I have
always watched curiously new arrivals in Venice, for no other city in the
world can be entered with such peculiar emotion. I had scarcely looked at
the new comers before I recognized my brother, and was fascinated by the
appearance of his companion, who lay in a trance of delight with the
beauty of the place and the hour.
"His long hair flowed from under his slouched hat, hanging about a face
that I cannot describe; and his negligent travelling dress did not conceal
the springing grace of his figure. But to me, educated in Venice,
associated only with its silent, stately nobles; a child, early solemnized
by the society of decay and of elders whose hearts were never young, to
me the magnetic charm of the young man was his youth, and I gazed at him
with the same admiring earnestness with which he looked at the city and
the scene.
"The gondolas constantly approached. My brother lay lost in thoughts which
were visible in the shadow they cast upon his features. His head rested
upon his hand, and he looked fixedly toward the island on which the
convent stands. A light summer cloak was drawn around him, and hid his
figure entirely, except his arm and hand.
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