All-Saints' day dawned; with faith yet stronger,
On the whole hallowed choir the dame
Doth call--to one she prays no longer,--
That day the wolf devoured the lamb!
A STORY OF VENICE.
BY GEORGE WILLIAM CURTIS.
I.
When I was in Venice I knew the Marchesa Negropontini. Many strangers knew
her twenty and thirty years ago. In my time she was old and somewhat
withdrawn from society; but as I had been a fellow-student and friend of
her grand-nephew in Vienna, I was admitted into her house familiarly,
until the old lady felt as kindly toward me, as if I, too, had been a
nephew.
Italian life and character are different enough from ours. They are
traditionally romantic. But we are apt to disbelieve in the romance which
we hear from those concerned. I cannot disbelieve, since I knew this sad,
stern Italian woman. Can you disbelieve, who have seen Titian's, and
Tintoretto's, and Paolo Veronese's portraits of Venetian women? You, who
have floated about the canals of Venice?
I was an American boy; and my very utter strangeness probably made it
easier for the Marchesa Negropontini to tell me the story, which I now
relate.
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