When Pasquale had let Zorzi in, he crossed the canal again, moored the
skiff with lock and chain, and came back by the wooden bridge. Zorzi
went on through the corridor and came out into the moonlit garden. It
was hard to believe that only forty-eight hours had passed since he had
left it, but the freshly dug earth told him of Giovanni's search, about
which Pasquale had told him, and there was the pleasant certainty that
the master had come home and could probably protect him, even against
the Ten. Besides this, he felt stronger and more able to move than since
he had been injured, and he was sure that he could now walk with only a
stick to help him, though he was always to be lame. He had looked up at
Marietta's window before leaving the boat, but it was dark, for Pasquale
had wished to be sure that no one should see Zorzi and it was long past
the young girl's bedtime.
Pasquale came back, and produced some more bread and cheese from his
lodge, for both men were hungry. They sat down on the bench under the
plane-tree and ate their meagre supper together in silence, for they had
talked much during the long day. Then Pasquale bade Zorzi good night and
went away, and Zorzi went into the laboratory, where all was dark. But
he knew every brick of the furnace and every stone of the pavement under
his feet, and in a few minutes he was fast asleep in his own bed,
feeling as safe as if the Ten had never existed and as though the
Signors of the Night were not searching every purlieu of Venice to take
him into custody. And early in the morning he got up, and Pasquale
brought him water as of old, and as his hose and doublet had suffered
considerably during his adventures, he put on the Sunday ones and came
out into the garden to breathe the morning air. Pasquale had no
intention of going over to the house to announce Zorzi's return, for he
was firmly convinced that the most simple way of keeping a secret was
not to tell it, and before long the master would probably come over
himself to ask for news.
Beroviero brought Marietta with him, as he often did, and when they were
within he naturally stopped to question Pasquale about his search, while
Marietta went on to the garden. The porter took a long time to shut the
door, and instead of answering Beroviero, shook his ugly head
discontentedly, and muttered imprecations on all makers of locks,
latches, bolts, bars and other fastenings, living, dead and yet unborn.
So it came to pass that Marietta came upon Zorzi suddenly and alone,
when she least expected to meet him.
He was standing by the well-remembered rose-bush, leaning on his stick
with one hand and lifting up a trailing branch with the other. But when
he heard Marietta's step he let the branch drop again and stood waiting
for her with happy eyes. She uttered a little cry, that was almost of
fear, and stopped short in her walk, for in the first instant she could
have believed that she saw a vision; then she ran forward with
outstretched hands, and fell into his arms as he dropped his stick to
catch her. As her head touched his shoulder, her heart stopped beating
for a moment, she gasped a little, and seemed to choke, and then the
tears of joy flowed from her eyes, her pulses stirred again, and all was
well. He felt a tremor in his hands and could not speak aloud, but as he
held her he bent down and whispered something in her ear; and she smiled
through the shower of her happy tears, though he could not see it, for
her face was hidden.
Just then Beroviero entered from the corridor, followed by Pasquale, and
the two old men stood still together gazing at the young lovers. It was
on that very spot that the master, when going upon his journey, had told
Zorzi how he wished he were his son. But now he forgot that he had said
it, and the angry blood rushed to his forehead.
"How dare you?" he cried, as he made a step to go on towards the pair.
They heard his voice and separated hastily. Marietta's fresh cheek
blushed like red roses, and she looked down, as shamefacedly as any
country maid, but Zorzi turned white as he stooped to pick up his stick,
then stood quite upright and met her father's eyes.
"How dare you, I say?" repeated the old man fiercely.
"I love her, sir," Zorzi answered without fear for himself, but with
much apprehension for Marietta.
"And have you forgotten that I love him, father?" asked Marietta,
looking up but still blushing. "You know, I told you all the truth, and
you were not angry then. At least, you were not so very angry," she
added, shyly correcting herself.
"If she has told you, sir," Zorzi began, "let me--"
"You can tell me nothing I do not know," cried Beroviero, "and nothing I
wish to hear! Be off! Go to the laboratory and begin work. I will speak
with my daughter."
Then Pasquale's voice was heard.
"A furnace without a fire is like a ship without a wind," he said. "It
might as well be anything else."
Beroviero looked towards the old porter indignantly, but Pasquale had
already begun to move and was returning to his lodge, uttering strange
and unearthly sounds as he went, for he was so happy that he was really
trying to hum a tune. The master turned to the lovers again. Zorzi had
withdrawn a step or two, but showed no signs of going further.
