the rooms in which he lived, and the apartment in the front of the palace
just above our own. The rest of the house belonged to another, for in
Venice many of the palaces are divided up and sold among different
purchasers, floor by floor, and sometimes even room by room.

But the tenantry of Casa Falier was far more various than its
proprietorship. Over our heads dwelt a Dalmatian family; below our feet a
Frenchwoman; at our right, upon the same floor, an English gentleman;
under him a French family; and over him the family of a marquis in exile
from Modena. Except with Mr. ----, the Englishman, who was at once our
friend and landlord (impossible as this may appear to those who know any
thing of landlords in Italy), we had no acquaintance, beyond that of
salutation, with the many nations represented in our house. We could not
help holding the French people in some sort responsible for the invasion
of Mexico; and, though opportunity offered for cultivating the
acquaintance of the Modenese, we did not improve it.

As for our Dalmatian friends, we met them and bowed to them a great deal,
and we heard them overhead in frequent athletic games, involving noise as
of the maneuvering of cavalry; and as they stood a good deal on their
balcony, and looked down upon us on ours, we sometimes enjoyed seeing them
admirably foreshortened like figures in a frescoed ceiling. The father of
this family was a little man of a solemn and impressive demeanor, who had
no other occupation but to walk up and down the city and view its
monuments, for which purpose he one day informed us he had left his native
place in Dalmatia, after forty years' study of Venetian history. He
further told us that this was by no means worth the time given it; that
whereas the streets of Venice were sepulchres in point of narrowness and
obscurity, he had a house in Zara, from the windows of which you might see
for miles uninterruptedly! This little gentleman wore a black hat, in the