ed in their nurses'
arms, the gondoliers were poised as usual on the stern of their
beautiful black boats, rowing imperturbably. The water sparkled and
danced in the afternoon sun. In the market-place the tanned old women
chattered briskly with their customers. He wandered on and on in
growing wonder and perturbation. Suddenly his trouble ceased, a burst
of wonderful melody came to him; there was not only a joyful tune, but
other tunes seemed to blend with it, melting his heart with
unimaginable rapture; he gave chase to the strange sounds, drawing
nearer and nearer, and at last he emerged unexpectedly upon an immense
square bordered by colonnades, under which beautifully dressed signori
and signore sat drinking at little tables, and listening to men in red
with great black cockades in their hats who were ranged on a central
platform, blowing large shining horns; a square so vast and so crowded
with happy chattering people and fluttering pigeons that he gazed
about in blinking bewilderment. And then, uplifting his eyes, he saw a
sight that took his breath away--a glorious building like his dream of
the Temple of Zion, glowing with gold and rising in marvellous domes
and spires, and crowned by four bronze animals, which he felt sure
must be the creatures called horses with which Pharaoh had pursued the
Israelites to the Red Sea. And hard by rose a gigantic tower, like the
Tower of Babel, leading the eye up and up. His breast filled with a
strange pleasure that was almost pain. The enchanted temple drew him
across the square; he saw a poor bare-headed woman going in, and he
followed her. Then a wonderful golden gloom fell upon him, and a sense
of arches and pillars and soaring roofs and curved walls beautiful
with many-colored pictures; and the pleasure, that was almost pain,
swelled at his heart till it seemed as if it must burst his breast.
Then he saw the poor bare-headed woman kneel down, and in a flash he
understood that she was praying--ay, and in the men's quarter--and
that this was no Temple, but one of those forbidden places called
churches, into which the abhorred deserters went who were spoken of on
that marble slab in the Ghetto. And, while he was wrestling with the
confusion of his thoughts, a splendid glittering being, with a cocked
hat and a sword, marched terrifyingly towards him, and sternly bade
him take off his hat. He ran out of the wonderful building in a great
fright, jostling against the innumerable