On that day Marietta felt once more the full belief that Zorzi loved
her; but the certainty did not fill her with happiness as on that first
afternoon when she had seen him stoop to pick up the rose she had
dropped. The time that had seemed so very distant had come indeed;
instead of years, a week had scarcely passed, and it was not by letting
a flower fall in his path that she had told him her love, as she had
meant to do. She had done much more. She had let him take her hand and
press it to his heart, and she would have left it there if Nella had not
passed the window; she had wished him to take it, she had let it hang by
her side in the hope that he would be bold enough to do so, and she had
thrilled with delight at his touch; she had drawn back her hand when the
woman came, and she had put on a look of innocent indifference that
would have deceived one of the Council's own spies. Could any language
have been more plain?
It was very strange, she thought, that she should all at once have gone
so far, that she should have felt such undreamt joy at the moment and
then, when it was hers, a part of her life which nothing could ever undo
nor take from her, it was stranger still that the remembrance of this
wonderful joy should make her suddenly sad and thoughtful, that she
should lie awake at night, wishing that it had never been, and
tormenting herself with the idea that she had done an almost
irretrievable wrong. At the very moment when the coming day was breaking
upon her heart's twilight, a wall of darkness arose between her and the
future.
Much that is very good and true in the world is built upon the fanciful
fears of evil that warn girls' hearts of harm. There are dangers that
cannot be exaggerated, because the value of what they threaten cannot be
reckoned too great, so long as human goodness rests on the dangerous
quicksands of human nature.
Marietta had not realised what it meant to be betrothed to Jacopo
Contarini, until she had let her hand linger in Zorzi's. But after that,
one hour had not passed before she felt that she was living between two
alternatives that seemed almost equally terrible, and of which she must
choose the one or the other within two months. She must either marry
Contarini and never see Zorzi again, or she must refuse to be married
and face the tremendous consequences of her unheard-of wilfulness, her
father's anger, the just resentment of all the Contarini family, the
humiliation which her brothers would heap upon her, because, in the code
of those days, she would have brought shame on them and theirs. In those
times such results were very real and inevitable when a girl's formal
promise of marriage was broken, though she herself might never have been
consulted.
It was no wonder that Marietta was sleepless at night, and spent long
hours of the day sitting listless by her window without so much as
threading a score of beads from the little basket that stood beside her.
Nella came and went often, looked at her, and shook her head with a wise
smile.
"It is the thought of marriage," said the woman of the people to
herself. "She pines and grows pale now, because she is thinking that she
must leave her father's house so soon, and she is afraid to go among
strangers. But she will be happy by and by, like the swallows in
spring."
Nella remembered how frightened she herself had been when she was
betrothed to her departed Vito, and she was thereby much comforted as to
Marietta's condition. But she said nothing, after Marietta had coldly
repelled her first attempt to talk of the marriage, though she forgave
her mistress's frigid order to be silent, telling herself that no
right-minded young girl could possibly be natural and sweet tempered
under the circumstances. She was more than compensated for what might
have seemed harshness, by something that looked very much like a
concession. Marietta had not gone back to the laboratory since the
discovery of the new glass, and a week had passed since then.
Nella went every other day and did all that was necessary for Zorzi's
recovery. Each time she came he asked her about Marietta, in a rather
formal tone, as was becoming when he spoke of his master's daughter,
but hoping that Nella might have some message to deliver, and he was
more and more disappointed as he realised that Marietta did not mean to
send him any. She had gone away on that morning with a sort of
intimation that she would come back every day, but Nella did not so much
as hint that she ever meant to come back at all.
Zorzi went about on crutches, swinging his helpless foot as he walked,
for it still hurt him when he put it to the ground. He was pale and
thin, both from pain and from living shut up almost all day in the close
atmosphere of the laboratory. For a change, he began to come out into
the little garden, sometimes walking up and down on his crutches for a
few minutes, and then sitting down to rest on the bench under the
plane-tree, where Marietta had so often sat. Pasquale came and talked
with him sometimes, but Zorzi never went to the porter's lodge.
He felt that if he got as far as that he should inevitably open the door
and look up at Marietta's window, and he would not do it, for he was
hurt by her apparent indifference, after having allowed him to hold her
hand in his. She had not even asked through Nella what had become of the
beautiful glass. What he pretended to say to himself was that it would
be very wrong to go and stand outside the glass-house, where the porter
would certainly see him, and where he might be seen by any one else,
staring at the window of his master's daughter's room on the other side
of the canal. But what he really felt was that Marietta had treated him
capriciously and that if he had a particle of self-respect he must show
her that he did not care. For if Marietta was very like other carefully
brought up girls of her age, Zorzi was nothing more than a boy where
love was concerned, and like many boys who have struggled for existence
in a more or less corrupt world, he had heard much more of the
faithlessness and caprices of women in general than of the sensitiveness
and delicate timidity of innocent young girls.
