Marietta: A Maid of Venice by F. Marion Crawford (novels to read for beginners .txt) 📕

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