Part 31 (1/2)
In the great Council Chamber of the Ducal Palace they looked at the seventy-six portraits of the ill.u.s.trious succession of Doges--with the one tragic vacant s.p.a.ce, the missing portrait of Marino Faliero, the Rienzi of Venice, the man before his time.
”It seizes one's heart, doesn't it?” said the Princess, with her impulsive touch on his sleeve. ”All these men were kings--sovereigns of a mighty nation. And how like they are to one another--in this essential quality one would say they were brothers of a great family.”
”Why, yes,” he cried, scanning the rows of severe and subtle faces.
”It's true. Illuminatingly true.”
He slid up his wrist quickly so that his hand met hers; he held it.
”How swift your perception is! And what is that quality--that quality common to them all--that quality of leaders.h.i.+p? Let us try to find it.”
Unconsciously he gripped her hand, and she returned his pressure; and they stood, as chance willed it, alone, free from circ.u.mambulant tourists, in the vast chamber, vivid with Paul Veronese's colour on wall and ceilings, with Tintoretto and Ba.s.sano' with the arrogant splendour of the battles and the pomp and circ.u.mstance of victorious armies of the proud and conquering republic, and their eyes were drawn from all this painted and riotous wonder by the long arresting frieze of portraits of serene, masterful and subtle faces.
”The common factor--that's what we want, isn't it?”
”Yes,” she breathed.
And as they stood, hand in hand, the unspoken thought vibrating between them, the memory came to him of a day long ago when he had stood with another woman--a girl then--before the photographs in the window of the London Stereoscopic Company in Regent Street, and he had scanned faces of successful men. He laughed--he could not help it--and drew his Princess closer to him. Between the a.n.a.logous then and the wonderful now, how immense a difference! As he laughed she looked swiftly up into his face.
”I know why you laugh.”
”No, my Princess. Impossible.”
”Mais oui. Tell me. All these great princes”--she swept her little gloved hand toward the frieze. ”What is their common factor?”
Paul, forgetful of his mirth, looked round. ”'Indomitable will,” said he seriously. ”Unconquerable ambition, illimitable faith. They all seem to be saying their creed. 'I believe in myself almighty, and in Venice under my control, and in G.o.d who made us both, and in the inferiority of the remnant of the habitable globe.' Or else: 'In the beginning G.o.d created Venice. Then He created the rest of the world. Then He created Me. Then He retired and left me to deal with the situation.' Or else: 'I am an earthly Trinity. I am myself. I am Venice. I am G.o.d.'”
”It is magnificent!” she cried. ”How you understand them! How you understand the true aristocratic spirit! They are all, what you call, leaders of men. I did not expect an a.n.a.lysis so swift and so true. But, Paul”--her voice sank adorably--”all these men lack something--something that you have. And that is why I thought you laughed.”
He smiled down on her. ”Do you think I was measuring myself with these men?”
”Naturally. Why should you not?” she asked proudly.
”And what have I got that they lack?”
”Happiness,” said the Princess.
Paul was silent for a while, as they moved slowly away to the balcony which overlooks the lagoon and San Giorgio Maggiore glowing warm in the suns.h.i.+ne, and then he said: ”Yet most of those men loved pa.s.sionately in their time, and were loved by beautiful women.”
”Their love was a thing of the pa.s.sions, not of the spirit. You cannot see a woman, that is to say happiness, behind any of their faces.”
He whispered: ”Can you see a woman behind mine.”
”If you look like that,” she replied, with a contented little laugh, ”the whole world can see it.” And so their talk drifted far away from Doges, just as their souls were drifting far from the Golden Calf of the Frank and Loyal Friends.h.i.+p which Sophie the Princess had set up.
How could they help it--and in Venice of all places in the world? If she had determined on maintaining the friends.h.i.+p calm and austere, why in Minerva's name had she bidden him hither? Sophie Zobraska pa.s.sed for a woman of sense. None knew better than she the perils of moonlit ca.n.a.ls and the sensuous splash of water against a gondola, and the sad and dreamy beauty which sets the lonely heart aching for love. Why had she done it? Some such questions must Mademoiselle de Cressy have asked, for the Princess told him that Stephanie had lectured her severely for going about so much in public alone with a beau jeune homme.
”But we don't always want Stephanie with us,” she argued, ”and she is not sympathetic in Venice. She likes restaurants and people. Besides, she is always with her friends at Danielli's, so if it weren't for you I should be doing nothing all by myself in the lonely palazzo.
Forcement we go about together.”