I observed in the chapel a wooden candle-stick: the taper was extinguished; a holy-water font for blessing the burials; and a little book: _Pars Ritualis Romani pro usu ad exsequianda corpora defunctorum_; when we are already forgotten, Religion, our immortal and never wearied kinswoman, mourns us and follows us: _exsequor fugam._ A tinder-box contained a steel; God alone disposes of the spark of life. Two quatrains written on common paper were fastened up on the inner panels of two of the three doors of the building: Quivi dell' uom le frali spoglie ascoce Pallida morte, O passegier, t'addita, etc. The only somewhat striking tomb in the cemetery was raised in advance by a woman who subsequently delayed eighteen years in dying: the inscription informs us of this circumstance; thus this woman for eighteen years hoped in vain for her sepulchre. What sorrow nourished this hope within her? On a little black wooden cross appears this other inscription: VIRGINIA ACERBI, ANNO 72, 1824. MORTA NEL BACIO DEL SIGNORE. The years are harsh to a fair Venetian woman. [Sidenote: San Michele di Murano.] Antonio said to me: "When this cemetery is full, they will give it a rest and bury the dead in the Isola di San Michele di Murano[116]." The expression was a correct one: when the harvest is gathered, one lets the soil lie fallow and ploughs other furrows elsewhere. VENICE, _September_ 1833. We have been to see that other field awaiting the Great Husbandman. San Michele di Murano is a smiling monastery with a graceful church, porticoes and a white cloister. The windows of the convent give a view, over the porticoes, of Venice and the lagoons; a garden filled with flowers meets the turf whose compost is still being prepared under the fresh-coloured skin of some young girl. This charming retreat is given over to Franciscans; it would better suit nuns singing like the little pupils of Rousseau's _Scuole_: "How happy are they," says Manzoni, "who have taken the holy veil before fixing their eyes on a man's face." Give me, I entreat you, a cell here in which to finish my Memoirs. Fra Paolo[117] is buried at the entrance to the church; that seeker after noise must be very wroth at the silence that surrounds him. Pellico, when sentenced to death, was lodged at San Michele before being transported to the fortress of the Spielberg. The president of the tribunal before which Pellico appeared takes the poet's place at San Michele; he is buried in the cloister; he will not leave that prison. Not far from the tomb of the magistrate is that of a foreign woman married at the age of twenty-two years, in the month of January; she died in the month of February following. She did not want to go beyond the honeymoon; her epitaph says: CI REVEDREMO. If it were true!