A Golden Book of Venice Part 16

"Nay, then," said Donato, who had seen much of the world; "it is a petty superst.i.tion of the age; it is not the fault of the man, who hath sterling qualities. And by that same potency of credulity have his fears been set at rest. It is a proof of weakness to undervalue the strength of an adversary--for so at least he hath recently declared himself on this question of temporal power, by his petty aggressions and triumphs in Malta, Parma, Lucca, and Genoa."

"I crave pardon of the Cavaliere Donato," Antonio Querini responded hotly. "May one call the action at Genoa _petty_?--the compulsion of the entire vote of a free city, the placing of the election of the whole body of governing officials in the power of the Society of Jesus?"

"And it was under threat of excommunication, which made resistance a duty from the side of the government," Giustinian Giustiniani a.s.serted uncompromisingly.

"But impossible from the Church's point of view. It is the eternal question," Leonardo Donato answered gravely.

"_The solution is only possible by precisely ascertaining the limits within which each power is absolute_," the friar announced, with quiet decision.

A momentary hush fell upon the company, for the words were weighty and a surprise.

"It is well to know the qualities we have to fear," said Andrea Morosini, "and we have listened in the Senate to letters from our amba.s.sador at Rome which bespeak his Holiness of a presence and a dignity--save for over-quickness of temper--which befit a Pope; and that he hath reserved himself from promises, to the displeasure and surprise of some of those who created him."

"It was rumored in Rome," said the younger Giustinian, "that the learned Bishop Baronious, in the last conclave, by his persistence found means to save the Consistory from the election by 'adoration' of another candidate whose life would bear no scrutiny and who never darkened the doors of his own cathedral! By this election the Church hath verily been spared a scandal."

"Therefore, let it be known," said Fra Paolo, with deep gravity, "lest the nearness of such a scandal should breed confusion--and I speak from knowledge, having been much in Rome--we have now a Pope blameless in life; in duty to his Church most faithful and exemplary and concerned with her welfare, as to himself it seemeth; of an unbending conscience and a will most absolute; moreover, of marvelous reading in certain doctrinal writings which seem to him the only books of worth, and with the training of a lawyer wherewith to a.s.sert them. This is the man with whom we have to contend."

"Are there no faults?" thundered Giustinian Giustiniani, while the others listened disconcerted. "A soldier seeks for weak spots in the armor."

"I know him," said Leonardo Donato, "and there _is_ one fault. It limits his power to achieve; it increases his absolutism. It is near-sightedness--smallness of vision."

"Draw him strongly," said Giustinian, in a tone of concentrated wrath.

"Let us measure our foe before we meet."

"There are no books Borghese hath not read; there is no point of view but that which he doth teach, no appeal from the law as he interpreteth it. _It is a fault of unity_. One power--the Church; one duty--its aggrandizement; one prince--temporal and spiritual alike; one unvarying obedience. All is adjusted to one centre; it is the simplification of life!"

There was an ominous silence and an evident wish to change the theme, and the company readjusted itself by twos and threes. The Senator Morosini turned graciously to Marcantonio. "It hath been told in Venice," he said, "that the Lady Marina was received in Rome with marks of very special favor."

"The introduction of our Reverend Father Paolo had preceded her," the young secretary answered lightly, bowing in the direction of the friar, who sat apparently lost in thought. But Morosini repeated Marcantonio's speech with some amus.e.m.e.nt, for the scholarly friar had never been known to have a friend among the women--old or young.

"I do not understand," he said, with no perception of any humor in the situation.

"It was the gift of the Reverend Father Paolo to the chapel of the Servi," Marcantonio explained. "The Madonna del Sorriso was well known in Rome."

"Ah, I recall now the face of your lady, though I have not known her,"

the friar responded courteously, yet he hesitated a moment before accepting the seat which the secretary rose to offer him. "If it is the face which the Veronese hath painted, her spirit must be fair. It should make a home holy," he added, after a moment's pause.

Marcantonio's face flushed with pleasure. The friar was still regarding him with a gaze so penetrating, yet apparently so guiltless of intentional rudeness that it ceased to be an impertinence, and amused the young Venetian by its unconventionality. "Is there anything it would please Fra Paolo to ask of me?" he inquired affably.

"If there are children--" the friar pursued quite simply.

"Our little son was baptized in Saint Peter's in Rome; he had sponsors among the cardinals and a private audience and benediction from his Holiness, Pope Clement," the young n.o.bleman replied, trying to repress a pleasurable sense of importance. "It was a pleasure to the Lady Marina--she is devoted to the Church, and his Holiness was always most gracious to her."

"As was fitting for the lady of a Venetian representative, and due to Venice," the elder Giustinian hastened to explain, "his late Holiness was ever courtly and a gracious diplomat."

