A Story of Salome

by Amelia B. Edwards

　　A few years ago, no matter how many, I, Harcourt Blunt, was travellingwith my friend Coventry Turnour, and it was on the steps of our hotelthat I received from him the announcement-he sent one to me-that hewas again in love.

　　'I tell you, Blunt,' said my fellow-traveller, 'she's the loveliestcreature I ever beheld in my life.'

　　I laughed outright.

　　'My dear fellow,' I replied, 'you've so often seen the loveliestcreature you ever beheld in your life.'

　　'Ay, but I am in earnest now for the first time.'

　　'And you have so often been in earnest for the first time! Rememberthe innkeeper's daughter at Cologne.

　　'A pretty housemaid, whom no training could have made presentable.'

　　'Then there was the beautiful American at Interlachen.'

　　'Yes; but-'

　　'And the Bella Marchesa at Prince Torlonia's ball.'

　　'Not one of them worthy to be named in the same breath with myimperial Venetian. Come with me to the Merceria and be convinced. Bytaking a gondola to St Mark's Place we shall be there in a quarter ofan hour.'

　　I went, and he raved of his new flame all the way. She was a Jewess-hewould convert her.

　　Her father kept a shop in the Merceria-what of that? He dealt only incostliest Oriental merchandise, and was as rich as a Rothschild. Asfor any probable injury to his own prospects, why need he hesitate onthat account? What were 'prospects' when weighed against the happinessof one's whole life? Besides, he was not ambitious. He didn't care togo into Parliament. If his uncle Sir Geoffrey cut him off with ashilling, what then? He had a moderate independence of which no oneliving could deprive him, and what more could any reasonable mandesire?

　　I listened, smiled, and was silent. I knew Coventry Turnour too wellto attach the smallest degree of importance to anything that he mightsay or do in a matter of this kind. To be distractedly in love was hisnormal condition. We had been friends from boyhood; and since the timewhen he used to cherish a hopeless attachment to the young lady behindthe counter of the tart-shop at Harrow, I had never known him 'fancy-free' for more than a few weeks at a time. He had gone through everyphase of no less than three grandes passions during the five monthsthat we had now been travelling together; and having left Rome abouteleven weeks before with every hope laid waste, and a heart so brokenthat it could never by any possibility be put together again, he wasnow, according to the natural course of events, just ready to fall inlove again.

　　We landed at the traghetto San Marco. It was a cloudless morningtowards the middle of April, just ten years ago. The ducal palaceglowed in the hot sunshine; the boatmen were clustered, gossiping,about the Mob; the orange-vendors were busy under the arches of thepiazzetta; the flâneurs were already eating ices and smokingcigarettes outside the cafes. There was an Austrian military band,strapped, buckled, moustachioed, and white-coated, playing just infront of St Mark's; and the shadow of the great bell-tower slept allacross the square..Passing under the low round archway leading to theMerceria, we plunged at once into that cool labyrinth of narrow,intricate, and picturesque streets, where the sun never penetrates--where no wheels are heard, and no beast of burden is seen-where everyhouse is a shop, and every shop-front is open to the ground, as in anOriental bazaar-where the upper balconies seem almost to meetoverhead, and are separated by only a strip of burning sky-and wheremore than three people cannot march abreast in any part. Pushing ourway as best we might through the motley crowd that here chatters,cheapens, buys, sells, and perpetually bustles to and fro, we camepresently to a shop for the sale of Eastern goods. A few glass jarsfilled with spices, and some pieces of stuff, untidily strewed thecounter next the street; but within, dark and narrow though it seemed,the place was crammed with costliest merchandise. Cases of gorgeousOriental jewellery, embroideries and fringes of massive gold andsilver bullion, precious drugs and spices, exquisite toys in filigree,miracles of carving in ivory, sandal-wood, and amber, jewelledyataghans, scimitars of state rich with 'barbaric pearl and gold',bales of Cashmere shawls, China silks, India muslins, gauzes, and thelike, filled every inch of available space from floor to ceiling,leaving only a narrow lane from the door to the counter, and a stillnarrower passage to the rooms beyond the shop.

　　We went in. A young woman, who was sifting reading on a low seatbehind the counter, laid aside her book, and rose slowly. She wasdressed wholly in black. I cannot describe the fashion of hergarments. I only know that they fell about her in long, soft, trailingfolds, leaving a narrow band of fine cambric visible at the throat andwrists; and that, however graceful and unusual this dress may havebeen, I scarcely observed it, so entirely was I taken up withadmiration of her beauty.

