'Yes, let us go back, Dmitri. It's really cold here. You did not take
care of yourself after your Moscow illness, and you had to pay for
that at Vienna. Now you must be more cautious.'

Insarov did not answer, but the same bitter smile passed over his
lips.

'If you like,' Elena went on, 'we will go along to the Canal Grande.
We have not seen Venice properly, you know, all the while we have been
here. And in the evening we are going to the theatre; I have two
tickets for the stalls. They say there's a new opera being given. If
you like, we will give up to-day to one another; we will forget
politics and war and everything, we will forget everything but that we
are alive, breathing, thinking together; that we are one for
ever--would you like that?'

'If you would like it, Elena,' answered Insarov, 'it follows that I
should like it too.'

'I knew that,' observed Elena with a smile, 'come, let us go.'

They went back to the gondola, took their seats, told the gondolier to
take them without hurry along the Canal Grande.

No one who has not seen Venice in April knows all the unutterable
fascinations of that magic town. The softness and mildness of spring
harmonise with Venice, just as the glaring sun of summer suits the
magnificence of Genoa, and as the gold and purple of autumn suits the
grand antiquity of Rome. The beauty of Venice, like the spring,