"
"Yet thou knowest, Marina, that already the great cardinal--but lately
come from France--hath started for Rome to make up this quarrel?"
"That is what the Senate will not understand!" she cried, with flashing
eyes. "The Holy Father will have submission and penance, in place of
embassies and pomp. One must go to him quite simply, from the people,
saying, 'We have sinned; have mercy upon Venice!' Piero, thou knowest
that awful vision of the Tintoret? It is Venice that he hath painted in
her doom--the great floods bursting in upon her--all the agony and the
anguish and the desolation of God's wrath! Santa Maria! I cannot bear
it!" She closed her eyes, shuddering and sick with terror.
"It was the way with Jacopo," said Pietro irreverently. "He was full of
freaks, and some demon hath tormented him. He was a man like others--not
one for a revelation."
"Hush, Piero!" she implored; "it breaks my heart! This also may be
counted against Venice, for it is the Holy Madonna who hath granted me
the vision.
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