　　For she was indeed very beautiful-beautiful in a way that I had notanticipated. Coventry Turnour, with all his enthusiasm, had failed todo her justice. He had raved of her eyes-her large, lustrous,melancholy eyes-of the transparent paleness of her complexion, of thefaultless delicacy of her features; but he had not prepared me for theunconscious dignity, the perfect nobleness and refinement, thatinformed her every look and gesture. My friend requested to see abracelet at which he had been looking the day before. Proud, stately,silent, she unlocked the case in which it was kept, and laid it beforehim on the counter. He asked permission to take it over to the light.She bent her head, but answered not a word. It was like being waitedupon by a young empress.

　　Turnour took the bracelet to the door and affected to examine it. Itconsisted of a double row of gold coins linked together at intervalsby a bean-shaped ornament, studded with pink coral and diamonds.Coming back into the shop he asked me if I thought it would please hissister, to whom he had promised a remembrance of Venice.

　　'It is a pretty trifle,' I replied; 'but surely a remembrance ofVenice should be of Venetian manufacture. This, I suppose, isTurkish.'

　　The beautiful Jewess looked up. We spoke in English; but sheunderstood and replied:

　　'E Greco, signore,' she said coldly.

　　At this moment an old man came suddenly forward from some darkcounting-house at the back-a grizzled, bearded, eager-eyed Shylock,with a pen behind his ear.

　　'Go in, Salome-go in, my daughter,' he said hurriedly. 'I will servethese gentlemen.'

　　She lifted her eyes to his for one moment-then moved silently away,and vanished in the gloom of the room beyond..We saw her no more. Welingered awhile, looking over the contents of the jewel-cases; but invain. Then Turnour bought his bracelet, and we went out again into thenarrow streets, and back to the open daylight of the Gran' Piazza.

　　'Well,' he said breathlessly, 'what do you think of her?'

　　'She is very lovely.'

　　'Lovelier than you expected?'

　　'Much lovelier. But-'

　　'The sooner you succeed in forgetting her, the better.'

　　He vowed, of course, that he never would and never could forget her.He would hear of no incompatibilities, listen to no objections,believe in no obstacles. That the beautiful Salome was herself notonly unconscious of his passion and indifferent to his person, butignorant of his very name and station, were facts not even to beadmitted on the list of difficulties. Finding him thus deaf to reason,I said no more.

　　It was all over, however, before the week was out.

　　'Look here, Blunt,' he said, coming up to me one morning in thecoffee-room of our hotel just as I was sitting down to answer a pileof home-letters; 'would you like to go on to Trieste tomorrow? There,don't look at me like that-you can guess how it is with me. I was afool ever to suppose she would care for me-a stranger, a foreigner, aChristian. Well, I'm horribly out of sorts anyhow-and-and I wish I wasa thousand miles off at this moment!'

　　We travelled on together to Athens, and there parted, Turnour beingbound for England, and I for the East. My own tour lasted many monthslonger. I went first to Egypt and the Holy Land; then joined anexploring party on the Euphrates; and at length, after just twelvemonths of Oriental life, found myself back again at Trieste about themiddle of April in the year following that during which occurred theevents I have just narrated. There I found that batch of letters andpapers to which I had been looking forward for many weeks past; andamongst the former, one from Coventry Turnour. This time he was notonly irrecoverably in love, but on the eve of matrimony. The letterwas rapturous and extravagant enough. The writer was the happiest ofmen; his destined bride the loveliest and most amiable of her sex; thefuture a paradise; the past a melancholy series of mistakes. As forlove, he had never, of course, known what it was till now.

　　And what of the beautiful Salome?

　　Not one word of her from beginning to end. He had forgotten her asutterly as if she had never existed. And yet how desperately in loveand how desperately in despair he was 'one little year ago'! Ah, yes;but then it was 'one little year ago'; and who that had ever knownCoventry Turnour would expect him to remember la plus grande desgrandes passions for even half that time?

　　I slept that night at Trieste, and went on next day to Venice.Somehow, I could not get Turnour and his love affairs out of my head.I remembered our visit to the Merceria. I was haunted by the image ofthe beautiful Jewess. Was she still so lovely? Did she still sitreading in her wonted seat by the open counter, with the gloomy shopreaching away behind, and the cases of rich robes and jewels allaround?

　　An irresistible impulse prompted me to go to the Merceria and see heronce again. I went. It had been a busy morning with me, and I did notget there till between three and four o'clock in the afternoon. Theplace was crowded. I passed up the well-remembered street, looking outon both sides for the gloomy little shop with its unattractivecounter; but in vain. When I had gone so far that I thought I musthave passed it, I turned back..House by house I retraced my steps tothe very entrance, and still could not find it. Then, concluding thatI had not gone far enough at first, I turned back again till I reacheda spot where several streets diverged. Here I came to a standstill,for beyond this point I knew I had not passed before.

