Free The Bravo by James Fenimore Cooper Page A

receded from the open
window, and withdrew a step, in alarm.
    "Is there a boat beneath?" demanded her companion, whose glance was
unavoidably attracted to the movement.
    "The water was never more quiet. But thou hearest those strains of the
hautboys?"
    "Are they so rare on the canals, that they drive thee from the balcony?"
    "There are cavaliers beneath the windows of the Mentoni palace;
doubtless they compliment our friend Olivia."
    "Even that gallantry is common. Thou knowest that Olivia is shortly to
be united to her kinsman, and he takes the usual means to show his
admiration."
    "Dost thou not find this public announcement of a passion painful? Were
I to be wooed, I could wish it might only be to my own ear."
    "That is an unhappy sentiment for one whose hand is in the gift of the
Senate! I fear that a maiden of thy rank must be content to hear her
beauty extolled and her merits sung, if not exaggerated, even by
hirelings beneath a balcony."
    "I would that they were done!" exclaimed Violetta, stopping her ears.
"None know the excellence of our friend better than I; but this open
exposure of thoughts that ought to be so private, must wound her."
    "Thou mayest go again into the balcony; the music ceases."
    "There are gondoliers singing near the Rialto—these are sounds I love!
Sweet in themselves, they do no violence to our sacred feelings. Art
thou for the water to-night, my Florinda?"
    "Whither would'st thou?"
    "I know not; but the evening is brilliant, and I pine to mingle with the
splendor and pleasure without."
    "While thousands on the canals pine to mingle with the splendor and
pleasure within! Thus is it ever with life: that which is possessed is
little valued, and that which we have not is without price."
    "I owe my duty to my guardian," said Violetta; "we will row to his
palace."
    Though Donna Florinda had uttered so grave a moral, she spoke without
severity. Casting aside her work, she prepared to gratify the desire of
her charge. It was the usual hour for the high in rank and the secluded
to go abroad; and neither Venice with its gay throng, nor Italy with its
soft climate, ever offered greater temptation to seek the open air.
    The groom of the chambers was called, the gondoliers were summoned, and
the ladies, cloaking and taking their masks, were quickly in the boat.

Chapter V
*
    "If your master
Would have a queen his beggar, you must tell him
That majesty, to keep decorum, must
No less beg than a kingdom."
ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA.
    The silent movement of the hearse-like gondola soon brought the fair
Venetian and her female Mentor to the water-gate of the noble, who had
been intrusted by the Senate with the especial guardianship of the
person of the heiress. It was a residence of more than common gloom,
possessing all the solemn but stately magnificence which then
characterized the private dwellings of the patricians in that city of
riches and pride. Its magnitude and architecture, though rather less
imposing than those which distinguished the palace of the Donna
Violetta, placed it among the private edifices of the first order, and
all its external decorations showed it to be the habitation of one of
high importance. Within, the noiseless steps and the air of silent
distrust among the domestics, added to the gloomy grandeur of the
apartments, rendered the abode no bad type of the Republic itself.
    As neither of his present visitors was a stranger beneath the roof of
the Signor Gradenigo—for so the proprietor of the palace was
called—they ascended its massive stairs, without pausing to consider
any of those novelties of construction that would attract the eye of one
unaccustomed to such a dwelling. The rank and the known consequence of
the Donna Violetta assured her of a ready reception; and while she was
ushered to the suite of rooms above, by a crowd of bowing menials, one
had gone, with becoming speed, to announce her approach to his master.
When in the ante-chamber, however, the ward stopped, declining