been awakened in the middle of the night by the noise of the constant
going and coming of the frightened servants. She had listened to their
comments on the signora's prolonged absence, and, believing that her
mother was drowned, she had gone into convulsions. She had barely become
calm when I entered, and Bianca was blaming herself for the child's
suffering, as if she had wilfully caused it.
"O my Bianca," I said to her, "be comforted and rejoice because your
child and all those about you love you so passionately. I will love you
even more than they do, so that you may be the happiest of women."
"Do not say that the others love me," she replied with some bitterness.
"It seems to me that under their breaths they are calling this love of
mine, which they have already divined, a crime. Their glances are
insulting to me, their words wound me, and I greatly fear that they have
let slip some imprudent remark in my daughter's hearing. Salomé is
openly impertinent to me this morning. It is high time for me to put an
end to these insolent comments on my conduct. You see, Nello, they look
upon my loving you as a crime, and they approved of my supposed love for
the avaricious Lanfranchi. They are all low-minded or foolish creatures.
I must inform them this very day that I passed the night, not with my
lover, but with my husband. It is the only way to make them respect you
and refrain from betraying me."
I dissuaded her from acting so hastily. I reminded her that she might
perhaps repent; that she had not reflected sufficiently; that I myself
needed time to consider her offer seriously; and that she had not
sufficiently weighed the consequences of her decision, with respect to
its possible future effect upon her daughter. I obtained her promise to
be patient and to act prudently.
It was impossible for me to form an enlightened judgment regarding my
situation. It was intoxicating, and I was a mere boy. Nevertheless, a
sort of instinctive repugnance warned me to distrust the fascinations of
love and fortune. I was excited, anxious, torn between desire and fear.
In the brilliant destiny that was offered me, I saw but one
thing--possession of the woman I loved. All the wealth by which she was
surrounded was not even an accessory to my happiness, it was a
disagreeable condition for me in my heedlessness to accept. I was like
one who has never suffered and can conceive of no better or worse state
than that in which he has always lived. In the Aldini Palace I was free
and happy. Petted by all alike, permitted to gratify all my whims, I had
no responsibility, nothing to fatigue my body or my mind. Singing,
sleeping, and boating, that was substantially the whole of my life, and
you Venetians who are listening to me know whether any life is sweeter
or better adapted to our indolent and careless natures. I imagined the
rôle of husband and master as something analogous to the
superintendence exercised by Salomé over household affairs, and such a
rôle was very far from flattering my ambition. That palace, of which I
had the freedom, was my property in the pleasantest sense of the word: I
enjoyed all its pleasures without any of its cares. Let my mistress add
the joys of love, and I should be the King of Italy.
Another thing that disheartened me was Salomé's gloomy air and the
embarrassed, mysterious and suspicious demeanor of the other servants.
There were many of them, and they were all excellent people, who had
treated me hitherto as a child of the family. In that silent reprobation
which I felt hovering over me, there was a warning which I could not,
which I did not wish to disdain; for, while it was due in some measure
to a natural feeling of jealousy, it was dictated even more by the
affectionate interest which the signora inspired.
What would I not have given in those moments of dire perplexity to have
a judicious adviser? But I did not know whom to apply to, and I was the
sole confidant of my mistress's secrets. She passed the day in bed with
her daughter, and sent for me the next day, to repeat to me all that she
had said on the marsh. All the time that she was speaking to me, it
seemed to me that she was right, and that she had a triumphant answer to
all my scruples; but when I was alone again, my distress and
irresolution returned.
