[Illustration: STAIRWAY BARGELLO PALACE, FLORENCE]
As the strong horses pulled up the mountainside, you and I looked back at Florence. She lay off in the distant shadows, with the Arno at her feet—the Arno, no longer a yellow, muddy stream, but a glistening, silvery ribbon, with the moonbeams dancing merrily on its phantom-like bridges. The towers and turrets were transformed into marble lace; the statues to golden cupids; the chimney-tops formed bas-reliefs; and the whole, a misty shadow-picture. Even Florence was improved by the witchery of "that old man in the moon." The silvery unrealness of it cast a spell over us, making—
... The longing heart yearn for Some one to love, and to be Beloved of some one.
When the top was reached we looked only at the fairyland in the distance. It is difficult to idealize an ordinary little village, even if it be Tuscan, and this one has nothing to recommend it but a cathedral and some picturesque beggars.
Returning another way, we passed Boccaccio's villa, and in fancy saw his merry party of lords and ladies seated in the arbors looking out toward Belle Firenze over the now golden River Arno.
Thus it was I left you in Florence. I could not find you when Ruth called out, "Are you going back with the cab, honey?"
If Florence was left behind in a memory of purple mist, the highroad between it and Bologna would awaken the most poetic. The word "highroad" is a little creation of my own in this connection, but I feel sure you will believe it to be "high" when I tell you that Florence lies at the foot of the Apennines and Bologna at the summit; and that the railway is, by some miracle of engineering, built up through and around these mountains. We threaded forty-five tunnels, swung around numberless viaducts, crawled over heart-stilling trestleworks connecting one peak with another, and finally came out on top, much dirty and more tired.
We arrived in Venice at 12 o'clock, midnight, at the full of the moon. It cannot be compared with my Florentine dream, for while they are both exquisitely lovely, they are different. There is nothing on earth quite like Venice by moonlight.
All things lose perspective at close range, or in the glare of the sun's rays, and Venice shares this disenchantment. It matters little what or how much one has read of Venice—to realize its charm, its color scheme and its uniqueness it must be experienced. For Venice is not a thing, it is an experience.