"I do not willingly," he replied, "enter upon acknowledgments of this nature. They tend to excite feelings of envy, and sometimes expose the warmest friendship to a severe test. We have now, however, enjoyed abundant opportunity to study the lights, and shades, and inmost recesses of our respective characters, and as you have made me your father-confessor, I shall no longer hesitate to repose in you a responsive and unbounded confidence. Know, then, that I love, with all the enthusiasm of a first passion, the most beautiful woman of her time--that she is the only daughter of the proudest senator in Venice--that she is no stranger to your family, and now resides within a league of us. Her name is Laura Foscari; and she is, alas! the destined and unwilling bride of the opulent Ercole Barozzo, governor of Candia."
At this unexpected intelligence, I almost started on my feet with astonishment. My consternation was too great for utterance, and I listened with breathless and eager attention.
"We became acquainted," he continued, "by a singular accident. I had long admired her as the most lovely woman in Venice. Her head has all the beauty of a fine antique, lighted up by dark eyes of radiant lustre, and heightened by a smile of magic power and sweetness. I have more than once sketched her unrivalled features when she was kneeling at church, and her fine eyes were upraised in devotional rapture. In public places, and at mass, I had frequently seen her, and our eyes had so often met, that she could not but learn from mine how fervently I admired her. My endeavours to obtain an introduction as an artist to her father and brothers had been unsuccessful, and at length I was indebted to a fortunate incident for an opportunity of conversing with her unobserved. One evening, near the close of the last Carnival, I saw her enter with her friends the place of St Mark, near the new church of San Geminiano. She wore only a half-mask, and her graceful mien and fine person could not be disguised. My mask and domino were similar to those of her youngest brother, who resembled me also somewhat in person. The imperfect light and the confusion of the assembled crowd separated her from her party; and while endeavouring to rejoin them, she approached me, mistook me for her brother, put her arm within mine, and with charming vivacity, whispered in my ear some comments on the motley groups around us. You will readily conjecture that I promptly availed myself of the brief and golden opportunity. I glanced rapidly around, and finding that we were unobserved, I partially raised my mask. She had so often observed me gazing upon her with undisguised and rapturous admiration, that she recognised me at once, and tacitly acknowledged it by a blush which suffused every visible feature with crimson. In glowing and beautiful confusion she attempted to withdraw her arm, but I retained it firmly, and in low but emphatic tones, I told her that I had long loved her with sincerity and ardour; that I could fairly boast of constancy and discretion, of education and refinement; that no man so well understood her value, or would encounter and endure so much to win her affections. All this and more I poured into her ear with rapid and glowing diction, and with the impassioned gesture which is natural to me. Timid and irresolute, she accompanied me some paces, paused, and in trembling emotion again attempted to withdraw her arm, but was still urged forward by my impetuosity. At length, by a sudden effort, she escaped; but, as she quitted, whispered with bewitching hesitation and timidity--'_To-morrow morning, at Santi Giovanni e Paolo._' Soon as these words fell on my delighted ear, I plunged into the crowd of masks, in token of my discretion and prompt obedience to her will. The emotion excited by this early and unexpected proof of sympathy was so rapturous and overwhelming, that I abandoned myself to all the extravagance of sudden bliss. I flew on wings of ecstasy along the streets, bounded over the stairs of the Rialto, and reached my abode in a state of mind bordering on delirium. During that interminable but delicious night I neither sought nor wished for repose. I felt as if I had never known sleep--as if I should never sleep again; and, when my waking dreams occasionally yielded to brief and agitated slumber, my excited feelings called up a flitting train of images not less vivid and enchanting.