"If you are going to tell me that I must change my mind," said Marietta,
"and that it is a shame to love a penniless glass-blower--"
"Silence!" cried the old man, stroking his beard fiercely. "How can you
presume to guess what I may or may not say about your shameless conduct?
Did I not see him kissing you?"
"I daresay, for he did," answered Marietta, raising her eyebrows and
looking down in a resigned way. "And it is not the first time, either,"
she added, shaking her head and almost laughing.
"The insolence!" cried Beroviero. "The atrocious boldness!"
"Sir," said Zorzi, coming nearer, "there is only one remedy for it. Give
me your daughter for my wife--"
"Upon my faith, this is too much! You know that Marietta is betrothed to
Messer Jacopo Contarini--"
"I have told you that I will not marry him," said Marietta quietly, "so
it is just as if I had never been betrothed to him."
"That is no reason for marrying Zorzi," retorted Beroviero. "A pretty
match for you! Angelo Beroviero's daughter and a penniless foreigner who
cannot even be allowed to work openly at his art!"
"If I go away," Zorzi answered quietly, "I may soon be as rich as you,
sir."
At this unexpected statement Beroviero opened his eyes in real
astonishment, while Zorzi continued.
"You have your secrets, sir, and I have kept them safe for you. But I
have one of my own which is as valuable as any of yours. Did you find
some pieces of my work in the annealing oven? I see that they are on the
table now. Did you notice that the glass is like yours, but finer and
lighter?"
"Well, if it is, what then?" asked Beroviero. "It was an accident. You
mixed something with some of my glass--"
"No," answered Zorzi, "it is altogether a composition of my own. I do
not know how you mix your materials. How should I?"
"I believe you do," said Beroviero. "I believe you have found it out in
some way--"
Zorzi had produced a piece of folded paper from his doublet, and now
held it up in his hand.
"I am not bargaining with you, sir, for you are a man of honour. Angelo
Beroviero will not rob me, after having been kind to me for so many
years. This is my secret, which I discovered alone, with no one's help.
The quantities are written out very exactly, and I am sure of them.
Read what is written there. By an accident, I may have made something
like your glass, but I do not believe it."
He held out the paper. Beroviero's manner changed.
"You were always an honourable fellow, Zorzi. I thank you."
He opened the paper and looked attentively at the contents. Marietta saw
his surprise and interest and took the opportunity of smiling at Zorzi.
"It is altogether different from mine," said Beroviero, looking up and
handing back the document.
"Is there fortune in that, sir, or not?" asked Zorzi, confident of the
reply. "But you know that there is, and that whenever I go, if I can get
a furnace, I shall soon be a rich man by the glass alone, without even
counting on such skill as I have with my hands."
"It is true," answered the master, nodding his head thoughtfully. "There
are many princes who would willingly give you the little you need in
order to make your fortune."
"The little that Venice refuses me!" said Zorzi with some bitterness.
"Am I presuming so much, then, when I ask you for your daughter's hand?
Is it not in my power, or will it not be very soon, to go to some other
city, to Milan, or Florence--"
"No, no!" cried Beroviero. "You shall not take her away--"
He stopped short, realising that he had betrayed what had been in his
mind, since he had seen the two standing there, clasped in one another's
arms, namely, that in spite of him, or with his blessing, his daughter
would before long be married to the man she loved.
"Come, come!" he said testily. "This is sheer nonsense!"
He made a step forward as if to break off the situation by going away.
"If you would rather that I should not leave you, sir," said Zorzi, "I
will stay here and make my glass in your furnace, and you shall sell it
as if it were your own."
"Yes, father, say yes!" cried Marietta, clasping her hands upon the old
man's shoulder. "You see how generous Zorzi is!"
"Generous!" Beroviero shook his head. "He is trying to bribe me, for
there is a fortune in his glass, as he says. He is offering me a
fortune, I tell you, to let him marry you!"
"The fortune which Messer Jacopo had made you promise to pay him for
condescending to be my husband!" retorted Marietta triumphantly. "It
seems to me that of the two, Zorzi is the better match!"
Beroviero stared at her a moment, bewildered. Then, in half-comic
despair he clapped both his hands upon his ears and shook himself gently
free from her.
"Was there ever a woman yet who could not make black seem white?" he
cried. "It is nonsense, I tell you! It is all arrant nonsense! You are
driving me out of my senses!"
