glorious symmetry, as no man, still less an artist, could look on unmoved.
In trembling and indescribable impatience, I awaited the raising of her
veil. Another gust, and a slight stumble as she bounded rather than
stepped into the boat, befriended me; the partial shifting of her veil,
which she hastily replaced, permitted a glimpse of her features--brief,
indeed, but never to be forgotten. Yes, father! the face which surmounted
that goddess-like and splendid person, was the horrid visage I have
sketched, lean and yellow, drawn up into innumerable wrinkles, and with
black eyes of intolerable brightness, blazing out of deep and faded
sockets. Staggered by this unearthly contrast, I fell back upon the bench
of the gondola, and gazed in silent horror at the stranger, who answered
not the blunt questions of Jacopo; and, as if ashamed of her astounding
ugliness, sat motionless and shrouded from head to foot in her capacious
mantle. I followed her into the church; but, unable to hold out during the
mass, I left her there and hastily returned to sketch this sublime example
of the hideous before any of its points had faded from my memory. Forgive
me, father, for yielding to an impulse so strong as to overwhelm all power
of resistance. Yet why should I abandon this rare opportunity of
displaying any skill I may have gained from so gifted a teacher? Pictures
of Madonnas and of lovely women so abound in all our palaces, that a young
artist can only rise above the common level by representing something
extraordinary, something rarely or never seen in life."

Contarini gazed with sorrowing and affectionate interest upon the flushed
features of his pupil, again excited as before by his own description of
the mysterious stranger. One less acquainted with human nature, would have
mistaken the flashing eyes and animated features of the youthful artist
for the sure tokens of conscious and advancing talent; but the aged
painter, whose practised eye was not dazzled by the soft harmony of
features which gave a character of feminine beauty to Antonio, saw in the