Many years later one of the great artists of Venice, wandering about at
sunset with an elusive vision of some wonderful picture stirring
impatience within his soul, found a maiden sitting under the
vine-covered pergola of the Traghetto San Maurizio, where she was
waiting for her brother-in-law, who would presently touch at this ferry
on his homeward way to Murano. A little child lay asleep in her arms,
his blond head, which pitying Nature had kept beautiful, resting against
her breast; the meagre body was hidden beneath the folds of her mantle,
which, in the graceful fashion of those days, passed over her head and
fell below the knees; her face, very beautiful and tender, was bent over
the little sufferer, who had forgotten his pain in the weariness it had
brought him as a boon.
The delicate purple bells of the vine upon the trellis stirred in the
evening breeze, making a shimmer of perfume and color about her, like a
suggestion of an aureole; and in the arbor, as in one of those homely
shrines which everywhere make part of the Venetian life, she seemed
aloof as some ideal of an earlier Christian age from the restless,
voluble group upon the tiny quay.
There were _facchini_--those doers of nondescript smallest services,
quarreling amiably to pass the time, springing forward for custom as the
gondolas neared the steps; _gransieri_--the licensed traghetto beggars,
ragged and picturesque, pushing past with their long, crooked poles,
under pretence of drawing the gondolas to shore; one or two women from
the islands, filling the moments with swift, declamatory speech until
the gondola of Giambattista or of Jacopo should close the colloquy; an
older peasant, tranquilly kneeling to the Madonna of the traghetto, amid
the clatter, while steaming greasy odors from her housewifely basket of
Venetian dainties mount slowly, like some travesty of incense, and cloud
the humble shrine. Two or three comers swell the group from the recesses
of the dark little shop behind, for no other reason than that life is
pleasant where so much is going on; and some maiden, into whose life a
dawning romance is just creeping, confesses it with a brighter color as
she hangs, half-timidly, her bunch of tinselled flowers before the red
lamp of the good little Madonna of this _traghetto benedetto_, whose
gondoliers are the bravest in all Venice! Meanwhile the boatmen, coming,
going, or waiting, keep up a lively chatter.
And under the trellis, as if far removed, the sleeping child and Marina
of Murano bending over him a face glorified with its story of love and
compassion, are like a living Rafaello!
"The _bambino_ is beautiful," said the artist, drawing nearer, but
speaking reverently, for he knew that he had found the face he had been
seeking for his Madonna for the altar of the Servi. "What doth he like,
your little one? For I am a friend to the _bambini_, and the _poverina_
hath pain to bear."
She was more beautiful still when she smiled and the anxiety died out of
her girlish face for a moment, in gratitude for the sympathy.
"Eccellenza, thanks," she answered simply; "he has a beautiful face.
Sometimes when he has flowers in his little hand he smiles and is quite
still."
But the radiant look passed swiftly with the remembrance of the pain
that would come to the child on waking, and she kissed the tiny fingers
that lay over the edge of her mantle with a movement of irrepressible
tenderness, lapsing at once into reverie; while the artist, full of the
enthusiasm of creation, stood dreaming of his picture. This Holy Mother
should be greater, more compassionate, nearer to the people than any
Madonna he had ever painted; for never had he noted in any face before
such a passion of love and pity. In that moment of stillness the sunset
lights, intensifying, cast a glow about her; the child, half-waking,
stretched up his tiny hand and touched her cheek with a rare caress, and
the light in her face was a radiance never to be forgotten. The
Veronese's wonderful _Madonna del Sorriso_ leaped to instant life; a
_smile_ full of the pathos of human suffering, tender in comprehension,
perfect in faith--this, which this moment of inspiration had revealed to
him, would he paint for the consolation of those who should kneel before
the altar of the Servi!
She was busy with the child, putting him gently on the ground as a
gondola approached; he, with his thought in intense realization, fixing
the peculiar beauty of these sunset clouds in his artist memory as sole
color-scheme of his picture; for this grave, sweet face, with its pale,
fair tones and profusion of soft brown hair, would not bear the vivid
draperies that the Veronese was wont to fashion--the mantle must be a
gray cloud, pink flushed, with delicate sunset borderings where it swept
away to shroud the child; the beauty of his creation should be in that
smile of exquisite compassion, and this wonderful sunset in which it
should glow forever!