Marietta was his perfect ideal, the most exquisite, the most beautiful
and the most lovable creature ever endowed with form and sent into the
world by the powers of good. He believed all this in his heart, with the
certainty of absolute knowledge. But he was quite incapable of
discerning the motives of her conduct towards him, and when he tried to
understand them, it was not his heart that felt, but his reason that
argued, having very little knowledge and no experience at all to help
it; and since his erring reason demonstrated something that offended his
self-esteem, his heart was hurt and nursed a foolish, small resentment
against what he truly loved better than life itself. At one time or
another most very young men in love have found themselves in that
condition, and have tormented themselves to the verge of fever and
distraction over imaginary hurts and wrongs. Was there ever a true lyric
poet who did not at least once in his early days believe himself the
victim of a heartless woman? And though long afterwards fate may have
brought him face to face with the tragedy of unhappy love, fierce with
passion and terrible with violent death, can he ever quite forget the
fancied sufferings of first youth, the stab of a thoughtless girl's
first unkind word, the sickening chill he felt under her first cold
look? And what would first love be, if young men and maidens came to it
with all the reason and cool self-judgment that long living brings?
Zorzi sought consolation in his art, and as soon as he could stand and
move about with his crutches he threw his whole pent-up energy into his
work. The accidental discovery of the red glass had unexpectedly given
him an empty crucible with which to make an experiment of his own, and
while the materials were fusing he attempted to obtain the new colour in
the other two, by dropping pieces of copper into each regardless of the
master's instructions. To his inexpressible disappointment he completely
failed in this, and the glass he produced was of the commonest tint.
Then he grew reckless; he removed the two crucibles that had contained
what had been made according to Beroviero's theories until he had added
the copper, and he began afresh according to his own belief.
On that very morning Giovanni Beroviero made a second visit to the
laboratory. He came, he said, to make sure that Zorzi was recovering
from his hurt, and Zorzi knew from Nella that Giovanni had made
inquiries about him. He put on an air of sympathy when he saw the
crutches.
"You will soon throw them aside," he said, "but I am sorry that you
should have to use them at all."
When he entered, Zorzi was introducing a new mixture, carefully
powdered, into one of the glass-pots with a small iron shovel. It was
clear that he must put it all in at once, and he excused himself for
going on with his work. Giovanni looked at the large quantity of the
mixed ingredients with an experienced eye, and at once made up his mind
that the crucible must have been quite empty. Zorzi was therefore
beginning to make some kind of glass on his own account. It followed
almost logically, according to Giovanni's view of men, fairly founded on
a knowledge of himself, that Zorzi was experimenting with the secrets of
Paolo Godi, which he and old Beroviero had buried together somewhere in
that very room. Now, ever since the boy had told his story, Giovanni had
been revolving plans for getting the manuscript into his possession
during a few days, in order to copy it. A new scheme now suggested
itself, and it looked so attractive that he at once attempted to carry
it out.
"It seems a pity," he said, "that a great artist like yourself should
spend time on fruitless experiments. You might be making very beautiful
things, which would sell for a high price."
Without desisting from his occupation Zorzi glanced at his visitor,
whose manner towards him had so entirely changed within a little more
than a week. With a waif's quick instinct he guessed that Giovanni
wanted something of him, but the generous instinct of the brave man
towards the coward made him accept what seemed to be meant for an
advance after a quarrel. It had never occurred to Zorzi to blame
Giovanni for the accident in the glass-house, and it would have been
very unjust to do so.
"I can blow glass tolerably, sir," Zorzi answered. "But none of you
great furnace owners would dare to employ me, in the face of the law.
Besides, I am your father's man. I owe everything I know to his
kindness."
"I do not see what that has to do with it," returned Giovanni; "it does
not diminish your merit, nor affect the truth of what I was saying. You
might be doing better things. Any one can weigh out sand and kelp-ashes,
and shovel them into a crucible!"
"Do you mean that the master might employ me for other work?" asked
Zorzi, smiling at the disdainful description of what he was doing.
"My father--or some one else," answered Giovanni. "And besides your
astonishing skill, I fancy that you possess much valuable knowledge of
glass-making. You cannot have worked for my father so many years without
learning some of the things he has taken great pains to hide from his
own sons."
