Marietta: A Maid of Venice by F. Marion Crawford (top ten ebook reader TXT) 📖

and began to examine the little objects.

Zorzi said nothing, and after looking at them a long time Giovanni turned away and stood before the furnace. The copper ladle with which the specimens were taken from the pots lay on the brick ledge near one of the 'boccas.' Giovanni took it, looked round to see where the iron plate for testing was placed, and thrust the ladle into the aperture, holding it lightly lest the heat should hurt his hand.

"You shall not do that!" cried Zorzi, who was already beside him.

Before Giovanni knew what was happening Zorzi had struck the ladle from his hand, and it disappeared through the 'bocca' into the white-hot glass within.

CHAPTER IX

With an oath Giovanni raised his hand to strike Zorzi in the face, but the quick Dalmatian snatched up his heavy blow-pipe in both hands and stood in an attitude of defence.

"If you try to strike me, I shall defend myself," he said quietly.

Giovanni's sour face turned grey with fright, and then as his impotent anger rose, the grey took an almost greenish hue that was bad to see. He smiled in a sickly fashion. Zorzi set the blow-pipe upright against the furnace and watched him, for he saw that the man was afraid of him and might act treacherously.

"You need not be so violent," said Giovanni, and his voice trembled a little, as he recovered himself. "After all, my father would not have made any objection to my trying the glass. If I had, I could not have guessed how it was made."

Zorzi did not answer, for he had discovered that silence was his best weapon. Giovanni continued, in the peevish tone of a man who has been badly frightened and is ashamed of it.

"It only shows how ignorant you are of glass-making, if you suppose that my father would care." As he still got no reply beyond a shrug of the shoulders, he changed the subject. "Did you see my father make any of those things?" he asked, pointing to the shelves.

"No," answered Zorzi.

"But he made them all here, did he not?" insisted Giovanni. "And you are always with him."

"He did not make any of them."

Giovanni opened his eyes in astonishment. In his estimation there was no man living, except his father, who could have done such work. Zorzi smiled, for he knew what the other's astonishment meant.

"I made them all," he said, unable to resist the temptation to take the credit that was justly his.

"You made those things?" repeated Giovanni incredulously.

But Zorzi was not in the least offended by his disbelief. The more sceptical Giovanni was, the greater the honour in having produced anything so rarely beautiful.

"I made those, and many others which the master keeps in his house," he said.

Giovanni would have liked to give him the lie, but he dared not just then.

"If you made them, you could make something of the kind again," he said. "I should like to see that. Take your blow-pipe and try. Then I shall believe you."

"There is no white glass in the furnace," answered Zorzi. "If there were, I would show you what I can do."

Giovanni laughed sourly.

"I thought you would find some good excuse," he said.

"The master saw me do the work," answered Zorzi unconcernedly. "Ask him about it when he comes back."

"There are other furnaces in the glass-house," suggested Giovanni. "Why not bring your blow-pipe with you and show the workmen as well as me what you can do?"

Zorzi hesitated. It suddenly occurred to him that this might be a decisive moment in his life, in which the future would depend on the decision he made. In all the years since he had been with Beroviero he had never worked at one of the great furnaces among the other men.

"I daresay your sense of responsibility is so great that you do not like to leave the laboratory, even for half an hour," said Giovanni scornfully. "But you have to go home at night."

"I sleep here," answered Zorzi.

"Indeed?" Giovanni was surprised. "I see that your objections are insuperable," he added with a laugh.

Zorzi was in one of those moods in which a man feels that he has nothing to lose. There might, however, be something to gain by exhibiting his skill before Giovanni and the men. His reputation as a glass-maker would be made in half an hour.

"Since you do not believe me, come," he said at last. "You shall see for yourself."

He took his blow-pipe and thrust it through one of the 'boccas' to melt off the little red glass that adhered to it. Then he cooled it in water, and carefully removed the small particles that stuck to the iron here and there like spots of glazing.

"I am ready," he said, when he had finished.

Giovanni rose and led the way, without a word. Zorzi followed him, shut the door, turned the key twice and thrust it into the bosom of his doublet. Giovanni turned and watched him.

"You are really very cautions," he said. "Do you always lock the door when you go out?"

"Always," answered Zorzi, shouldering his blow-pipe.

They crossed the little garden and entered the passage that led to the main furnace rooms. In the first they entered, eight or ten men and youths, masters and apprentices, were at work. The place was higher and far more spacious than the laboratory, the furnace was broader and taller and had four mouths instead of three. The sunlight streamed through a window high above the floor and fell upon the arched back of the annealing oven, the window being so placed that the sun could never shine upon the working end and dazzle the workmen.

When Giovanni and Zorzi entered, the men were working in silence. The low and steady roar of the flames was varied by the occasional sharp click of iron or the soft sound of hot glass rolling on the marver, or by the hiss of a metal instrument plunged into water to cool it. Every man had an apprentice to help him, and two boys tended the fire. The foreman sat at a table, busy with an account, a small man, even paler than the others and dressed in shabby brown hose and a loose brown coat. The workmen wore only hose and shirts.

