most of them had been cheerful because they were going to see the Contessa Dandolo.
Now, beating up the Canal, against the cold wind off the mountains, and with the houses as clear and sharp as on a winter day, which, of course, it was, they saw the old magic of the city and its beauty. But it was conditioned, for the Colonel, by his knowing many of the people who lived in the palazzos; or if no one lived there now, knowing to what use the different places had been put.
There’s Alvarito’s mother’s house, he thought, and did not say.
She never lives there much and stays out at the country house near Treviso where they have trees. She’s tired of there not being trees in Venice. She lost a fine man and nothing really interests her now except efficiency.
But the family at one time lent the house to George Gordon, Lord Byron, and nobody sleeps now in Byron’s bed nor in the other bed, two flights below, where he used to sleep with the gondolier’s wife. They are not sacred, nor relics. They are just extra beds that were not used afterwards for various reasons, or possibly to respect Lord Byron who was well loved in this town, in spite of all the errors he committed. You have to be a tough boy in this town to be loved, the Colonel thought. They never cared anything for Robert Browning, nor Mrs. Robert Browning, nor for their dog. They weren’t Venetians no matter how well he wrote of it. And what is a tough boy, he asked himself. You use it so loosely you should be able to define it. I suppose it is a man who will make his play and then