He spoke the last words in a somewhat bitter tone, quite willing to let
Zorzi know that he felt himself injured.
"If I have learned anything of that sort by looking on and helping, when
I have been trusted, it is not mine to use elsewhere," said Zorzi,
rather proudly.
"That is a fine moral sentiment, my dear young friend, and does you
credit," replied Giovanni sententiously. "It is impossible not to
respect a man who carries a fortune in his head and refuses to profit by
it out of a delicate sense of honour."
"I should have very little respect for a man who betrayed his master's
secrets," said Zorzi.
"You know them then?" inquired the other with unusual blandness.
"I did not say so." Zorzi looked at him coldly.
"Oh no! Even to admit it might not be discreet. But apart from Paolo
Godi's secrets, which my father has left sealed in my care--"
At this astounding falsehood Zorzi started and looked at Giovanni in
unfeigned surprise.
"--but which nothing would induce me to examine," continued Giovanni
with perfect coolness, "there must be many others of my father's own,
which you have learned by watching him. I respect you for your
discretion. Why did you start and look at me when I said that the
manuscript was in my keeping?"
The question was well put, suddenly and without warning, and Zorzi was
momentarily embarrassed to find an answer. Giovanni judged that his
surprise proved the truth of the boy's story, and his embarrassment now
added certainty to the proof. But Zorzi rarely lost his self-possession
when he had a secret to keep.
"If I seemed astonished," he said, "it may have been because you had
just given me the impression that the master did not trust you, and I
know how careful he is of the manuscript."
"You know more than that, my friend," said Giovanni in a playful tone.
Zorzi had now filled the crucible and was replacing the clay rings which
narrow the aperture of the 'bocca.' He plastered more wet clay upon
them, and it pleased Giovanni to see how well he knew every detail of
the art, from the simplest to the most difficult operations.
"Would anything you can think of induce you to leave my father?"
Giovanni asked, as he had received no answer to his last remark. "Of
course, I do not mean to speak of mere money, though few people quite
despise it."
"That may be understood in more than one way," answered Zorzi
cautiously. "In the first place, do you mean that if I left the master,
it would be to go to another master, or to set up as a master myself?"
"Let us say that you might go to another glass-house for a fixed time,
with the promise of then having a furnace of your own. How does that
strike you?"
"No one can give such a promise and keep it," said Zorzi, scraping the
wet clay from his hands with a blunt knife.
"But suppose that some one could," insisted Giovanni.
"What is the use of supposing the impossible?" Zorzi shrugged his
shoulders and went on scraping.
"Nothing is impossible in the Republic, except what the Ten are resolved
to hinder. And that is really impossible."
"The Ten will not make new laws nor repeal old ones for the benefit of
an unknown Dalmatian."
"Perhaps not," answered Giovanni. "But on the other hand there is no
very great penalty if you set up a furnace of your own. If you are
discovered, your furnace will be put out, and you may have to pay a
fine. It is no great matter. It is a civil offence, not a criminal one."
"What is it that you wish of me?" asked Zorzi with sudden directness.
"You are a busy man. You have not come here to pass a morning in idle
conversation with your father's assistant. You want something of me,
sir. Speak out plainly. If I can do what you wish, I will do it. If I
cannot, I will tell you so, frankly."
Giovanni was a little disconcerted by this speech. Excepting where money
was concerned directly, his intelligence was of the sort that easily
wastes its energy in futile cunning. He had not meant to reach the point
for a long time, if he had expected to reach it at all at a first
attempt.
"I like your straightforwardness," he said evasively. "But I do not
think your conversation idle. On the contrary, I find it highly
instructive."
"Indeed?" Zorzi laughed. "You do me much honour, sir! What have you
learned from me this morning?"
"What I wished to know," answered Giovanni with a change of tone, and
looking at him keenly.
Zorzi returned the glance, and the two men faced each other in silence
for a moment. Zorzi knew what Giovanni meant, as soon as the other had
spoken. The quick movement of surprise, which was the only indiscretion
of which Zorzi had been guilty, would have betrayed to any one that he
knew where the manuscript was, even if it were not in his immediate
keeping. His instinct was to take the offensive and accuse his visitor
of having laid a trap for him, but his caution prevailed.
"Whatever you may think that you have learned from me," he said,
"remember that I have told you nothing."
"Is it here, in this room?" asked Giovanni, not heeding his last speech,
and hoping to surprise him again.
But he was prepared now, and his face did not change as he replied.
"I cannot answer any questions," he said.
