All through the long Sunday afternoon Zorzi sat in the laboratory alone.
From time to time, he tended the fire, which must not be allowed to go
down lest the quality of the glass should be injured, or at least
changed. Then he went back to the master's great chair, and allowed
himself to think of what was happening in the house opposite.
In those days there was no formal betrothal before marriage, at which
the intended bride and bridegroom joined hands or exchanged the rings
which were to be again exchanged at the wedding. When a marriage had
been arranged, the parents or guardians of the young couple signed the
contract before a notary, a strictly commercial and legal formality, and
the two families then announced the match to their respective relatives
who were invited for the purpose, and were hospitably entertained. The
announcement was final, and to break off a marriage after it had been
announced was a deadly offence and was generally an irreparable injury
to the bride.
In Beroviero's house the richest carpets were taken from the storerooms
and spread upon the pavement and the stairs, tapestries of great worth
and beauty were hung upon the walls, the servants were arrayed in their
high-day liveries and spoke in whispers when they spoke at all, the
silver dishes were piled with sweetmeats and early fruits, and the
silver plates had been not only scoured, but had been polished with
leather, which was not done every day. In all the rooms that were
opened, silken curtains had been hung before the windows, in place of
those used at other times. In a word, the house had been prepared in a
few hours for a great family festivity, and when Marietta got out of the
gondola, she set her foot upon a thick carpet that covered the steps and
was even allowed to hang down and dip itself in the water of the canal
by way of showing what little value was set upon it by the rich man.
Zorzi had known that the preparations were going forward, and he knew
what they meant. He would rather see nothing of them, and when the
guests were gone, old Beroviero would come over and give him some final
instructions before beginning his journey; until then he could be alone
in the laboratory, where only the low roar of the fire in the furnace
broke the silence.
Marietta's head was aching and she felt as if the hard, hot fingers of
some evil demon were pressing her eyeballs down into their sockets. She
sat in an inner chamber, to which only women were admitted. There she
sat, in a sort of state, a circlet of gold set upon her loosened hair,
her dress all of embroidered white silk, her shoulders covered with a
wide mantle of green and gold brocade that fell in heavy folds to the
floor. She wore many jewels, too, such as she would not have worn in
public before her marriage. They had belonged to her mother, like the
mantle, and were now brought out for the first time. It was very hot,
but the windows were shut lest the sound of the good ladies' voices
should be heard without; for the news that Marietta was to be married
had suddenly gone abroad through Murano, and all the idlers, and the men
from the furnaces, where no work was done on Sunday, as well as all the
poor, were assembled on the footway and the bridge, and in the narrow
alleys round the house. They all pushed and jostled each other to see
Beroviero's friends and relations, as they emerged from beneath the
black 'felse' of their gondolas to enter the house. In the hall the
guests divided, and the men gathered in a large lower chamber, while the
women went upstairs to offer their congratulations to Marietta, with
many set compliments upon her beauty, her clothes and her jewels, and
even with occasional flattering allusions to the vast dowry her husband
was to receive with her.
She listened wearily, and her head ached more and more, so that she
longed for the coolness of her own room and for Nella's soothing
chatter, to which she was so much accustomed that she missed it if the
little brown woman chanced to be silent.
The sun went down and wax candles were brought, instead of the tall oil
lamps that were used on ordinary days. It grew hotter and hotter, the
compliments of the ladies seemed more and more dull and stale, her
mantle was heavy and even the gold circlet on her hair was a burden.
Worse than all, she knew that every minute was carrying her further and
further into the dominion of the irrevocable whence she could never
return.
