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

said piece of money, and set the said beaker within the annealing oven of the said furnace, wherein I saw many other pieces of fine workmanship, and he said that I should have the said beaker when it was annealed. Wherefore I, being for the time the Master of the honourable Guild in the stead of the said Angelo, entreat your Magnificence on behalf of the said Guild to interfere and act for the preservation of our ancient rights and privileges, and for the honour of the Republic. Moreover, I entreat your Magnificence to send a force by night, in order that there may be no scandal, to take the said Zorzi, called the Ballarin, and to bind him, and carry him to Venice, that he may be tried for his monstrous crimes, and be questioned, even with torture, as to others which he has certainly committed, and be exiled from all the dominions of the Republic for ever on pain of being hanged, that in this way our laws may be maintained and our privileges preserved. Moreover, I will give any further information of the same kind which your Magnificence may desire. At Murano, in the house of Angelo Beroviero, my father, this third day of July, in the year of the Salvation of the World fourteen hundred and seventy, Giovanni Beroviero, the glass-maker."

Giovanni had taken a long time in the composition of this remarkable document. He sat in his linen shirt and black hose, but he had paused often to fan himself with a sheet of paper, and to wipe the perspiration from his forehead, for although he was a lean man he suffered much from the heat, owing to a weakness of his heart.

He folded the two sheets of his letter and tied them with a silk string, of which he squeezed the knot into pasty red wax, which he worked with his fingers, and upon this he pressed the iron seal of the guild, using both his hands and standing up in order to add his weight to the pressure. The missive was destined for the Podestà of Murano, which is to say, for the Governor, who was a patrician of Venice and a most high and mighty personage. Giovanni did not mean to trust to any messenger. That very afternoon, when he had slept after dinner, and the sun was low, he would have himself rowed to the Governor's house, and he would deliver the letter himself, or if possible he would see the dignitary and explain even more fully that Zorzi, called the Ballarin, was a liar, a thief and an assassin. He felt a good deal of pride in what he had written so carefully, and he was sure that his case was strong. In another day or two, Zorzi would be gone for ever from Murano, Giovanni would have the precious manuscript in his possession, and when old Beroviero returned Giovanni would use the book as a weapon against his father, who would be furiously angry to find his favourite assistant gone. It was all very well planned, he thought, and was sure to succeed. He would even take possession of the beautiful red glass, and of the still more wonderful white glass which Zorzi had made for himself. By the help of the book, he should soon be able to produce the same in his own furnaces. The vision of a golden future opened before him. He would outdo all the other glass-makers in every market, from Paris to Palermo, from distant England to Egyptian Alexandria, wheresoever the vast trade of Venice carried those huge bales of delicate glass, carefully packed in the dried seaweed of the lagoons. Gold would follow gold, and his wealth would increase, till it became greater than that of any patrician in Venice. Who could tell but that, in time, the great exception might be made for him, and he might be admitted to sit in the Grand Council, he and his heirs for ever, just as if he had been born a real patrician and not merely a member of the half-noble caste of glass-blowers? Such things were surely possible.

In the cooler hours of the afternoon he got into his father's gondola, for he was far too economical to keep one of his own, and he had himself rowed to the house of the Governor, on the Grand Canal of Murano. But at the door he was told that the official was in Venice and would not return till the following day. The liveried porter was not sure where he might be found, but he often went to the palace of the Contarini, who were his near relations. The Signor Giovanni, to whom the porter was monstrously civil, might give himself the fatigue of being taken there in his gondola. In any case it would be easy to find the Governor. He would perhaps be on the Grand Canal in Venice at the hour when all the patricians were taking the air. It was very probable indeed.

The porter bowed low as the gondola pushed off, and Giovanni leaned back in the comfortable seat, to repeat again and again in his mind what he meant to say if he succeeded in speaking with the Governor. He had his letter of complaint safe in his wallet, and he could remember every word he had written. In order to go to Venice, the nearest way was to return from the Grand Canal of Murano by the canal of San Piero, and to pass the glass-house. The door was shut as usual, and Giovanni smiled as he thought of how the city archers would go in, perhaps that very night, to take Zorzi away. He would not be with them, but when they were gone, he would go and find the book under one of the stones. When he had got it, his father might come home, for all Giovanni cared.

