dodging possible umbrella-pokes while they precede you, in the
manner of custodians, to the door of the church.


VI

The churches of Venice are rich in pictures, and many a
masterpiece lurks in the unaccommodating gloom of side-chapels
and sacristies. Many a noble work is perched behind the dusty
candles and muslin roses of a scantily-visited altar; some of
them indeed, hidden behind the altar, suffer in a darkness that
can never be explored. The facilities offered you for approaching
the picture in such cases are a mockery of your irritated wish.
You stand at tip-toe on a three-legged stool, you climb a rickety
ladder, you almost mount upon the shoulders of the
custode. You do everything but see the picture. You see
just enough to be sure it's beautiful. You catch a glimpse of a
divine head, of a fig tree against a mellow sky, but the rest is
impenetrable mystery. You renounce all hope, for instance, of
approaching the magnificent Cima da Conegliano in San Giovanni in
Bragora; and bethinking yourself of the immaculate purity that
shines in the spirit of this master, you renounce it with chagrin
and pain. Behind the high altar in that church hangs a Baptism of
Christ by Cima which I believe has been more or less repainted.
You make the thing out in spots, you see it has a fullness of
perfection. But you turn away from it with a stiff neck and
promise yourself consolation in the Academy and at the Madonna
dell' Orto, where two noble works by the same hand--pictures as
clear as a summer twilight--present themselves in better
circumstances. It may be said as a general thing that you never