"Kind Zanetta, there is more nobility in the hovel where you dwell than
in all the Palaces of Venice."

For three days longer Fabio visited the banks and fondacos without
discovering any one willing to lend him money. Everywhere he received an
unfavourable answer, and listened to speeches that always came to this:

"You did very wrong to sell your plate to pay your debts. Money is lent
to a man in debt, but not to one without furniture and plate."

The fifth day he made his way, in despair, as far as the Corte delle
Galli, which men also call the Ghetto, and which is the quarter the Jews
inhabit.

"Who knows," he kept saying to himself, "if I may not get from one of
the Circumcised what the Christians have denied me?"

He proceeded therefore between the Calle San Geremia and the Calle San
Girolamo along a narrow evil-smelling canal, the entrance of which was
barred with chains every night, by order of the Senate. While hesitating
to know which Usurer he should first apply to, he remembered to have
heard speak of an Israelite named Eliezer, son of Eliezer Maimonides,
who was said to be exceedingly rich and of a wondrous subtle spirit.
Accordingly, inquiring out the house of the Jew Eliezer, he stopped his
gondola before the door. Above the entrance was seen a representation of
the seven-branched candlestick, which the Jew had had carved as a sign
of hope, in expectation of the promised days when the Temple should rise
again from its ashes.