"de Musset, Alfred - Tizianello" - читать интересную книгу автора (Musset Alfred De)

pleasure does not awaken so early. At the hour when our shops are opening, the
passers-by crossing the streets, carriages rolling, in Venice, the mist was
playing on the deserted lagoon and covered the silent palaces as with a shroud.
The wind hardly caused a ripple. A few sails appeared far off on the shores of
Fusina, carrying the day's provisions to the "Queen of the Sea." Alone, at the
summit of the sleeping city, the shining angel of the Campanile of Saint Mark's
reared itself from out the twilight, and the sun's first rays gleamed on the
golden wings.
But the innumerable churches of Venice were loudly ringing the Angelus. The
pigeons of the republic, warned by the sound of the bells, the strokes of which
they can count with marvelous instinct, were swiftly crossing the flank of the
Riva degli Schiavoni in flocks, attracted by the grain regularly scattered for
them at that hour in the great square. The mist was lifting, little by little,
and the sun appeared. A few fishermen were shaking their cloaks and began to
clean their boats: one of them was singing, in a clear voice, a verse from a
national air. A bass voice answered from the depths of a merchant ship; another,
further off, joined in the chorus of the second verse. Soon the choir was
organized, each did his part while still working, and a beautiful matutinal
saluted the daylight.
Pippo's house was situated on the bank of the Schiavoni, not far from the Nani
Palace, at the junction of a small canal. At this instant, at the end of this
obscure canal, shone the prow of a gondola. A solitary gondolier was on the
stern, but the frail boat was cleaving the water with the rapidity of an arrow,
and seemed to glide over the thick mirror in which its flat oar was dipped at
regular intervals. At the moment when it passed under the bridge which separates
the canal from the great lake, the gondola stopped. A masked woman, of a noble
and slender figure, came out and went toward the quay. Pippo immediately went
down and advanced toward her. "Is it you?" said he to her in a low voice. For
all answer she took the hand he held out and followed him. Not a single domestic
in the house was, as yet, awake. Without a word, on tiptoe they crossed the
lower gallery where the porter slept. Having reached the young man's room, the
lady sat on a sofa and remained thoughtful for a while. She removed her mask.
Pippo understood then that the Signora Dorothee had not deceived him,and that he
had before him, as she had said, one of the most beautiful women in Venice, and
the heiress of two noble families, Beatrice Loredano, widow of the procurator
Donato.
CHAPTER V
IT is impossible to paint in mere words the beauty of the first glances which
Beatrice cast about her when she had uncovered her face. Although she had been a
widow for eighteen months, she was but twenty-five, and if the step she had just
taken has appeared bold to the reader, it was the first time in her life she had
taken a similar one: for it is certain that until then she had loved no one but
her husband. Besides, this proceeding had so worried her that, so as not to
change her purpose on the way, she had been obliged to summon all her strength,
and now her eyes were at the same time full of love, confusion, and courage.
Pippo looked at her with such admiration that he was incapable of speaking.
Whatever the circumstances, it is impossible to see a perfectly beautiful woman
without astonishment and without respect. Pippo had often met Beatrice when out
walking, and at private parties. He had himself praised her beauty a hundred
times and had heard others do the same. She was a daughter of Pietro Loredano,