Marcantonio had entered the gondola gaily, with a full, pleasurable sense of the beauty of life, and well content with that portion which had fallen to his lot; for he was easily affected, and the air of the palace was full of the excitement of his fête. The only forebodings that shadowed his sunshine were connected with Marina and the gift which he should offer to his mother upon his return from the Ducal Palace. But the day was one to banish every hint of failure, making him more conscious of his power than he had ever been before, and he felt himself floating toward attainment--whatever the difficulties might be. But with his first step upon the Piazzetta he forgot the glory of the sunshine flashing over the blue waters, and a sudden sense of fate possessed him, as his father made an almost imperceptible pause in his grave progress toward the Ducal Palace, and with the slightest possible movement of his hand seemed to direct his son's attention to the great granite columns which bore the emblems of the patron saints of Venice.
A hundred times, in crossing the Piazzetta, Marcantonio had been vaguely aware of them as appropriate emblems of barbaric force and splendor and allegoric Christian allegiance; but suddenly they stood to him for historic records--the echoes of dread deeds avenged there rolled forth from the space between the columns, and the jeweled eyes of the terrible winged Lion flashed defiance upon any who questioned, in the remotest way, the will or the act of the Republic. He glanced toward the elder man, some deprecatory comment rising to his lips as he strove to dissipate the symbolic mood which was surely possessing him, for he felt himself uncomfortably conscious of the meaning wrought into the very stones about him, and to-day this over-mastering assertion of Venice--always Venice dominant--was oppressive.
But his father, apparently unaware of Marcantonio's turbulent sensations, wore his usual reserved and dignified mien; even the motion he had seemed to make before the columns in the Piazzetta was probably only due to Marcantonio's imagination, and the young fellow's light rejoinder passed unuttered, intensifying his discomfort. He realized that he was not searching for this symbolism with a poet's appreciation, nor as an archaeologist delighting in curios, but as a son of the Republic--to gather her history and her purpose, to make himself one with her, to put himself under her yoke--and in his heart he rebelled.