austere, so voluptuous, so complete in its resemblance to all human
things! No: no life and no death were like hers. She had found means of
suppressing all the pitiful realities of her existence, leaving only its
poetry. Faithful to the old customs of the national aristocracy, she
only showed herself after the close of the day, masked, but never
followed by any one. There is not an inhabitant of the city who has not
met her wandering in the squares or in the streets--not one who has not
noticed her gondola moored in some canal, but no one ever saw it enter
or go out. Although this gondola was watched by no one, it was never
known to have been the object of an attempt at theft. It was painted and
equipped like all other gondolas, yet every one knew it. Even the
children said, on seeing it, 'There is the gondola of the Mask.' As to
the way in which it moved, and the place from which it brought its
mistress at night, and to which it carried her back in the morning, no
one could even suspect it. The revenue-cruisers had, indeed, often seen
a black shadow upon the lagoons, and, taking it for a contraband boat,
had given chase to it as far as the open sea, but when morning came they
never saw upon the waves anything resembling the object of their
pursuit; and finally they fell into the way of not minding it, and of
saying when they saw it, 'There is the gondola of the Mask again.'

"At night the Mask traversed the whole city, seeking no one knew what.
She was seen by turns in the broadest squares and in the most crooked
streets, on bridges and under the arches of tall palaces, in the most
frequented places and the most deserted. She went sometimes slowly,
sometimes fast, without appearing to notice the crowd or the solitude,
but never stopping. She seemed to contemplate with passionate curiosity
the houses, the monuments, the canals, and even the sky above the city,
and to breathe with delight the air which circulated through it. When
she met a friendly person, she signed to him to follow her, and soon
disappeared with him. More than once she has led me thus from the midst
of the crowd, and has conversed with me of the things we loved. I
followed her with confidence, for I knew we were friends; but many of
those to whom she signaled did not dare respond to her invitation.
Strange stories circulated about her, and froze the courage of the most
intrepid. It was said that several young men, thinking they discovered a
woman bene