She had looked at the palaces she had passed in Venice that morning,
some in shadow, some in sunlight, some with gay faces and some grave,
but all so different from the big old house in Murano, that she did not
wish to live in them at all. It would have been much easier to submit if
she had been betrothed to a foreigner, a Roman, or a Florentine. She had
been told that Romans were all wicked and gloomy, and that Florentines
were all wicked and gay. That was what Nella had heard. But in a sense
they were free, for they probably did what was good in their own eyes,
as wicked people often do. Life in Venice was to be lived by rule, and
everything that tasted of freedom was repressed by law. If it pleased
women to wear long trains the Council forbade them; if they took refuge
in long sleeves, thrown back over their shoulders, a law was passed
which set a measure and a pattern for all sleeves that might ever be
worn. If a few rich men indulged their fancy in the decoration of their
gondolas, now that riding was out of fashion, the Council immediately
determined that gondolas should be black and that they should only be
gilt and adorned inside. As for freedom, if any one talked of it he was
immediately tortured until he retracted all his errors, and was then
promptly beheaded for fear that he should fall again into the same
mistake. Nella said so, and told hideous tales of the things that had
been done to innocent men in the little room behind the Council chamber
in the Palace. Besides, if one talked of justice, there was Zorzi's case
to prove that there was no justice at all in Venetian law. Marietta
suddenly wished that she were wicked, like the Romans and the
Florentines; and even when she reflected that it was a sin to wish that
one were bad, she was not properly repentant, because she had a very
vague notion of what wickedness really was. Righteousness seemed just
now to consist in being smothered in heavy clothes, in a horribly hot
room, while respectable women of all ages, fat, thin, fair, red-haired,
dark, ugly and handsome, all chattered at her and overwhelmed her with
nauseous flattery.
She thought of that morning in the garden, three days ago, when
something she did not understand had been so near, just before
disappearing for ever. Then her throat tightened and she saw
indistinctly, and her lips were suddenly dry. After that, she remembered
little of what happened on that evening, and by and by she was alone in
her own room without a light, standing at the open window with bare feet
on the cold pavement, and the night breeze stirred her hair and brought
her the scent of the rosemary and lavender, while she tried to listen to
the stars, as if they were speaking to her, and lost herself in her
thoughts for a few moments before going to sleep.
Zorzi was still sitting in the big chair against the wall when he heard
a footstep in the garden, and as he rose to look out Beroviero entered.
The master was wrapped in a long cloak that covered something which he
was carrying. There was no lamp in the laboratory, but the three fierce
eyes of the furnace shed a low red glare in different directions.
Beroviero had given orders that the night boys should not come until he
sent for them.
"I thought it wiser to bring this over at night," he said, setting a
small iron box on the table.
It contained the secrets of Paolo Godi, which were worth a great fortune
in those times.
"Of all my possessions," said the old man, laying his hands upon the
casket, "these are the most valuable. I will not hide them alone, as I
might, because if any harm befell me they would be lost, and might be
found by some unworthy person."
"Could you not leave them with some one else, sir?" asked Zorzi.
"No. I trust no one else. Let us hide them together to-night, for
to-morrow I must leave Venice. Take up one of the large flagstones
behind the annealing oven, and dig a hole underneath it in the ground.
The place will be quite dry, from the heat of the oven."
Zorzi lit a lamp with a splinter of wood which he thrust into the
'bocca' of the furnace; he took a small crowbar from the corner and set
to work. The laboratory contained all sorts of builder's tools, used
when the furnace needed repairing. He raised one of the slabs with
difficulty, turned it over, propped it with a billet of beech wood, and
began to scoop out a hole in the hard earth, using a mason's trowel.
Beroviero watched him, holding the box in his hands.
"The lock is not very good," he said, "but I thought the box might keep
the packet from dampness."
"Is the packet properly sealed?" asked Zorzi, looking up.
"You shall see," answered the master, and he set down the box beside the
lamp, on the broad stone at the mouth of the annealing oven. "It is
better that you should see for yourself."
He unlocked the box and took out what seemed to be a small book,
carefully tied up in a sheet of parchment. The ends of the silk cord
below the knot were pinched in a broad red seal. Zorzi examined the wax.
"You sealed it with a glass seal," he observed. "It would not be hard to
make another."
"Do you think it would be so easy?" asked Beroviero, who had made the
seal himself many years ago.
Zorzi held the impression nearer to the lamp and scrutinised it closely.
"No one will have a chance to try," he said, with a slight gesture of
indifference. "It might not be so easy."
The old man looked at him a moment, as if hesitating, and then put the
packet back into the box and locked the latter with the key that hung
from his neck by a small silver chain.
