Table of Contents
Sur une gamme chromatique, Le sein de perles ruisselant, La Venus de l'Adriatique Sort de l'eau son corps rose et blanc.
Les domes, sur l'azur des ondes Suivant la phrase au pur contour, S'enflent comme des gorges rondes Que souleve un soupir d'amour.
L'esquif aborde et me depose, Jetant son amarre au pilier, Devant une facade rose, Sur le marbre d'un escalier.
How exquisite they were! As one read them, one seemed to be floating down the green water–ways of the pink and pearl city, lying in a black gondola with silver prow and trailing curtains. The mere lines looked to him like those straight lines of turquoise–blue that follow one as one pushes out to the Lido. The sudden flashes of color reminded him of the gleam of the opal–and–iris–throated birds that flutter round the tall honey–combed Campanile, or stalk, with such stately grace, through the dim arcades. Leaning back with half–closed eyes, he kept saying over and over to himself,––
Devant une facade rose, Sur le marbre d'un escalier.
The whole of Venice was in those two lines. He remembered the autumn that he had passed there, and a wonderful love that had stirred him to delightful fantastic follies. There was romance in every place. But Venice, like Oxford, had kept the background for romance, and background was everything, or almost everything. Basil had been with him part of the time, and had gone wild over Tintoret. Poor Basil! what a horrible way for a man to die!