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Marietta: A Maid of Venice

<h2>CHAPTER IV</h2> Marietta awoke before sunrise, with a smile on her lips, and as she opened her eyes, the world seemed suddenly gladder than ever before, and her heart beat in time with it. She threw back the shutters wide to let in the June morning as if it were a beautiful living thing; and it breathed upon her face and caressed her, and took her in its spirit arms, and filled her with itself. Not a sound broke the stillness, as she looked out, and the glassy waters of the canal reflected delicate tints from the sky, palest green and faintest violet and amber with all the lovely changing colours of the dawn. By the footway a black barge was moored, piled high with round uncovered baskets of beads, white, blue, deep red and black, waiting to be taken over to Venice where they would be threaded for the East, and the colours stood out in strong contrast with the grey stones, the faint reflections in the water and the tender sky above. There were flowers on the window-sill, a young rose with opening buds, growing in a red earthen jar, and a pot of lavender just bursting into flower, with a sweet geranium beside it and some rosemary. Zorzi had planted them all for her, and her serving-woman had helped her to fasten the pots in the window, because it would have been out of the question that any man except her father should enter her room, even when she was not there. But they were Zorzi's flowers, and she bent down and smelt their fragrance. On a table behind her a single rose hung over the edge of a tall glass with a slender stem, almost the counterpart of the one in which Contarini had drunk her health at midnight. Her father had given it to her as it came from the annealing oven, still warm after long hours of cooling with many others like it. She loved it for its grace and lightness, and as for the rose, it was the one she had made Zorzi give back to her yesterday. She meant to keep it in water till it faded, and then she would press it between the first page and the binding of her parchment missal. It would keep some of its faint scent, perhaps, and if any one saw it, no one would ever guess whence it came. It meant a great thing to her, for it had told her Zorzi's secret, which he had kept so well. He should know hers some day, but not yet, and her drooping lids could hide it if it ever came into her eyes. It was too soon to let him know that she loved him. That was one reason for hiding it, but she had another. If her father guessed that she loved the waif, it would fare ill with him. She fancied she could see the old man's fiery brown eyes and hear his angry voice. Poor Zorzi would be driven from Murano and Venice, never to set foot again within the boundaries of the Republic; for Beroviero was a man of weight and influence, of whom Venice was proud. Youth would be very sad if it counted time and labour as it is reckoned and valued by mature age. Some day Zorzi would be no longer a mere paid helper, calling himself a servant when his humour was bitter, tending a fire on his knees and grinding coloured earths and salts in a mortar. He had the understanding of the glorious art, and the true love of it, with the magic touch; he would make a name for himself in spite of the harsh Venetian law, and some day his master would be proud to call him son. There would not be many months to wait. Months or years, what mattered, since she loved him and was at last quite sure that he loved her? To-day, that was enough. She would go over to the glass-house and sit in the garden, by the rose he had planted, and now and then she would go into the close furnace room where he worked with her father, or Zorzi would come out for something; she should be near him, she should see his face and hear his quiet voice, and she would say to herself: He loves me, he loves me—as often as she chose, knowing that it was true. Since she knew it, she was sure that she should see it in his face, that had hidden it from her so long. There would be glances when he thought she was not watching him, his colour would come and go, as yesterday, and he would do her some little service, now and then, in which the sweet truth, against his will, should tell itself to her again and again. It would be a delicious and ever-remembered day, each minute a pearl, each hour a chaplet of jewels, from golden sunrise to golden sunset, all perfect through and through. There were so many little things she could watch in him, now that she knew the truth, things that had long meant nothing and would mean volumes to-day. She would watch him, and then call him suddenly and see him try to hide the little gladness he would feel as he turned to her; and when they were alone a moment, she would ask him whether he had remembered to forget Jacopo Contarini's name; and some day, but not for a long time yet, she would drop a rose again, and she would turn as he picked it up, but she would not make him give it back to her, and in that way he should know that she loved him. She must not think of that, for it was too soon, yet she could almost see his face as it would be when he knew. Yesterday her father had talked again of her marriage. A whole month had passed since he had even alluded to it, but this time he had spoken of it as a certainty; and she had opened her eyes wide in surprise. She did not believe that it was to be. How could she marry a man she did not love? How could