And thereupon he went off down the garden path to the laboratory,
apparently forgetting that his presence alone could prevent a repetition
of that very offence which had at first roused his anger. The door
closed sharply after him, with energetic emphasis.
At the same moment Marietta, who had been gazing into Zorzi's eyes, felt
that her own sparkled with amusement, and her father might almost have
heard her sweet low laugh through the open window at the other end of
the garden.
"That was well done," she said. "Between us we have almost persuaded
him."
Zorzi took her willing hand and drew her to him, and she was almost as
near to him as before, when she straightened herself with quick and
elastic grace, and laughed again.
"No, no!" she said. "If he were to look out and see us again, it would
be too ridiculous! Come and sit under the plane-tree in the old place.
Do you remember how you stared at the trunk and would not answer me when
I tried to make you speak, ever so long ago? Do you know, it was because
you would not say--what I wanted you to say--that I let myself think
that I could marry Messer Jacopo. If you had only known what you were
doing!"
"If I had only known!" Zorzi echoed, as they reached the place and
Marietta sat down.
They were within sight of the window, but Beroviero did not heed them.
He was seated in his own chair, in deep thought, his elbows resting on
the wooden arms, his fingers pressing his temples on each side, thinking
of his daughter, and perhaps not quite unaware that she was talking to
the only man he had ever really trusted.
"I must tell you something, Zorzi," she was saying, as she looked up
into the face she loved. "My father told me last night what he had done
yesterday. He saw Messer Zuan Venier--"
Zorzi showed his surprise.
"Pasquale told my father that he had been here to see you. Very well,
this Messer Zuan advised that if you could be found, you should be
persuaded to go before the tribunal of the Ten of your own free will, to
tell your story. And he promised to use all his influence and that of
all his friends in your favour."
"They will not change the law for me," Zorzi replied, in a hopeless
way.
"If they could hear you, they would make a special decree," said
Marietta. "You could tell them your story, you could even show them some
of the beautiful things you have made. They would understand that you
are a great artist. After all, my father says that one of their most
especial duties is to deal with everything that concerns Murano and the
glass-works. Do you think that they will banish you, now that you have a
secret of your own, and can injure us all by setting up a furnace
somewhere else? There is no sense in that! And if you go of your own
free will, they will hear you kindly, I think. But if you stay here,
they will find you in the end, and they will be very angry then, because
you will have been hiding from them."
"You are wise," Zorzi answered. "You are very wise."
"No, I love you."
She spoke softly and glanced at the open window, and then at his face.
"Truly?"
He smiled happily as he whispered his question in one word, and he was
resting a hand on the trunk of the tree, just as he had been standing on
the day she remembered so well.
"Ah, you know it now!" she answered, with bright and trusting eyes.
"One may know a song well, and yet long to hear it again and again."
"But one cannot be always singing it oneself," she said.
"I could never make it ring as sweetly as you," Zorzi answered.
"Try it! I am tired of hearing my voice--"
"But I am not! There is no voice like it in the world. I shall never
care to hear another, as long as I live, nor any other song, nor any
other words. And when you are weary of saying them, I shall just say
them over in my heart, 'She loves me, she loves me,'--all day long."
"Which is better," Marietta asked, "to love, or to know that you are
loved?"
"The two thoughts are like soul and body," Zorzi answered. "You must not
part them."
"I never have, since I have known the truth, and never shall again."
Then they were silent for a while, but they hardly knew it, for the
world was full of the sweetest music they had ever heard, and they
listened together.
"Zorzi!"
The master was at the window, calling him. He started a little as if
awaking and obeyed the summons as quickly as his lameness would allow.
Marietta looked after him, watching his halting gait, and the little
effort he made with his stick at each step. For some secret reason the
injury had made him more dear to her, and she liked to remember how
brave he had been.
He found Beroviero busy with his papers, and the results of the year's
experiments, and the old man at once spoke to him as if nothing unusual
had happened, telling him what to do from time to time, so that all
might be put in order against the time when the fires should be lighted
again in September. By and by two men came carrying a new earthen jar
for broken glass, and all fragments in which the box had lain were
shovelled into it, and the pieces of the old one were taken away. The
furnace was not quite cool even yet, and the crucibles might remain
where they were for a few days; but there was much to be done, and Zorzi
was kept at work all the morning, while Marietta sat in the shade with
her work, often looking towards the window and sometimes catching sight
of Zorzi as he moved about within.
