Stetson Weekly Collegiate

*> &> - & ► Q*t *?**#. 3TIT32JW CUUQn STUDENTS' PUBLICATION OF STETSON UNIVERSITY. VOL. XXIII DELAND, FLA., THURSDAY, MARCH 16, 1011. No. 19 xj: xjt xjt xjt xjt xjt xjt xjt xjt xjt xjt xjt xjtxjtxjtxjtxjt AAAAA AAAAAAA AAAAA X X X X X GEOVANNI VITI OF VENICE By Edgar W. Waybright. xj> xjt xjt xjt xjt xjt xjt xjt xx xjt xjt xjt xjtxjtxjtxjtxjt AAAAA AAAAAAA AAAAA Continued From Last Week granted the interview. And so I was conducted up through the dark hallway, where occasionally between the bars two sad eyes of a political prisoner looked forth in hopeless despair, or I heard some prison maniac calling curses upon the Austrian rule. Finaly we came to a somewhat larger room but likewise dark and gloomy and there lying on the stone floor handcuffed and chained, was my friend. When he saw me he looked up with an expression of joy. When the Austrian guard had gone I helped him into a more comfortable position and then he glanced around and with eager voice asked. "How long is your interview?" "Two hours," said I. "Ah, the time is short and I have much to tell you." Then in rapid tones the old man began the tale of his life: 'I was the son of a wealthy business man and at my father's death inherited a large fortune which I, by a number of successful business adventures, soon increased. I was happy; I loved to live and with the leisure of youth of Venice, laughed, lounged, smoked and watched the girls about the cafe, and then one evening an old man passed along with his beautiful daughter and xhe great waves of emotion rose, as once they rise in every man, and seemed to say, your die is cast, your fate is sealed. And so, after the manner of Venetian youths I followed her home and then the next day I went to the cafe where . she and her father ate. Thus I could watch her and drink in her beauty. After a month or so (for bear in mind the youth of the upper classes of Venice must get permission to marry the daughter from her father before he is allowed to cultivate her acquaintance) well, after a month or so I managed to ask her father, Fransesco Viti, for his daughter's hand. But he very graciously informed me that one Domenco Morelli, a wealthy young man of Florence, had already secured permission to wed the beautiful Giov- ani and the old man looked up quivering with emotion as he said, "that was the beginning of my Hell. I did not, I could not speak. I could not even think; I was dumb. I felt as you feel in a dream when a great rock seems to be falling on you or you seem to be falling into a great pit and just at the climax, the strike, you become unconscious to your dream. The terrible horror of it makes you insensible. In this stupor I returned home and sitting down before the statue of Cupid (presented to me by my father) there, where I had often sat and dreamed, and dreamed of Giovanni, and in those dreams had said "Once in a lifetime the spirit of God enters into man's carnal house and fashions it into paradise, and this is the time they call love." But now these thoughts were gone. That statue was mocking me. I hurled it headlong to the floor and cried, nay, Cupid is not a laughing boy, he is a gigantic, hideous monster, driving his quarry slaves into the jaws of Hell!" The old man clinched his fist and strained impatinetly at his chains. "But ah!" He grew calm and a smile of joy seemed to approach his face. '' The very next day I received a note from Giovanni herself telling me that her father had informed her of my request and that she had often seen me and wished for an acquaintance, and as for Morelli, whom her father had selected as her husband, she despised him, but she feared her father would never consent to a change. Nevertheless, if I would, I might call at midnight beneath the balcony and we could talk together. These meetings went on, midnight became synonomous with Paradise, till one night old Francisco Viti restless, and warm, arose from his bed and came out on the balcony for a breath of fresh air. Henceforth, disobedient Gionanni was guarded by her father's faithful servants and not a line, not even a word was allowed to reach me from her. In her imprisonment she soon took ill, some said- it was the plague then sweeping the city which afflicted her, others suggested that it was a disease more near the heart, but whatever it was the crimson fled from her cheeks, wild deliriums common to the plague seized her in which she often cried out, "Guiseppi, Guiseppi," and then the old man said with a shudder, "one awful night she clutched tightly to her little " Beata Vergine," whispered softly, "I am free, come," and then the great vernal silence. Two days later from my window I watched the procession of gondolas, first the fifteen or twenty Facchine, with their white tunics and red caps, bearing aloft the lighted tapers. Then the crowd of chanting priests and scarlet robed pallbearers, as they wound their way with the coffin towards the cross covered graveyard around the church of San Michele (the church from which Gregory XVI had come). Then I closed the shutters and barred the door to my secret room. The next day all Venice was shocked by the announcement that when the caretaker visited the graves that morn - ing he found several vultures flying over the grave of Giovanni Viti, her coffin was bursted open, her body was gone, tracks of two men were seen about the grave and evidence of the ancorage of a large barge was seen; and several Falchini (Italians of the lower classes) swore to having seen Domenco Morelli in that vicinity the night before and besides, one of the tracks corresponded exactly to his, so he was arrested and prosecuted by the best lawyers in Venice, whom, said Boldini with a sneer, "In the interest of justice I paid." Well, the lawyer by artfully suggesting that perhaps Morelli might know something about her death, also, easily secured his conviction, and according to the Venetian law he was beheaded the next day in the public square. All the mystery and hideousness of the old man's character mingled with an expression of terrible revenge seemed to come into his faee as he chuckled a faint ha, ha! to himself. 'And then," he went on, 'the next morning some of the ignorant monks reported that wherever Morelli's blood had touched the ground Continued on page 5