Gerardo's gondolier, bending from the poop, said
to his master, 'O master! methinks that gentle maiden is better worth
your wooing than Dulcinea.' Gerardo pretended to pay no heed to these
words; but after rowing a little way, he bade the man turn, and they
went slowly back beneath the window. This time Elena, thinking to play
the game which her four friends had played, took from her hair a clove
carnation and let it fall close to Gerardo on the cushion of the
gondola. He raised the flower and put it to his lips, acknowledging
the courtesy with a grave bow. But the perfume of the clove and the
beauty of Elena in that moment took possession of his heart together,
and straightway he forgot Dulcinea.

As yet he knew not who Elena was. Nor is this wonderful; for the
daughters of Venetian nobles were but rarely seen or spoken of.
But the thought of her haunted him awake and sleeping; and every
feast-day, when there was the chance of seeing her, he rowed his
gondola beneath her windows. And there she appeared to him in company
with her four friends; the five girls clustering together like sister
roses beneath the pointed windows of the Gothic balcony. Elena, on her
side, had no thought of love; for of love she had heard no one speak.
But she took pleasure in the game those friends had taught her, of
leaning from the balcony to watch Gerardo. He meanwhile grew love-sick
and impatient, wondering how he might declare his passion. Until one
day it happened that, talking through a lane or _calle_ which
skirted Messer Pietro'a palace, he caught sight of Elena's nurse, who
was knocking at the door, returning from some shopping she had
made. This nurse had been his own nurse in childhood; therefore he
remembered her, and cried aloud, 'Nurse, Nurse!' But the old woman did
not hear him, and passed into the house and shut the door behind her.
Whereupon Gerardo, greatly moved, still called to her, and when he
reached the door, began to knock upon it violently. And whether it
was the agitation of finding himself at last so near the wish of his
heart, or whether the pains of waiting for his love had weakened him,
I know not; but, while he knocked, his senses left him, and he fell
fainting in the doorway. Then the nurse recognised the youth to whom
she had given suck, and brought him into the courtyard by the help of
handmaidens, and Elena came down and gazed upon him. The house was now
full of bustle, and Messer Pietro heard the noise, an