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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 wo 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. Stupified 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
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