142 THE STONES OF VENICE

Mountebank and masquer laughed their laugh, and went their way; and a silence has followed them, not unforetold; for amidst them all, through century after century of gathering vanity and festering guilt, that white dome of St. Mark’s had uttered in the dead ear of Venice, “Know thou, that for all these things God will bring thee into judgment.”¹

¹ [Ecclesiastes xi. 9.]

[Version 0.04: March 2008]