ound me thus, and made me follow him home. He spoke to me with
unusual solemnity in his voice, but with great kindness. I was ill.
Travelling, change of scene, would do me good. I was to move about for a
year, and then return to show what the world had made of me.

I went to Venice. Dreary, sad and quiet seemed to me the Queen of the
Adriatic. In the gently swaying gondola I thought with bitterness of
Annunciata. I felt a grudge even against innocent, pious Flaminia, who
preferred the convent to my strong, brotherly love. Then my thoughts
floated between Lara, the image of beauty, and Santa, the daughter of
sin.

One day I took a boat to the Lido to breathe the fresh air of the sea.
On the beach I came across Poggio, a young Venetian nobleman with whom I
had made friends; and as a storm hung threatening in the sky I decided
to accept his invitation for dinner. We watched the fury of the storm
from the window, and then joined a crowd of women and children anxiously
watching a fishing boat out at sea. Before our very eyes the boat was
swallowed by the waves, and with aching hearts we witnessed the prayers,
shrieks, and despair of the anxious watchers whose husbands and fathers
perished thus within their sight.

Next evening there was a reception at my banker's. The storm became a
topic of conversation; and Poggio related the death of the fishermen,
trying to enlist sympathy for the poor survivors. But nobody seemed to
understand his intention. Then I was asked to improvise. I was quickly
determined. "I know of an emotion," I exclaimed, "which awakens supreme
happiness in everybody, and I have the power of exciting it in every
heart. But this art cannot be given, it must be purchased. He who gives
most will be most deeply initiated." Money and jewels were quickly
forthcoming; and I began to sing of the proud sea and the bold mariners
and fishermen. I described what I had seen; and my art succeeded where
Poggio's words had failed. A tumult of applause arose. A young lady sank
at my feet, seized my hand, and with her beautiful, tear-filled eyes
gave me a look of intense gratitude, which agitated me in strange
fashion. Then she withdrew as if in horror at what she had done.

Poggio afterwards told me that she was the queen of beauty in Venice,
the podesta's niece, adored by everybody, but known by few, since the
podesta's house was most exclusive, and received but few guests. He
accounted me the luckiest of mortals when he