Not easily would you have found a girl more winning in a tender sort
than Giovanna Scarpa of Verona at one and twenty, fair-haired and
flushed, delicately shaped, tall and pliant, as she then was. She had to
suffer her hours of ill report, but passes for near a saint now, in
consequence of certain miracles and theophanies done on her account,
which it is my business to declare; before those she was considered (if
at all) as a girl who would certainly have been married three years ago
if dowries had not been of moment in the matter. In a city of maids as
pretty as they are modest--which no one will deny Verona to be--there
may have been some whose charms in either kind were equal to hers, while
their estate was better in accord; but the speculation is idle.
Giovanna, flower in the face as she was, fit to be nosegay on any
hearth, posy for any man's breast, sprang in a very lowly soil. Like a
blossoming reed she shot up to her inches by Adige, and one forgot the
muddy bed wondering at the slim grace of the shaft with its crown of
yellow atop. Her hair waved about her like a flag; she should have been
planted in a castle; instead, Giovanna the stately calm, with her
billowing line, staid lips, and candid grey eyes, was to be seen on her
knees by the green water most days of the week. Bare-armed, splashed to
the neck, bare-headed, out-at-heels, she rinsed and pommelled, wrung and
dipped again, laughed, chattered, flung her hair to the wind, her sweat
to the water, in line with a dozen other women below the Ponte Navi; and
if no one thought any the worse of her, none, unhappily, thought any the
better--at least in the way of marriage. It is probable that no one
thought of her at all. Giovanna was a beauty and a very good girl; but
she was a washerwoman for all that, whose toil fed seven mouths.
Her father was Don Urbano, curate of Santa Toscana across the water.
This may very easily sound worse than it is. In Don Urbano's day, though
a priest might not marry, he might have a wife--a faithful, diligent
companion, that is--to seethe his polenta, air his linen, and rear his
children. The Church winked at her, and so continued until the Jesuits
came to teach that winking was unbecoming. But when Can Grande II.
lorded in Verona the Jesuits did not, and Don Urbano, good, easy man,
cared not who winked at his wife. She gave him six children before she
died of the seventh, of whom the eldest was Giovanna, and the others, in
an orderly chain diminishing punctually by a year, ran down to
Ferrantino, a tattered, shock-headed rascal of more inches than grace.
Last of all the good drudge, who had borne these and many other burdens
for her master, died also. Don Urbano was never tired of saying how
providential it was that she had held off her demise until Giovanna was
old enough to take her place. The curate was fat and lazy, very much
interested in himself; his stipend barely paid his shot at the "Fiore
del Marinajo," under whose green bush he was mostly to be seen. Vanna
had to roll up her sleeves, bend her straight young back, and knee the
board by the Ponte Navi. I have no doubt it did her good; the work is
healthy, the air, the sun, the waterspray kissed her beauty ripe; but
she got no husband because she could save no dowry. Everything went to
stay the seven crying mouths.
Then, on a day when half her twenty-first year had run after the others,
old Baldassare Dardicozzo stayed on the bridge to rest from the burden
of his pack--on a breezy March morning when the dust filled his eyes and
the wind emptied him of breath. Baldassare had little enough to spare as
it was. So he dropped his load in the angle of the bridge, with a
smothered "Accidente!" or some such, and leaned to watch the swollen
water buffeted crosswise by the gusts, or how the little mills
amid-stream dipped as they swam breasting the waves. In so doing he
became aware, in quite a peculiar way, of Vanna Scarpa.
Baldassare was old, red-eyed, stiff in the back. Possibly he was
rheumatic, certainly he was grumpy. He had a long slit mouth which
played him a cruel trick; for by nature it smiled when by nature he was
most melancholy. Smile it would and did, however cut-throat he felt: if
you wanted to see him grin from ear to ear you would wait till he had
had an ill day's market. Then, while sighs, curses, invocations of the
saints, or open hints to the devil came roaring from him, that hilarious
mouth of his invited you to share delights. You had needs laugh with
him, and he, cursing high and low, beamed all over his face. "To make
Baldassare laugh" became a stock periphrasis for the supreme degree of
tragedy among his neighbours. About this traitor mouth of his he had a
dew of scrubby beard, silvered black; he had bushy eyebrows, hands and
arms covered with a black pelt: he was a very hairy man. Also he was a
very warm man, as everybody knew, with a hoard of florins under the
flags of his old-clothes shop in the Via Stella.