"You and my father hid it together," returned Giovanni. "When you had
buried it under the stones in this room, you carried the earth out with
a shovel and scattered it about on a flower-bed. You took out three
shovelfuls of earth in that way. You see, I know everything. What is the
use of trying to hide your secret from me?"
Zorzi was now convinced that Giovanni himself had been lurking in the
garden.
"Sir," he said, with ill-concealed contempt for a man capable of such
spy's work, "if you have more to say of the same nature, pray say it to
your father, when he comes back."
"You misunderstand me," returned Giovanni with sudden mildness. "I had
no intention of offending you. I only meant to warn you that you were
watched on that night. The person who informed me has no doubt told many
others also. It would have been very ill for you, if my father had
returned to find that his secret was public property, and if you had
been unable to explain that you had not betrayed him. I have given you a
weapon of defence. You may call upon me to repeat what I have said, when
you speak with him."
"I am obliged to you, sir," said Zorzi coldly. "I shall not need to
disturb you."
"You are not wise," returned Giovanni gravely. "If I were
curious--fortunately for you I am not!--I would send for a mason and
have some of the stones of the pavement turned over before me. A mason
would soon find the one you moved by trying them all with his hammer."
"Yes," said Zorzi. "If this were a room in your own glass-house, you
could do that. But it is not."
"I am in charge of all that belongs to my father, during his absence,"
answered Giovanni.
"Yes," said Zorzi again. "Including Paolo Godi's manuscript, as you told
me," he added.
"You understand very well why I said that," Giovanni answered, with
visible annoyance.
"I only know that you said it," was the retort. "And as I cannot suppose
that you did not know what you were saying, still less that you
intentionally told an untruth, I really cannot see why you should
suggest bringing a mason here to search for what must be in your own
keeping."
Zorzi spoke with a quiet smile, for he felt that he had the best of it.
Be was surprised when Giovanni broke into a peal of rather affected
laughter.
"You are hard to catch!" he cried, and laughed again. "You did not
really suppose that I was in earnest? Why, every one knows that you have
the manuscript here."
"Then I suppose you spoke ironically," suggested Zorzi.
"Of course, of course! A mere jest! If I had known that you would take
it so literally--" he stopped short.
"Pray excuse me, sir. It is the first time I have ever heard you say
anything playful."
"Indeed! The fact is, my dear Zorzi, I never knew you well enough to
jest with you, till to-day. Paolo Godi's secrets in my keeping? I wish
they were! Oh, not that anything would induce me to break the seals. I
told you that. But I wish they were in my possession. I tell you, I
would pay down half my fortune to have them, for they would bring me
back four times as much within the year. Half my fortune! And I am not
poor, Zorzi."
"Half your fortune?" repeated Zorzi. "That is a large sum, I imagine.
Pray, sir, how much might half your fortune be, in round numbers? Ten
thousand silver lires?"
"Silver!" sneered Giovanni contemptuously.
"Gold, then?" suggested Zorzi, drawing him on.
"Gold? Well--possibly," admitted Giovanni with caution. "But of course I
was exaggerating. Ten thousand gold pounds would be too much, of course.
Say, five thousand."
"I thought you were richer than that," said Zorzi coolly.
"Do you mean that five thousand would not be enough to pay for the
manuscript?" asked Giovanni.
"The profits of glass-making are very large when one possesses a
valuable secret," said Zorzi. "Five thousand--" He paused, as though in
doubt, or as if making a mental calculation. Giovanni fell into the
trap.
"I would give six," he said, lowering his voice to a still more
confidential tone, and watching his companion eagerly.
"For six thousand gold lires," said Zorzi, smiling, "I am quite sure
that you could hire a ruffian to break in and cut the throat of the man
who has charge of the manuscript."
Giovanni's face fell, but he quickly assumed an expression of righteous
indignation.
"How can you dare to suggest that I would employ such means to rob my
father?" he cried.
"If it were your intention to rob your father, sir, I cannot see that it
would matter greatly what means you employed. But I was only jesting, as
you were when you said that you had the manuscript. I did not expect
that you would take literally what I said."
"I see, I see," answered Giovanni, accepting the means of escape Zorzi
offered him. "You were paying me back in my own coin! Well, well! It
served me right, after all. You have a ready wit."
"I thought that if my conversation were not as instructive as you had
hoped, I could at least try to make it amusing--light, gay, witty! I
trust you will not take it ill."
"Not I!" Giovanni tried to laugh. "But what a wonderful thing is this
human imagination of ours! Now, as I talked of the secrets, I forgot
that they were my father's, they seemed almost within my grasp, I was
ready to count out the gold, to count out six thousand gold lires. Think
of that!"