Meanwhile the story of Contarini's mishap had spread in Venice like
wildfire, and before noon there was hardly one of all his many relations
and friends who had not heard it. The tale ran through the town, told by
high and low, by Jacopo's own trusted servant, and the old woman who had
waited on Arisa, and it had reached the market-place at an early hour,
so that the ballad-makers were busy with it. For many had known of the
existence of the beautiful Georgian slave and the subject was a good one
for a song--how she had caressed him to sleep and fostered his foolish
security while he loved her blindly, and how she and her mysterious
lover had bound him and shaved his head and face and made him a
laughing-stock, so that he must hide himself from the world for months,
and moreover how they had carried away by night all the precious gifts
he had heaped upon the woman since he had bought her in the
slave-market.
Last of all, his father heard it when he came home about an hour before
noon from the sitting of the Council of Ten, of which he was a member
for that year. He found Zuan Venier waiting in the hall of his house,
and the two remained closeted together for some time. For the young man
had promised Jacopo to tell old Contarini, though it was an ungrateful
errand, and one which, the latter might remember against him. But it was
a kind action, and Venier performed it as well as he could, telling the
story truthfully, but leaving out all such useless details as might
increase the father's anger.
At first indeed the old man brought his hand down heavily upon the
table, and swore that he would never see his son again, that he would
propose to the Ten to banish him from Venice, that he would disinherit
him and let him starve as he deserved, and much more to the same effect.
But Venier entreated him, for his own dignity's sake, to do none of
these things, but to send Jacopo to his villa on the Brenta river, where
he might devote himself in seclusion to growing his hair and beard
again; and Zuan represented that if he reappeared in Venice after many
months, not very greatly changed, the adventure would be so far
forgotten that his life among his friends would be at least bearable, in
spite of the ridicule to which he would now and then be exposed for the
rest of his life, whenever any one chose out of spite to mention
barbers, shears, razors, specifies for causing the hair to grow, or
Georgians, in his presence. Further, Venier ventured to suggest to
Contarini that he should at once break off the marriage arranged with
Beroviero, rather than expose himself to the inevitable indignity of
letting the step be taken by the glass-maker, who, said Venier, would as
soon think of giving his daughter to a Turk as to Jacopo, since the
latter's graceless doings had been suddenly held up to the light as the
laughing-stock of all Venice.
In making this suggestion Venier had followed the suggestion of his own
good sense and good feeling, and Contarini not only accepted the
proposal but was in the utmost haste to act upon it, fearing lest at any
moment a messenger might come over from Murano with the news that
Beroviero withdrew his consent to the marriage. Venier almost dictated
the letter which Contarini wrote with a trembling hand, and he promised
to deliver it himself, and if necessary to act as ambassador.
Beroviero had already called to Marietta that it was time to go home,
though the mid-day bells had not yet rung out the hour, when Pasquale
appeared in the garden and announced that Venier was waiting in his
gondola and desired an immediate interview on a matter of importance.
He would have come on Contarini's behalf, if for no other reason, but he
had spent much time that morning in laying Zorzi's case before his
friends and all the members of the Grand Council who could have any
special influence with the Ten, or with the aged Doge, who, although in
his eightieth year, frequently assisted in person at their meetings, and
whose Counsellors were always present. He was now almost sure of
obtaining a favourable hearing for Zorzi, and wished to see Beroviero,
for he was still in ignorance of Zorzi's return to the glass-house
during the night.
Marietta was told to go into the deserted building, containing the main
furnaces, now extinguished, for it was not fitting that she should be
seen by a patrician whom she did not know, sitting in the garden as if
she were a mere serving-woman whose face needed no veil. She ran away
laughing and hid herself in the passage where she had spent moments of
anguish on the night of Zorzi's arrest, and she waved a kiss to him,
when her father was not watching.
Zorzi waited at the door of the laboratory, while Beroviero waited
within, standing by the table to receive his honourable visitor. When
Zorzi saw Venier's expression of astonishment on seeing him, he smiled
quietly, but offered no audible greeting, for he did not know what was
expected of him. But Venier took his hand frankly and held it a moment.
"I am glad to find you here," he said, less indolently than he usually
spoke. "I have good news for you, if you will take my advice."
"The master has already told me what it is," Zorzi answered. "I am ready
to give myself up whenever you think best. I have not words to thank
you."
"I do not like many words," answered Venier. "But if there is anything I
dislike more, it is thanks. I have some private business with Messer
Angelo first. Afterwards we can all three talk together."