It was a rare moment with the Veronese, in which he seemed lifted above
himself; the revelation of the face had seized him, translating him into
the poetic atmosphere which he rarely attained; the harmonies of the
vision were so perfect that they sufficed for the over-sumptuousness of
color and detail which were usually features of his conceptions.
Some one called impatiently from the gondola in rude, quick tones, and
the artist woke from his reverie. The maiden lingered on the step for a
word of adieu to this stranger who wished to give the little one
pleasure, but she dared not disturb him, for he was some great
signor--so she interpreted his dress and bearing--and she was only a
maiden of Murano.
He was still under the spell of his great moment, and he was in the
presence of one who should help him to make it immortal; he uncovered
his head with a motion of courtly deference he did not often assume as
he started forward over the rough planks of the traghetto. "Signora,
where shall I bring the flowers to make the little one smile?"
"To Murano, near the Stabilimento Magagnati, Eccellenza," she answered
without hesitation, lifting the baby in her arms to escape the rough
help of the gondolier, who reached forward to hasten his stumbling
movements.
And so they floated off from the traghetto--the Madonna that was to be,
into the deepening twilight, while the Veronese, a splendid and
incongruous figure amid these lowly surroundings, leaned against the
paltry column that supported the shrine, wrapped in a delicious reverie
of creation; for he was unused to failure and he had no doubts, though
he had not yet proffered his request.
"To-morrow," he said, "I will paint that face!"
* * * * *
"By our Lady of Murano!" the gondolier cried suddenly. "He spoke to thee
like a queen--and it was Paolo Cagliari! What did he want with thee?"
"Not me, Piero; it was the child. He wished to give him flowers. I knew
he must be great to care thus for our 'bimbo.' It was really he--the
Veronese?"
"The child! Santa Maria! He is not too much like a cherub that the great
painter should notice him!"
The baby threw out his little clenched fist, striking against the
protecting arms that held him closer, his face drawn with sudden pain;
for a moment he fought against Marina, and then, the spasm over, settled
wearily to sleep in her arms.
"Poverino!" said the gondolier softly, while Marina crooned over him an
Ave Maria, and the gondola glided noiselessly to its cadence.
"Piero," she said, looking up with eyes full of tears, "sometimes I
think I cannot bear it! He needs thy prayers as well as mine--wilt thou
not ask our Lady of San Donato to be kinder to him? And I have seen
to-day, on the Rialto, a beautiful lamp, with angels' heads. Thou
shouldst make an offering----"
The gondolier shook his head and shrugged his shoulders; he had little
faith or reverence. "I will say my aves, _poveriello_," he promised;
"but the lamps are already too many in San Donato. And for the bambino,
I will go not only once, but twice this year to confession--the laws of
our traghetto ask not so much, since once is enough. But thou art even
stricter with thy rules for me."
She did not answer, and they floated on in silence.
"To-morrow," said Piero at length, "there is festa in San Pietro di
Castello."
She moved uneasily, and her beautiful face lost its softness.
"It is nothing to me," she answered shortly.
"It is a pretty festa, and Messer Magagnati should take thee. By our
Lady of Castello, there are others who will go!"
"It would be better for the bambino," he persisted sullenly, as she did
not answer him. His voice was not the pleasanter now that its positive
tone was changed to a coaxing one.
"One is enough, Piero," she said. "And for the festa of San Pietro in
Castello--never, never name it to me!"
"Santa Maria!" her companion ejaculated under his breath; "it is the
women, the gentle _donzelle_, who are hard!"
He stood, tall, handsome, well-made, swaying lightly with the motion of
the gondola, which seemed to float as in a dream to the ripple and lap
of the water; the blue of his shirt had changed to gray in the twilight,
the black cap and sash of the "Nicolotti" accentuated the lines of the
strong, lithe figure as he sprang forward on the sloping foot-rest of
his gondola with that perfect grace and ease which proved him master of
a craft whose every motion is a harmony. If he were proud of belonging
to the Nicolotti, that most powerful faction of the populace, he knew
that they were regarded by the government as the aristocrats of the
people.
Marina arranged the child's covering in silence, and stooped her face
wistfully to touch his cheek, but she did not turn her head to look at
the man behind her.