"I trust you," he said, and he gave the box to Zorzi, to be deposited in
the hole.
Zorzi stood up, and taking a little tow from the supply used for
cleaning the blow-pipes, he dipped it into the oil of the lamp and
proceeded to grease the box carefully before hiding it.
"It would rust," he explained.
He laid the box in the hole and covered it with earth before placing the
stone over it.
"Be careful to make the stone lie quite flat," said Angelo, bending down
and gathering his gown off the floor in a bunch at his knees. "If it
does not lie flat, the stone will move when the boys tread on it, and
they may think of taking it up."
"It is very heavy," answered the young man. "It was as much as I could
do to heave it up. You need not be afraid of the boys."
"It is not a very safe place, I fear, after all," returned Beroviero
doubtfully. "Be sure to leave no marks of the crowbar, and no loose
earth near it."
The heavy slab slipped into its bed with a soft thud. Zorzi took the
lamp and examined the edges. One of them was a little chipped by the
crowbar, and he rubbed it with the greasy tow and scattered dust over
it. Then he got a cypress broom and swept the earth carefully away into
a heap. Beroviero himself brought the shovel and held it close to the
stones while Zorzi pushed the loose earth upon it.
"Carry it out and scatter it in the garden," said the old man.
It was the first time that he had allowed his affection for Zorzi to
express itself so strongly, for he was generally a very cautious person.
He took the young man's hand and held it a moment, pressing it kindly.
"It was not I who made the law against strangers, and it was not meant
for men like you," he added.
Zorzi knew how much this meant from such a master and he would have
found words for thanks, had he been able; but when he tried, they would
not come.
"You may trust me," was all he could say.
Beroviero left him, and went down the dark corridor with the firm step
of a man who knows his way without light.
In the morning, when he left the house to begin his journey, Zorzi stood
by the steps with the servant to steady the gondola for him. His horses
were to be in waiting in Venice, whence he was to go over to the
mainland. He nodded to the young man carelessly, but said nothing, and
no one would have guessed how kindly he had spoken to him on the
previous night. Giovanni Beroviero took ceremonious leave of his father,
his cap in his hand, bending low, a lean man, twenty years older than
Marietta, with an insignificant brow and clean-shaven, pointed jaw and
greedy lips. Marietta stood within the shadow of the doorway, very pale.
Nella was beside her, and Giovanni's wife, and further in, at a
respectful distance, the serving-people, for the master's departure was
an event of importance.
The gondola pushed off when Beroviero had disappeared under the 'felse'
with a final wave of the hand. Zorzi stood still, looking after his
master, and Marietta came forward to the doorstep and pretended to watch
the gondola also. Zorzi was the first to turn, and their eyes met. He
had not expected to see her still there, and he started a little.
Giovanni looked at him coldly.
"You had better go to your work," he said in a sour tone. "I suppose my
father has told you what to do."
The young artist flushed, but answered quietly enough.
"I am going to my work," he said. "I need no urging."
Before he put on his cap, he bent his head to Marietta; then he passed
on towards the bridge.
"That fellow is growing insolent," said Giovanni to his sister, but he
was careful that Zorzi should not hear the words. "I think I shall
advise our father to turn him out."
Marietta looked at her brother with something like contempt.
"Since when has our father consulted you, or taken your advice?" she
asked.
"I presume he takes yours," retorted Giovanni, regretting that he could
not instantly find a sharper answer, for he was not quick-witted though
he was suspicious.
"He needs neither yours nor mine," said Marietta, "and he trusts whom he
pleases."
"You seem inclined to defend his servants when they are insolent,"
answered Giovanni.
"For that matter, Zorzi is quite able to defend himself!" She turned her
back on her brother and went towards the stairs, taking Nella with her.
Giovanni glanced at her with annoyance and walked along the footway in
the direction of his own glass-house, glad to go back to a place where
he was absolute despot. But he had been really surprised that Marietta
should boldly take the Dalmatian's side against him, and his narrow
brain brooded upon the unexpected circumstance. Besides the dislike he
felt for the young artist, his small pride resented the thought that his
sister, who was to marry a Contarini, should condescend to the defence
of a servant.