Having spat into the water many times, rubbed his hands, mopped his
head, and cursed most things under heaven and some in it, Master
Baldassare found himself watching the laundresses on the shore. They
were the usual shrill, shrewd, and laughing line--the trade seems to
induce high mirth--and as such no bait for the old merchant by ordinary;
but just now the sun and breeze together made a bright patch of them,
set them at a provoking flutter. Baldassare, prickly with dust, found
them like their own cool linen hung out to dance itself dry in the wind.
Most of all he noticed Vanna, whom he knew well enough, because when she
knelt upright she was taller and more wayward than the rest, and because
the wind made so plain the pretty figure she had. She was very
industrious, but no less full of talk: there seemed so much to say! The
pauses were frequent in which she straightened herself from the hips and
turned to thrust chin and voice into the debate. You saw then the sharp
angle, the fine line of light along that raised chin, the charming turn
of the neck, her free young shoulders and shapely head; also you marked
her lively tones of _ci_ and _si_, and how her shaking finger drove them
home. The wind would catch her yellow hair sometimes and wind it across
her bosom like a scarf; or it streamed sideways like a long pennon; or
being caught by a gust from below, sprayed out like a cloud of litten
gold. Vanna always joined in the laugh at her mishap, tossed her tresses
back, pinned them up (both hands at the business); and then, with square
shoulders and elbows stiff as rods, set to working the dirt out of Don
Urbano's surplice. Baldassare brooded, chewing straws. What a clear
colour that girl had, to be sure! What a lissom rascal it was! A fine
long girl like that should be married; by all accounts she would make a
man a good wife. If he were a dozen years the better of four and fifty
he might--Then came a shrug, and a "Ma!" to conclude in true Veronese
Baldassare's ruminations. Shrug and explosion signalled two stark facts:
Baldassare was fifty-four, and Vanna had no portion.
Yet he remained watching on the bridge, his chin buried in his knotty
hands, his little eyes blinking under stress of the inner fire he had.
So it befell that La Testolina saw him, and said something shrill and
saucy to her neighbour. The wind tossed him the tone but not the sense.
He saw the joke run crackling down the line, all heads look brightly
up. The joke caught fire; he saw the sun-gleam on a dozen perfect sets
of teeth. Vanna's head was up with the rest, sooner up and the sooner
down. Even from that height the little twinkling beacons from the bridge
shot her through. He saw her colour deepen, head droop; she was busy
long before the others had wrung their joke dry. "Soul of a cat!"
grunted Baldassare between his teeth, "what a rosy baggage it is!" He
waited a little longer, then deliberately passed the bridge, rounded the
pillar by the steps, and went down to the women like a man who has made
up his mind. Lizabetta of the roving eye caught the first hint of his
shadow. Her elbow to Nonna's ribs, Nonna's "Pst!" in Nina's ear, spread
the news. Vanna's cheeks flew the flag.
"Buon' giorno, Ser Baldassare!" shrilled La Testolina, plump and
black-eyed leader of mischief.
"Giorno, giorno, La Testolina," growled the old man.
Vanna, very busy, grew as red as a rose. The others knelt back on their
heels; compliments of a homely sort flew about, sped on by flashing
teeth. Baldassare's own were black as old channel-posts in the Lagoon,
but in tongue-work he gave as sharp as he got. Then a wicked wind blew
Vanna's hair like a whip across her throat, fit to strangle her. She had
to face the day. Baldassare pondered her straight young back.
"When Vanna's a nun she'll have no more trouble with her hair," quoth La
Testolina, matchmaker by race.
"When Vanna's a nun the river will be dry," said Vanna from between her
elbows.
"When Vanna's a nun the river, on the contrary, will be in flood." This
from Baldassare.
"Hey! what's this?" Caterina cried; and Nonna pinched her arm.
"Adige will go crying that she comes no more to dip her arms," said the
old man, with the utmost gravity and a broad grin. The women screamed
their delight, slapped their knees, or raised witnessing hands to
heaven; La Testolina caught Vanna round the waist and gave her a
resounding kiss.
"Compliments, my little Vanna, compliments!" Her voice pealed like a
trumpet.
"Vi ringrazio, signore," said Vanna under her breath, and La Testolina
held up a tress of her long hair to the light.
"When Vanna's a nun you would bid for that, eh, Baldassare?"
"I will bid for whatever she will sell me," says he, with a blink.
Whereupon the matchmaker made no more music. The scent was too hot for
that.
