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GRAHAM'S MAGAZINE.

VOL. XXXIII.   PHILADELPHIA, NOVEMBER, 1848.     NO. 5.




THE BRIDE OF FATE.

A TALE: FOUNDED UPON EVENTS IN THE EARLY HISTORY OF VENICE.

BY W. GILMORE SIMMS.


It was a glad day in Venice. The eve of the feast of the Purification
had arrived, and all those maidens of the Republic, whose names had
been written in the "Book of Gold," were assembled with their parents,
their friends and lovers--a beautiful and joyous crowd--repairing, in
the gondolas provided by the Republic, to the church of San Pietro de
Castella, at Olivolo, which was the residence of the Patriarch. This
place was on the extreme verge of the city, a beautiful and isolated
spot, its precincts almost without inhabitants, a ghostly and small
priesthood excepted, whose grave habits and taciturn seclusion seemed
to lend an additional aspect of solitude to the neighborhood. It was,
indeed, a solitary and sad-seeming region, which, to the thoughtless
and unmeditative, might be absolutely gloomy. But it was not the less
lovely as a place suited equally for the picturesque and the
thoughtful; and, just now, it was very far from gloomy or solitary.
The event which was in hand was decreed to enliven it in especial
degree, and, in its consequences, to impress its characteristics on
the memory for long generations after. It was the day of St. Mary's
Eve--a day set aside from immemorial time for a great and peculiar
festival. All, accordingly, was life and joy in the sea republic. The
marriages of a goodly company of the high-born, the young and the
beautiful, were to be celebrated on this occasion, and in public,
according to the custom. Headed by the Doge himself, Pietro Candiano,
the city sent forth its thousands. The ornamented gondolas plied
busily from an early hour in the morning, from the city to Olivolo;
and there, amidst music and merry gratulations of friends and kindred,
the lovers disembarked. They were all clad in their richest array.
Silks, which caught their colors from the rainbow, and jewels that had
inherited, even in their caverns, their beauties from the sun and
stars, met the eye in all directions. Wealth had put on all its
riches, and beauty, always modest, was not satisfied with her
intrinsic loveliness. All that could delight the eye, in personal
decorations and nuptial ornaments, was displayed to the eager gaze of
curiosity, and, for a moment, the treasures of the city were
transplanted to the solitude and waste.

But gorgeous and grand as was the spectacle, and joyous as was the
crowd, there were some at the festival, some young, throbbing hearts,
who, though deeply interested in its proceedings, felt any thing but
gladness. While most of the betrothed thrilled only with rapturous
anticipations that might have been counted in the strong pulsations
that made the bosom heave rapidly beneath the close pressure of the
virgin zone, there were yet others, who felt only that sad sinking of
the heart which declares nothing but its hopelessness and desolation.
There were victims to be sacrificed as well as virgins to be made
happy, and girdled in by thousands of the brave and goodly--by golden
images and flaunting banners, and speaking symbols--by music and by
smiles--there were more hearts than one that longed to escape from
all, to fly away to some far solitude, where the voices of such a joy
as was now present could vex the defrauded soul no more. As the fair
procession moved onward and up through the gorgeous avenues of the
cathedral to the altar-place, where stood the venerable Patriarch in
waiting for their coming, in order to begin the solemn but grateful
rites, you might have marked, in the crowding column, the face of one
meek damsel, which declared a heart very far removed from hope or
joyful expectation. Is that tearful eye--is that pallid cheek--that
lip, now so tremulously convulsed--are these proper to one going to a
bridal, and that her own? Where is her anticipated joy? It is not in
that despairing vacancy of face--not in that feeble, faltering, almost
