The atmosphere was tense in Venice, in those days of October-November, the colors, sparkling bright days, when the colorful shades of the buildings shone brightly, and the misty mists of the sea enveloped that pearl of the Adriatic Sea, where the inhabitants walked with quick, careful steps through the alleys and open air markets and the children's bright laughter rang in the still air. The troops of the Italian Second Army were fighting, had already been fighting for several days, in Kobarid, in mountainous, difficult terrain, near the Julian Alps, that were nearby Venetian Salient. Newspaper reports depicted a painful, delaying battle, and the entire world's press waited almost with bated breath to see what would happen in the Battle of Caporetto, would the Italian lines hold? There were rumors of poison gas, stormtroopers, infiltration tactics by German and Austro-Hungarian forces.

Claire walked carefully among the ruins of bombed houses, where a macerel cat jumped from the shadows into the light, those houses had been destroyed in the bombings of 1915, she passed the seventeenth-century church of Santa Maria de Nazaret, which had been destroyed by the firebombs of the Austrians. The fear and resistance was almost palpable, as there were rumors of horrors happening in border areas, of nationalization policies, interrogations of loyalties, deportations of civilians, not to mention of acts of violence, robberies, and even worse, all done by enemy soliders.

The water in the canals was bluish-green, and unchanging, as ever, there was something strangely comforting about it. Claire leaned against the wrought iron railing of the arched bridge and looked at the view before her; small side street, completely unnoticed but ancient, it had endured over a thousand years of history, storms, revolutions and bloody chaos, and even if lives were lost, Venice would stand. Claire touched the cool, clammy pale tile, and literally felt the ballast of history. And then the smell of fresh bread wafted from somewhere nearby, and everyday reality overtook her again, and Claire, straightening her back, sweeping her skirts, got into a passing gondola and gave her address.

Twenty minutes later, she was sitting in her shady salon, over her correspondence, and listening to distant, hurried footsteps, boots crunching softly against the carpets. Claire glanced once at the telegram that had arrived two days before before folding it in half and slipping it between her gilt edged copy of Wordsworth's collected poems. The brisk steps stopped at the threshold of the salon, and a bored, well-groomed voice remarked, "By all accounts your cousin's business star is falling, my dear. Has he perhaps approached you again that you would leave here at a somewhat strange time to find family-feeling, isn't it, especially when you consider, my own investments, which have been quite successful. Royal perhaps assumes that I will get him back on his feet with the help of my contacts, which of course I won't, because every businessman will sink or be ruined or not. It's like a roll of the dice, let Fortuna decide."

Claire looked up, and gave a barely perceptible nod, and saw Davide´s figure standing in the stylized well pressed uniform. He smiled sardonically and said quietly, " I find that as our world crumbles around me, I'm yearning for what you couldn't give, despite my relentless, vigorous efforts." "In other words, your latest mistress, I think she's about the sixth, or maybe the seventh, in the last few years, is in a fix, isn't she?" Claire's voice had a hint of the Gardiner family charm and bite.

Davide shrugged his shoulders irritably, and remarked, " Well, if you want to go to Canada, for a time, even though I don't see why you'd want to, it'll be arranged, somehow although it won't be easy, with the current situation here and all over. Now I have to leave, as I have been dallying around too much as it is. There are large demands of new armaments, for a reason, our army simply can not be defeated, the very idea is shameful, but the conditions there are very severe, as reports floods to the headquaters with speed, and I was orderd by high command to go and take a look, it is my duty to do, and as ever I do that." Davide's footsteps died down, and soon silence filled the salon again.

Claire suddenly felt a little unsettled, because the idea of Canada, of traveling there, had been a daydream for so long, but now it seemed almost possibility, perhaps. She threw an embroidered shawl over her shoulders, for the rooms were cool, and opened a drawer in her desk, and glanced at the small but so precious stack of letters bearing the stamps of Kingsport, Madeleine's handwriting was smooth, and slowly Claire sank into imagining what it might be like, to walk those streets which were as far as possible from the atmosphere of Venice, the shadow of Gardiner Hall, and the streets and corners she hardly remembered anymore, all the little details that Madeleine's letters brought out vividly.

Days passed, torrential rains lashed Venice, and then word came that the Italian troops had moved, retreated, to the Tagliamento river, and that the troops were in extremely great difficulty, as Battle of Pozzuolo were joined.

The bright voices of the newsboys shouted the latest headlines loudly, on street corners, "Prima Battaglia del Piave, Italian Army is all out-retreat, Luigi Cadorna is out, and Diaz is in, as Fourth Army is to stop their retreat and defend positions between the Roncone and the Tomatico mountains, with the support of the Second Army!"