Yet for all his adventuring he got little reward; she turned him no more
than the round of her cheek. Vanna never stayed her work, and he,
ordinarily a silent man, paid no more compliments--yet ceased not to
look.
Going up the street at dinner-time, he made his bid. He limped by the
tall girl's side without speech from either; but at the door he looked
up queerly at her and pinched her ear.
"Go in and feed the youngsters, my chuck," said he; "I know where to
meet Don Urbano, and please Madonna you shall feed your own before
long."
"Yes, Ser Baldassare," says pretty Vanna in a twitter.
The conference between the high contracting parties was wordy, bristled
with the gesticulations of two pair of hands, and was commented on by
all the guests in the "Fiore del Marinajo." The girl, said Don Urbano,
was the very pride of his eye, prop of his failing years, a little
mother to the children. She had had a most pious bringing-up, never
missed the Rosary, knew the Little Hours of the Virgin, could do sums
with notches in a stick, market like a Jew's housekeeper, sew like a
nun, and make a stew against any wife in the _contrada_. Dowry, dowry!
What did such a girl as that want with a dowry? She was her own dowry,
by Bacchus the Thracian. Look at the shape of her--was that not a dowry?
The work she could do, the pair of shoulders, the deep chest, the long
legs she had--pick your dowry there, my friends! A young woman of her
sort carried her dowry on her back, in her two hands, in her mouth--ah!
and in what she could put into yours, by our Lord. Rather, it should be
the other way. What, now, was Ser Baldassare prepared to lay out upon
such a piece of goods? Baldassare shivered, grinned fearfully, and shook
his head many times. Money was money; it was limited; it bore its value
in plain figures upon its face: you knew where you were with money. But
you could get wives cheaper than ducats, and find them cheaper value,
soul of a cat! Besides, what was he? A poor pedlar, by his faith! At
this he spread out his arms and dropped them with a flop upon his knees.
The priest sat back in his chair and cast appealing looks at the
rafters; the company chuckled, nudged each other, guffawed. Baldassare
was made to feel that he had over-coloured his case. True, he admitted,
he had a roof over his head, shared fortune with the rats in that. But
look at the thing reasonably, comrades. Vanna would make another to
keep; a girl of her inches must be an eater, body of a dog! Had his
reverence thought of that? His reverence made a supreme effort, held up
one pudgy forefinger, and with the other marked off two joints of it.
"Of mortadella so much," he said; "of polenta so much"--and he shut one
fist; "of pasta so much"--and he coupled the two fists; "and of wine, by
the soul of the world, not enough to drown a flea! I tell you,
Baldassare," he said finally, emboldened by the merchant's growing
doubt--"I tell you that you ask of me a treasure which I would not part
with for a cardinal's hat. No indeed! Not to be Bishop of Verona,
throned and purfled on Can Grande's right hand, will I consent to
traffic my Vanna. Eh, _sangue di Sangue_, because I am a man of the
Church must I cease to be a man of bowels, to have a yearning, a tender
spot here?" He prodded his cushioned ribs. "Go you, Ser Baldassare
Dardicozzo," he cried, rising grandly in his chair--"go you; you have
mistaken your man. The father stands up superb in the curate's cassock,
and points the door to the chafferer of virgins!"
The tavern-room, on Don Urbano's side to a man, beat the tables with
their glasses; Baldassare had to surrender at discretion. The bargain,
finally struck, was written out by an obliging notary on the
scoring-slate. In the name of the holy and undivided Trinity it was
declared to all men living and to be born, that Baldassare Dardicozzo,
merchant of Verona, was obliged to pay to the reverend father in God,
Urbano, curate of Santa Toscana in the Borgo San Giorgio, the sum of
sixty florins Veronese and two barrels of wine of Val Pulicella, under
condition that if within thirty days from those presents he did not lead
in marriage Giovanna, daughter of the said reverend, he should be bound
to pay the sum of one hundred and twenty florins Veronese, and four
barrels of wine of Val Pulicella.
The notary executed a monstrous flourish at the bottom--a foliated cross
rising out of steps. On the last step he wrote his own name, Bartolo de
Thomasinis; and then Baldassare, smiling as he should, but feeling as he
should not, stuck his seal upon the swimming wax, and made a cross with
the stile like the foundations of a spider's web.
The affair was thus concluded; before the thirty days were up Vanna was
taken to church by her father, and taken from it by her new master.
Within a week she appeared at the doorway of Baldassare's little shop,
very pretty, very sedate, quite the housewife--to sit there sewing and
singing to herself from grey dawn to grey dusk.