　　It was now only too evident that the Jew no longer occupied his formershop in the Merceria, and that my chance of discovering hiswhereabouts was exceedingly slender. I could not inquire of hissuccessor, because I could not identify the house. I found itimpossible even to remember what trades were carried on by hisneighbours on either side. I was ignorant of his very name.

　　Convinced, therefore, of the inutility of making any further effort, Igave up the search, and comforted myself by reflecting that my ownheart was not made of adamant, and that it was, perhaps, better for mypeace not to see the beautiful Salome again. I was destined to see heragain, however, and that ere many days had passed over my head.

　　A year of more than ordinarily fatiguing Eastern travel had left me inneed of rest, and I had resolved to allow myself a month's sketchingin Venice and its neighbourhood before turning my face homewards. As,therefore, it is manifestly the first object of a sketcher to selecthis points of view, and as no more luxurious machine than a Venetiangondola was ever invented for the use of man, I proceeded to employthe first days of my stay in endless boatings to and fro: nowexploring all manner of canals and canaletti; rowing out in thedirection of Murano; now making for the islands beyond San PietroCastello, and in the course of these pilgrimages noting down aninfinite number of picturesque sites, and smoking an infinite numberof cigarettes. It was, I think, about the fourth or fifth day of thispleasant work, when my gondolier proposed to take me as far as theLido. It wanted about two hours to sunset, and the great sandbank laynot more than three or four miles away; so I gave the word, and inanother moment we had changed our route and were gliding farther andfarther from Venice at each dip of the oar. Then the long dull distantridge that had all day bounded the shallow horizon rose graduallyabove the placid level of the Lagune, assumed a more broken outline,resolved itself into hillocks and hollows of tawny sand, showed hereand there a patch of parched grass and tangled brake, and looked likethe coasts of some inhospitable desert beyond which no traveller mightpenetrate. My boatman made straight for a spot where some stakes atthe water's edge gave token of a landing-place; and here, though withsome difficulty, for the tide was low, ran the gondola aground. Ilanded. My first step was among graves.

　　'E'l cimeterio giudaico, signore,' said my gondolier, with a touch ofhis cap.

　　The Jewish cemetery! The ghetto of the dead! I remembered now to haveread or heard long since how the Venetian Jews, cut off in death as inlife from the neighbourhood of their Christian rulers, had been buriedfrom immemorial time upon this desolate waste. I stooped to examinethe headstone at my feet. It was but a shattered fragment, crustedover with yellow lichens, and eaten away by the salt sea air. I passedon to the next, and the next. Some were completely matted over withweeds and brambles; some were half-buried in the drifting sand; ofsome, only a corner remained above the surface. Here and there a name,a date, a fragment of heraldic carving, or part of a Hebrewinscription, was yet legible; but all were more or less broken andeffaced.

　　Wandering on thus among graves and hillocks, ascending at every step,and passing some three or four glassy pools overgrown with gaunt-looking reeds, I presently found that I had reached the central andmost elevated part of the Lido, and that I commanded an uninterruptedview on every side. On the one hand lay the broad, silent Lagunebounded by Venice and the Euganean hills--on the other, stealing up inlong, lazy folds, and breaking noiselessly against the endless shore,Fthe blue Adriatic. An old man gathering shells on the seaward side, adistant gondola on the Lagune, were the only signs of life for milesaround.

　　Standing on the upper ridge of this narrow barrier, looking upon bothwaters, and watching the gradual approach of what promised to be agorgeous sunset, I fell into one of those wandering trams of thoughtin which the real and unreal succeed each other as capriciously as ina dream. I remembered how Goethe here conceived his vertebral theoryof the skull-how Byron, too lame to walk, kept his horse on the Lido.and here rode daily to and fro-how Shelley loved the wild solitude ofthe place, wrote of it in Julian and Maddalo, listened, perhaps fromthis very spot, to the mad-house bell on the island of San Giorgio.Then I wondered if Titian had ever come hither from his gloomy houseon the other side of Venice, to study the gold and purple of thesewestern skies-if Othello had walked here with Desdemona-if Shylock wasburied yonder, and Leah whom he loved 'when he was a bachelor'.

　　And then in the midst of my reverie, I came suddenly upon anotherJewish cemetery.

　　Was it indeed another, or but an outlying portion of the first? It wasevidently another, and a more modern one. The ground was better kept.The monuments were newer. Such dates as I had succeeded in decipheringon the broken sepulchres lower down were all of the fourteenth andfifteenth centuries; but the inscriptions upon these bore reference toquite recent interments.

　　I went on a few steps farther. I stopped to copy a quaint Italiancouplet on one tomb-to gather a wild forget-me-not from the foot ofanother-to put aside a bramble that trailed across a third-and then Ibecame aware for the first time of a lady sitting beside a grave not adozen yards from the spot on which I stood.