she love any man but Zorzi? They might show her twenty Venetian patricians, that she might choose among them. Meanwhile she would show her indifference. Nothing was easier than to put on an inscrutable expression which betrayed nothing, but which, as she knew, sometimes irritated her father beyond endurance. He had always promised that she should not be married against her will, as many girls were. Then why should she marry Contarini, any more than any other man except the one she had chosen? She need only say that Contarini did not please her, and her father would certainly not try to use force. There was therefore nothing to fear, and since her first surprise was over, she felt sure of appearing quite indifferent. She would put the thought out of her mind and begin the day with the perfect certainty that the marriage was altogether impossible. She looked out over her flowers. The door of the glass-house was open now, and the burly porter was sweeping; she could hear the cypress broom on the flagstones inside, and presently it appeared in sight while the porter was still invisible, and it whisked out a mixture of black dust and bread crumbs and bits of green salad leaves, and the old man came out and swept everything across the footway into the canal. As he turned to go back, the workmen came trooping across the bridge to the furnaces—pale men with intent faces, very different from ordinary working people. For each called himself an artist, and was one; and each knew that so far as the law was concerned the proudest noble in Venice could marry his daughter without the least derogation from patrician dignity. The workmen differed from her own father not in station, but only in the degree of their prosperity. If Zorzi could ever have been one of them the rest would have been simple enough. But he could not, any more than a black man could turn white at will. There was no evasion of law by which a man not born a Venetian could ever be a glass-blower, or could ever acquire the privileges possessed from birth by one of those shabby, pale young men who were crowding past the porter to go to their hard day's work. Yet dexterous as they were, there was not one that had his skill, there was not one that could compare with him as an artist, as a workman, as a man. No Indian caste, no ancient nobility, no mystic priesthood ever set up a barrier so impassable between itself and the outer world as that which defended the glass-blowers of Murano for centuries against all who wished to be initiated. Even the boys who fed the fires all night were of the calling, and by and by would become workmen, and perhaps masters, legally almost the equals of the splendid nobles who sat in the Grand Council over there in Venice. Zorzi's very existence was an anomaly. He had no social right to be what he was, and he knew it when he called himself a servant, for the cruel law would not allow him to be anything else so long as he helped Angelo Beroviero. Suddenly, while Marietta watched the men, Zorzi was there among them, coming out as they went in. He must have risen early, she thought, for she did not know that he had slept in the laboratory. He looked pale and thin as he flattened himself against the door-post to let a workman pass, and then slipped out himself. No one greeted him, even by a nod. Marietta knew that they hated him because he was in her father's confidence; and somehow, instead of pitying him, she was glad. It seemed natural that he should not be one of them, that he should pass them with quiet indifference and that they should feel for him the instinctive dislike which most inferiors feel for those above them. Doubtless, they looked down upon him, or told themselves that they did; but in their hearts they knew that a man with such a face was born to be their teacher and their master, and the girl was proud of him. He treated them with more civility than they bestowed on him, but it was the courtesy of a superior who would not assert himself, who would scorn to thrust himself forward or in any way to claim what was his by right, if it were not freely offered. Marietta drew back a little, so that she could just see him between the flowers, without being seen. He stood still, looking down at the canal till the last of the men had passed in. Then, before he went on, he raised his eyes slowly to Marietta's window, not guessing that her own were answering his from behind the rosemary and the geranium. His pale face was very sad and thoughtful as he looked up. She had never seen him look so tired. The porter had shut the door, which he never allowed to remain open one moment longer than was absolutely necessary, and Zorzi stood quite alone on the footway. As he looked, his face softened and grew so tender that the girl who watched him unseen stretched out her arms towards him with unconscious yearning, and her heart beat very fast, so that she felt the pulses in her throat almost choking her; yet her face was pale and her soft lips were dry and cold. For it was not all happiness that she felt; there was a sweet mysterious pain with it, which was nowhere, and yet all through her, that was weakness and yet might turn to strength, a hunger of longing for something dear and unknown and divine, without which all else was an empty shadow. Then her eyes opened to him, as he had never seen them, blue as the depth of sapphires and dewy with love mists of youth's early spring; it was impossible that he should stand there, just