"They are worth it," said Zorzi quietly.
"You should know best," answered the other. "There is no such glass as
my father's for lightness and strength. If he had a dozen workmen like
you, my brother and I should be ruined in trying to compete with him. I
watched you very closely the other day, and I watched the others, too.
By the bye, my friend, was that really an accident, or does the man owe
you some grudge? I never saw such a thing happen before!"
"It was an accident, of course," replied Zorzi without hesitation.
"If you knew that the man had injured you intentionally, you should have
justice at once," said Giovanni. "As it is, I have no doubt that my
father will turn him out without mercy."
"I hope not." Zorzi would say nothing more.
Giovanni rose to go away. He stood still a moment in thought, and then
smiled suddenly as if recollecting himself.
"The imagination is an extraordinary thing!" he said, going back to the
past conversation. "At this very moment I was thinking again that I was
actually paying out the money--six thousand lires in gold! I must be
mad!"
"No," said Zorzi. "I think not."
Giovanni turned away, shaking his head and still smiling. To tell the
truth, though he knew Zorzi's character, he had not believed that any
one could refuse such a bribe, and he was trying to account for the
Dalmatian's integrity by reckoning up the expectations the young man
must have, to set against such a large sum of ready money. He could only
find one solution to the problem: Zorzi was already in full possession
of the secrets, and would therefore not sell them at any price, because
he hoped before long to set up for himself and make his own fortune by
them. If this were true, and he could not see how it could be otherwise,
he and his brother would be cheated of their heritage when their father
died.
It was clear that something must be done to hinder Zorzi from carrying
out his scheme. After all, Zorzi's own jesting proposal, that a ruffian
should be employed to cut his throat, was not to be rejected. It was a
simple plan, direct and conclusive. It might not be possible to find
the manuscript after all, but the only man who knew its contents would
be removed, and Beroviero's sons would inherit what should come to them
by right. Against this project there was the danger that the murderer
might some day betray the truth, under torture, or might come back again
and again, and demand more money; but the killing of a man who was not
even a Venetian, who was an interloper, who could be proved to have
abused his master's confidence, when he should be no longer alive to
defend himself, did not strike Giovanni as a very serious matter, and as
for any one ever forcing him to pay money which he did not wish to pay,
he knew that to be a feat beyond the ability of an ordinary person.
One other course suggested itself at once. He could forestall Zorzi by
writing to his father and telling him what he sincerely believed to be
the truth. He knew the old man well, and was sure that if once persuaded
that Zorzi had betrayed him by using the manuscript, he would be
merciless. The difficulty would lie in making Beroviero believe anything
against his favourite. Yet in Giovanni's estimation the proofs were
overwhelming. Besides, he had another weapon with which to rouse his
father's anger against the Dalmatian. Since Marietta had defied him and
had gone to see Zorzi in the laboratory, he had not found what he
considered a convenient opportunity of speaking to her on the subject;
that is to say, he had lacked the moral courage to do so at all. But it
would need no courage to complain of her conduct to their father, and
though Beroviero's anger might fall chiefly upon Marietta, a portion of
it would take effect against Zorzi. It would be one more force acting in
the direction of his ruin.
Giovanni went away to his own glass-house, meditating all manner of evil
to his enemy, and as he reckoned up the chances of success, he began to
wonder how he could have been so weak as to offer Zorzi an enormous
bribe, instead of proceeding at once to his destruction.
Unconscious of his growing danger, Zorzi fed the fire of the furnace,
and then sat down at the table before the window, laid his crutches
beside him, and began to write out the details of his own experiments,
as the master had done for years. He wrote the rather elaborate
characters of the fifteenth century in a small but clear hand, very
unlike old Beroviero's. The window was open, and the light breeze blew
in, fanning his heated forehead; for the weather was growing hotter and
hotter, and the order had been given to let the main furnaces cool after
the following Saturday, as the workmen could not bear the heat many days
longer. After that, they would set to work in a shed at the back of the
glass-house to knead the clay for making new crucibles, and the night
boys would enjoy their annual holiday, which consisted in helping the
workmen by treading the stiff clay in water for several hours every day.
A man's shadow darkened the window while Zorzi was writing, and he
looked up. Pasquale was standing outside.
"There is a pestering fellow at the door," he said, "who will not be
satisfied till he has spoken with you. He says he has a message for you
from some one in Venice, which he must deliver himself."
"For me?" Zorzi rose in surprise.