While the two friends were walking in the narrow streets of the Merceria they did not speak, for there were too many people; but as they turned into the Piazzi di San Marco, the Prince said: 

“Do not go at once to the cafe.  Let us walk about; I want to talk to you.”

He related his adventure with Clarina and explained his position.  To Vendramin Emilio’s despair seemed so nearly allied to madness that he promised to cure him completely if only he would give him carte blanche to deal with Massimilla.  This ray of hope came just in time to save Emilio from drowning himself that night; for, indeed, as he remembered the singer, he felt a horrible wish to go back to her.

The two friends then went to an inner room at Florian’s, where they listened to the conversation of some of the superior men of the town, who discoursed the subjects of the day.  The most interesting of these were, in the first place, the eccentricities of Lord Byron, of whom the Venetians made great sport; then Cataneo’s attachment for la Tinti, for which no reason could be assigned after twenty different causes had been suggested; then Genovese’s debut; finally, the tilting match between the Duchess and the French doctor.  Just as the discussion became vehemently musical, Duke Cataneo made his appearance.  He bowed very courteously to Emilio, which seemed so natural that no one noticed it, and Emilio bowed gravely in return.  Cataneo looked round to see if there was anybody he knew, recognized Vendramin and greeted him, bowed to his banker, a rich patrician, and finally to the man who happened to be speaking,—­a celebrated musical fanatic, a friend of the Comtesse Albrizzi.  Like some others who frequented Florian’s, his mode of life was absolutely unknown, so carefully did he conceal it.  Nothing was known about him but what he chose to tell.

This was Capraja, the nobleman whom the Duchess had mentioned to the French doctor.  This Venetian was one of a class of dreamers whose powerful minds divine everything.  He was an eccentric theorist, and cared no more for celebrity than for a broken pipe.

His life was in accordance with his ideas.  Capraja made his appearance at about ten every morning under the Procuratie, without anyone knowing whence he came.  He lounged about Venice, smoking cigars.  He regularly went to the Fenice, sitting in the pit-stalls, and between the acts went round to Florian’s, where he took three or four cups of coffee a day; and he ended the evening at the cafe, never leaving it till about two in the morning.  Twelve hundred francs a year paid all his expenses; he ate but one meal a day at an eating-house in the Merceria, where the cook had his dinner ready for him at a fixed hour, on a little table at the back of the shop; the pastry-cook’s daughter herself prepared his stuffed oysters, provided him with cigars, and took care of his money.  By his advice, this girl, though she was very handsome,