beyond the narrow water, and not feel that she saw him and loved him, and that her heart was crying out the true words he never hoped to hear. But he did not know. And all at once his eyes fell, and she could almost see that he sighed as he turned wearily away and walked with bent head towards the wooden bridge. She would have given anything to look out and see him cross and come nearer, but she remembered that she was not yet dressed, and she blushed as she drew further back into the room, gathering the thin white linen up to her throat, and frightened at the mere thought that he should catch sight of her. She would not call her serving-woman yet, she would be alone a little while longer. She threw back her russet hair, and bent down to smell the rose in the tall glass. The sun was risen now and the first slanting beams shot sideways through her window from the right. The day that was to be so sweet had begun most sweetly. She had seen him already, far earlier than usual; she would see him many times before the little brown maid crossed the canal to bring her home in the evening. The thought put an end to her meditations, and she was suddenly in haste to be dressed, to be out of the house, to be sitting in the little garden of the glass-house where Zorzi must soon pass again. She called and clapped her hands, and her serving-woman entered from the outer room in which she slept. She brought a great painted earthenware dish, on which fruit was arranged, half of a small yellow melon fresh from the cool storeroom, a little heap of dark red cherries and a handful of ripe plums. There was white wheaten bread, too, and honey from Aquileia, in a little glass jar, and there was a goblet of cold water. The maid set the big dish on the table, beside the glass that held Zorzi's rose, and began to make ready her mistress's clothes. Marietta tasted the melon, and it was cool and aromatic, and she stood eating a slice of it, just where she could look through the flowers on the window-sill at the door of the glass-house, so that if Zorzi passed again she should see him. He did not come, and she was a little disappointed; but the melon was very good, and afterwards she ate a few cherries and spread a spoonful of honey on a piece of bread, and nibbled at it; and she drank some of the water, looking out of the window over the glass. "Was it always so beautiful?" she asked, speaking to herself, in a sort of wonder at what she felt, as she set the glass upon the table. Nella, the maid, turned quickly to her with a look of inquiry. "What?" she asked. "What is beautiful? The weather? It is summer! Of course it is fine. Did you expect the north wind to-day, or rain from the southwest?" Marietta laughed, sweet and low. The little maid always amused her. There was something cheerful in the queer little scolding sentences, spoken with a rising inflection on almost every word, musical and yet always seeming to protest gently against anything Marietta said. "I know of something much more beautiful than the weather," Nella added, seeing that she got no answer except a laugh. "Do you wish to know what is more beautiful than a summer's day?" "Oh, I know the answer to that!" cried Marietta. "You used to catch me in that way when I was a small girl." "Well, my little lady, what is the answer? I have said nothing." "What is more beautiful than a summer's day? Why, two summer's days, of course! I was always dreadfully disappointed when you gave me that answer, for I expected something wonderful." Nella shook her head as she unfolded the fine linen things, and uttered a sort of little clucking sound, meant to show her disapproval of such childish jests. "Tut, tut, tut! We are grown up now! Are we children? No, we are a young lady, beautiful and serious! Tut, tut, tut! That you should remember the nonsense I used to talk to make you stop crying for your mother, blessed soul! And I myself was so full of tears that a drop of water would have drowned me! But all passes, praise be to God!" "I hope not," said Marietta, but so low that the woman did not hear. "I will ask you a riddle," continued Nella presently. "Oh no!" laughed Marietta. "I could no more guess a riddle to-day than I could give a dissertation on theology. Riddles are for rainy days in winter, when we sit by the fire in the evening wishing it were morning again. I know the great riddle at last—I have found it out. It is the most beautiful thing in the world." "Then it is true," observed Nella, looking at her with satisfaction. "What?" asked the young girl carelessly. "That you are to be married." "I hope so," answered Marietta. "Some day, but there is time yet—perhaps a very long time." "As long as it will take to make a wedding gown embroidered with gold and pearls. Not a day longer than that." Nella looked very wise and watched her mistress's face. "What do you mean?" "The master has ordered just such a gown. That is what I mean. Do you think I would talk of such a beautiful thing, just to make you unhappy, if you were not to have one? But you will not forget poor Nella, my little lady? You will take me with you to Venice?" "Then you think I am to marry some one from the city? What is his name?" "The master knows. That is enough. But it must be the Doge's son, or at least the son of the Admiral of Venice. It will take two months to embroider the gown. That means that you are to be married in August, of course." "Do you think so?" asked Marietta indifferently. "I