"L'amor zè fato per chi lo sa fare,"
he sang in the low, slow chant of the familiar folk-song, the rhythm
blending perfectly with the movement of the boat in which these two were
faring. His voice was pleasanter in singing, and song is almost a
needful expression of the content of motion in Venice--the necessary
complement of life to the gondolier, a song might mean nothing more. But
Piero sang more slowly than his wont, charging the words with meaning,
yet it did not soften her.
"Love is for him who knows how to win!"
He could not see how she flushed and paled with anger as he sang, for it
was growing dark over the water and her face was turned from him; but
she straightened herself uncompromisingly, and he was watching with
subtle comprehension.
He could not have told why he persisted in this strange wooing, for
there had been but one response during the two years of his widowhood,
while his child had been Marina's ceaseless care. Marina had loved the
baby the more passionately, perhaps, for the sake of her only sister
Toinetta, Piero's child-bride, who had died at the baby's birth, because
she was painfully conscious that Toinetta's little flippant life had
needed much forgiveness and had been crowned with little gladness.
Marina was now the only child of Messer Girolamo Magagnati, which was a
patent of nobility in Murano; and she was not the less worth winning
because she held herself aloof from the freer life of the Piazza, where
she was called the "donzel of Murano," though there were others with
blacker eyes and redder cheeks. Piero did not think her very beautiful;
he liked more color and sparkle and quickness of retort--a chance to
quarrel and forgive. He was not in sympathy with so many aves, such
continual pilgrimages to the cathedral, such brooding over the lives of
the saints--above all, he did not like being kept in order, and Marina
knew well how to do this, in spite of her quiet ways. But he liked the
best for himself, and there was no one like Marina in all Murano. During
all this time he had been coming more and more under her sway, changing
his modes of living to suit her whims, and the only way of safety for
him was to marry her and be master; then she should see how he would
rule his house! His own way had always been the right way for him--rules
of all orders to the contrary--whether he had been a wandering
gondolier, a despised _barcariol toso_, lording it so outrageously over
the established traghetti that they were glad to forgive him his bandit
crimes and swear him into membership, if only to stop his influence
against them; or whether it had been the stealing away of a promised
bride, as on that memorable day at San Pietro in Castello, when he had
married Toinetta--it was never safe to bear "vendetta" with one so
strong and handsome and unprincipled as Piero.
Gabriele, the jilted lover of Toinetta, over whom Piero had triumphed,
soon became the husband of another _donzel_, handsomer than Toinetta had
been--poor, foolish Toinetta!--and the retributive tragedy of her little
life had warmed the sullen Gabriele into a magnanimity that rendered him
at least a safe, if a moody and unpleasant, member of the traghetto in
which Piero had since become a rising star. A man with a home to keep
may not "cast away his chestnuts," and so when Piero, in that masterful
way of his, swept everything before him in the traghetto--never asking
nor caring who stood for him or against him, but carrying his will
whenever he chose to declare it--to set one's self against such a man
was truly a useless sort of fret, only a "gnawing of one's chain," in
the expressive jargon of the people.
Piero finished his song, and there was a little pause. They were nearing
the long, low line of Murano.
"It is not easy," he said, "when women are in the way, 'to touch the sky
with one's finger.'"
She turned with a sudden passionate motion as if she would answer him,
and then, struggling for control, turned back without a word, drawing
the child closer and caressing him until she was calm again. When she
raised her head she spoke in a resolute, restrained voice.
"Since thou wilt have it, Piero--listen. And rest thine oar, for we are
almost home; and to-night must be quite the end of all this talk. It can
never be. Thou hast no understanding of such matters, so I forgive thee
for myself. But for Toinetta--I do not think I ever can forgive thee,
may the good Madonna help me!"
"There are two in every marriage," Piero retorted sullenly, for he was
angry now.
"It is just that--oh, it is just that!" Marina cried, clasping her hands
passionately. "Thou art so strong and so compelling, and thou dost not
stop for the right of it. She was such a child, she knew no better,
poverina! And thou--a man--not for love, nor right, nor any noble
thing"--the words came with repressed scorn--"to coax her to it, just
for a little triumph! To expose a child to such endless _critica_!"
Only a Venetian of the people could comprehend the full sting of this
word, which conveyed the searching, persistent disapproval of an entire
class, whose code, if viewed from the moral point of view, was painfully
slack, though from its own standard of decorum it was immutable.
