Then cross the plain to Venice, the witch who holds east and west in her soft hands and plays with their riches as a millionaire’s child might slip a rain of gold pieces from one palm to another, in idleness, recking nothing of their value. Sea and sky, priceless palace and empty island—it is all hers—she can never exhaust her past; and our century, jejune and vulgar as it is, only seems to touch her to a scornful smile. But Venice can tremble still. Once in many years there sweeps down on her one of Nature’s handfuls of retribution—a storm that makes her quake to her artificial incredible foundations. I saw one such. It was in May, Venice’s most perfect month. We had been out to the Lido that morning, bathing in water smooth as cream; there was not a cloud in the sky. We had barely got home when inky darkness descended, and out of it burst a gale that lashed the Grand Canal to fury, and a machine-gun fire of hail was flung against the windows, to result, an instant later, in a crash of broken glass and tumbling bricks that was truly appalling. Through the tumult came shrieks and cries. Every window in the Ducal Palace was smashed, and most of the others in the town. When it was over—the whole thing did not last more than twenty minutes—I went out on our balcony and picked up, from the thick layer lying there, hailstones as big as pigeons’ eggs. The next day we went out again to the Lido, and where a long, green pergola of vines had shaded the way to the bathing establishment now stood a bare tracery of dry branches. Not a single leaf was left. But generally the Adriatic waits on Venice with subservient calm, and one can float over those vast yet not unpictured lagoons in still assurance that one’s reveries will not be disturbed. I doubt whether such lengths of languorous idling be good for young, strong people, but as a rest-cure for tired ones there can be nothing more complete. The shape and build of the gondola (what a perfect name for the gliding, sinuous thing!) was evolved by an artist in comfort; the enormous leather cushions let you sink into their thickness as far as you please without ever touching the limit of their pleasant elasticity. Whether cowled in to keep off the sun’s rays in the day, or uncovered to give you all the coolness of the evening, the gondola seat relieves you of all responsibility for your body; it holds you as an experienced nurse holds a tired child; and in its silent, swan-like rush through the water you get just the sense of motion necessary to keep your nerves employed yet soothed.