Campo before San Pietro in Castello. Elena lay
beneath the black felze in one gondola, with a priest beside her
praying, and other boats followed bearing mourners. Then they laid her
marble chest outside the church, and all departed, still with torches
burning, to their homes.

Now it so fell out that upon that very evening Gerardo's galley had
returned from Syria, and was anchoring within the port of Lido, which
looks across to the island of Castello. It was the gentle custom of
Venice at that time that, when a ship arrived from sea, the friends of
those on board at once came out to welcome them, and take and give the
news. Therefore many noble youths and other citizens were on the deck of
Gerardo's galley, making merry with him over the safe conduct of his
voyage. Of one of these he asked, "Whose is yonder funeral procession
returning from San Pietro?" The young man made answer, "Alas for poor
Elena, Messer Pietro's daughter! She should have been married this day.
But death took her, and to-night they buried her in the marble monument
outside the church." A woeful man was Gerardo, hearing suddenly this
news, and knowing what his dear wife must have suffered ere she died.
Yet he restrained himself, daring not to disclose his anguish, and
waited till his friends had left the galley. Then he called to him the
captain of the oarsmen, who was his friend, and unfolded to him all the
story of his love and sorrow, and said that he must go that night and
see his wife once more, if even he should have to break her tomb. The
captain tried to dissuade him, but in vain. Seeing him so obstinate, he
resolved not to desert Gerardo. The two men took one of the galley's
boats, and rowed together toward San Pietro. It was past midnight when
they reached the Campo and broke the marble sepulchre asunder. Pushing
back its lid, Gerardo descended into the grave and abandoned himself
upon the body of his Elena. One who had seen them at that moment could
not well have said which of the two was dead and which was living--Elena
or her husband. Meantime the captain of the oarsmen, fearing lest the
watch (set by the Masters of the Night to keep the peace of Venice)
might arrive, was calling on Gerardo to come back. Gerardo heeded him no
whit. But at the last, compelled by his entreaties, and as it were
astonied, he arose, bearing his wife's corpse in his arms, and carried
her clasped against his bosom to the boat, and laid her therein, and sat
do