may not ultimately die of despair.

"O ye women's faces, delicately outlined in a pure and radiant oval,
reminding us of those creations of art where it has most successfully
competed with nature! Divine feet that cannot walk, slender forms
that an earthly breeze would break, shapes too frail ever to conceive,
virgins that we dreamed of as we grew out of childhood, admired in
secret, and adored without hope, veiled in the beams of some unwearying
desire,--maids whom we may never see again, but whose smile remains
supreme in our life, what hog of Epicurus could insist on dragging you
down to the mire of this earth!

"The sun, monsieur, gives light and heat to the world, only because it
is at a distance of thirty-three millions of leagues. Get nearer to
it, and science warns you that it is not really hot or luminous,--for
science is of some use," he added, looking at Capraja.

"Not so bad for a Frenchman and a doctor," said Capraja, patting the
foreigner on the shoulder. "You have in those words explained the
thing which Europeans least understand in all Dante: his Beatrice. Yes,
Beatrice, that ideal figure, the queen of the poet's fancies, chosen
above all the elect, consecrated with tears, deified by memory, and for
ever young in the presence of ineffectual desire!"

"Prince," said the Duke to Emilio, "come and sup with me. You cannot
refuse the poor Neapolitan whom you have robbed both of his wife and of
his mistress."

This broad Neapolitan jest, spoken with an aristocratic good manner,
made Emilio smile; he allowed the Duke to take his arm and lead him
away.

Cataneo had already sent a messenger to his house from the cafe.

As the Palazzo Memmi was on the Grand Canal, not far from Santa Maria
della Salute, the way thither on foot was round by the Rialto, or it
could be reached in a gondola. The four guests would not separate and
preferred to walk; the Duke's infirmities obliged him to get into his
gondola.

At about two in the morning anybody passing the Memmi palace would have
seen light pouring out of every window across the Grand Canal, and have
heard the delightful overture to _Semiramide_ performed at the foot of
the steps by the orchestra of the _Fenice_, as a serenade to la Tinti.

The company were at supper in the second floor gallery. From the balcony
la Tinti in return sang Almavida's _Buona sera_ from _Il Barbiere_,
while the Duke's steward distributed payment from his master to the
poor artists