developing so great an activity in every direction.
Bodoeri interrupted him and said, cunningly smiling, "That, and all
else that the state demands of you, we will maturely weigh and consider
an hour or two hence in a full meeting of the Great Council. I have not
come to you thus early in order to invent a plan for defeating yon
presumptuous Doria or bringing to reason Louis[18] the Hungarian, who
is again setting his longing eyes upon our Dalmatian seaports. No,
Marino, I was thinking solely about you, and about what you perhaps
would not guess--your marriage." "How came you to think of such a thing
as _that_?" replied the Doge, greatly annoyed; and rising to his feet,
he turned his back upon Bodoeri and looked out of the window. "It's a
long time to Ascension Day. By that time I hope the enemy will be
routed, and that victory, honour, additional riches, and a wider
extension of power will have been won for the sea-born lion of the
Adriatic. The chaste bride shall find her bridegroom worthy of her."
"Pshaw! pshaw!" interrupted Bodoeri, impatiently; "you are talking
about that memorable ceremony on Ascension Day, when you will throw the
gold ring from the Bucentaur into the waves under the impression that
you are wedding the Adriatic Sea. But do you not know,--you, Marino,
you, kinsman to the sea,--of any other bride than the cold, damp,
treacherous element which you delude yourself into the belief that you
rule, and which only yesterday revolted against you in such dangerous
fashion? Marry, how can you fancy lying in the arms of such a bride of
such a wild, wayward thing? Why when you only just skimmed her lips as
you rode along in the Bucentaur she at once began to rage and storm.
Would an entire Vesuvius of fiery passion suffice to warm the icy bosom
of such a false bride as that? Continually faithless, she is wedded
time after time, nor does she receive the ring as a treasured symbol of
love, but she extorts it as a tribute from a slave? No, Marino, I was
thinking of your marriage to the most beautiful child of the earth than
can be found." "You are prating utter nonsense, utter nonsense, I tell
you, old man," murmured Falieri without turning away from the window.
"I, a grey-haired old man, eighty years of age, burdened with toil and
trouble, who have never been married, and now hardly capable of
loving"---- "Stop," cried Bodoeri, "don't slander yourself. Does not
the Winter, however rough and cold he may be, at last