wouldn't be stupid in believing that he was safer here than anywhere else. For I can tell you: In this very moment, the police are searching those houses which ever struck them as suspicious, while everyone has gone out, and the proverb is true: The devil teaches to do it, but not to conceal it."

With these words, he jumped out of gondola and was ready to assist Andrea in getting out. "Do you feel uncomfortable seeing a dead man?" he asked. "You aren't in very high spirits."

"You're mistaken, Samuele," Andrea answered quickly and looked into his face, as if he could not care less. "It is rather that I'm grateful to you for helping me to overcome my indolence. If it wasn't for you, I would hardly be here. Let's go upstairs, to call on this important gentleman, who would hardly have received us while he was still alive. A stately domicile, which he has to exchange for so very narrow quarters in such an untimely fashion! I pity him indeed, though I've never laid eyes on him."

Walking side by side among the large crowd, they ascended the staircase, shrouded in black, and looking down from its top, there was the coat of arms of the house of Venier, dressed in crape, commanding the crowd to silence in the absence of a porter. Inside, in the largest hall, the catafalque had been set up under a canopy, tall cypress-trees touched the ceiling high above, candles on silver candelabra flickered as the air blew from the water across the open balcony through the hall, and four servants of the house of Venier, dressed in black velvet, with crapes wrapped around their shiny halberds, were standing on guard like statues at the four corners of the catafalque. The corpse had been covered with a velvet blanket; the silver fringes touched the floor. The first thing the people saw of the dead man as they entered the hall was his sharp profile with an angry and sad expression, his closed eye turned towards the canopy. Andrea recognised these features. In that night in Leonora's room, he had firmly committed them to memory. But no twitch of his mouth nor of his eyes, which were keenly fixed on the dead man, revealed that the avenger was facing his victim. -