"It has been said, once for all--thou dost not forgive."
"It is the last time, for this also, Piero; I meant never to speak of it
again, but those words of thine of the festa in San Pietro in Castello
made me forget. It came over me quite suddenly, that this is how thou
spendest the beautiful, great strength God gave thee to make a leader of
thee in real things. But whether it be great or small, or good or ill,
thou always wilt have thy way!"
"It's a poor fool of a fellow that wouldn't keep himself uppermost, like
oil," he cried, hesitating only for a moment between anger and
gratification, and choosing the way that ministered to his pride. "Santa
Maria! I'll butter thy macaroni with fine cheese every time!"
"Nay, spare thy pains, Piero, and be serious for one moment. There is no
_barcariol_ in all Venice who hath greater opportunities, but thou must
use them well. They spoil thee at the traghetto; and if a man hath his
will always, it will either spoil him or make him noble."
"What wouldst thou have me to do?" he questioned sullenly.
"They would be afraid of thee--thou couldst quiet these troubles in the
traghetti--thou must use thy strength and thy will for the good of the
people. It is terrible to have power and to use it wrongly."
Piero moved back to his place again and took up his oar, throwing
himself in position for a forward stroke. "Forget not," he said,
poising, "that I need not listen to thee if I do not choose. I may not
stay _in casa_ Magagnati--not any more, if thou art always scolding."
"I shall scold--always--until thou dost quiet this disorder of the
traghetti," she answered, undaunted.
"And thou wilt return; for there is always the bambino."
"If I come back," he said in a softer tone, responding to the appeal for
his child, "I must speak of what I will."
"Of all but one thing, Piero;" for it was not possible to misunderstand
him, and she was resolute. "If this is not the end I shall speak with my
father--and the bambino----"
They were both silent. He knew that no one could ever care for his
invalid child as she had done; and all that he owed her and must
continue to owe her restrained him under her chiding, for the baby could
not live away from her. Sometimes, too, there were moments of strange
tenderness within him for this helpless, suffering morsel of humanity
that called him "babbo!" He did not know what might happen if the wrath
of the redoubtable Magagnati were to be invoked against him, for this
quarrel could not be disposed of as those small matters with the
gondoliers had invariably been. So far from threatening this before,
Marina had hitherto shielded Piero, in her unanswerable way, from
everything that might hasten the rupture that seemed always impending
between these two dissimilar natures; and Messer Magagnati had two
thoughts only, his daughter and his _stabilimento_--the great glass
furnaces which were the pride of Venice.
Piero had no suspicion that Marina always touched the best that was in
him; he thought she made him weaker, and it was not easy to yield the
point that had become a habit. No one else had ever moved him from any
purpose, but now he perceived that there would be no reversal of that
sentence--that he should continue to come to see his child, and that he
must continue to submit to Marina's influence. It was she who had, in
some unaccountable way, persuaded him out of his unlawful trade of
_barcariol toso_, and had forced his reluctant acceptance of the
overtures that were made to him from the Guild of Santa Maria Zobenigo,
where he had risen to be one of the _bancali_ or governors, his
qualities of force and daring making him useful in this age when
lawlessness was on the increase. He was beginning to feel a sense of
satisfaction, not all barbaric, in the position he had won among men who
had some views of order, and to perceive that there might be a lawful
use, almost as pleasant, for those very attributes which had rendered
him so formidable a foe outside the pale of traghetto civilization.
"_Ecco_!" he announced, with a slow, sullen emphasis which declared his
unwilling surrender, while he plied his oar with quick, wrathful
strokes. "It will take more than aves to make a saint of thee! And thou
mayst hold thy head too high, looking for better than wheaten bread! But
I'm not the man to wear a curb, nor to put up with thorns where I looked
for roses! Thou hast no right to mind what chances to me--yet thou hast
made me give up the old life."
"Because I knew thou couldst do better. See where thou standest to-day!
It is not a little thing to be a governor of the Nicolotti!"
"It is a truth," Piero confessed, "upside down, and not to boast of,
for whoever tries it would wish it less. The bancali are 'like asses who
carry wine and drink water,' for the good of the clouts, in days like
these."
