Frederick Britten Austin

“ It was already completely night as I stood on the little steamer, which is the Venetian omnibus, and was borne, swiftly and silently, through the nocturnal mystery of the Grand Canal. More than ever, Venice is romantic at such an hour. Its palaces glimmer above the flood in a perfection that the day denies. ”

“ He had already darted into the blackness of the sotto portico. There was nothing to do but to follow him.
I did so, with the little qualm of trepidation natural at venturing into such an uninviting darkness. Groping my way in, I felt the wall bear round to the left and emerged unexpectedly on a narrow little quay, arched over with a colonnade picturesquely silhouetted against the misty moonlight of a side-canal. Antony was already at the further end. I rejoined him.
“What are you playing at?” I began again. He seemed not to hear me. ”

“ But a gondola would have been wasted on Antony.
“Queer sort of place this!” he remarked as the little steamer bore us swiftly back along the Grand Canal. “Pretty whiffy, too!” The tide was low, and the side-canals are then apt to be a trifle malodorous, I must admit. “Damned unhealthy, I should think, all this stagnant water. Pity they don't light it up a bit more, isn't it? Gives one the creepy creeps. Ugh! Are they all dead, the people in those houses? I had no idea Venice was like this—never been here before, you know.” ”

“ Only here and there, at the sheerly abrupt ends of the narrow alleys that lead into impenetrable blackness, is there a lamp, illuminating with a faint and limited splash of radiance some quaint Gothic corner of carved stone, and throwing on the tenebrous mobile swell of the water a long and broken sinuosity of golden light against which silhouette themselves the clustered pali, the great mooring stakes tapering to their bases, that lean perilously awry in their old age. ”

“ He'll grumble at the exasperating slowness of a gondola and jeer at the lack of paint on the palaces. All he'll see in Venice will be a lot of tumbledown old buildings intersected by dirty, smelly little canals he'll wonder that they don't fill up. Antony's a jolly decent chap, but even the most optimistic revivalist would have to admit that he's got no sort of soul! ”

“ Here strange incarnations to which one could give no name pranced in a vociferous Bacchanal single file through the crowd; there girls in pink dominoes, their hair streaming loose, danced like young mænads in a hand-linked whirling ring with young men who forgot their dignity as ancient Romans; everywhere gracefully promenading was the eighteenth century with cane and knee-breeches, white wigs and hooped skirts. ”

“ I smiled.
“Those old Venetian husbands didn't matter very much,” I said. “It wasn't good form. Every fashionable lady had her cicisbeo—”
He interrupted me.
“Cicisbeo! That's a word I know, somehow. In the dream, you know—not really. A damn fellow that was always hanging round her skirts, carrying her purse for her, holding her fan, making himself indispensable, mincing around like a dancing-master. I had the devil of a row with him—one night in the Ridotto—”
“Tell me about it,” I said. ”

“ The word “gondola” uttered by a foreigner in Venice instantly wakes every Venetian to an intense activity of helpfulness. “Gondola? Gondola, signore? Ecco! Ecco, una gondola!” Half a dozen hands pointed. There was, mercifully, a gondola-stand within fifty yards, just round the corner of the Bocca di Piazza. ”

“ People in fancy dress—knee-breeches and puffed-out skirts, such funny mincing sort of people, all bowing and scraping to one another, and offering snuff with immense politeness. They've all got funny little masks on, too. It's so muddling—one picture is just as real as the other.” His voice died away with his last words, and his eyes closed again.
There was a moment or two of silence, and then once more his lips moved, this time in a stealthy murmur, an ingratiating significant smile totally altering the expression of his face. ”

“ He pointed to the arcade of shops at the end of the Piazza. The church? The Church of San Geminiano which formerly stood on that spot, was demolished by Napoleon in 1807! I doubt if Antony Sinclair had ever heard of it. “She turns again! She beckons! I crave your pardon, friends!” He twisted himself to us for an excited but courtly bow. “I must follow her! Even if I contrive not to whisper to her during the service, I can at worst offer her holy water as she comes out. See! She lifts her mask and beckons!”
He almost knocked over the table as he broke from me and darted off. ”

“ I'm sitting down at a table with a lot of other people—gambling. There are gold coins all over the table. I'm sitting next to a lady—masked, of course; nearly every one is masked—who laughs—such a topping laugh!—just the same whether she wins or loses. All along the table people are playing furiously, throwing out their golden coins or sweeping them back in heaps. Weird looking lot—as if they hadn't any faces in those masks. ”

“ I scanned his honest, bewildered face for the hint of some far-fetched practical joke, inherently improbable though I felt it to be. There never was a more sublimely simple-minded fellow than Antony. He was obviously genuine now in his inability to explain. ”

“ He stopped me.
“One cannot go that way,” he said. “One must go round. There is a canal in between.”
So there was! I had forgotten the canal at the end of the Gardens. But I had never been to the Ridotto, if it still existed, in my life, and I did not know the way round at the back. Antony had, however, already started off in the reverse direction through the Piazza, and I followed him mechanically. ”

“ There he goes—trying to swagger as he pushes off through the crowd. They're all looking at me, those masks, like a lot of great birds without faces, horrid, rather! The little lady is looking up at me. I can just see the smile of her mouth underneath her white silk mask as she speaks—'Grazie inespressible, Sior Maschera Inglese!' I must be masked as well then—of course, she can guess I'm English. She's accidentally knocked off her mask! I say, such a beautiful roguish face! ”

“ Is he playing a trick? There he is! No that's a shadow of one of the columns—moonlight deceives one's eyes. But I'll wait no longer. Don't want to get caught here—like rat in a trap. Which way out? End of colonnade—turn to right—dark—but there will be moonlight in the little street, thank God.... ”

“ But he recovered, came back to England, married an English lady, and died peaceably in 1790.”
“Very interesting, indeed,” I commented. “And, may I ask, does your cousin Antony know anything of that story?”
“Antony!” He laughed scornfully. “My dear fellow, Antony's a very nice chap, but his intellectual activity stops short at his business. I should be surprised if he has ever heard of George Sinclair—indeed, I doubt if any one knows that little story except myself.” ”