Santa Barbara

# SANTA BARBARA AND OTHER STORIES

This collection by Ouida contains six tales: "Santa Barbara," "Poussette," "Rinaldo," "The Halt," "The Stable-Boy," and "La Rossiccia." The title story concerns Yvon Dorat, a weary Parisian painter who comes to Venice to capture the cloister garden of San Francesco della Vigna. Seeking respite from his dissolute Paris life, Dorat falls asleep among the marble colonnades at midday. An adder emerges from the old walls and prepares to strike his outstretched hand, but a local woman—Veronica Venier, wife of the seafaring Zuan Tron—kills the serpent and saves him. Struck by her resemblance to Carpaccio's Saint Barbara, Dorat awakens to find his life preserved by a stranger of the Venetian people, triggering profound reflection on mortality and beauty.