I went up into the gallery and threw myself upon a chair. My eyes
wandered absent-mindedly from one to another of that long line of
ancestors whose portraits formed the only heritage that Torquato Aldini
had been able to bequeath to his daughter. Their smoke-begrimed faces,
their beards, cut square, and pointed, and diamond-shaped, their black
velvet robes and ermine-lined cloaks, gave them an imposing and
depressing aspect. Almost all had been senators, procurators, or
councillors; there was a multitude of uncles who had been inquisitors;
those of least consequence were minor canons or _capitani grandi_. At
the end of the gallery was the figure-head of the last galley fitted out
against the Turks by Tiberio Aldini, Torquato's grandfather, in the days
when the powerful nobles of the republic went to war at their own
expense, and esteemed it glorious to place their property and persons
voluntarily at the service of their country. It was a tall glass
lantern, set in gilded copper, surmounted and supported by metal
scroll-work of curious design, and with ornaments so placed that the bow
of the vessel ended in a point. Above each portrait was a long oak
bas-relief, reciting the glorious deeds of the illustrious personage
beneath. It occurred to me that, if we should have war, and the
opportunity should be offered me to fight for my country, I should be as
patriotic and as brave as all those noble aristocrats. It seemed to me
to be neither very extraordinary nor very meritorious to do great things
when one was rich and powerful, and I said to myself that the trade of
great nobleman could not be very difficult. But in those days, we were
not at war, nor were we likely to be. The republic was merely a
meaningless word, its might a mere shadow, and its enervated patricians
had no elements of grandeur except their names. It was the more
difficult to rise to their level in their opinion, because it was so
easy to surpass them in reality. Therefore to enter into a contest with
their prejudices and their contempt was unworthy of a true man, and the
plebeians were fully justified in despising those among themselves who
thought that they exalted themselves by seeking admission to fashionable
society and aping the absurdities of the nobles.
These reflections passed through my mind confusedly at first; then they
became more distinct, and I found that I could think, as I had found one
fine morning that I could sing. I began to understand the repugnance I
felt at the thought of leaving my proper station in life to make a
spectacle of myself in society as a vain and ambitious fellow; and I
determined to bury my love-affair with Bianca in the most profound
mystery.
Absorbed by these reflections, I walked along the gallery, glancing
proudly at that haughty race whose succession was disdained by a child
of the people, a boatman from Chioggia. I felt very happy; I thought of
my old father, and as I remembered the old house, long forgotten and
neglected, my eyes filled with tears. I found myself at the end of the
gallery, face to face with Messer Torquato, and for the first time I
scrutinized him boldly from head to foot. He was the very incarnation of
hereditary nobility. His glance seemed to drive one back like the point
of a sword, and his hand looked as if it had never opened except to
impose a command on his inferiors. I took pleasure in flouting him.
"Well!" I said to him mentally, "whatever you might have done, I would
never have been your servant. Your domineering air would not have
frightened me, and I would have looked you in the face as I look at this
canvas. You would never have obtained any hold on me, because my heart
is prouder than yours ever was, because I despise this gold before which
you bowed, because I am a greater man than you in the eyes of the woman
you possessed. In spite of all your pride of birth, you bent the knee to
her to obtain her wealth; and when you were rich through her, you
crushed and humbled her. That is the conduct of a dastard, and mine is
worthy of a genuine noble, for I want none of Bianca's wealth except her
heart, of which you were not worthy. And I refuse what you implored, so
that I may possess that which is precious above all things in my eyes,
Bianca's esteem. And I shall obtain it, for she will understand the vast
superiority of my heart to a debt-ridden patrician's. I have no
patrimony to redeem, you see! There is no mortgage on my father's
fishing-boat; and the clothes I wear are my own, because I earned them
by my toil. Very good! I shall be the benefactor, not the debtor,
because I shall restore happiness and life to that heart which you
broke, because I, servant and lover, shall succeed in winning blessings
and honor, while you, nobleman and husband, were cursed and despised."
