“Dear Duchess,” said Vendramin, “do not omit the last service that my elixir will do me. After hearing ravishing voices and imbibing music through every pore, after experiencing the keenest pleasures and the fiercest delights of Mahomet’s paradise, I see none but the most terrible images. I have visions of my beloved Venice full of children’s faces, distorted, like those of the dying; of women covered with dreadful wounds, torn and wailing; of men mangled and crushed by the copper sides of crashing vessels. I begin to see Venice as she is, shrouded in crape, stripped, robbed, destitute. Pale phantoms wander through her streets! “Already the Austrian soldiers are grinning over me, already my visionary life is drifting into real life; whereas six months ago real life was the bad dream, and the life of opium held love and bliss, important affairs and political interests. Alas! To my grief, I see the dawn over my tomb, where truth and falsehood mingle in a dubious light, which is neither day nor darkness, but partakes of both.” “So you see that in this head there is too much patriotism,” said the Prince, laying his hand on the thick black curls that fell on Vendramin’s brow. “Oh, if he loves us he will give up his dreadful opium!” said Massimilla. “I will cure your friend,” said the Frenchman. “Achieve that, and we shall love you,” said the Duchess. “But if on your return to France you do not calumniate us, we shall love you even better. The hapless Italians are too much crushed by foreign dominion to be fairly judged--for we have known yours,” she added, with a smile. “It was more generous than Austria’s,” said the physician, eagerly. “Austria squeezes and gives us nothing back, and you squeeze to enlarge and beautify our towns; you stimulated us by giving us an army. You thought you could keep Italy, and they expect to lose it--there lies the difference. “The Austrians provide us with a sort of ease that is as stultifying and heavy as themselves, while you overwhelmed us by your devouring energy. But whether we die of tonics or of narcotics, what does it matter? It is death all the same, Monsieur le docteur.” “Unhappy Italy! In my eyes she is like a beautiful woman whom France ought to protect by making her his mistress,” exclaimed the Frenchman.