CHAPTER TWELVE
Such was the revolutionary whirlwind during which Frederick and Mersburg entered Venice and went to an inn fairly close to the hotel which Adelaide occupied.
It is sad to look for one that you love, to look with so much care and difficulty and to have that person so near and yet not to be able to go and throw oneself in her arms because of not knowing that she is near.
Everybody knows about the strange things that the Venetians do during the carnival, and what is unusual is that the customs of that period are fantastic in that they are done without any real emotion. What is more strange than to see the most serious people of the city, priests, nobles, senators, the most respected old men, the most chaste women, go through the streets and canals in disguise? They go through this without giving up their serious nature and without changing their ideas on life. Thus it is neither in the mind nor in acts that gaiety lies; it is in the clothing. These good citizens are only wild because they are masked; take off the domino and the Harlequin costume and they will immediately revert to type.
Frederick from his inn, and Adelaide from her hotel wanted to take part in the festival, and so both set out without suspecting that the other was in the city, and even if they had met they would not have recognized each other.
However, Frederick had learned, since his arrival in Venice that there was a Saxon woman who had taken part in the revolution, and he had a suspicion that it was his wife. Unfortunately, Adelaide had made it hard for him to find her. Except for the shipper and a few illustrious persons of the govern-
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