Page:Works of Heinrich Heine 01.djvu/413

Rh As the people, so their homes. When we see how the servant of Jehovah will not endure an image of either God or man in his "honourable house," and even closes its ears the windows lest the sounds of heathenish masquerading should pierce therein, and then see on the contrary the costly and exquisitely tasteful villegiatura-life in the beautiful palace of Belmont, where all is light and music, where among pictures, marble statues, and high laurel-trees, the elegantly clad wooers wander and discuss enigmas of love, while through and amid all this splendour fair Signora Portia gleams like a goddess whose sunny locks By such a contrast the two chief personages of the drama are so individualised that one might swear they were not the feigned fantasies of a poet, but real people and of woman born. Yes, they seem to us to be even more living than the common creatures of the world, for neither time nor death have part in them, and in their veins runs immortal blood, that of undying poetry. When thou goest to Venice and wanderest through the Doge's palace, thou knowest well that neither in the hall of the senators, nor on the Giant's Stair, wilt thou meet Marino