Often the people passing in gondola or bark glanced carelessly into the
depth of the open window space framed between those polished marble
shafts, for the familiar vision of a wonderful young face, beautiful as
a Madonna from some high altar in Venice; often, too, this vision of a
maiden bent above a child, with rare golden hair and great eyes full of
pain.
There was a little lingering on the landing as they left the gondola;
for the baby, waking from his long, refreshing sleep, had claimed his
share of petting before the great dark man who tossed him so restfully
in his strong arms went away. There was no one who could make the little
Zuane laugh like "babbo," though the tremulous, treble echo of the full
tones of the gondolier had a pathos for those who listened.
III
The little Zuane had eaten his supper of _polenta_ and, in the painted
cradle which his grandfather Girolamo had bought for him from under the
arcades of the Piazetta, lay at last asleep, consigned to the care of
all those saints and guardian angels who make the little ones their
charge, and who smiled down upon him from the golden aureoles and clouds
of rose and blue on the cradle-roof while, slowly balancing, it charmed
him into dreams.
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