Chapter 1

"I stood in Venice on the Bridge of Sighs,
A palace and a prison on each hand;
I saw from out the wave her structures rise,
As from the stroke of the enchanter's wand;
A thousand years their cloudy wings expand
Around me, and a dying glory smiles
O'er the far times, when many a subject land
Looked to the winged lions' marble piles,
Where Venice sat in state, throned on her hundred isles."
BYRON.

The sun had disappeared behind the summits of the Tyrolean Alps, and the
moon was already risen above the low barrier of the Lido. Hundreds of
pedestrians were pouring out of the narrow streets of Venice into the
square of St. Mark, like water gushing through some strait aqueduct,
into a broad and bubbling basin. Gallant cavalieri and grave cittadini;
soldiers of Dalmatia, and seamen of the galleys; dames of the city, and
females of lighter manners; jewellers of the Rialto, and traders from
the Levant; Jew, Turk, and Christian; traveller, adventurer, podestà,
valet, avvocato, and gondolier, held their way alike to the common
centre of amusement. The hurried air and careless eye; the measured step
and jealous glance; the jest and laugh; the song of the cantatrice, and
the melody of the flute; the grimace of the buffoon, and the tragic
frown of the improvisatore; the pyramid of the grotesque, the compelled
and melancholy smile of the harpist, cries of water-sellers, cowls of
monks, plumage of warriors, hum of voices, and the universal movement
and bustle, added to the more permanent objects of the place, rendered
the scene the most remarkable of Christendom.

On the very confines of that line which separates western from eastern
Europe, and in constant communication with the latter, Venice possessed
a greater admixture of character and costume, than any other of the
numerous ports of that region. A portion of this peculiarity is still to
be observed, under the fallen fortunes of the place; but at the period
of our tale, the city of the isles, though no longer mistress of the
Mediterranean, nor even of the Adriatic, was still rich and powerful.
Her influence was felt in the councils of the civilized world, and her
commerce, though waning, was yet sufficient to uphold the vast
possessions of those families, whose ancestors had become rich in the
day of her prosperity. Men lived among her islands in that state of
incipient lethargy, which marks the progress of a downward course,
whether the decline be of a moral or of a physical decay.

At the hour we have named, the vast parallelogram of the piazza was
filling fast, the cafés and casinos within the porticoes, which surround
three of its sides, being already thronged with company. While all
beneath the arches was gay