　　I had believed myself so utterly alone, and was so taken by surprise,that for the first moment I could almost have persuaded myself thatshe also was 'of the stuff that dreams are made of'. She was dressedfrom head to foot in the deepest mourning; her face turned from me,looking towards the sunset; her cheek resting in the palm of her hand.The grave by which she sat was obviously recent. The scant herbageround about had been lately disturbed, and the marble headstone lookedas if it had not yet undergone a week's exposure to wind and weather.

　　Persuaded that she had not observed me, I lingered for an instantlooking at her. Something in the grace and sorrow of her attitude,something in the turn of her head and the flow of her sable draperies,arrested my attention. Was she young? I fancied so. Did she mourn ahusband?-a lover?-a parent? I glanced towards the headstone. It wascovered with Hebrew characters; so that, had I even been nearer, itcould have told me nothing.

　　But I felt that I had no right to stand there, a spectator of hersorrow, an intruder on his privacy.

　　I proceeded to move noiselessly away. At that moment she turned andlooked at me.

　　It was Salome.

　　Salome, pale and worn as from some deep and wasting grief, but morebeautiful, if that could be, than ever. Beautiful, with a still morespiritual beauty than of old; with cheeks so wan and eyes sounutterably bright and solemn, that my very heart seemed to standstill as I looked upon them. For one second I paused, half fancying,half hoping that there was recognition in her glance; then, not daringto look or linger longer, turned away. When I had gone far enough todo so without discourtesy, I stopped and gazed back. She had resumedher former attitude, and was looking over towards Venice and thesetting sun. The stone by which she watched was not more motionless.

　　The sun went down in glory. The last flush faded from the domes andbell-towers of Venice; the western peaks changed from rose to purple,from gold to grey; a scarcely perceptible film of mist became all atonce visible upon the surface of the Lagune; and overhead, the firststar trembled into light. I waited and watched till the shadows had sodeepened that I could no longer distinguish one distant object fromanother. Was that the spot? Was she still there? Was she moving? Wasshe gone? I could not tell. The more I looked, the more uncertain Ibecame. Then, fearing to miss my way in the fast-gathering twilight, Istruck down towards the water's edge, and made for the point at whichI had landed.

　　I found my gondolier fast asleep, with his head on a cushion, and hisbit of gondola-carpet thrown over him for a counterpane. I asked if hehad seen any other boat put off from the Lido since I left? He rubbedhis eyes, started up, and was awake in a moment.

　　'Per Bacco, signore, I have been asleep,' he said apologetically: 'Ihave seen nothing.'

　　'Did you observe any other boat moored hereabouts when we landed?'

　　'None, signore.

　　'And you have seen nothing of a lady in black?'

　　He laughed and shook his head.

　　'Consolatevi, signore,' he said archly. 'She will come tomorrow.'

　　Then, finding that I looked grave, he touched his cap, and with agentle, 'Scusate, signore,' took his place at the stern, and therewaited. I bade him row to my hotel; and then, leaning dreamily back inmy little dark cabin, I folded my arms, closed my eyes, and thought ofSalome.

　　How lovely she was! How infinitely more lovely than even my firstremembrance of her! How was it that I had not admired her more thatday in the Merceria? Was I blind, or had she become indeed morebeautiful? It was a sad and strange place in which to meet her again.By whose grave was she watching? By her father's? Yes, surely by herfather's. He was an old man when I saw him, and in the course ofnature had not long to live. He was dead: hence my unavailing searchin the Merceria. He was dead. His shop was let to another occupant.His stock-in-trade was sold and dispersed. And Salome-was she leftalone? Had she no mother? no brother?-no lover? Would her eyes havehad that look of speechless woe in them if she had any very near ordear tie left on earth? Then I thought of Coventry Turnour, and hisapproaching marriage. Did he ever really love her? I doubted it. 'Truelove,' saith an old song, 'can ne'er forget'; but he had forgotten, asthough the past had been a dream. And yet he was in earnest while itlasted-would have risked all for her sake, if she would have listenedto him. Ah, if she had listened to him!

　　And then I remembered that he had never told me the particulars ofthat affair. Did she herself reject him, or did he lay his suit beforeher father? And was he rejected only because he was a Christian? I hadnever cared to ask these things while we were together; but now Iwould have given the best hunter in my stables to know every minutedetail connected with the matter.

　　Pondering thus, travelling over the same ground again and again,wondering whether she remembered me, whether she was poor, whether shewas indeed alone in the world, how long the old man had been dead, anda hundred other things of the same kind-I scarcely noticed how thewatery miles glided past, or how the night closed in. One question,however, recurred oftener than any other: How was I to see her again?

