cast from afar off a smile upon my slumber.
At night I was so sad; not a blossom that had not closed itself up, as
if never more to open to the sun; and the night itself, in the heart
as on the earth, has ripened the blossoms into flowers. The world is
beautiful once more, but beautiful in repose,--not a breeze stirs thy
tree, not a doubt my soul!"

CHAPTER 3.VI.

Tu vegga o per violenzia o per inganno
Patire o disonore o mortal danno.
"Orlando Furioso," Cant. xlii. i.

(Thou art about, either through violence or artifice, to suffer
either dishonour or mortal loss.)

It was a small cabinet; the walls were covered with pictures, one of
which was worth more than the whole lineage of the owner of the palace.
Oh, yes! Zanoni was right. The painter IS a magician; the gold he at
least wrings from his crucible is no delusion. A Venetian noble might be
a fribble, or an assassin,--a scoundrel, or a dolt; worthless, or worse
than worthless, yet he might have sat to Titian, and his portrait may
be inestimable,--a few inches of painted canvas a thousand times more
valuable than a man with his veins and muscles, brain, will, heart, and
intellect!

In this cabinet sat a man of about three-and-forty,--dark-eyed, sallow,
with short, prominent features, a massive conformation of jaw, and
thick, sensual, but resolute lips; this man was the Prince di --. His
form, above the middle height, and rather inclined to corpulence, was
clad in a loose dressing-robe of rich brocade. On a table before him lay
an old-fashioned sword and hat, a mask, dice and dice-box, a portfolio,
and an inkstand of silver curiously carved.

"Well, Mascari," said the prince, looking up towards his parasite, who
stood by the embrasure of the deep-set barricadoed window,--"well! the
Cardinal sleeps with his fathers. I require comfort for the loss of
so excellent a relation; and where a more dulcet voice than Viola
Pisani's?"

"Is your Excellency serious? So soon after the death of his Eminence?"

"It will be the less talked of, and I the less suspected. Hast thou
ascertained the name of the insolent who baffled us that night, and
advised the Cardinal the next day?"

"Not yet."

"Sapient Mascari! I will inform thee. It was the strange Unknown."

"The Signor Zanoni! Are you sure, my prince?"

"Mascari, yes. There is a tone in that man's voice that I never can
mistake; so clear, and so commanding, when I hear it I almost fancy