waters--a bewildering, intoxicating jumble of tatters
and tangles, maddening in detail, brilliant in color,
harmonious in tone: the whole scintillating with a
picturesqueness beyond the ken or brush of any
painter living or dead.

On summer days--none other for me in Venice
(the other fellow can have it in winter)--everybody
living in the rookeries camps out on the quay,
the women sitting in groups stringing beads, the
men flat on the pavement mending their nets. On
its edge, hanging over the water, reaching down, holding
on by a foot or an arm to the iron rail, are
massed the children--millions of children--I never
counted them, but still I say millions of children.
This has gone on since I first staked out my claim--
was a part of the inducement, in fact, that decided me
to move in and take possession--boats, children, still
water, and rookeries being the ingredients from which
I concoct color combinations that some misguided
people take home and say they feel better for.

If you ask me for how many years I have been sole
owner of this stretch of water I must refer you to
Loretta, who had lived just five summers when my
big gondolier, Luigi, pulled her dripping wet from
the canal, and who had lived eleven more--sixteen, in
all--when what I have to tell you happened.

And yet, Loretta's little mishap, now I come to