　　I arrived at my hotel; I dined at the table d'hôte; I strolled out,after dinner, to my favourite cafe in the piazza; I dropped in forhalf an hour at the Fenice, and heard one act of an extremely pooropera; I came home restless, uneasy, wakeful; and sitting for hoursbefore my bedroom fire, asked myself the same perpetual question, Howwas I to see her again?

　　Fairly tired out at last, I fell asleep in my chair, and when I awokethe sun was shining upon my window.

　　I started to my feet. I had it now. It flashed upon me, as if it camewith the sunlight. I had but to go again to the cemetery, copy theinscription upon the old man's tomb, ask my learned friend ProfessorNicolai, of Padua, to translate it for me, and then, once inpossession of names and dates, the rest would be easy.

　　In less than an hour, I was once more on my way to the Lido.

　　I took a rubbing of the stone. It was the quickest way, and thesurest; for I knew that in Hebrew everything depended on the pointingof the characters, and I feared to trust my own untutored skill. Thisdone, I hastened back, wrote my letter to the professor, anddispatched both letter and rubbing by the midday train.

　　The professor was not a prompt man. On the contrary he was a pre-eminently slow man; dreamy, indolent, buried in Oriental lore. Fromany other correspondent one might have looked for a reply in thecourse of the morrow; but from Nicolai of Padua it would have beenfolly to expect one under two or three days. And in the meanwhile?Well, in the meanwhile there were churches and palaces to be seen,sketches to be made, letters of introduction to be delivered. It was,at all events, of no use to be impatient.

　　And yet I was impatient-so impatient that I could neither sketch, norread, nor sit still for ten minutes together. Possessed by anuncontrollable restlessness, I wandered from gallery to gallery, frompalace to palace, from church to church. The imprisonment of even agondola was irksome to me. I was, as it were, impelled to be movingand doing; and even so, the day seemed endless.

　　The next was even worse. There was just the possibility of a replyfrom Padua, and the knowledge of that possibility unsettled me for theday. Having watched and waited for every post from eight to four, Iwent down to the traghetto of St Mark's, and was there hailed by myaccustomed gondolier.

　　He touched his cap and waited for orders.

　　'Where to, signore?' he asked, finding that I remained silent.

　　'To the Lido.'

　　It was an irresistible temptation, and I yielded to it; but I yieldedin opposition to my judgment.

　　I knew that I ought not to haunt the place. I had resolved that Iwould not. And yet I went.

　　Going along, I told myself that I had only come to reconnoitre. It wasnot unlikely that she might be going to the same spot about the samehour as before; and in that case I might overtake her gondola by theway, or find it moored somewhere along the shore. At all events, I wasdetermined not to land. But we met no gondola beyond San PietroCastello; saw no sign of one along the shore. The afternoon was faradvanced; the sun was near going down; we had the Lagune and the Lidoto ourselves.

　　My boatman made for the same landing-place, and moored his gondola tothe same stake as before. He took it for granted that I meant to land;and I landed. After all, however, it was evident that Salome could notbe there, in which case I was guilty of no intrusion. I might strollin the direction of the cemetery, taking care to avoid her, if shewere anywhere about, and keeping well away from that part where I hadlast seen her. So I broke another resolve, and went up towards the topof the Lido. Again I came to the salt pools and the reeds; again stoodwith the sea upon my left hand and the Lagune upon my right, and theendless sandbank reaching on for miles between the two. Yonder lay thenew cemetery. Standing thus I overlooked every foot of the ground. Icould even distinguish the headstone of which I had taken the rubbingthe morning before. There was no living thing in sight. I was, to allappearance, as utterly alone as Enoch Arden on his desert island..ThenI strolled on, a little nearer, and a little nearer still; and then,contrary to all my determinations, I found myself standing upon thevery spot, beside the very grave, which I had made my mind on noaccount to approach.

　　The sun was now just going down-had gone down, indeed, behind a bankof golden-edged cumuli-and was flooding earth, sea, and sky withcrimson. It was at this hour that I saw her. It was upon this spotthat she was sitting. A few scant blades of grass had sprung up hereand there upon the grave. Her dress must have touched them as she satthere-her dress; perhaps her hand.

　　I gathered one, and laid it carefully between the leaves of my note-book.

　　At last I turned to go, and, turning, met her face to face!

　　She was distant about six yards, and advancing slowly towards the spoton which I was standing. Her head drooped slightly forward; her handswere clasped together; her eyes were fixed upon the ground. It was theattitude of a null. Startled, confused, scarcely knowing what I did, Itook off my hat, and drew aside to let her pass.

　　She looked up-hesitated-stood still-gazed at me with a strange,without another glance, and resumed her former place and attitudebeside her father's grave.

