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"She is in the chapel, making it fair with flowers." "Thou knowest it, Marina?" "She came to me with a question but a little while ago, when Marconino was with me and I wished to be alone. Marco, he was so beautiful! And the day has been a dream; I wished for no one but for thee alone."
The mothers on the barges lifted their little ones in their arms and taught them to call a name "Il Marconino!" they ventured, in hesitant, treble tones. But now the splendid moment was near.
"Il Marconino! Il Marconino!" There was a brief moment of confusion from the coming and going of barges, a short delay which brimmed their excitement to the fever pitch, then the waters cleared again of their floating craft, and the Senator Marcantonio Giustiniani stepped forth on the deck to christen the gift of his child. The people looked, and would have shouted but forebore gazing awestruck.
And now the great bell sounded again from the arsenal tower, and was answered from the Campanile of San Marco, and the suppressed excitement of the eager spectators burst forth in cries of greeting to the Marconino just set afloat as she came gracefully around in front of the Doge's barge, full manned and saluting, magnificently equipped, the colors of the Giustiniani waving below the crimson banner of San Marco, with its regnant Lion, and on her prow the beautiful sculptured figure of a little child.
Meanwhile Giustinian Giustiniani, standing proudly erect among the nobles of the Doge's suite, searched the crowd for further homage, and wondered at the silence when the charming figure of the baby Marconino danced in his father's arms a very embodiment of life and glee.
Life was good in Venice! "And thou, Nino, forget not that the Madonna hath been 'gentile' to thee! Thou shalt tell thy little ones, when thou art old, that thou hast this day seen, with thine own eyes, the Marconino, who hath given the great galley to the Republic!"
The gondolas and barges of the people drifted back again, close about the train of magnates from Venice. "I Giustiniani," they shouted; "il Marconino!" There was a movement on one of the splendid barges bearing the colors of the Giustiniani; a little child was caught up and held for a moment high in the air; he waved his tiny hands gleefully it was such beautiful play!
"It is ever the same," she said, "through this long, dreary year ever the same! Let us forget it all for this one night. Let us talk together of our Marconino!"
As they stood, just over the beautiful bust of the "Marconino" which Vittorio had carved upon the prow, child and father were an embodiment of the play of the crested foam over the deep trouble of the waves beneath. "Was it thus that the nobles took their triumphs?" the people questioned low of each other.
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