The scene on which they looked out seemed to confirm his words.  It was the last evening of their stay at Bellocchio, and the Procuratessa had planned a musical festival on the river.  Festoons of coloured lanterns wound from the portico to the water; and opposite the landing lay the Procuratore’s Bucentaur, a great barge hung with crimson velvet.  In the prow were stationed the comedians, in airy mythological dress, and as the guests stepped on board they were received by Miranda, a rosy Venus who, escorted by Mars and Adonis, recited an ode composed by Cantapresto in the Procuratessa’s honour.  A banquet was spread in the deck-house, which was hung with silk arras and Venetian mirrors, and, while the guests feasted, dozens of little boats hung with lights and filled with musicians flitted about the Bucentaur like a swarm of musical fireflies...

The next day Odo accompanied the Procuratessa to Venice.  Had he been a traveller from beyond the Alps he could hardly have been more unprepared for the spectacle that awaited him.  In aspect and customs Venice differed almost as much from other Italian cities as from those of the rest of Europe.  From the fanciful stone embroidery of her churches and palaces to a hundred singularities in dress and manners—­the full-bottomed wigs and long gowns of the nobles, the black mantles and head-draperies of the ladies, the white masks worn abroad by both sexes, the publicity of social life under the arcades of the Piazza, the extraordinary freedom of intercourse in the casini, gaming-rooms and theatres—­the city proclaimed, in every detail of life and architecture, her independence of any tradition but her own.  This was the more singular as Saint Mark’s square had for centuries been the meeting-place of East and West, and the goal of artists, scholars and pleasure-seekers from all parts of the world.  Indeed, as Coeur-Volant pointed out, the Venetian customs almost appeared to have been devised for the convenience of strangers.  The privilege of going masked at almost all seasons and the enforced uniformity of dress, which in itself provided a kind of incognito, made the place singularly favourable to every kind of intrigue and amusement; while the mild temper of the people and the watchfulness of the police prevented the public disorders that such license might have occasioned.  These seeming anomalies abounded on every side.  From the gaming-table where a tinker might set a ducat against a prince it was but a few steps to the Broglio, or arcade under the ducal palace, into which no plebeian might intrude while the nobility walked there.  The great ladies, who were subject to strict sumptuary laws, and might not display their jewels or try the new French fashions but on the sly, were yet privileged at all hours to go abroad alone in their gondolas.  No society was more haughty and exclusive in its traditions, yet the mask leveled all classes and permitted, during the greater part of the year, an equality of intercourse