A slight sound caused me to turn my head. I saw little Alezia behind me;
she was crossing the gallery, dragging a doll larger than herself. I
loved the child, despite her haughty nature, because of her love for her
mother. I tried to kiss her; but, as if she felt in the atmosphere the
disgrace which had been weighing upon me in that house for two days
past, she drew back with an offended air, and crouched against her
father's portrait, as if she had some reason to fear me. I was instantly
struck by the resemblance which her pretty little dark face bore to
Torquato's haughty features, and I stopped to examine her more closely,
with a feeling of profound sadness. She seemed to me to be scrutinizing
me attentively at the same time. Suddenly she broke the silence to say
to me in a tone of great bitterness, and with an indignant expression
beyond her years:
"Why have you stolen my papa's ring?"
As she spoke, she pointed with her tiny finger at a beautiful diamond
ring, mounted in the old style, which her mother had given me several
days before, and which I had been childish enough to accept; then she
turned and, standing on tiptoe, placed her finger on one of the fingers
in the portrait which was adorned with the same ring accurately copied;
and I discovered that the imprudent Bianca had presented her gondolier
with one of her husband's most valuable family jewels.
The blood rose in my cheeks, as I received from that child a lesson
which disgusted me more than ever with ill-gotten wealth. I smiled and
handed her the ring:
"Your mamma dropped it off her finger," I said, "and I found it just now
in the gondola."
"I will take it to her," said the child, snatching rather than taking it
from my hand. She ran away, leaving her doll on the floor. I picked up
the plaything to make sure of a little circumstance which I had often
noticed before. Alezia was in the habit of running a long pin through
the heart of every doll she owned, and sometimes she would sit for hours
at a time, absorbed in the profound and silent pleasure of that strange
amusement.
In the evening Mandola came to my room. He seemed awkward and
embarrassed. He had much to say to me, but he could not find a word. His
expression was so curious that I roared with laughter.
"You are doing wrong, Nello," he said with a pained look on his face; "I
am your friend; you are doing wrong!"
He turned to go, but I ran after him and tried to make him explain
himself; it was impossible. I saw that his heart was full of sage
reflections and good advice; but he lacked words in which to express
himself, and all his abortive sentences, in his patois in which all
languages were mingled, ended with these words:
"_E molto delica, delicatissimo._"
At last I succeeded in making out that the rumor of my approaching
marriage to the signora was current in the house. A few impatient words
which some one had heard her say to Salomé were sufficient to put that
rumor in circulation. The signora had said just this, speaking of me:
"The time is not far away when you will take orders from him instead of
giving him orders."--I obstinately denied that these words had any such
meaning, and pretended that I did not understand them at all.
"Very good," said Mandola; "that's the answer you ought to make, even to
me, although I am your friend. But I have eyes of my own; I don't ask
you any questions, I never have done it, Nello! but I came to warn you
that you must be prudent. The Aldinis are just looking for an excuse for
taking the guardianship of Signora Alezia away from the signora, and she
will die of grief if they take her child away from her."
"What do you say?" I cried; "what? they will take her daughter away
because of me?"
"If you were to marry her, certainly," replied the worthy gondolier;
"_otherwise_--as there are some things that can't be proved,--"
"Especially when they don't exist," I rejoined warmly.
"You speak as you should speak," replied Mandola; "continue to be on
your guard; trust nobody, not even me, and if you have any influence
over the signora, urge her to hide her feelings, especially from
Salomé. Salomé will never betray her; but her voice is too loud, and
when she quarrels with the signora, everybody in the house hears what
they say. If any of the signora's friends should suspect what is
happening, everything would go wrong; for friends aren't like servants;
they don't know how to keep a secret, and yet people trust their friends
more than they do us!"
Honest Mandola's advice was not to be despised, especially as it was in
perfect accord with my instinct. The next evening we took the signora to
the Zueca Canal, and Mandola, understanding that I had something to say
to her, obligingly fell asleep at his post. I put out the light, stole
into the cabin, and talked a long while with Bianca. She was surprised
by my objections and said everything that she considered likely to
overcome them. I spoke firmly, I told her that I would never allow it to
be said of me that I had married a woman for her wealth; that I cared as
much for the good name of my family as any patrician in Venice; that my
kinsmen would never forgive me if I afforded any such cause for scandal,
and that I did not propose either to fall out with my dear old father or
to make trouble between the signora and her daughter; for she ought to
and doubtless did care more for Alezia than for all the world beside.
