"I could almost fancy, Carlo, that my father was right in using the name
he did," she said, as, recovering herself, she turned a reproachful look
on his still excited features.
"It is the business of parents to name their children;--but enough. I
must leave thee, good Gelsomina, and I leave thee with a heavy heart."
The unsuspecting Gelsomina forgot her alarm. She knew not why, but,
though the imaginary Carlo seldom quitted her that she was not sad, she
felt a weight heavier than common on her spirits at this declaration.
"Thou hast thy affairs, and they must not be forgotten. Art fortunate
with the gondola of late, Carlo?"
"Gold and I are nearly strangers. The Republic throws the whole charge
of the venerable prisoner on my toil."
"I have little, as thou knowest, Carlo," said Gelsomina in a
half-audible voice; "but it is thine. My father is not rich, as thou
can'st feel, or he would not live on the sufferings of others, by
holding the keys of the prison."
"He is better employed than those who set the duty. Were the choice
given me, girl, to wear the horned bonnet, to feast in their halls, to
rest in their palaces, to be the gayest bauble in such a pageant as that
of yesterday, to plot in their secret councils, and to be the heartless
judge to condemn my fellows to this misery--or to be merely the keeper
of the keys and turner of the bolts--I should seize on the latter
office, as not only the most innocent, but by far the most honorable!"
"Thou dost not judge as the world judges, Carlo.
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