I decided to have the walls of the large room covered with hangings of a dark-red shade, even if they were of quite common quality.
This immediately caused much trouble; but it seemed to me that it was well worth surmounting, when I gazed down from my balcony with growing satisfaction on the wonderful canal, and said to myself that here I would complete _Tristan_." The composer's life was very simple.

"I worked," he says, "till two o'clock, then I got into the gondola that was always in waiting, and was taken along the solemn Grand Canal to the bright Piazzetta, the peculiar charm of which always had a cheerful effect on me.

After this I made for my restaurant in the Piazza San Marco, and when I had finished my meal I walked alone or with Karl along the Riva to the Giardini Pubblici, the only pleasure-ground in Venice where there are any trees, and at nightfall I came back in the gondola down the canal, then more sombre and silent, till I reached the spot where I could see my solitary lamp shining from the night-shrouded facade of the old Palazzo Giustiniani.
"After I had worked a little longer Karl, heralded by the swish of the gondola, would come in regularly at eight o'clock for a few hours chat over our tea.

Very rarely did I vary this routine by a visit to one of the theatres.

When I did, I preferred the performances at the Camploi Theatre, where Goldoni's pieces were very well played; but I seldom went to the opera, and when I did go it was merely out of curiosity.