know it." And Nella gave a discontented little snort, for she did not like to have her conclusions questioned. "Am I half-witted? Am I in my dotage? Am I an imbecile? The gown is ordered, and that is the truth. Do you think the master has ordered a wedding gown embroidered with gold and pearls for himself?" Marietta tossed her hair back and shook it down her shoulders, laughing gaily at the idea. "Ah!" cried Nella indignantly. "Now you are mocking me! You are making a laughing-stock of your poor Nella! It is too bad! But you will be sorry that you laughed at me, when I am not here to bring you melons and cherries and tell you the news in the morning! You will say: 'Poor Nella! She was not such an ignorant person after all!' That is what you will say. I tell you that if your father orders a wedding gown, you are the only person in the house who can wear it, and he would not order it just to see how beautiful you would be as a bride! He is a serious man, the master, he is grave, he is wise! He does nothing without much reflection, and what he does is well done. He says, 'My daughter is to be married, therefore I will order a splendid dress for her.' That is what he says, and he orders it." "That has an air of reason," said Marietta gravely. "I did not mean to laugh at you." "Oh, very well! If you thought your father unreasonable, what should I say? He does not say one thing and do another, your father. And I will tell you something. They will make the gown even handsomer than he ordered it, because he is very rich, and he will grumble and scold, but in the end he will pay, for the honour of the house. Then you will wear the gown, and all Venice will see you in it on your wedding day." "That will be a great thing for the Venetians," observed the young girl, trying not to smile. "They will see that there are rich men in Murano, too. It will be a lesson for their intolerable vanity." "Are the Venetians so very vain?" "Well! Was not my husband a Venetian, blessed soul? It seems to me that I should know. Have I forgotten how he would fasten a cock's feather in his cap, almost like a gentleman, and hang his cloak over one shoulder, and pull up his hose till they almost cracked, so as to show off his leg? Ah, he had handsome legs, my poor Vito, and he never would use anything but pure beeswax to stiffen his mustaches. No, he never would use tallow. He was almost like a gentleman!" Nella's little brown eyes were moist as she recalled her husband's small vanities; his dislike of tallow as a cosmetic seemed to affect her particularly. "That is why I say that it will be a lesson to the pride of those Venetians to see your marriage," she resumed, after drying her eyes with the back of her hand. "And the people of Murano will be there, and all the glass-blowers in their guild, since the master is the head of it. I suppose Zorzi will manage to be there, too." Nella spoke the last words in a tone of disapproval. "Why should Zorzi not be at my wedding?" asked Marietta carelessly. "Why should he?" asked the serving-woman with unusual bluntness. "But I daresay the master will find something for him to do. He is clever enough at doing anything." "Yes—he is clever," assented the young girl. "Why do you not like him? Give me some more water—you are always afraid that I shall use too much!" "I have a conscience," grumbled Nella. "The water is brought from far, it is paid for, it costs money, we must not use too much of it. Every day the boats come with it, and the row of earthen jars in the court is filled, and your father pays—he always pays, and pays, and pays, till I wonder where the money all comes from. They say he makes gold, over there in the furnace." "He makes glass," answered Marietta. "And if he orders gowns for me with pearls and gold, he will not grudge me a jug of water. Why do you dislike Zorzi?" "He is as proud as a marble lion, and as obstinate as a Lombardy mule," explained Nella, with fine imagery. "If that is not enough to make one dislike a young man, you shall tell me so! But one of those days he will fall. There is trouble for the proud." "How does his great pride show itself?" asked Marietta. "I have not noticed it." "That would indeed be the end of everything, if he showed his pride to you!" Nella was much displeased by the mere suggestion. "But with us it is different. He never speaks to the other workmen." "They never speak to him." "And quite right, too, since he holds his head so high, with no reason at all! But it will not last for ever! I wonder what the master would think, for instance, if he knew that Zorzi takes the skiff in the evening, and rows himself over to Venice, all alone, and comes back long after midnight, and sleeps in the glass-house across the way because he cannot get into the house. Zorzi! Zorzi! The master cannot move without Zorzi! And where is Zorzi at night? At home and in bed, like a decent young man? No. Zorzi is away in Venice, heaven knows where, doing heaven knows what! Do you wonder that he is so pale and tired in the morning? It seems to me quite natural. Eh? What do you think, my pretty lady?" Marietta was silent for a moment. It was only a servant's spiteful gossip, but it hurt her. "Are you sure that he goes to Venice alone at night?" she asked, after a little pause. "Am I sure that I live, that I belong to you, and that my name is Nella? Is not the boat moored under my window? Did I not hear the chain rattling softly last night? I got up and looked out, and