Then he went to the window, and leaned on the brass bar, and looked out on the dark and sleeping world, with its countless golden points of fire.  He remained there a long time, thinking—­of the past, in which he had fancied his life was buried; of the present, with its bewildering uncertainties; of the future, with its fascinating dreams.  There might be a future for him, then, after all; and hope; and the joy of companionship?  Surely that letter meant at least so much.

But then the boundlessness, the eager impatience, of human wishes!  Farther and farther, as he leaned and looked out, without seeing much of the wonderful spectacle before him, went his thoughts and eager hopes and desires.  Companionship; but with whom?  And might not the spring-time of life come back again, as it was now coming back to the world in the sweet new air that had begun to blow from the South?  And what message did the soft night-wind bring him but the name of Natalie?  And Natalie was written in the clear and shining heavens, in letters of fire and joy; and the river spoke of Natalie; and the darkness murmured Natalie.

But his heart, whispering to him—­there, in the silence of the night, in the time when dreams abound, and visions of what may be—­his heart, whispering to him, said—­“Natalushka!”

CHAPTER XI.

A COMMISSION.

When Ferdinand Lind looked out the next day from the window of his hotel, it was not at all the Venice of chromolithography that lay before him.  The morning was wild, gray, and gloomy, with a blustering wind blowing down from the north; the broad expanse of green water ruffled and lashed by continual squalls; the sea-gulls wheeling and dipping over the driven waves; the dingy masses of shipping huddled along the wet and deserted quays; the long spur of the Lido a thin black line between the green sea and purple sky; and the domed churches over there, and the rows of tall and narrow and grumbling palaces overlooking the canals nearer at hand, all alike dismal and bedraggled and dark.

When he went outside he shivered; but at all events these cold, damp odors of the sea and the rainy wind were more grateful than the mustiness of the hotel.  But the deserted look of the place!  The gondolas, with their hearse-like coverings on, lay empty and untended by the steps, as if waiting for a funeral procession.  The men had taken shelter below the archways, where they formed groups, silent, uncomfortable, sulky.  The few passers-by on the wet quays hurried along with their voluminous black cloaks wrapped round their shoulders, and hiding most of the mahogany-colored faces.  Even the plague of beggars had been dispersed; they had slunk away shivering into the foul-smelling nooks and crannies.  There was not a soul to give a handful of maize to the pigeons in the Place of St. Mark.

But when Lind had got round into the Place, what was his surprise to find Calabressa having his breakfast in the open air at a small table in front of a cafe.  He was quite alone there; but he seemed much content.  In fact, he was laughing heartily, all to himself, at something he had been reading in the newspaper open before him.