Before long the gondola was winding its way through the narrow canals, now shooting swiftly along a short straight stretch, between a monastery and a palace, now brought to by a turn of the hand at a corner, as the man at the oar shouted out a direction meant for whoever might be coming, by the right or left, as one should say "starboard helm" or "port helm," and both doing the same, two vessels pass clear of one another; and to this day the gondoliers of Venice use the old words, and tell long-winded stories of their derivation and first meaning, which seem quite unnecessary. But in Beroviero's time, the gondola had only lately come into fashion, and every one adopted it quickly because it was much cheaper than keeping horses, and it was far more pleasant to be taken quickly by water, by shorter ways, than to ride in the narrow streets, in the mud in winter and in the dust in summer, jostling those who walked, and sometimes quarrelling with those who rode, because the way was too narrow for one horse to pass another, when both had riders on their backs. Moreover, it was law that after nine o'clock in the morning no man who had reached the fig-tree that grew in the open space before San Salvatore, should ride to Saint Mark's by the Merceria, so that people had to walk the rest of the way, leaving their horses to grooms. The gondola was therefore a great convenience, besides being a notable economy, and old Francesco Sansovino says that in his day, which was within a lifetime of Angelo Beroviero's, there were nine or ten thousand gondolas in Venice. But at first they had not the high peaked stem of iron, and stem and stern were made almost alike, as in the Venetian boats and skiffs of our own time.

Giovanni got out at the steps of the Contarini palace, which, of the many that even then belonged to different branches of that great house, was distinguished above all others by its marvellous outer winding staircase, which still stands in all its beauty and slender grace. But near the great palace there were little wooden houses of two stories, some new and straight and gaily painted, but some old and crooked, hanging over the canals so that they seemed ready to topple down, with crazy outer balconies half closed in by lattices behind which the women sat for coolness, and sometimes even slept in the hot months. For the great city of stone and brick was not half built yet, and the space before Saint Mark's was much larger than it is now, for the Procuratie did not yet exist, nor the clock, but the great bell-tower stood almost in the middle of an open square, and there were little wooden booths at its base, in which all sorts of cheap trinkets were sold. There were also such booths and small shops at the base of the two columns. Also, the bridge of Rialto was a broad bridge of boats, on which shops were built on each side of the way, and the middle of the bridge could be drawn out, for the great Bucentoro to pass through, when the Doge went out in state to wed the sea.

Giovanni Beroviero was well known to Contarini's household, for all knew of the approaching marriage, and the servants were not surprised when he inquired for the Governor of Murano, saying that his business was urgent. But the Governor was not there, nor the master of the house. They were gone to the Grand Canal. Would the Signor Giovanni like to speak with Messer Jacopo, who chanced to be in the palace and alone? It was still early, and Giovanni thought that the opportunity was a good one for ingratiating himself with his future brother-in-law. He would go in, if he should not disturb Messer Jacopo. He was announced and ushered respectfully into the great hall, and thence up the broad staircase to the hall of reception above. And below, his gondoliers gossiped with the servants, talking about the coming marriage, and many indiscreet things were said, which it was better that their masters should not hear; as for instance that Jacopo was really living in the house of the Agnus Dei, where he kept a beautiful Georgian slave in unheard-of luxury, and that this was a great grief to his father, who was therefore very desirous of hastening the marriage with Marietta. The porter winked one eye solemnly at the head gondolier, as who should imply that the establishment at the Agnus Dei would not be given up for twenty marriages; but the gondolier said boldly that if Jacopo did not change his life after he had married Marietta, something would happen to him. Upon this the porter inquired superciliously what, in the name of a great many beings, celestial and infernal, could possibly happen to any Contarini who chose to do as he pleased. The gondolier answered that there were laws, the porter retorted that the laws were made for glass-blowers but not for patricians, and the two might have come to blows if they had not just then heard their masters' voices from the landing of the great staircase; and of coarse it was far more important to overhear all they could of the conversation than to quarrel about a point of law.

Giovanni was too full of his plan for Zorzi's destruction to resist the temptation of laying the whole case before Contarini, who was so soon to be a member of the family, and as Jacopo, who was himself going out, accompanied his guest downstairs, Giovanni continued to talk of the matter earnestly, and Contarini answered him by occasional monosyllables and short sentences, much interested by the whole affair, but wishing that Giovanni would go away, now that he had told all. He was in constant fear lest Zorzi should say something which might betray the meetings at the house of the Agnus Dei, and had often regretted that he had not been put quietly out of the way, instead of being admitted to the society. Now after hearing what Giovanni had to say, he had not the slightest doubt but that Zorzi had really broken the laws, and it seemed an admirable solution of the whole affair that the Dalmatian should be exiled from the Republic for life. That being settled, he wished to get rid of his visitor, as Arisa was waiting for him.

"I assure you," Giovanni said, "that this miserable Zorzi is a liar, a thief and an assassin."

"Yes," assented Contarini carelessly, "I have no doubt of it."

"The best thing is to arrest him at once, this very night, if possible, and have him brought before the Council."

"Yes."

Contarini had agreed with Giovanni on this point already, and made a movement to descend, but Giovanni loved to stand still in order to talk, and he would not move. Contarini waited for him.

"It is important