　　I turned away. I would have given worlds to speak to her; but I hadnot dared, and the opportunity was gone. Yet I might have spoken! Shelooked at me-looked at me with so strange and piteous an expression inher eyes-continued looking at me as long as one might have countedfive...I might have spoken. I surely might have spoken! And now-ah!now it was impossible. She had fallen into the old thoughtful attitudewith her cheek resting on her hand.

　　Her thoughts were far away. She had forgotten my very presence.

　　I went back to the shore, more disturbed and uneasy than ever. I spentall the remaining daylight in rowing up and down the margin of theLido, looking for her gondola-hoping, at all events, to see her putoff-to follow her, perhaps, across the waste of waters. But the duskcame quickly on, and then darkness, and I left at last without havingseen any further sign or token of her presence.

　　Lying awake that night, tossing uneasily upon my bed, and thinkingover the incidents of the last few days, I found myself perpetuallyrecurring to that long, steady, sorrowful gaze which she fixed upon mein the cemetery. The more I thought of it, the more I seemed to feelthat there was in it some deeper meaning than I, in my confusion, hadobserved at the time. It was such a strange look-a look almost ofentreaty, I asking for help or sympathy; like the dumb appeal in theeyes of a sick animal. Could this really be? What, after all, morepossible than that, left alone in the world-with, perhaps, not asingle male relation to advise her-she found herself in some positionof present difficulty, and knew not where to turn for help? All thismight well be. She had even, perhaps, some instinctive feeling thatshe might trust me. Ah! if she would indeed trust me...

　　I had hoped to receive my Paduan letter by the morning delivery; butmorning and afternoon went by as before, and still no letter came. Asthe day began to decline, I was again on my way to the Lido; this timefor the purpose, and with the intention, of speaking to her. I landed,and went direct to the cemetery. It had been a dull day. Lagune andsky were both one leaden uniform grey, and a mist hung over Venice.

　　I saw her from the moment I reached the upper ridge. She was walkingslowly to and fro among the graves, like a stately shadow. I had feltconfident, somehow, that she would be there; and now, for some reasonthat I could not have defined for my life, I felt equally confidentthat she expected me..Trembling and eager, yet half dreading themoment when she should discover my presence, I hastened on, printingthe loose sand at every noiseless step. A few moments more, and Ishould overtake her, speak to her, hear the music of her voice-thatmusic which I remembered so well, though a year had gone by since Ilast heard it. But how should I address her? What had I to say?

　　I knew not. I had no time to think. I could only hurry on till withinsome ten feet of her trailing garments; stand still when she turned,and uncover before her as if she were a queen.

　　She paused and looked at me, just as she had paused and looked at methe evening before.

　　With the same sorrowful meaning in her eyes; with even more than thesame entreating expression. But she waited for me to speak.

　　I did speak. I cannot recall what I said; I only know that I falteredsomething of an apology--mentioned that I had had the honour ofmeeting her before, many months ago; and, trying to say more-trying toexpress how thankfully and proudly I would devote myself to anyservice.

　　However humble, however laborious, I failed both in voice and words,and broke down utterly.

　　Having come to a stop, I looked up, and found her eyes still fixedupon me.

　　'You are a Christian,' she said.

　　A trembling came upon me at the first sound of her voice. It was thesame voice; distinct, melodious, scarce louder than a whisper-and yetit was not quite the same. There was a melancholy in the music, and,if I may use a word which, after all, fails to express my meaning, aremoteness, that fell upon my ear like the plaintive cadence in anautumnal wind.

　　I bent my head, and answered that I was.

　　She pointed to the headstone of which I had taken a rubbing a day ortwo before.

　　'A Christian soul lies there,' she said, 'laid in earth without oneChristian prayer-with Hebrew rites-in a Hebrew sanctuary. Will you,stranger, perform an act of piety towards the dead?'

　　'The Signora has but to speak,' I said. 'All that she wishes shall bedone.'

　　'Read one prayer over this grave; trace a cross upon this stone.'

　　'I will.'

　　She thanked me with a gesture, slightly bowed her head, drew her outergarment more closely round her, and moved away to a rising ground atsome little distance. I was dismissed. I had no excuse for lingering-no right to prolong the interview-no business to remain there onemoment longer. So I left her there, nor once looked back till Ireached the last point from which I knew I should be able to see her.But when I turned for that last look she was no longer in sight.

　　I had resolved to speak to her, and this was the result. A strangerinterview never, surely, fell to the lot of man! I had said nothingthat I meant to say-had learnt nothing that I sought to know.

　　With regard to her circumstances, her place of residence, her veryname, I was no wiser than before. And yet I had, perhaps, no reason tobe dissatisfied. She had honoured me with her confidence, andentrusted to me a task of some difficulty and importance. It now onlyremained for me to execute that task as thoroughly and as quickly aspossible. That done, I might fairly hope to win some place in herremembrance-by and by, perhaps, in her esteem.