This last argument was more powerful than any other. She burst into
tears and poured forth her admiration for me and gratitude to me with
the enthusiasm of passion.
From that day peace reigned once more in the Aldini Palace. That little
secondary society had passed through its revolutionary crisis. It had
its own peacemaker, and I laughed to myself at my rôle of great
citizen, with childlike heroism. Mandola, who was beginning to acquire
some education, was amazed to see me engage in the hardest sort of work,
and would call me under his breath, with a paternal air, his Cincinnatus
or his Pompilius.
I had in fact resolved--and I kept steadfastly to my resolution--not to
accept the slightest favor from a woman whose lover I wished to be.
Inasmuch as the only means of possessing her in secret was to remain in
her house on the footing of a servant, it seemed to me that I could
re-establish equality between her and myself by making my services
correspond to my wages. Hitherto my wages had been large and entirely
out of proportion to my work, which, for some time past, had been
absolutely nothing. I determined to make up for lost time. I set about
keeping things in order, cleaning, doing errands, bringing wood and
water, polishing and brushing the gondola--in a word, doing the work of
ten men; and I did it cheerfully, humming my most beautiful operatic
airs and my noblest epic strophes. The task that afforded me the most
amusement was the taking care of the family pictures and brushing off
the dust which obscured Torquato's majestic glance every morning. When I
had completed his toilet, I would remove my cap with profound respect
and ironically repeat to him some parody of my heroic verses.
The Venetian lower classes, especially the gondoliers, have, as you
know, a liking for jewels. They spend a good part of what they earn in
antique rings, shirt studs, scarf pins, chains and the like. I had
previously accepted many trinkets of the sort. I carried them all back
to Signora Aldini, and would not even wear silver buckles on my shoes.
But my most meritorious sacrifice was my abandonment of music. I
considered that my work, laborious as it was, was no compensation for
the expense which my constant theatre-going and my singing lessons
imposed on the signora. I persistently declared that I had a cold in my
head, and instead of going to the performance at La Fenice with her, I
adopted the practice of reading in the lobby of the theatre. I realized
that I was ignorant; and, although my mistress was scarcely less so, I
determined to extend my ideas a little, and not to make her blush for my
blunders. I studied my mother tongue earnestly, and strove to break
myself of the habit of murdering verses, as all gondoliers do. Moreover,
something told me that that study would be useful to me later, and that
what I lost in the way of progress in singing I should gain in the
perfecting of my pronunciation and accent.
A few days of this judicious conduct served to restore my tranquillity.
I had never been more manly, more cheerful, and, as Salomé said, more
comely than in my neat and modest clothes, with my amiable expression
and my sun-burned hands. Everybody had accorded me confidence and esteem
once more, and I was again the recipient of the innumerable little
attentions which I formerly enjoyed. Pretty Alezia, who had the greatest
respect for the judgment of her Jewish governess, allowed me to kiss the
ends of her black braids, embellished with scarlet ribbons and fine
pearls.
