Page:The Works of J. W. von Goethe, Volume 12.djvu/185

Rh always short, and causes an involuntary elevation of the declaimer's voice.

This morning I was present at high mass, which annually, on this day, the doge must attend, in the Church of St. Justina, to commemorate an old victory over the Turks. When the gilded barks which carry the princes and a portion of the nobility approach the little square; when the boatmen, in their rare liveries, are plying their red-painted oars; when, on the shore, the clergy and the religious fraternities are standing, pushing, moving about, and waiting with their lighted torches, fixed upon poles and portable silver chandeliers; then, when the gangways covered with carpet are placed from the vessels to the shore, and first the full violet dresses of the Savii, next the ample red robes of the senators, are unfolded upon the pavement, and, lastly, when the old doge, adorned with his golden Phrygian cap, in his long golden talar and his ermine cloak, steps out of the vessel,—when all this, I say, takes place in a little square before the portal of a church, one feels as if he were looking at an old worked tapestry, exceedingly well designed and coloured. To me, northern fugitive as I am, this ceremony gave a great deal of pleasure. With us, who parade nothing but short coats in our processions of pomp, and who conceive nothing greater than one performed with shouldered arms, such an affair might be out of place. But these trains, these peaceful celebrations, are all in keeping here.

The doge is a well-grown and well-shaped man, who, perhaps, suffers from ill health, but nevertheless, for dignity's sake, bears himself upright under his heavy robe. In other respects he looks like the grandpapa of the whole race, and is kind and affable. His dress is very becoming. The little cap which he wears under the large one does not offend the eye, resting as it does upon the whitest and finest hair in the world.