Then one morning, a couple of weeks after Davide left for the front, a uniformed messenger arrived, carrying a letter with black borders and official stamps. In the line of memorial services, the suffocating scent of lilies, the piercing ringing of church bells and the smell of incense, Claire happened to hear small bits of conversation in passing, " Apparently a bullet can hit anyone, even money and wealth can't protect, that marriage was strange, why did he even marry that foreigner, was there some secret agreement, there were no living children. Did you see, not a tear, the mistresses in a rows made a fuss. Still, it is enjoyable to watch the mighty fall, also sometimes there can be balance."

Afterwards, with the minty herbal liqueur gnawing at her throat, Claire stood at the door of Davide's study, and felt relieved. Their union had been like a tightrope balancing in a strong wind, full of facades, fierce temperament, harsh demands, and over time creating a delicate balance, and now it was finally past, also in the eyes of the world. The oval-shaped dressing mirror showed a woman in mourning dress whose pale features showed unspeakable relief, as she removed the narrow golden ring that had been a shackle, it fell clattering onto the marble topped table.


Ingelside's living room had a gloomy atmosphere, as the grayness of October prevailed everywhere. Gertrude Oliver walked and muttered frantically, "They must not get Venice—they must not get Venice." Susan carried the tea tray to the table, and remarked, "Dear Miss Oliver, you remember we imagined that Paris was almost lost in 1914, and however it happened, it did not happen, the same is sure to happen now. Venice will be spared!" The smell of soft plum pudding mingled with the tea as Rilla cried despairingly, "Oh Susan, you can't be sure! Venice, that lovely crown jewel, the thought of spoiling it simply harrows my soul! I've been reading Byron lately, and I feel as if I see the great skyline of the city around me, instead of my dear Glen, all glittering of water, of ancient splendor, and domes, churches, and countless palaces. Gertrude, do you remember what Wordsworth wrote, about the dissolution of the Republic of Venice?"

Gertrude, stopped, in a mid prowl and swept her hair out of her bun aside and glanced at Rilla as she said in a dramatic voice, "Rilla my Rilla, if the worst happens that place has fortunately been immortalized in countless poems, across generations, but naturally that does not help. Fortunately I haven't seen new dreams, for that would be entirely too much, in these circumstances." Silence reigned as Gertrude quoted that Wordsworth stanza with vibrating emotion.

Once did she hold the gorgeous east in fee;

And was the safeguard of the west: the worth

Of Venice did not fall below her birth,

Venice, the eldest Child of Liberty.

She was a maiden City, bright and free;

No guile seduced, no force could violate;

And, when she took unto herself a Mate,

She must espouse the everlasting Sea.

And what if she had seen those glories fade,

Those titles vanish, and that strength decay;

Yet shall some tribute of regret be paid

When her long life hath reached its final day:

Men are we, and must grieve when even the Shade

Of that which once was great is passed away.

Rilla sighed, and said in a low voice, "It seems like every fall bad news just keeps flooding in for Allied troops, Antwerp in 1914, Serbia in 1915; last fall, Rumania, and now Italy, the worst of all. Whenever I feel powerless I'm trying to keep faith, but it's so challenging at times, it feels like all the light has gone out in the world." Anne Blythe glanced at Rilla a little anxiously, for the blush had faded from her cheeks in the last few weeks, and there were deep shadows under her eyes, and cautiously she remarked, "My dear, don't completely wear yourself out with work, you do so much for our Cause, all that canvassing for new Victory Line to the campaign that you and the other Junior Reds have been doing in the past few days all over Glen and even in Lowbridge in places."

Rilla tossed her hair and said with an air of satisfaction, "Oh, Mumsy, that was quite a chore, I never thought it could be done with honor. Betty Meade didn't dare go to Mr. Pryor, so I took it over, and you know when I stood in his hall and he rudely pointed out that Miranda is not at home, my temper rose and I explained to him as rationally as possible, all the interest rates our militaristic government are paying, Mr. Pryor grumbled and grumbled, but finally he agreed to take a thousand dollar bond, on the spot, even though he may be unpatriotic and pro-german, he is still able to recognize the right investment opportunity, as it comes."

Susan snorted, and stirred her tea furiously and said, "Glen would be a better place if Mr. Pryor went where he belongs." Gilbert's teasing voice could be heard from the depths of the green armchair as he remarked, "Susan, I still think that your hot-tempered, ginger-filled speech at the recent Victory Loan Campaign meeting was the reason why the Junior Reds girls got such a good canvassing result."

Susan, wiped her lace-trimmed apron and said sharply, "Well, dear Doctor, perhaps I wouldn't say quite like that, but it was at once incomprehensible how weak the speeches were, and at once I lost my temper, as I sailed in, when Warren Mead was so disagreeable."