I saw Zorzi, as I see you, taking the padlock off. I am not blind—praise be to heaven, I see. He turned the boat to the left, so he must have been going to Venice, and it was at least an hour after the midnight bells when I heard the chain again, and I looked out, and there he was. But he did not come into the house. And this morning I saw him coming out of the glass-house, just as the men went in. He was as pale as a boiled chicken." Marietta had seen him, too, and the coincidence gave colour to the rest of the woman's tale, as would have happened if the whole story had been an invention instead of being quite true. Nella was combing the girl's thick hair, an operation peculiarly conducive to a maid's chattering, for she has the certainty that her mistress cannot get away, and must therefore listen patiently. A shadow had fallen on the brightness of Marietta's morning. She was paler, too, but she said nothing. "Of course he was tired," continued Nella. "Did you suppose that he would come back with pink cheeks and bright eyes, like a baby from baptism, after being out half the night?" "He is always pale," said Marietta. "Because he goes to Venice every night," retorted Nella viciously. "That is the good reason! Oh, I am sure of it! And besides, I shall watch him, now that I know. I shall see him whenever he takes the boat." "It is none of your business where he goes," answered Marietta. "It does not concern any one but himself." "Oh, indeed!" sneered Nella. "Then the honour of the house does not matter! It is no concern of ours! And your father need never know that his trusty servant, his clever assistant, his faithful confidant, who shares all his secrets, is a good-for-nothing fellow who spends his nights in gambling, or drinking, or perhaps in making love to some Venetian girl as honourable and well behaved as himself!" Marietta had grown steadily more angry while Nella was talking. She had her father's temper, though she could control it better than he. "I will find out whether this story is true," she said coldly. "If it is not, it will be the worse for you. You shall not serve me any longer, unless you can be more careful in what you say." Nella's jaw dropped and her hands stood still and trembled, the one holding the comb upraised, the other gathering a quantity of her mistress's hair. Marietta had never spoken to her like this in her life. "Send me away?" faltered the woman in utter amazement. "Send me away!" she repeated, still quite dazed. "But it is impossible—" her voice began to break, as if some one were shaking her violently by the shoulders. "Oh no, no! You w-ill n-ot—no-o-o!" The sound grew more piercing as she went on, and the words were soon lost, as she broke into a violent fit of hysterical crying. Marietta's anger subsided as her pity for the poor creature increased. She had made a great effort to speak quietly and not to say more than she meant, and she had certainly not expected to produce such a tremendous commotion. Nella tore her hair, drew her nails down her cheeks, as if she would tear them with scratches, rocked herself forwards and backwards and from side to side, the tears poured down her brown cheeks, she screamed and blubbered and whimpered in quick alternation, and in a few moments tumbled into the corner of a big chair, a sobbing and convulsed little heap of womanhood. Marietta tried to quiet her, and was so sorry for her that she could almost have cried too, until she remembered the detestable things which Nella had said about Zorzi, and which the woman's screams had driven out of her memory for an instant. Then she longed to beat her for saying them, and still Nella alternately moaned and howled, and twisted herself in the corner of the big chair. Marietta wondered whether her servant were going mad, and whether this might not be a judgment of heaven for telling such atrocious lies about poor Zorzi. In that case it was of course deserved, thought she, watching Nella's contortions; but it was very sudden. She made up her mind to call the other women, and turned to go to the door. As she did so her skirt caught a comb that lay on the edge of the table and swept it off, so that it fell upon the pavement with a dry rap. Instantly Nella sat up straight and rubbed her eyes, looking about for the cause of the sound. When she saw the comb, the serving-woman's instinct returned, and with it her normal condition of mind. She picked up the comb with a quick movement, shook her head and began combing Marietta's hair again before the girl could sit down. Peace was restored, for she did not speak again, as she helped her mistress to finish dressing; but though Marietta tried to look kindly at her once or twice, Nella quite refused to see it, and did her duty without ever raising her eyes. It was soon finished, for the pleasure the young girl had taken in making much of the first details of the day that was to be so happy was all gone. She did not believe her woman, but there was a cloud over everything and she was in haste to get an answer to the question which it would not be easy to ask. She must know if Zorzi had been to Venice during the night, for until she knew that, all hope of peace was at an end. Nella had meant no harm, but she had played the fatal little part in which destiny loves to go masking through life's endless play. <hr style="width: 65%;" /> <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

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