A single person remained depressed and unhappy--the signora herself. I
constantly surprised her lovely blue eyes, filled with tears, fastened
upon me with an indescribable expression of affection and grief. She
could not accustom herself to see me working so. If I had been her own
son she could not have been more grieved to see me carrying burdens and
standing in the rain. Indeed, her solicitude vexed me a little, and the
efforts she made to conceal it made it even more painful to her. An
entirely unforeseen revolution of sentiment had taken place in her. That
love which had hitherto been, as she herself told me, her torment and
her joy, seemed now to cause her naught but shame and consternation. She
no longer avoided opportunities to be alone with me, as she used to do;
on the contrary, she sought them; but, as soon as I knelt at her feet,
she would burst into sobs and change the hours promised to the joys of
love into hours of painful emotion. I strove in vain to understand what
was taking place in her heart. I could obtain nothing but vague replies,
always kind and affectionate, but incoherent, which caused me the utmost
perplexity. I had no idea what to do to comfort her and strengthen that
discouraged heart. I was consumed by desire, and it seemed to me that an
hour of mutual effusion and passion would have been more eloquent than
all that talk and all those tears; but I felt too much respect and
devotion for her not to sacrifice my transports of passion to her. I
felt that it would be very easy to take her by surprise, weak as she was
in body and mind; but I dreaded the tears of the next day too much, and
I wished to owe my happiness to her confidence and love alone. That day
did not come, and I must say, to the discredit of feminine weakness,
that, if I had shown less delicacy and unselfishness, my desires would
have been fully gratified. I had hoped that Bianca would encourage me;
I soon discovered that, on the contrary, she was afraid of me, and that
she shuddered at my approach, as if crime and remorse approached with
me. I succeeded in reassuring her only to see her plunge into still
deeper dejection, and upbraid fate, as if it had not been in her power
to put a better face upon her destiny. Then, too, a secret sense of
shame helped to crush that shrinking heart. Religion took possession of
her more and more completely; her confessor controlled her and terrified
her. He forbade her to have lovers, and, although she resisted him when
it was a question of Signor Lanfranchi and Signor Montalegri, she had
not the same courage with respect to me. I succeeded little by little in
extorting from her a confession of all her sufferings and internal
struggles. She had confessed to the confessor all the details of our
love, and he had declared that that low, criminal affection was a
heinous crime. He had forbidden her to think of marriage with me, even
more peremptorily than to give way to her passion; and he had frightened
her so by threatening to cast her out from the bosom of the Church, that
her gentle, timid mind, torn between the desire to make me happy and the
fear of destroying her own soul, was suffering veritable agony.
Hitherto Signora Aldini's piety had been so pliant, so tolerant, so
truly Italian, that I was not a little surprised to see it become
serious just at the height of one of those paroxysms of passion which
seem most inconsistent with such changes. I worked hard with my poor
inexperienced brain to understand this phenomenon, and I succeeded.
Bianca probably loved me more than she had loved the count and the
prince; but she had not sufficient courage nor a sufficiently
enlightened mind to rise above public opinion. She complained of the
arrogance of other people; but she gave real value to that arrogance by
her fear of it. In a word, she was more submissive than anybody else to
the prejudice which she had attempted for an instant to defy. She had
hoped to find in the church, through the sacrament, and by redoubling
her pious fervor, the strength which she failed to find in herself, and
which she had not needed with her former lovers, because they were
patricians and society was on their side. But now the church threatened
her, society would heap maledictions upon her; to fight against the
church and society at the same time was a task beyond her strength.
Then too, it may be that her love subsided as soon as I became worthy of
it; perhaps, instead of appreciating the grandeur of soul which had led
me to descend of my own motion from the salon to the servant's quarters,
she had fancied that she could detect in that courageous behavior a lack
of dignity and an inborn liking for servitude. She believed too that the
threats and sarcasms of her other servants had frightened me. She was
astonished to find that I was not ambitious, and that very absence of
ambition seemed to her an indication of an inert or timid spirit. She
did not admit all this to me; but as soon as I was once on the track I
divined it all. I was not angry. How could she understand my noble pride
and my sensitive honor, she who had accepted and returned the love of an
Aldini and a Lanfranchi?
Doubtless she ceased to consider me handsome when I refused to wear lace
and ribbons. My hands, calloused in her service, no longer seemed to her
worthy to press hers. She had loved me as a gondolier, in the thought
and hope of transforming me into an attractive cicisbeo; but the instant
that I insisted upon reverting to the system of a fair exchange of
services between her and myself, all her illusions vanished, and she saw
in me only the vulgar fisherman's son of Chioggia, a species of stupid
and hard-working beast of burden.