ss--but it was pain too. Bring him
here to me, the beautiful boy.'

"'When the old woman said this, Antonio threw himself on his knees, and
cried out like one bereft of his senses:

"'"Oh, Lord of Heaven! only let me not perish _now_, _now_, in my
terrible destiny, until I have seen her and pressed her to my heart."
He implored her to take him to the Dogaressa the very next day. But she
strongly advised him against this, inasmuch as old Falieri went to see
her almost hourly.

"'Many days had elapsed. The Dogaressa was almost completely cured by
the old woman, but it was still impossible to take Antonio to see her.
The old woman comforted him as well as she could, always repeating how
she spoke with the Dogaressa of him whose life she had saved, and who
loved her so fervently. Antonio, tortured by a thousand torments of
longing, passed his time as best he might, in gondolas, and in
wandering about the Piazzas. His steps always led him, involuntarily,
towards the Ducal Palace. One day, by the bridge at the back of it, he
came upon Pietro, leaning on a gaily painted oar near a gondola, which
was dancing on the waves, made fast to a pillar. It was a small
gondola, but beautifully carved and ornamented, and flying the Venetian
standard almost as if it had been the Bucentoro.

"'When Pietro saw his old comrade, he cried out, "A thousand fair
greetings to you, Signor Antonio! Those _zecchini_ of yours brought me
good luck." Antonio, thinking of other matters, asked what the luck
was, and learned nothing less than that Pietro took the Doge and
Dogaressa nearly every evening across to the Giudecca, in this gondola;
for the Doge had a country house there, over against San Giorgio
Maggiore. Antonio gazed hard at Pietro, and burst out quickly:

"'"You can earn other ten _zecchini_, comrade, and more, if you like.
Let me take your place, and row the Doge over!"

"'Pietro thought this could not be managed, as the Doge knew him, and
would trust himself to nobody else. But at length, when Antonio, in all
the wild passion which sparkled from his heart, tortured with a
thousand pains of love, swore that he would spring after the gondola,
and drag it over into the sea, Pietro cried, laughing:

"'"Eh! Signer Antonio, how the Dogaressa's beautiful eyes have turned
that head of yours!" and agreed to take Antonio on board as his
assistant, under the pretext that he was unwell, and unable to do the
heavy work alone. For the Doge never