The yellow book: an illustrated quarterly (13.1897)

By Dora Greenwell McChesney 145

ment where the maiden leans, watching for her lover to pass in
the sunrise.

In the Palace of the Duke

he window is wreathed about with strange carvings, where

mocking faces look from among the vines. Against the
broad sill a youth is leaning, looking into the court below where
his horse is being led out and his falconer is waiting. The lad is
dressed with great richness, his close crimson doublet and hosen
curiously slashed and his short cloak thick with golden embroidery.
His dark hair makes a cloud about a delicate wilful face. In one
hand he holds a casket of amber wrought with the loves of the
gods, and before him on the ledge lie papers newly signed. Close
by him are two figures ; a man still young and a stately woman
whose hair is grey beneath her jewelled head-dress and veil. They
are mother and son, for their features are alike, and wasted alike
before the time by some long hunger of desire. She has her left
hand on her bosom, pressed hard, almost as though on something
hidden there ; with her right she holds a goblet of silver to the
youth, who reaches backwards for it, not turning, with an indolent
gesture. He glances carelessly to the court below, but the eyes
of mother and son have met, unflinchingly, in a slow smile of
terrible understanding.

Night on the waters, yet no darkness. On the still lagoons
broad sheen of moonlight ; in the canals and squares of
Venice shifting and clashing lights of many lamps and torches,

A Venetian Balcony

for