　　Meanwhile, the old question rose again-whose grave could it be? I hadsettled this matter so conclusively in my own mind from the first,that could scarcely believe even now that it was not her father's. Yetthat he should have died a secret convert to Christianity wasincredible. Whose grave could it be? A lover's? a Christian lover's?Alas! it might be. Or a sister's? In either of these cases it was morethan probable that Salome was herself a convert. But I had no time towaste in conjecture. I must act, and act promptly..I hastened back toVenice as fast as my gondolier could row me; and as we went along Ipromised myself that all her wishes should be carried out before shevisited the spot again. To at once secure the services of a clergymanwho would go with me to the Lido at early dawn, and there read someportion, at least, of the burial-service! and at the same time toengage a stonemason to cut the cross-to have all done before she, oranyone, should have approached the place next day, was my especialobject. And that object I was resolved to carry out, though I had tosearch Venice through before I laid my head upon the pillow.

　　I found my clergyman without difficulty. He was a young man occupyingrooms in the same hotel, and on the same floor as myself. I had methim each day at the table d'hôte, and conversed with him once or twicein the reading-room. He was a North countryman, had not long sincetaken orders, and was both gentlemanly and obliging. He promised inthe readiest manner to do all that I required, and to breakfast withme at six the next morning, in order that we might reach the cemeteryby eight.

　　To find my stonemason, however, was not so easy; and yet I went towork methodically enough. I began with the Venetian Directory; thencopied a list of stonemasons' names and addresses; then took a gondolaa due rame, and started upon my voyage of discovery.

　　But a night's voyage of discovery among the intricate back canalettiof Venice is no very easy and no very safe enterprise. Narrow,tortuous, densely populated, often blocked by huge hay, wood, andprovision barges, almost wholly unlighted, and so perplexingly alikethat no mere novice in Venetian topography need ever hope todistinguish one from another, they baffle the very gondoliers, and area terra incognita to all but the dwellers therein.

　　I succeeded, however, in finding three of the places entered on mylist. At the first I was told that the workman of whom I was in questwas working by the week somewhere over by Murano, and would not beback again till Saturday night. At the second and third, I found themen at home, supping with their wives and children at the end of theday's work; but neither would consent to undertake my commission. One,after a whispered consultation with his son, declined reluctantly. Theother told me plainly that he dared not do it, and that he did notbelieve I should find a stonemason in Venice who would be bolder thanhimself.

　　The Jews, he said, were rich and powerful; no longer an oppressedpeople; no longer to be insulted even in Venice with impunity. To cuta Christian cross upon a Jewish headstone in the Jewish cemetery,would be 'a sort of sacrilege', and punishable, no doubt, by the law.This sounded like truth; so finding that my rowers were by no meansconfident of their way, and that the canaletti were dark as thecatacombs, I prevailed upon the stonemason to sell me a small malletand a couple of chisels, and made up my mind to commit the sacrilegemyself.

　　With this single exception, all was done next morning as I had plannedto do. My new acquaintance breakfasted with me, accompanied me to theLido, read such portions of the burial-service as seemed proper tohim, and then, having business in Venice, left me to my task. It wasby no means an easy one. To a skilled hand it would have been,perhaps, the work of half an hour; but it was my first effort, andrude as the thing was-a mere grooved attempt at a Latin cross, abouttwo inches and a half in length, cut close at the bottom of the stone,where it could be easily concealed by a little piling of the sand-ittook me nearly four hours to complete.

　　While I was at work, the dull grey morning grew duller and greyer; athick sea fog drove up from the Adriatic, and a low moaning wind cameand went like the echo of a distant requiem. More than once I started,believing that she had surprised me there-fancying I saw the passingof a shadow-heard the rustling of a garment-the breathing of a sigh.But no. The mists and the moaning wind deceived me. I was alone..Whenat length I got back to my hotel, it was just two o'clock. The hall-porter put a letter into my hand as I passed through. One glance atthat crabbed superscription was enough. It was from Padua. I hastenedto my room, tore open the envelope, and read these words:

　　'CARO SIGNORE,-The rubbing you send is neither ancient nor curious, asI fear you suppose it to be. Altro; it is of yesterday. It merelyrecords that one Salome, the only and beloved child of a certain Isaacda Costa, died last autumn on the eighteenth of October, aged twenty-one years, and that by the said Isaac da Costa this monument iserected to the memory of her virtues and his grief.

　　'I pray you caro signore, to receive the assurance of my sincereesteem.

　　NICOLO NICOIAI.

　　'Padua, April 27th, 1857.'

　　The letter dropped from my hand. I seemed to have read withoutunderstanding it. I picked it up; went through it again, word by word;sat down; rose up; took a turn across the room; felt confused,bewildered, incredulous.

