ther
slumbering nor awake, neither sick nor well. I approached her: 'Oh!
noble lady,' said I, 'what misfortune has happened to you? Does your
scarce-healed wound hurt you still?' But she looked at me, oh! with
such eyes, Antonio--I have never seen anything like them. And directly
I looked down into the humid moonlight that was in them, they withdrew
behind the dark clouds of their silken lashes. Then sighing a sigh that
came from the depths of her heart, she turned her lovely pale face to
the wall and whispered softly--so softly, but oh! so sadly! that I was
cut right to the heart, '_Amare--amare--ah! senza amare!_' I fetched a
little chair and sat down beside her, and began to talk about you. She
buried herself in the cushions; and her breathing, coming quicker and
quicker and quicker, turned to sighing. I told her candidly that you
had been in the gondola disguised, and that I would now at once without
delay take you, who were dying of love and longing, to see her. Then
she suddenly started up from the cushions, and whilst the scalding
tears streamed down her cheeks, she exclaimed vehemently, 'For God's
sake! By all the Holy Saints! no--no--I cannot see him, old woman. I
conjure you, tell him he is never--never again to come near me--never.
Tell him he is to leave Venice, to go away at once!' 'So then you will
let my poor Antonio die?' I interposed. Then she sank back upon the
cushions, apparently smarting from the most unutterable anguish, and
her voice was almost choked with tears as she sobbed out, 'Shall not I
also die the bitterest of deaths?' At this point old Falieri entered
the room, and at a sign from him I had to withdraw." "She has rejected
me--away--away into the sea!" cried Antonio, giving way to utter
despair. The old woman chuckled and laughed in her usual way, and went
on, "You simple child! you simple child! don't you see that lovely
Annunciata loves you with all the intensity, with all the agonised love
of which a woman's heart is capable? You simple boy! Late to-morrow
evening slip into the Ducal Palace; you will find me in the second
gallery on the right from the great staircase, and then we will see
what's to be done."

The following evening as Antonio, trembling with expectant happiness,
stole up the great staircase, his conscience suddenly smote him, as
though he were about to commit some great crime. He was so dazed, and
he trembled and shook so, that he was scarcely able to climb the
stairs.