Episode Nineteen Carnival The roots of knowledge are bitter, but its fruit is sweet. Cicero Fortuna, an oft' times fickle goddess, smiled sweetly upon Olivia and Domenico during their whirlwind courtship conducted in the heady domain of that Adriatic queen - Venezia - loggia of love. Having happily spent Christmas and the New Year surrounded by Italian good cheer and completely submerged in the sea of a most heady romance, the pair of lovers had glided their private gondola through the waters of St. Valentine's canal and were preparing to moor the precious vessel at the striped pole of Carnival, held from mid-February until that short month's close. In between planning their costumes for Venice's oldest party, Olivia could sometimes be found planting rose quartz crystals about her favourite palazzo, Ca' Dario, a home that stood empty due to a powerful curse. For his part, Domenico organized day trips to the art collections housed on the many islets comprising the floating metropolis, thrilled to share Tiepolo's clowns and Tintoretto's murals with his true love. Yet, four months of relative esoteric inactivity soon caused Olivia's conscience to feel burdened and one day, at the Church of Madonna della Salute, while visiting the site's magnificent 12th c. icon of the Black Madonna from Crete, the Peyton lass began to weep tears of regret. Wiping the rivulets away, Domenico queried as to their source. Olivia could not speak, too overcome for words, and she fled the grand edifice, only to finally confess, back at their apartment, that she must continue her search for the Sybils. "After Carnival," the besotted tenor crooned, "and the opera at La Fenice - then we shall travel anywhere your heart desires. Soracte should be nice in the springtime." "What opera? Another surprise, my love? You are too kind, too good...and we have to visit a town south of here named Comacchio next, not Soracte."    Text Copyright © 1999 - 2005 cybersybils.com All rights reserved.