The gondola put in to the inner shore of the Lido. Elena and Insarov walked along the narrow sandy road planted with sickly trees (every year they plant them and every year they die) to the outer shore of the Lido, to the sea.
They walked along the beach. The Adriatic rolled its muddy-blue waves before them; they raced into the shore, foaming and hissing, and drew back again, leaving fine shells and fragments of seaweed on the beach.
“What a desolate place!” observed Elena. “I’m afraid it’s too cold for you here, but I guess why you wanted to come here.”
“Cold!” rejoined Insarov with a rapid and bitter smile, “I shall be a fine soldier, if I’m to be afraid of the cold. I came here … I will tell you why. I look across that sea, and I feel as though here, I am nearer my country. It is there, you know,” he added, stretching out his hand to the East, “the wind blows from there.”
“Will not this wind bring the ship you are expecting?” said Elena. “See, there is a white sail, is not that it?”
Insarov gazed seaward into the distance to where Elena was pointing.
“Renditch promised to arrange everything for us within a week,” he said, “we can rely on him, I think. … Did you hear, Elena,” he added with sudden animation, “they say the poor Dalmatian fishermen have sacrificed their dredging weights—you know the leads they weigh their nets with for letting them down to the bottom—to make bullets! They have no money, they only just live by fishing; but they have joyfully given up their last property, and now are starving. What a nation!”
“Aufgepasst!” shouted a haughty voice behind them. The heavy thud of horse’s hoofs was heard, and an Austrian officer in a short grey tunic and a green cap galloped past them—they had scarcely time to get out of the way.
Insarov looked darkly after him.
“He was not to blame,” said Elena, “you know, they have no other place where they can ride.”
“He was not to blame,” answered Insarov, “but he made my blood boil with his shout, his moustaches, his cap, his whole appearance. Let us go back.”
“Yes, let us go back, Dmitri. It’s really cold here. You did not take care of yourself after your Moscow illness, and you had to pay for that at Vienna. Now you must be more cautious.”
Insarov did not answer, but the same bitter smile passed over his lips.
“If you like,” Elena went on, “we will go along to the Canal Grande. We have not seen Venice properly, you know, all the while we have been here. And in the evening we are going to the theatre; I have two tickets for the stalls. They say there’s a new opera being given. If you like, we will give up today to one another; we will forget politics and war and everything, we will forget everything but that we are alive, breathing, thinking together; that we are one forever—would you like that?”
“If you would like it, Elena,” answered Insarov, “it follows that I should like it too.”
“I knew that,” observed Elena with a smile, “come, let us go.”
They went back to the gondola, took their seats, told the gondolier to take them without hurry along the Canal Grande.
No one who has not seen Venice in April knows all the unutterable fascinations of that magic town. The softness and mildness of spring harmonise with Venice, just as the glaring sun of summer suits the magnificence of Genoa, and as the gold and purple of autumn suits the grand antiquity of Rome. The beauty of Venice, like the spring, touches the soul and moves it to desire; it frets and tortures the inexperienced heart like the promise of a coming bliss, mysterious but not elusive. Everything in it is bright, and everything is wrapt in a drowsy, tangible mist, as it were, of the hush of love; everything in it is so silent, and everything in it is kindly; everything in it is feminine, from its name upwards. It has well been given the name of “the fair city.” Its masses of palaces and churches stand out light and wonderful like the graceful dream of a young god; there is something magical, something strange and bewitching in the greenish-grey light and silken shimmer of the silent water of the canals, in the noiseless gliding of the gondolas, in the absence of the coarse din of a town, the coarse rattling, and crashing, and uproar. “Venice is dead, Venice is deserted,” her citizens will tell you, but perhaps this last charm—the charm of decay—was not vouchsafed her in the very heyday of the flower and majesty of her beauty. He who has not seen her, knows her not; neither Canaletto nor Guardi (to say nothing of later painters) has been able to convey the silvery tenderness of the atmosphere, the horizon so close, yet so elusive, the divine harmony of exquisite lines and melting colours. One who has outlived his life, who has been crushed by it, should not visit Venice; she will be cruel to him as the memory of unfulfilled dreams of early days; but sweet to one whose strength is at its full, who is conscious of happiness; let him bring his bliss under her enchanted skies; and however bright it may be, Venice will make it more golden with her unfading splendour.
The gondola in which Insarov and Elena were sitting passed Riva dei Schiavoni, the palace of the Doges, and Piazzetta, and entered the Grand Canal. On both sides stretched marble palaces; they seemed to float softly by, scarcely letting the eye seize or absorb their beauty. Elena felt herself deeply happy; in the perfect blue of her heavens there was only one dark cloud—and it was in the far distance; Insarov was much better that day. They glided as far as the acute angle of the Rialto and turned back.