Anne Blythe, hid her smile, for Susan's speech a couple of days ago had indeed been full fire, with Wim and patriotic sarcasm at its best, even Norman Douglas had not spoken better. Susan had stood, next to the Blythe family, next to Rilla and Gertrude Olivier, in a gray practical bonnet, in her serious flannel, indignant and patriotic, had ordered everyone in the hall in no uncertain terms to do their bit, the men had marched in line to the podium, as Susan had commanded them, in Honor of Allies and Lloyd George, to subscribe for Victory Line, and when those words had echoed, wild applause had shaken the hall.

A little later, in Ingelside's peace, Susan had looked around a little embarrassed and said, "Public speaking is not a woman's business, and no one can accuse me of being a suffragette, but sometimes men lack sense altogether, talking politics is easier than paying for it, and tonight I lost my head completely, but if it helps our Cause I'm happy about it."

Most of the inhabitants of the Glen had known that old Susan Baker had strange thoughts above her station in life, but that such a furious patriotic flame pulsated in her, it had been surprising. Mrs. Marshall Elliott had nodded with satisfaction, seeing certain sections of the Glen get a verbal-flood of snarls, and topical comments, all those Mac Allisters, and Meades, for instance. And that night, and many other nights, the women of the Glen and Lowbridge were pleased, for sometimes it was pleasant to have someone else say things as they should be. And no one was surprised when a day later the Charlottetown dailies came in, and Glen led the island's statistics, and that was for Susan´s efforts, not that she would belive it.

Rainbow Valley was an oasis covered with gray-brown leaves and yellowed grass, as Rilla leaned against a white-trunk birch at dusk, and thoughtfully looked around, and took her diary from her pocket, in which she had written her thoughts, during the last couple of days, partly the same ones she had spoken publicly in Ingelside in the living room, all except one. The thought of Venice, brought to her mind Walter's love for that beautiful city, when once, a few days before that disastrous day when the world had broken, in 1914, they had sat here, in the clear twilight, and the scent of clovers had been around them. Walter had looked gravely with his gray eyes to Rilla, and said in his sonorous voice dreamily, " Imagine gondola gliding along the clear water, and the arched bridges above us, and we weave into the heart of Venice, round all the sights, like so many pilgrims at the altar of beauty, before us. Do, you remember Byron's immortals verses, as he spoke in his second stanza in ode to Venice, as follows.

No mellower harvest! Thirteen hundred years
Of wealth and glory turn'd to dust and tears;
And every monument the stranger meets,
Church, palace, pillar, as a mourner greets;
And even the Lion all subdued appears,
And the harsh sound of the barbarian
With dull and daily dissonance, repeats
The echo of thy tyrant's voice along
The soft waves, once all musical to song,
That heaved beneath the moonlight with the throng
Of gondolas-and to the busy hum
Of cheerful creatures, whose most sinful deeds
Were but the overbeating of the heart,
And flow of too much happiness, which needs
The aid of age to turn its course apart
From the luxuriant and voluptuous flood
Of sweet sensations, battling with the blood.

And Rilla had looked up and said a little shyly, "Walter, I feel that I have caught your love of it by somekind of osmosis?" Walter had gently brushed Rilla's braids, and he had said half seriously, with a sombre twist of his lips, he uttered, "

The floating fence of Albion's feebler crag,
May strike to those whose red right hands have bought
Rights cheaply earn'd with blood. Stilt, still, for ever,
Better, though each man's life-blood were a river,
That it should flow, and overflow, than creep
Through thousand lazy channels in our veins
Damm'd like the dull canal with locks and chains,
And moving, as a sick man in his sleep,
Three paces, and then faltering: better be
Where the extinguish'd Spartans still are free,
In their proud charnel of Thermopylae.

And hearing those fateful verses Rilla had exclaimed, "Walter, Walter, why are you so brooding, think rather of the moonlight in the canals of Venice, or roses, not the blood and destruction that will not touch us for ages. Perhaps you yet may get to Europe, after Redmond, would that would be an adventure!" Remembering her naive words, Rilla half grimaced, and looked up, as the soft ringing of Walter´s fae bells was almost drowned in the wind, which rose suddenly, and the raindrops dripped to the ground, and lifting her skirts, Rilla ran up the slope to the blissful and loving warmth of her home.

Gertrude played the piano, some soothing flowing clear tune that Rilla didn't recognize, with skill, as Mumsy looked dreamily out into the gray landscape, as she said, "Rilla my dear, drink some tea, and change your damp clothes right away. Although I remember myself how it was romantic to walk in the October rain, as if between the world and us there was a gray veil that would sometimes open, an in-between space of liminal one, so to speak." Shimmering chords rose, and into Ingelside's living room came the creeping tones of Saint-Saens's Dance Macabre, and Susan shook her head and remarked, "This is not appropriate, at all. Surely Little Kitcherer will have nightmares, hearing this, I would!"


