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It was this Giustinian who had been carried in triumph on the shoulders of the people, before the Doge and the Signoria who had been the hero when that solemn Mass, in honor of the victory, had been offered up in the ducal chapel when the Rialto and the Merceria, for the extravagant joy of Venice, were draped in blue and scarlet and gold, bound laurel wreaths and decorated with the art treasures of Titian and Giorgone.
The first picture, which has the best light in it, shows the ambassadors from England craving the hand of the princess. At the back is one of those octagonal buildings so dear to this painter, also in the city. His affection for dogs, always noticeable, is to be seen here again, for he has placed three hounds on the quay. A clock somewhat like that of the Merceria is on the little tower.
Twelve hundred francs a year paid all his expenses; he ate but one meal a day at an eating-house in the Merceria, where the cook had his dinner ready for him at a fixed hour, on a little table at the back of the shop; the pastry-cook's daughter herself prepared his stuffed oysters, provided him with cigars, and took care of his money.
Some would choose Carpaccio's painted lion in this palace; others might say that the lion over the Giants' Stairs is as satisfying as any; others might prefer that fine one on the Palazzo dei Camerlenghi by the Rialto bridge, and the Merceria clock tower's lion would not want adherents.
For there was actually a certain pride in the wrinkles of his forehead, telling anyone of the keener observers that he, under other circumstances, would have regarded the work he sought to be beneath his dignity. Finally, he reached a notary who lived in a side-alley of the Merceria and seemed to engage in all kinds of shifty business on the side.
The pensive charm of the place imbued all the little company so deeply that they scarcely broke it, as they loitered slowly homeward through the deserted Merceria.
The concious lady, embarrassed by such close questioning, and somewhat alarmed by the kindling glances of the questioner, replied in haste "Nay, signor, now I remember better, it was not a Greek I bought these gauds, but of a trading Jew, who walks the Merceria with a box of jewellry." "Just now, methinks, you said a Greek, fair lady; and now you say a Jew. What next?
She waited for his contrition, but proceeded without it, in a somewhat meeker strain: "Lily couldn't get her things at Pazienti's, and we had to go to the Merceria for them. Then of course the nearest way home was through St. Mark's Square.
I shunned whatever trifling temptation there was in the case, and turned again to the campo beneath to the placid dandies about the door of the café; to the tide of passers-by from the Merceria; the smooth shaven Venetians of other days, and the bearded Venetians of these; the dark-eyed white-faced Venetians, hooped in cruel disproportion to the narrow streets, but richly clad, and moving with southern grace; the files of heavily burdened soldiers; the little policemen loitering lazily about with their swords at their sides, and in their spotless Austrian uniforms."
Then somebody sent her to Paris to the Conservatoire, which she only left this spring. This is her first Italian engagement. Her people are shopkeepers here in the Merceria which helped her. She is as vain as a peacock and as dangerous as a pet panther." "Dangerous!" Kitty's scorn had passed into her voice.
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