Nor is the post a sinecure; since these estimable
women, though themselves vowed against earthly delights,
possess a waterside garden which, periodically--and especially
in the week preceding Lent--they throw open to the public; a
practice from which they derive unselfish pleasure and a useful
advertisement.
"On Thursday last, the Giovedi Grasso, the Abbess had (in
consultation with me) provided an entertainment which not only
attracted the rank and fashion of Venice but (I will dare to
say) made them forget the exhaustion of the maddest day of
carnival with its bull-baiting and battles of _confetti_.
An hour before midnight all Venice had taken to its gondolas
and was being swept, with song and music, towards the Giudecca.
The lagoons swam with the reflections of a thousand moving
lanterns, and all their streaming ribbons of light converged
upon the bridge of Santa Chiara, beyond which, where the
gardens descended in stairways of marble to the water, I had
lined the banks with coloured lamps.
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