Zorzi went his way calmly and spent the day in the laboratory. He was in
a frame of mind in which such speeches as Giovanni's could make but
little impression upon him, sensitive though he naturally was. Really
great sorrows, or great joys or great emotions, make smaller ones almost
impossible for the time. Men of vast ambition, whose deeds are already
moving the world and making history, are sometimes as easily annoyed by
trifles as a nervous woman; but he who knows that what is dearest to him
is slipping from his hold, or has just been taken, is half paralysed in
his sense of outward things. His own mind alone has power to give him a
momentary relief.
Herein lies one of the strongest problems of human nature. We say with
assurance that the mind rules the body, we feel that the spirit in some
way overshadows and includes the mind. Yet if this were really true the
spirit--that is, the will--should have power against bodily pain, but
not against moral suffering except with some help from a higher source.
But it is otherwise. If the will of ordinary human beings could
hypnotise the body against material sensation, the credit due to those
brave believers in all ages who have suffered cruel torments for their
faith would be singularly diminished. If the mind could dominate matter
by ordinary concentration of thought, a bad toothache should have no
effect upon the delicate imagination of the poet, and Napoleon would not
have lost the decisive battle of his life by a fit of indigestion, as
has been asserted.
On the other hand, there was never yet a man of genius, or even of great
talent, who was not aware that the most acute moral anguish can be
momentarily forgotten, as if it did not exist for the time, by
concentrating the mind upon its accustomed and favourite kind of work.
Johnson wrote _Rasselas_ to pay for the funeral of his yet unburied
mother, and Johnson was a man of heart if ever one lived; he could not
have written the book if he had had a headache. Saints and ascetics
without end and of many persuasions have resorted to bodily pain as a
means of deadening the imagination and exalting the will or spirit. Some
great thinkers have been invalids, but in every case their food, work
has been done when they were temporarily free from pain. Perhaps the
truth is on the side of those mystics who say that although the mind is
of a higher nature than matter, it is so closely involved with it that
neither can get away from the other, and that both together tend to shut
out the spirit and to forget its existence, which is a perpetual
reproach to them; and any ordinary intellectual effort being produced by
the joint activity of mind and the matter through which the mind acts,
the condition of the spirit at the time has little or no effect upon
them, nor upon what they are doing. And if one would carry the little
theory further, one might find that the greatest works of genius have
been produced when the effort of mind and matter has taken place under
the inspiration of the spirit, so that all three were momentarily
involved together. But such thoughts lead far, and it may be that they
profit little. The best which a man means to do is generally better than
the best he does, and it is perhaps the best he is capable of doing.
Be these things as they may, Zorzi worked hard in the laboratory,
minutely carrying out the instructions he had received, but reasoning
upon them with a freshness and keenness of thought of which his master
was no longer capable. When he had made the trials and had added the new
ingredients for future ones, he began to think out methods of his own
which had suggested themselves to him of late, but which he had never
been able to try. But though he had the furnace to himself, to use as
long as he could endure the heat of the advancing summer, he was face
to face with a difficulty that seemed insuperable.
The furnace had but three crucibles, each of which contained one of the
mixtures by means of which he and Beroviero were trying to produce the
famous red glass. In order to begin to make glass in his own way, it was
necessary that one of the three should be emptied, but unless he
disobeyed his orders this was out of the question. In his train of
thought and longing to try what he felt sure must succeed, he had
forgotten the obstacle. The check brought him back to himself, and he
walked disconsolately up and down the long room by the side of the
furnace.
Everything was against him, said the melancholy little demon that
torments genius on dark days. It was not enough that he should be forced
by every consideration of honour and wisdom to hide his love for his
master's daughter; when he took refuge in his art and tried to throw his
whole life into it, he was stopped at the outset by the most impassable
barriers of impossibility. The furious desire to create, which is the
strength as well as the essence of genius, surged up and dashed itself
to futile spray upon the face of the solid rock.
