"Then the people will applaud the match, and you will be in the public eye as his fiancee, and when someday soon some mischance befalls the Doge, as, who knows? it might, why, then, then, bella, you will be protected and well-situated. Il duco will take firm charge of the city and prevent public disorder with a strong show of force. As, who knows? such wild events might easily happen, in the license of festival."

It was a warning what Nonna wanted to happen, what Nonna expected to happen. She knew Nonna hated the Doge, for what reason she never had understood, except that he was common. Nonna had never shown hatred for the citizens of the Repubblica, only regarded as disgraceful the notion that commoners should rule when their betters wondered where their next meal might be coming from.

She had been happy before di Verona's visit. Now the sun seemed dimmed outside the diamond panes, and the thunder walking above the tiled roofs seemed full of omen. Her first carnevale, her carnevale, was to be full of Nonna's plans, of a betrothal, and to di Verona. Of a sudden her perspective was not of days of celebration, but a little stolen time before the holiday celebrations met di Verona's ambition, and before her own life forever took a turn she never wanted. She let herself be unlaced, shed the dress to the seamstress for a final few tucks, and told the seamstress, when Nonna had left the room, "I shall want it in my room in an hour." In fact, she had formed a deep resolution, that what carnevaleshe had left, she would enjoy with all her might.

She went to her room, she took out all the coins she had saved in secret, coins of Milano, coins of Verona, coins of Venezia, and put them all in the little purse she used when she went to the shops. She laid out her jewels, and when the seamstress came with the dress, she had the seamstress lace it up, lace it tight.

She did her hair up, she put on her jewelry, the amethyst necklace, and her pearls. Her mother's ring, all she had of her parents, she always wore, a gold circlet with a chased design and a band of diamonds. She put on the beautiful headdress, nodding with plumes of gray and hyacinth. Last of all she took her masks, the white bauta, the common mask, and the black moretta, the mask of silence—she tied them by long ribbons to a velvet belt, and put it on so they hung among the folds of her skirts. Outside the window, twilight came early, in storm. Yet through the windows, from the walk outside, on the Priuli, came increasing squeals and laughter. She could not see what the cause was, but she resolved she would miss not a moment more of festival, nor think of di Verona a minute for the rest of her freedom. She slid her stockinged feet into the high-heeled, high-soled shoes, then fled downstairs to the front door and out under the sky, alone, free until the sunset. She put on the white bauta, beneath her plumes, the half-mask that let one eat and drink, and hurried along the Pruili and to the bridge, a young woman alone, dodging importunate young celebrants. She danced across the bridge, and so to the narrow shadow of the calles, then out again where she had longed to go, onto the great Serpentine, where the gold and fading sun speared the broad canal through massive gray cloud. Here was spectacle. Here people went about in wonderful costumes, wondrous gowns flashing with paste jewels. Men and women alike squealed and fled the cloaked mattacino, who flung eggs at festivalgoers, targeting particularly the women, but his eggs when they burst were full of perfumed water, and left a sweet smell where they struck. Giacinta wished he would fling one her way, and she would try to catch it. But the mattacino only bowed, out of missiles, and went his way, seeking more eggs, it was sure.

Oh, and the gondolas, with their festival passengers, and, far down the canal, the great barges, proceeded along dark, sun-gilded water under a stormy sky. Musicians played, vying with one another across the Grand Canal, and sweet-sellers called out, becoming part of the music. She bought a sweet from a stand, and watched a pair of harlequins walk down the edge of the canal. She followed them, and joined the rear of the crowd at a puppet show, dismissing from her mind what Nonna would say when Nonna found she would miss supper.

She would come back by full dark, well-fed, and her eyes brimming with sights—oh, so many sights—and her ears filled with music, so she would not dream of di Verona at all. She clapped for the puppets, she watched the dancers, she walked past shops and through traffic of festival-goers, all the way to the great square, the Piazza di San Marco, which was choked with celebrants. Musicians at every permanent café vied with one another for territory, making a no man's land of discord between. Sweet-sellers abounded, and a great red and gold tent had been set up in the middle of the square, where actors offered plays to make a girl blush. She stayed through half a performance, and then, fearing she was missing something outside, went to look at the glasswares at the corner shop, and wandered afterward as far as the great cathedral, which was undergoing surely its thousandth renovation, all done up in scaffolding. A harlequin had climbed up above the entry and sat hurling flowers at all comers. She caught one.

"Bella!" the harlequin called out, and she waved it back.

It was so grand an evening.

But all at once the thunder cracked fit to rattle the scaffoldings, and the rain pelted down. Festival-goers shrieked and screamed and pressed this way and that to find shelter for their finery, and Giacinta, pushed and shoved, found refuge inside the cathedral, inside its gold, lamplit sanctity, while the thunder cracked and boomed above.

The storm, some said, was no ordinary storm. A great storm had brewed up in the Adriatic, to come crashing against the sea gates, and a greater storm than any before it. The gates might fail, some said, and some had come here to pray they held.

When she heard this, a cold feeling crept through the ancient cathedral with its disapproving saints. The sea gates were vast, ancient, and saved Venezia from the flood, but now the rising sea backed up behind those gates in storm, so high the storm surges of recent years that if the gates were to fail, then all Venezia would drown.

"All the more reason for carnevale!"a pulcinella cried then, waving his hat, gallant against the threat, and people around him cheered, and laughed. Soon the crowd sheltering in the echoing cathedral shouted down the doomsayers, saying the gate would never fail.

"It will come," a prophet of disaster shouted.

"Be still, mantico doloroso!" someone shouted, and another, "Look, the storm has passed already!"

Indeed, the storm had swept past with uncommon speed, was in its last stages outside, and the crowd pressed the other way, to exit the cathedral into the vast piazza, which was all in stormlight, clouds as black as old sin. The gray stone of the piazza gleamed with moisture, reflecting black and silver off the puddles, little mirrors now and again flashing with the reflection of lightning, now and again gleaming gold with the sweep of a festival torch as people rushed back to their revels. The air was washed clean. The canal would run higher, perhaps, but not disastrously so. The day seemed not so late after all, now that the clouds had lightened. The prophets of doom, Giacinta thought, were wrong. The only threat was that of her ball finery getting soaked, and Nonna in despair, forbidding her to go out again.

She thought it time to be tending homeward, at least, if not getting there, and she crossed the piazza, seeking the route that offered the most awnings on her way. Her high-soled shoes kept her hem clear. Her plumes were only a little draggled, and would dry good as new in the brisk wind. She was not the only one leaving the piazza; no few, inebriated, plied the rain-swollen canal in gondolas, waving lanterns and laughing.