The clouds above them, beautiful with changing sunset
lights, were no longer mirrored on a still lagoon, but mottled the
broken surfaces of the river with hues of bronze and purple, between the
leaves of the creeping water-plants which clogged the movement of the
oars; for they had exchanged the liquid azure pavement of their "Citta
Nobilissima" for the brown tide of the Brenta. On the river's brink the
rushes were starred with lilies and iris and ranunculus, and the
fragrance of sheeted flowers from the water-meadows came to them fresh
and delicious, mingled with the salt breath of the sea, while
swallows--dusky, violet-winged--circled about their bows, teasing their
progress with mystic eliptical flight--like persistent problems
perpetually recurring, yet to be solved by fate alone.
It was the hour of the Ave Maria, and Marina roused herself from her sad
reverie. The clouds piled themselves in luminous masses and drifted
into the hollows of the wonderful Euganean hills, and a crimson sunset
tinged peaks and clouds with glory, as Padua with its low arcaded
streets, and San Antonio--cousin to San Marco in minarets and Eastern
splendor--and the Lion of Saint Mark upon his lofty column, closed the
vista of their weary day.
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