for ever--would you like
that?'

'If you would like it, Elena,' answered Insarov, 'it follows that I
should like it too.'

'I knew that,' observed Elena with a smile, 'come, let us go.'

They went back to the gondola, took their seats, told the gondolier to
take them without hurry along the Canal Grande.

No one who has not seen Venice in April knows all the unutterable
fascinations of that magic town. The softness and mildness of spring
harmonise with Venice, just as the glaring sun of summer suits the
magnificence of Genoa, and as the gold and purple of autumn suits the
grand antiquity of Rome. The beauty of Venice, like the spring, touches
the soul and moves it to desire; it frets and tortures the inexperienced
heart like the promise of a coming bliss, mysterious but not elusive.
Everything in it is bright, and everything is wrapt in a drowsy,
tangible mist, as it were, of the hush of love; everything in it is so
silent, and everything in it is kindly; everything in it is feminine,
from its name upwards. It has well been given the name of 'the fair
city.' Its masses of palaces and churches stand out light and wonderful
like the graceful dream of a young god; there is something magical,
something strange and bewitching in the greenish-grey light and silken
shimmer of the silent water of the canals, in the noiseless gliding of
the gondolas, in the absence of the coarse din of a town, the coarse
rattling, and crashing, and uproar. 'Venice is dead, Venice is
deserted,' her citizens will tell you, but perhaps this last charm--the
charm of decay--was not vouchsafed her in the very heyday of the flower
and majesty of her beauty. He who has not seen her, knows her not;
neither Canaletto nor Guardi (to say nothing of later painters) has been
able to convey the silvery tenderness of the atmosphere, the horizon so
close, yet so elusive, the divine harmony of exquisite lines and melting
colours. One who has outlived his life, who has been crushed by it,
should not visit Venice; she will be cruel to him as the memory of
unfulfilled dreams of early days; but sweet to one whose strength is at
its full, who is conscious of happiness; let him bring his bliss under
her enchanted skies; and however bright it may be, Venice will make it
more golden with her unfading splendour.

The gondola in which Insarov and Elena were sitting passed _Riva dei
Schiavoni_, the palace of the Doges, and Piazzetta, and entered the
Grand Canal. On b