tonishment at the sight of my windows thrown wide open, and my whole
house adorned with lustres, ablaze with wax-candles, burning like the
palace of the sun. After standing half a quarter of an hour agaze with
my mouth open to contemplate this prodigy, I shook myself together, took
heart of courage, crossed the bridge, and knocked loudly at my door. It
opened, and two of the city guards presented themselves, pointing their
spontoons at my breast, and crying, with fierceness written on their
faces: "There is no road this way." "How!" exclaimed I, still more
dumbfounded, and in a gentle tone of voice: "why can I not get in here?"
"No, sir," the terrible fellows answered; "there is no approach by this
door. Take the trouble to put on a mask, and seek an entrance by the
great gate which you see there on the right hand, the gate of the
Palazzo Bragadino. Wearing a mask you will be permitted to pass in by
that door to the feast." "But supposing I were the master of this
house, and had come home tired from a journey, half-frozen, and dropping
with sleep, could I not get into my own house and lay myself down in my
bed?" This I said with all the phlegm imaginable. "Ah! the master?"
replied those truculent sentinels: "please to wait, and you will receive
an answer." With these words they shut the door stormily in my face. I
gazed, like a man deprived of his senses, at the porter and the servant.
The porter, bending beneath his load, and the servant looked at me like
men bewitched. At last the door opened again, and a majordomo, all laced
with gold, appeared upon the threshold. Making many bows and
inclinations of the body, he invited me to enter. I did so, and passing
up the staircase, asked that reverend personage what was the enchantment
which had fallen on my dwelling. "So! you know nothing then?" he
answered. "My master, the patrician Gasparo Bragadino, foreseeing that
his brother would be elected Patriarch, and wanting room for the usual
public festival, was desirous of uniting this house to his own by a
little bridge of communication thrown across the windows. The scheme was
executed with your consent. It is here that a part of the feast is being
celebrated, and bread and money thrown from the windows to the people.
All the same, you need not fear lest the room in which you sleep has not
been carefully reserved and closed with scrupulous attention. Come with
me, come with me, and you shall soon see for yourself." I remained
s