The knocking echoed, impatiently, through the corridors of the Redmond Music Association's library, and in a weary mood, Madeleine opened the door to the first customer of the day, extremely slowly, hours flowed forward, like grains of sand in a cloudy hour-glass, and with difficulty Madeleine could concentrate on her catalogs, and then about at lunchtime a familiar impish voice said matter-of-factly, "There has been no news, surely?"

Madeleine looked up from her ink-stained catalogue, and saw Isabelle standing impatiently in the doorway, she just shook her head. Isabelle stifled a sigh and said half-gently, "I knew the Venetian correspondence would be a bad idea, you look like a milk pudding that's been forgotten for two weeks out at the mercy of nature's elements, all gray and spotted, and drawn out. Come on, you need a break now and sensible company, so I generously offer this." Madeline glanced at the piles of papers, and then at Isabelle, and then at her dark coat hanging on the nail, as she said briefly, "Oh, very well then!"

And soon they were sitting at the corner table, in Helene's cafe, the aroma of brewed tea and the smell of small pies wafting everywhere. Isabelle leaned back in her chair, and watched with satisfaction how color slowly returned to Madeleine's cheeks, as she sipped her sugared tea. Dryly Madeleine said, "Tell me, how long have you been planning this intervention, and did you perhaps draw lots?"

Isabelle laughed carelessly, as she said, " No, not at all. I just happened to have time today. Winnie is stuck at her current run of performances, since the premiere, which was a success, she's so busy. If you want to see her you have to go to the theater, on the off-chance that she's there at all."

With a small smile on her lips, Madeleine inquired, "And it seems that you are quite skilled in such a thing?" Isabelle, grinned and said " Naturally, but something special happened after the premiere, Winnie was a bit retinent about it, but eventually I cajoled the information out, or partly anyway. It seems that someone came to see her, and certain words were had, but we all have our pasts, and our ghosts, sometimes in more literal way than others."

Madeleine cast a sharp and understanding look in Isabelle's direction and said quietly, "And you're all tangled up now, and you don't necessarily know how to react, am I right?" Isabelle stirred her tea in silence.

The other customers in the cafe were discussing in low voices the latest twists and turns, the Italians were still maintaining the Piave line, by a thread, of the supplies were low, and moral too, and Venice was threatened, but not yet broken. There were butchers bill at Flanders, as ever.

And then Isabelle looked up and said seriously, "Don't be too sentimental Lene, it doesn't suit you, but you might be right, in part."

At this juncture, the door to the cafe, opened and Di Blythe entered the cafe, with efficient steps. Madeline squeezed Isabelle's hand warningly, as Di sat down at the other corner table next to the bookshelf, and took a folder and a red novel from her bag and a notebook and started writing, in quick strokes. Helene carefully carried the tea tray to Di, and exchanged a few words with her.

Isabelle, glanced in Di's direction, and looked at her watch, and gathered her things and said, "Amazing, Di, looks almost as bad as you, Lene, it's hardly a coincidence, not these times, I gather. When you can, I might have some in the closet a bottle of relatively good chianti that doesn't give you too bad a headache, and you haven't seen the latest cacti either, because aren't rainy and dark November evenings like made for improprotu fun?" With a faint smile, Madeline nodded, and in a flash of burgundy Isabelle were gone from the premises.

Later, as the endless hours of the afternoon flowed towards the early evening, Madeleine happened to come across Alice´s workstation, which was more than usually piled with various things, Red Cross meeting schedule, libretto scores, books, lot of Hardy, hair-ribbons, and two letters, peeked out, both written in unknown hand. With soft steps Madeleine walked to her office, and closed the door of her study, and sat there late into the night, praying that some word would come, that the next morning the headlines of the newspapers would be better, but it was not to be.


On the western front, in Flanders, all four divisions of the CEF stood in formation, trembling as they waited for the final orders, there was almost no shelter from the wind, heavy mud that was everywhere and visibility was extremely poor. The artillery fire roared, and the sacrifices of the French and British troops of the previous weeks seemed to be in vain, when the ground in front of Passchendaele and on the Becelaere and Gheluvelt spur were lost.

The landscape was like a sepia toned monstrosity, one and the same, destroyed trees that stuck out like the fingers of the dead, accusingly towards the sky, which was under a thick gray cloud cover.

Private Joe Milgrave, turned up the collars of his uniform and shivered in the rain. Somewhere a horse neighed, its cry cutting through Joe's nerves, as the Captain of his section stepped in front of them and said gravely, "Well, boys, we have received orders, we will relive II Anzac Corps, tomorrow, we will do what we do best, quick and effective strikes to our destination, as we have limited objectives. Do your letters, lads and say your prayers, if there is need for them."