‘Renditch promised to arrange everything for us within a week,’ he said, ‘we can rely on him, I think.... Did you hear, Elena,’ he added with sudden animation, ‘they say the poor Dalmatian fishermen have sacrificed their dredging weights--you know the leads they weigh their nets with for letting them down to the bottom--to make bullets! They have no money, they only just live by fishing; but they have joyfully given up their last property, and now are starving. What a nation!’ ‘_Aufgepasst_!’ shouted a haughty voice behind them. The heavy thud of horse’s hoofs was heard, and an Austrian officer in a short grey tunic and a green cap galloped past them--they had scarcely time to get out of the way. Insarov looked darkly after him. ‘He was not to blame,’ said Elena, ‘you know, they have no other place where they can ride.’ ‘He was not to blame,’ answered Insarov ‘but he made my blood boil with his shout, his moustaches, his cap, his whole appearance. Let us go back.’ ‘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.