She descended the well known flight, down
which the head of Faliero had rolled, and was soon beneath the arch of
the gate. Here the timid and unpractised maid again stopped, for she
could not venture into the square without assuring herself, like a deer
about to quit its cover, of the tranquillity of the place into which she
was to enter.
The agents of the police had been too much alarmed by the rising of the
fishermen not to call their usual ingenuity and finesse into play, the
moment the disturbance was appeased. Money had been given to the
mountebanks and ballad singers to induce them to reappear, and groups of
hirelings, some in masks and others without concealment, were
ostentatiously assembled in different parts of the piazza. In short,
those usual expedients were resorted to which are constantly used to
restore the confidence of a people, in those countries in which
civilization is so new, that they are not yet considered sufficiently
advanced to be the guardians of their own security. There are few
artifices so shallow that many will not be their dupes. The idler, the
curious, the really discontented, the factious, the designing, with a
suitable mixture of the unthinking, and of those who only live for the
pleasure of the passing hour, a class not the least insignificant for
numbers, had lent themselves to the views of the police; and when
Gelsomina was ready to enter the Piazzetta, she found both the squares
partly filled.
Pages:
400
401
402
403
404
405
406
407
408
409
410
411
412
413
414
415
416
417
418
419
420
421
422
423
424