He stood still before the hanging shelves on which he had placed the
objects he had occasionally made, and which his master allowed him to
keep there--light, air-thin vessels of graceful shapes: an ampulla of
exquisite outline with a long curved spout that bent upwards and then
outwards and over like the stalk of a lily of the valley; a large
drinking-glass set on a stem so slender that one would doubt its
strength to carry the weight of a full measure, yet so strong that the
cup might have been filled with lead without breaking it; a broad dish
that was nothing but a shadow against the light, but in the shadow was a
fair design of flowers, drawn free with a diamond point; there were a
dozen of such things on the shelves, not the best that Zorzi had made,
for those Beroviero took to his own house and used on great occasions,
while these were the results of experiments unheard of in those days,
and which not long afterwards made a school.
In his present frame of mind Zorzi felt a foolish impulse to take them
down and smash them one by one in the big jar into which the failures
were thrown, to be melted again in the main furnace, for in a
glass-house nothing is thrown away. He knew it was foolish, and he held
his hands behind him as he looked at the things, wishing that he had
never made them, that he had never learned the art he was forbidden by
law to practise, that he had never left Dalmatia as a little boy long
ago, that he had never been born.
The door opened suddenly and Giovanni entered. Zorzi turned and looked
at him in silence. He was surprised, but he supposed that the master's
son had a right to come if he chose, though he never showed himself in
the glass-house when his father was in Murano.
"Are you alone here?" asked Giovanni, looking about him. "Do none of the
workmen come here?"
"The master has left me in charge of his work," answered Zorzi. "I need
no help."
Giovanni seated himself in his father's chair and looked at the table
before the window.
"It is not very hard work, I fancy," he observed, crossing one leg over
the other and pulling up his black hose to make it fit his lean calf
better.
Zorzi suspected at once that he had come in search of information, and
paused before answering.
"The work needs careful attention," he said at last.
"Most glass-work does," observed Giovanni, with a harsh little laugh.
"Are you very attentive, then? Do you remember to do all that my father
told you?"
"The master only left this morning. So far, I have obeyed his orders."
"I do not understand how a man who is not a glass-blower can know enough
to be left alone in charge of a furnace," said Giovanni, looking at
Zorzi's profile.
This time Zorzi was silent. He did not think it necessary to tell how
much he knew.
"I suppose my father knows what he is about," continued Giovanni, in a
tone of disapproval.
Zorzi thought so too, and no reply seemed necessary. He stood still,
looking out of the window, and wishing that his visitor would go away.
But Giovanni had no such intention.
"What are you making?" he asked presently.
"A certain kind of glass," Zorzi answered.
"A new colour?"
"A certain colour. That is all I can tell you."
"You can tell me what colour it is," said Giovanni. "Why are you so
secret? Even if my father had ordered you to be silent with me about his
work, which I do not believe, you would not be betraying anything by
telling me that. What colour is he trying to make?"
"I am to say nothing about it, not even to you. I obey my orders."
Giovanni was a glass-maker himself. He rose with an air of annoyance and
crossed the laboratory to the jar in which the broken glass was kept,
took out a piece and held it up against the light. Zorzi had made a
movement as if to hinder him, but he realised at once that he could not
lay hands on his master's son. Giovanni laughed contemptuously and threw
the fragment back into the jar.
"Is that all? I can do better than that myself!" he said, and he sat
down again in the big chair.
His eyes fell on the shelves upon which Zorzi's specimens of work were
arranged. He looked at them with interest, at once understanding their
commercial value.
"My father can make good things when he is not wasting time over
discoveries," he remarked, and rising again he went nearer and began to
examine the little objects.
Zorzi said nothing, and after looking at them a long time Giovanni
turned away and stood before the furnace. The copper ladle with which
the specimens were taken from the pots lay on the brick ledge near one
of the 'boccas.' Giovanni took it, looked round to see where the iron
plate for testing was placed, and thrust the ladle into the aperture,
holding it lightly lest the heat should hurt his hand.
"You shall not do that!" cried Zorzi, who was already beside him.
Before Giovanni knew what was happening Zorzi had struck the ladle from
his hand, and it disappeared through the 'bocca' into the white-hot
glass within.