"I heard them talking to-day, Piero. The _barcarioli tosi_ are worse
than Turks; one must pay, to suit their whim, in the middle of the Canal
Grande, or one may wait long for the landing! And there was a scandal
about a friar of San Zanipolo, of whom they had asked a fare for the
crossing; I know not the truth of it! And at Santa Sofia the great cross
with the beautiful golden lustre is gone, and one says it is the
'tosi.'"
Piero winced, for, to an ancient "toso," or even to a "bancalo" of
to-day, such enormities had not the exciting novelty that might have
been expected, and Marina had a curious habit of seeming entirely to
forget his past when she wished to exact his best of him.
"And Gabriele--"
"Fash not thyself for a man of his measure, that is fitter to 'beat the
fishes' like a galley-slave than to serve an honest gondola!" Piero
interrupted scornfully.
"But Piero, Gabriele hath sold his license to one worse than he, and
there was great talk of quarrels along the Riva, and how that yesterday
they sent for Padre Gervasio from San Gregorio to bring the Host to
quiet them."
"Ah, the Castellani!" said Piero, with the contempt that was always
ready for any mention of this great rival faction of the people whose
division into one or other of these factions was absolute.
"But the Nicolotti have their scandal also," Marina asserted,
uncompromisingly; "among themselves it is told they break the laws like
men not bound by vows! Some say there will be an appeal to the
Consiglio."
"Nay," said Piero, with an ominous frown; "the _bancali_ and _gastaldi_
are enough; we need no bossing by crimson robes."
This question of the traghetti and their abuses had lately grown to
large proportions among the people, and it possessed a deep interest for
all classes quite apart from the antiquity and picturesqueness of these
honorable institutions of the Republic--since all must use the ferries
and wish for safety in their water-streets. For centuries these
confraternities of gondoliers who presided over the ferries, or
traghetti, of Venice had been corporations, self-governing, with
officers and endowments recognized by the Republic, and with a standard
of gondolier morals admirably defined in their codes--those "Mariegole"
which were luxuriously bound and printed, with capitals of vermilion, a
page here and there glowing like an illuminated missal with the legend
of the patron saint of the traghetto, wherein one might read such
admonitions as would make all men wiser.
But of late there had been much unruliness among the younger members of
the traghetti, and a growing inability among their officers to cope with
increasing difficulties, because of these barcarioli tosi, who lived in
open rebellion against this goodly system of law, poaching upon the
dearly bought rights of the traghetto gondoliers, yet escaping all
taxes. And because of the abuses which had been gradually undermining
the fair reputation of the established orders of the traghetti, the
Republic, by slow encroachments upon ancient concessions, was surely
reducing their wealth and independence.
"Santa Maria!" Piero ejaculated after a pause, during which his wrath
had been growing. "The Consiglio hath its own matters for ruling; the
traghetti belong to the people!"
They had reached the little landing of the first long waterway of
Murano, where one of the low arcaded houses, with its slender shafts of
red Verona marble, was the dwelling of Girolamo Magagnati; the others of
this little block of three were used as show-rooms and offices for the
great establishment which was connected with them, in the rear, by small
courtyards; and the dense smoke of the glass factories always rested
over them, although this was the quarter of the aristocrats of Murano.
The buildings looked low and modest if measured by the palaces of the
greater city, and their massive marble door- and window-frames increased
the impression of gloom. But here and there a portal more ornate, with
treble-twisted cords deeply carved, or a window of fourteenth century
workmanship relieved the severity of the lines; while in this short
arcade, where the houses rose but a storey in height above the square
pillars which supported the overhanging fronts, these unexpected columns
of rosy marble, delicate and unique, on which the windows seemed to
rest, gave singular distinction to these dwellings.
Often the people passing in gondola or bark glanced carelessly into the
depth of the open window space framed between those polished marble
shafts, for the familiar vision of a wonderful young face, beautiful as
a Madonna from some high altar in Venice; often, too, this vision of a
maiden bent above a child, with rare golden hair and great eyes full of
pain.
There was a little lingering on the landing as they left the gondola;
for the baby, waking from his long, refreshing sleep, had claimed his
share of petting before the great dark man who tossed him so restfully
in his strong arms went away. There was no one who could make the little
Zuane laugh like "babbo," though the tremulous, treble echo of the full
tones of the gondolier had a pathos for those who listened.