The mosaic workers; a tale of Venice

Introduction

You reproach me, my child, for always telling you tales with a mournful ending ; or else stories, so long, so long, that slumber comes in the sweetest part. Thinlfyou, little one, that your old father can always have laughing thoughts, after so rude a winter ; after a spring so pale, so cold, so rheumatismal ? Whilst the sad north-wind moans through our old fir-trees, whilst the crane utters her cry of distress at the sound of the Angelus, saluting the pale and icy dawn, my thoughts are only of blood and mourning. Livid spectres dance around my fading lamp, and I rise in anxiety to drive them from your couch. But the time is no more, when children believed in spectres. You smile when w& relate to you the terrors and superstitions which encircled our infancy ; those legends of haunting spirits, which kept us waking and trembling in our beds till the dreary sound of Matins, lull you to peaceful sleep in your cradles. It is then a story quite simple, quite natural, which you wish for, young sceptic ? I will endeavour to recall

INTRODUCTION.

viii

one which the Abbe Panorio related to Beppa, during my stay at Venice. He was of your opinion as to stories. He was satiated with the fantastic; and the confessions of old devotees had given him a horror for sorcerers and visions. He was, besides, but little inclined to the sentimental. The tender passions of romance seemed to him extremely wearisome ; but, like you, he felt interested in the reveries of lovers of nature; in the labours and tribulations of artists. His tales had always a foundation of historical reality ; and, if they sometimes made us sad, they always inculcated a useful moral, or a consoling truth.

One beautiful summer night, by the full soft light of the moon of the oriental seas, seated under a flowery trellis, enjoying the sweet odour of the vine, and the jasmine, we were supping gaily, about midnight, in the gardens of Santa-Margarita. Our party consisted of Assem Zuzuf, an honest merchant of Cor- • cyra. Signor Lelio, first singer at the theatre of La Fenice, the doctor Acroceronius, the charming Beppa, and the handsome Abbe Panorio. A nightingale was singing in its leafy cage, suspended from the trellis which sheltered our table ; whilst the ices went rcynd, Beppa tuned her lute, and sang with a voice even more melodious than that of the nightingale. The jealous bird often interrupted her with a precipitate roulade, a furious burst of melody, or lyrical decla-

INTRODrCTION.

IX mation ; then we extinguished the tapers, and the nightingale ceased its song, whilst the moon shed pale sapphires and glancing diamonds over the crystal and silver vases spread before us. The waves broke in the distance with a voluptuous sound upon the flowery shore ; and the wind brought to our ears, from time to time, the slow and monotonous recitative of the gondolier :

Then the Abbe spoke of the bright days of the republic, and the illustrious deeds of the times of his country’s power and glory; or he would take a pleasure in recalling her hours of show and splendour. Although but young, the Abbe knew more of the history of Venice than the oldest of her citizens. He had studied it in her monuments and* records with the study of love. He delighted to seek in the popular traditions, details ofthe lives of great artists One day apropos of Titian and Tintoretto, he told us the incidents I will now endeavour to recall, if the soft wind which waves our willows, and the lark singing on high her song of ecstasy, are not interrupted by the storm blast ; and if the spring breeze, which half opens the buds of our indolent roses, and which warms my heart, will deign to breathe over us until to-morrow morning.

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THE MOSAIC WORKEES.