　　Could there, then, be two Salomes? or was there some radical andextraordinary mistake?

　　I hesitated; I knew not what to do. Should I go down to the Merceria,and see whether the name of da Costa was known in the quartier? Orfind out the registrar of births and deaths for the Jewish district?Or call upon the principal rabbi, and learn from him who this secondSalome had been, and in what degree of relationship she stood towardsthe Salome whom I knew? I decided upon the last course. The chiefrabbi's address was easily obtained. He lived in an ancient house onthe Giudecca, and there I found him-a grave, stately old man, with agrizzled beard reaching nearly to his waist.

　　I introduced myself, and stated my business. I came to ask if he couldgive me any information respecting the late Salome da Costa, who diedon the 18th of October last, and was buried on the Lido.

　　The rabbi replied that he had no doubt he could give me anyinformation I desired, as he had known the lady personally, and wasthe intimate friend of her father.

　　'Can you tell me,' I asked, 'whether she had any dear friend or femalerelative of the same name-Salome?' The rabbi shook his head. 'I thinknot, he said. 'I remember no other maiden of that name.'

　　'Pardon me, but I know there was another,' I replied. 'There was avery beautiful Salome living in the Merceria when I was last inVenice, just this time last year.'

　　'Salome da Costa was very fair,' said the rabbi; 'and she dwelt withher father in the Merceria.

　　Since her death, he hath removed to the neighbourhood of the Rialto.'

　　'This Salome's father was a dealer in Oriental goods,' I said,hastily.

　　'Isaac da Costa is a dealer in Oriental goods,' replied the old manvery gently. 'We are speaking, my son, of the same persons.'

　　'Impossible!'

　　He shook his head again.

　　'But she lives!' I exclaimed, becoming greatly agitated. 'She lives. Ihave seen her. I have spoken to her. I saw her only last evening.'

　　'Nay,' he said compassionately, 'this is some dream. She of whom youspeak is indeed no more.'

　　'I saw her only last evening,' I repeated.

　　'Where did you suppose you beheld her?'

　　'On the Lido.'.'On the Lido?'

　　'And she spoke to me. I heard her voice-heard it as distinctly as Ihear my own at this moment.'

　　The rabbi stroked his beard thoughtfully, and looked at me. 'You thinkyou heard her voice!' he ejaculated. 'That is strange. What said she?'

　　I was about to answer. I checked myself-a sudden thought flashed uponme-I trembled from head to foot. 'Have you-have you any reason forsupposing that she died a Christian?' I faltered.

　　The old man started, and changed colour.

　　'I-I-that is a strange question,' he stammered. 'Why do you ask it?'

　　'Yes or no?' I cried wildly. 'Yes or no?'

　　He frowned, looked down, hesitated. 'I admit,' he said, after a momentor two-'I admit that I may have heard something tending that way. Itmay be that the maiden cherished some secret doubt. Yet she was noprofessed Christian.'

　　'Laid in earth without one Christian prayer; with Hebrew rites; in aHebrew sanctuary!' I repeated to myself.

　　'But I marvel how you come to have heard of this,' continued therabbi. 'It was known only to her father and myself.'

　　'Sir,' I said solemnly, 'I know now that Salome da Costa is dead; Ihave seen her spirit thrice, haunting the spot where-'

　　My voice broke. I could not utter the words.

　　'Last evening, at sunset,' I resumed, 'was the third time. Neverdoubting that-that I indeed beheld her in the flesh, I spoke to her.She answered me. She-she told me this.'

　　The rabbi covered his face with his hands, and so remained for sometime, lost in meditation.

　　Young man,' he said at length, 'your story is strange, and you bringstrange evidence to bear upon it. It may be as you say; it may be thatyou are the dupe of some waking dream-I know not.'

　　He knew not; but I-ah! I knew, only too well. I knew now why she hadappeared to me clothed with such unearthly beauty. I understood nowthat look of dumb entreaty in her eyes-that tone of strange remotenessin her voice. The sweet soul could not rest amid the dust of itskinsfolk, 'unhousel'd, unanointed, unaneal'd', lacking even 'oneChristian prayer above its grave. And now-was it all over? Should Inever see her more?

　　Never-ah! never. How I haunted the Lido at sunset for many a month,till spring had blossomed into autumn, and autumn had ripened intosummer; how I wandered back to Venice year after year, at the sameseason, while yet any vestige of that wild hope remained alive; how myheart has never throbbed, my pulse never leaped, for love of mortalwoman since that time--are details into which I need not enter here.Enough that I watched and waited but that her gracious spirit appearedto me no more. I wait still, but I watch no longer. I know now thatour place of meeting will not be here.