rs, a new type that his impresario in Rome received
with the greatest enthusiasm. His deftness enabled him to produce these
works with as much facility as if they were mechanical copies. In the
maze of canals he had one of his own which he called his "estate" on
account of the money it netted him. He had painted again and again its
dead, silent waters which all day long were never rippled except by his
gondola; two old palaces with broken blinds, the doors covered with the
crust of years, stairways rotted with mold and in the background a
little arch of light, a marble bridge and under it the life, the
movement, the sun of a broad, busy canal. The neglected little alley
came to life every week under Renovales' brush--he could paint it with
his eyes shut--and the business initiative of the Roman Jew scattered it
through the world.

The afternoons Mariano passed with his wife. Sometimes they went in a
gondola to the promenade of the Lido and sitting on the sandy beach,
watched the angry surface of the open Adriatic, that stretched its
tossing white caps to the horizon, like a flock of snowy sheep hurrying
in the rush of a panic.

Other afternoons they walked in the Square of Saint Mark, under the
arcades of its three rows of palaces where they could see in the
background, by the last rays of the sun, the pale gold of the basilica
gleaming, as if in its walls and domes there were crystallized all the
wealth of the ancient Republic.

Renovales, with his wife on his arm, walked calmly as if the majesty of
the place impelled him to a sort of noble bearing. The august silence
was not disturbed by the deafening hubbub of other great capitals; no
rattling of carts or footsteps of horses or hucksters' cries. The
Square, with its white marble pavement, was a huge drawing room through
which the visitors passed as if they were making a call. The musicians
of the Venice band were gathered in the center with their hats
surmounted by black waving plumes. The blasts of the Wagnerian brasses,
galloping in the mad ride of the Valkyries, made the marble columns
shake and seemed to give life to the four golden horses that reared over
space with silent whinnies on the cornice of St. Mark's.

The dark-feathered doves of Venice scattered in playful spirals,
somewhat frightened at the music, finally settled, like rain, on the
tables of the cafe. Then, taking flight again, they blackened the roof
of the palaces and once more swooped down lik