A hundred times, in crossing the Piazzetta, Marcantonio had been vaguely aware of them as appropriate emblems of barbaric force and splendor and allegoric Christian allegiance; but suddenly they stood to him for historic records—­the echoes of dread deeds avenged there rolled forth from the space between the columns, and the jeweled eyes of the terrible winged Lion flashed defiance upon any who questioned, in the remotest way, the will or the act of the Republic.  He glanced toward the elder man, some deprecatory comment rising to his lips as he strove to dissipate the symbolic mood which was surely possessing him, for he felt himself uncomfortably conscious of the meaning wrought into the very stones about him, and to-day this over-mastering assertion of Venice—­always Venice dominant—­was oppressive.

But his father, apparently unaware of Marcantonio’s turbulent sensations, wore his usual reserved and dignified mien; even the motion he had seemed to make before the columns in the Piazzetta was probably only due to Marcantonio’s imagination, and the young fellow’s light rejoinder passed unuttered, intensifying his discomfort.  He realized that he was not searching for this symbolism with a poet’s appreciation, nor as an archaeologist delighting in curios, but as a son of the Republic—­to gather her history and her purpose, to make himself one with her, to put himself under her yoke—­and in his heart he rebelled.

Yet it was he, this time, who paused, undeniably, before the great window on the Piazzetta.  The sun streamed in broad flashes of light over the soft rose-tinted walls of the palazzo and over the splendid balcony from which the Doge was wont to view the processions and fetes of the Republic; the richly sculptured decorations detached themselves at once in allegory, the figures all leading up to Venice enthroned, holding out to the world her proud motto, “Fortis, justa, trono furias, mare sub pede pono.” (Strong, just, I put the furies beneath my throne and the sea beneath my foot.) He walked on under a spell, feeling that the coils were tightening around him; he was a noble, but not free; yet he would not have surrendered his opportunities for the freer life of the people who had no part in the Consiglio.

He quickened his pace that the moment of irresolution might be the sooner over.

“Wait!” his father commanded, as Marcantonio would have entered the palace gate; “haste ill befits thy grave and dignified purpose.  Before thou enterest the Consiglio I would have thee reverently mark how, at the palace gate, Justice sits enthroned on high, between the Lions of St. Mark, while Courage, Prudence, Hope, and Charity wait upon her.”

“And below,” answered Marcantonio, because he could think of nothing else to say, and because he knew every angle and carving of the palace from the aesthetic point of view better than his father did; “below is the Doge Foscari, kneeling very reverently to our noble Lion.”