It
      was the Marchesa Aphrodite—the adoration of all Venice—the gayest
      of the gay—the most lovely where all were beautiful—but still the
      young wife of the old and intriguing Mentoni, and the mother of
      that fair child, her first and only one, who now, deep beneath
      the murky water, was thinking in bitterness of heart upon her
      sweet caresses, and exhausting its little life in struggles to
      call upon her name. She stood alone. Her small, bare, and silvery feet gleamed in the
      black mirror of marble beneath her. Her hair, not as yet more
      than half loosened for the night from its ball-room array,
      clustered, amid a shower of diamonds, round and round her
      classical head, in curls like those of the young hyacinth. A
      snowy-white and gauze-like drapery seemed to be nearly the sole
      covering to her delicate form; but the mid-summer and midnight
      air was hot, sullen, and still, and no motion in the statue-like
      form itself, stirred even the folds of that raiment of very vapor
      which hung around it as the heavy marble hangs around the Niobe. Yet—strange to say!—her large lustrous eyes were not turned
      downwards upon that grave wherein her brightest hope lay
      buried—but riveted in a widely different direction! The prison of
      the Old Republic is, I think, the stateliest building in all
      Venice—but how could that lady gaze so fixedly upon it, when
      beneath her lay stifling her only child? Yon dark, gloomy niche,
      too, yawns right opposite her chamber window—what, then, _could_
      there be in its shadows—in its architecture—in its ivy-wreathed
      and solemn cornices—that the Marchesa di Mentoni had not wondered
      at a thousand times before? Nonsense!—Who does not remember that,
      at such a time as this, the eye, like a shattered mirror,
      multiplies the images of its sorrow, and sees in innumerable
      far-off places, the woe which is close at hand? Many steps above the Marchesa, and within the arch of the
      water-gate, stood, in full dress, the Satyr-like figure of
      Mentoni himself. He was occasionally occupied in thrumming a
      guitar, and seemed _ennuye_ to the very death, as at intervals he
      gave directions for the recovery of his child. Stupefied and
      aghast, I had myself no power to move from the upright position I
      had assumed upon first hearing the shriek, and must have
      presented to the eyes of the agitated group a spectral and
      ominous appearance, as with pale countenance and rigid limbs, I
      floated down among them in that funereal gondola. All efforts proved in vain. Many of the most energetic in the
      search were relaxing their exertions, and yielding to a gloomy
      sorrow. There seemed but little hope for the child; (how much
      less than for the mother!) but now, from the interior of that
      dark niche which has been already mentioned as forming a part of
      the Old Republican prison, and as fronting the lattice of the
      Marchesa, a figure muffled in a cloak, stepped out within reach
      of the light, and, pausing a moment upon the verge of the giddy
      descent, plunged headlong into the canal. As, in an instant
      afterwards, he stood with the still living and breathing child
      within his grasp, upon the marble flagstones by the side of the
      Marchesa, his cloak, heavy with the drenching water, became
      unfastened, and, falling in folds about his feet, discovered to
      the wonder-stricken spectators the graceful person of a very
      young man, with the sound of whose name the greater part of
      Europe was then ringing. No word spoke the deliverer. But the Marchesa! She will now
      receive her child—she will press it to her heart—she will cling
      to its little form, and smother it with her caresses. Alas! _another’s_ arms have taken it from the stranger—_another’s_ arms
      have taken it away, and borne it afar off, unnoticed, into the
      palace! And the Marchesa! Her lip—her beautiful lip trembles;
      tears are gathering in her eyes—those eyes which, like Pliny’s
      acanthus, are “soft and almost liquid.” Yes! tears are gathering
      in those eyes—and see! the entire woman thrills throughout the
      soul, and the statue has started into life! The pallor of the
      marble countenance, the swelling of the marble bosom, the very
      purity of the marble feet, we behold suddenly flushed over with a
      tide of ungovernable crimson; and a slight shudder quivers about
      her delicate frame, as a gentle air at Napoli about the rich
      silver lilies in the grass. Why _should_ that lady blush! To this demand there is no
      answer—except that, having left, in the eager haste and terror of
      a mother’s heart, the privacy of her own _boudoir_, she has
      neglected to enthral her tiny feet in their slippers, and utterly
      forgotten to throw over her Venetian shoulders that drapery which
      is their due. What other possible reason could there have been
      for her so blushing?—for the glance of those wild appealing
      eyes?—for the unusual tumult of that throbbing bosom?—for the
      convulsive pressure of that trembling hand?—that hand which fell,
      as Mentoni turned into the palace, accidentally, upon the hand of
      the stranger. What reason could there have been for the low—the
      singularly low tone of those unmeaning words which the lady
      uttered hurriedly in bidding him adieu? “Thou hast conquered,”
      she said, or the murmurs of the water deceived me; “thou hast
      conquered—one hour after sunrise—we shall meet—so let it be!”

      The tumult had subsided, the lights had died away within the
      palace, and the stranger, whom I now recognized, stood alone upon
      the flags. He shook with inconceivable agitation, and his eye
      glanced around in search of a gondola. I could not do less than
      offer him the service of my own; and he accepted the civility. Having obtained an oar at the water-gate, we proceeded together
      to his residence, while he rapidly recovered his self-possession,
      and spoke of our former slight acquaintance in terms of great
      apparent cordiality. There are some subjects upon which I take pleasure in being
      minute. The person of the stranger—let me call him by this title,
      who to all the world was still a stranger—the person of the
      stranger is one of these subjects. In height he might have been
      below rather than above the medium size: although there were
      moments of intense passion when his frame actually _expanded_ and
      belied the assertion.