They embarked for Venice on the Brenta. At each side they beheld
its palaces, grand but dilapidated, like all Italian magnificence.
They are too wildly ornamented to remind us of the antique: Venetian
architecture betrays a commerce with the East: there is a blendure of
the Gothic and Moresco that takes the eye, though it offends the taste.
The poplar, regular almost as architecture itself, borders the canals.
The sky's bright blue sets off the splendid verdure of the country,
which owes its green to the abundant waters. Nature seems to wear these
two colors in mere coquetry; and the vague beauty of the South is found
no more. Venice astonishes more than it pleases at first sight: it
looks a city under water: and one can scarce admire the ambition which
disputed this space with the sea. The amphitheatre of Naples is built
as if to welcome it; but on the flats of Venice, steeples appear, like
masts, immovable in the midst of waves. In entering the city, one takes
leave of vegetation; one sees not even a fly there: all animals are
banished; man alone remains to battle with the waves. In a city whose
streets are all canals, the silence is profound--the dash of oars its
only interruption. You cannot fancy yourself in the country, for you
see no trees; nor in a town, for you hear no bustle; or even on board
ship, for you make no way; but in a place which storms would convert
into a prison--for there are times when you cannot leave the city, nor
even your own house.
Many men in Venice never went from one quarter to another--never beheld
St. Mark's--a horse or a tree were actual miracles to them. The black
gondolas glide along like biers or cradles, the last and the first beds
of human kind. At night, their dark color renders them invisible, and
they are only traced by the reflection of the lights they carry--one
might call them phantoms, guided by faint stars. In this abode all is
mysterious--the government, the habits, love itself. Doubtless the
heart and reason find much food when they can penetrate this secrecy,
but strangers always feel the first impression singularly sad.
Corinne, who was a believer in presentiments, and now made presages
of everything, said to Nevil: "Is not the melancholy that I feel on
entering this place a proof that some great misfortune will befall me
here?" As she said this, she heard three reports of cannon, from one
of the Isles of the Lagune--she started, and inquired the cause of a
gondolier--"It is a woman taking the veil," he said, "at one of those
convents in the midst of the sea. The custom here is, that the moment
such vow is uttered, the female throws the flowers she wore during the
ceremony behind her, as a sign of her resigning the world, and the
firing you have just heard announces this event." Corinne shuddered.
Oswald felt her hand grow cold in his, and saw a deathlike pallor
overspread her face.--"My life!" he cried, "why give this importance to
so simple a chance?"--"It is not simple," she replied. "I, too, have
thrown the flowers of youth behind me."--"How! when I love thee more
than ever? when my whole soul is thine?"--"The thunders of war," she
continued, "elsewhere devoted to victory or death, here celebrate the
obscure sacrifice of a maiden--an innocent employment for the arms that
shake the world with terror: a solemn message from a resigned woman to
those of her sisters who still contend with fate."