Without desisting from their occupations they cast surprised glances at Giovanni and his companion, whom they all hated as a favoured person. One of them was finishing a drinking-glass, rolling the pontil on the arms of the working-stool; another, a beetle-browed fellow, swung his long blow-pipe with its lump of glowing glass in a full circle, high in air and almost to touch the ground; another was at a 'bocca' in the low glare; all were busy, and the air was very hot and close. The men looked grim and ill-tempered.

Giovanni explained the object of his coming in a way intended to conciliate them to himself at Zorzi's expense. Their presence gave him courage.

"This is Zorzi, the man without a name," he said, "who is come from Dalmatia to give us a lesson in glass-blowing."

One of the men laughed, and the apprentices tittered. The others looked as if they did not understand. Zorzi had known well enough what humour he should find among them, but he would not let the taunt go unanswered.

"Sirs," he said, for they all claimed the nobility of the glass-blowers' caste, "I come not to teach you, but to prove to the master's son that I can make some trifle in the manner of your art."

No one spoke. The workmen in the elder Beroviero's house knew well enough that Zorzi was a better artist than they, and they had no mind to let him outdo them at their own furnace.

"Will any one of you gentlemen allow me to use his place?" asked Zorzi civilly.

Not a man answered. In the sullen silence the busy hands moved with quick skill, the furnace roared, the glowing glass grew in ever-changing shapes.

"One of you must give Zorzi his place," said Giovanni, in a tone of authority.

The little foreman turned quite round in his chair and looked on. There was no reply. The pale men went on with their work as if Giovanni were not there, and Zorzi leaned calmly on his blow-pipe. Giovanni moved a step forward and spoke directly to one of the men who had just dropped a finished glass into the bed of soft wood ashes, to be taken to the annealing oven.

"Stop working for a while," he said. "Let Zorzi have your place."

"The foreman gives orders here, not you," answered the man coolly, and he prepared to begin another piece.

Giovanni was very angry, but there were too many of the workmen, and he did not say what rose to his lips, but crossed over to the foreman. Zorzi kept his place, waiting to see what might happen.

"Will you be so good as to order one of the men to give up his place?" Giovanni asked.

The old foreman smiled at this humble acknowledgment of his authority, but he argued the point before acceding.

"The men know well enough what Zorzi can do," he answered in a low voice. "They dislike him, because he is not one of us. I advise you to take him to your own glass-house, sir, if you wish to see him work. You will only make trouble here."

"I am not afraid of any trouble, I tell you," replied Giovanni. "Please do what I ask."

"Very well. I will, but I take no responsibility before the master if there is a disturbance. The men are in a bad humour and the weather is hot."

"I will be responsible to my father," said Giovanni.

"Very well," repeated the old man. "You are a glass-maker yourself, like the rest of us. You know how we look upon foreigners who steal their knowledge of our art."

"I wish to make sure that he has really stolen something of it."

The foreman laughed outright.

"You will be convinced soon enough!" he said. "Give your place to the foreigner, Piero," he added, speaking to the man who had refused to move at Giovanni's bidding.

Piero at once chilled the fresh lump of glass he had begun to fashion and smashed it off the tube into the refuse jar. Without a word Zorzi took his place. While he warmed the end of his blow-pipe at the 'bocca' he looked to right and left to see where the working-stool and marver were placed, and to be sure that the few tools he needed were at hand, the pontil, the 'procello,'—that is, the small elastic tongs for modelling—and the shears. Piero's apprentice had retired to a distance, as he had received no special orders, and the workmen hoped that Zorzi would find himself in difficulty at the moment when he would turn in the expectation of finding the assistant at his elbow. But Zorzi was used to helping himself. He pushed his blow-pipe into the melted glass and drew it out, let it cool a moment and then thrust it in again to take up more of the stuff.

The men went on with their work, seeming to pay no attention to him, and Piero turned his back and talked to the foreman in low tones. Only Giovanni watched, standing far enough back to be out of reach of the long blow-pipe if Zorzi should unexpectedly swing it to its full length. Zorzi was confident and unconcerned, though he was fully aware that the men were watching every movement he made, while pretending not to see. He knew also that owing to his being partly self-taught he did certain things in ways of his own. They should see that his ways were as good as theirs, and what was more, that he needed no help, while none of them could do anything without an apprentice.

The glass grew and swelled, lengthened and contracted with his breath and under his touch, and the men, furtively watching him, were amazed to see how much he could do while the piece was still on the blow-pipe. But when he could do no more they thought that he would have trouble. He did not even turn his head to see whether any one was near to help him. At the exact moment when the work was cool enough to stand he attached the pontil with its drop of liquid glass to the lower end, as he had done many a time in the laboratory, and before those who looked on could fully understand how he had done it without assistance, the long and heavy blow-pipe lay on the floor and Zorzi held his piece on the lighter pontil, heating it again at the fire.

The men did not stop working, but they glanced at each other and nodded, when Zorzi could not see them. Giovanni uttered a low