He had been aware from his little distance how the talk had turned, and he was alert to give it the coloring he liked best. For while the young people were still in Rome, Signor Agostino Nani, watchful as an amba.s.sador well might be of the interests of so princely a house, had confided to the "Ill.u.s.trissimo Giustiniani," in a private and friendly letter, that courtesies so unusual had been extended to this n.o.ble young Venetian lady--so devoted to the Church, so gentle and unsuspicious, so incapable of counter-plotting--that it would be wise to guard against undue influence by a too prolonged stay at the Roman court; and the honorable recall of the Secretary Giustiniani had soon thereafter been managed.

The friar's face had grown stern, but he did not resume the conversation until the elder Giustinian had strolled away with his host. Then he turned to Marcantonio, speaking earnestly. "Simplicity is no match for subtlety," he said, "and much favor hath been shown to her. You will pardon me, Signore, not because you are young and I am old, but because the face of your lady hath moved me with a rare sense of unworldliness.

There should be no flattery in an act our Lord himself hath taught by his example, and an old man like Pope Clement might well bestow his blessing on your little child. But the times are not free from danger; the home is best for the little ones--do not send him from his mother to the schools."

"He is but learning to speak," the young man answered, smiling at the friar's earnestness; "only his baby word for his mother's name."

"There are schools for the sons of n.o.blemen in which he will forget it,"

said the friar bitterly; "where they teach disloyalty to princes and unmake men to make machines--and the mainspring is at Rome. Gentle women are won to believe in them by the subtle polish of those who uphold them, and the marvelous learning by which their teachers fit themselves for office. And among them are men n.o.ble of character and true of conscience--but bound, soul and body, by their oath; the system of the Jesuit schools in Venice is for nothing else but the building up of their order--at all costs of character or happiness. Let her keep her little son, for her face seemed wise and tender; the favor which hath been shown her may have a meaning."

"Will not my father some time come to the palazzo Giustiniani? The Lady Marina would make him welcome."

"Nay, I thank you," the friar answered, instantly resuming his habitual reserve. "Such gentle friendships form no part of my duty. I spake but in friendly counsel. We, from without, see how the home should be more.

The orders are many to maintain the Church--they need no urging--but the home hath also its privileged domain of childhood to be defended."

XV

With the return of the young people from Rome, gala days had once more dawned for the Ca' Giustiniani, and the two sumptuous palaces which met at the bend of the Ca.n.a.l Grande were scenes of perpetual fete. The palazzo Giustinian Giustiniani had been chosen from all the princely homes of Venice as best fitted, from its magnificence, to be offered as a residence to Henry the Third of France, when that monarch had deigned to honor the Republic by accepting its prodigal hospitality. In the banquet halls, which had been prepared with lavish luxury for his reception, the few years that had pa.s.sed had but mellowed the elaborate carvings and frescoes, while the costly hangings--of crimson velvet with bullion fringes, of azure silk embroidered with fleurs-de-lis, of brocades interwoven with threads of gold--had gained in grace of fold and fusion of tints.

If there were no halls of equal splendor in the palace which had been prepared for Marcantonio and his bride, it displayed in all its appointments an elegance and fitness which the stately Lady Laura was eager to exhibit to the critical appreciation of the fastidious upper circle of Venice.

Marina had had no share in its decorations, and when consulted before her marriage had expressed but one wish. "These cares of rank are new to me," she had said, with gentle dignity; "but thou wilt best know how to choose the elegance befitting Marco's home; for my father hath warned me that in these matters there is a custom which I, more than others, may not break. Dear Lady Laura, for Marco's sake forget that I am of the people, yet, remembering it, to choose but so much of splendor as seemeth needful, lest the palazzo be too costly for a mistress not n.o.ble by birth, and so"--she hesitated--"and so win Marco's friends to love me less."

"Marina, Marco hath told me, with a very lover's face, that some are n.o.ble by birth who are not so by name."

"Dear Lady," the girl answered, with a charming flush, "had Marco not so plead with me there could have been no question of this home."

The eyes of the great lady beamed with a new and tender pride; in nothing that her boy had ever done for her had he offered her so much as in this love of his which had threatened to part them, but had stirred instead the mother depths of her soul, which had become clouded by years of luxury and artificial life and the knowledge of the ceaseless ambitions and selfish scheming which her husband--for the intellectual stimulus she gave him--had been accustomed to confide to her. And now Marco was not less to her, but more, as he had promised; and if the uncertain hope of that dim, distant, ducal coronet moved her less, it was not that she would not still do her possible to help Giustinian to his ambition--but it had become a smaller peak in the distance since the home life had grown broad enough to bear her calmly when the proud Senator rehea.r.s.ed some failure or disappointment, with disproportioned bitterness.

Thinking of these things she smiled at Marina with new appreciation; the girl's gentle face seemed to her more lovely and her rare calm and grace of spirit more truly n.o.ble than the Venetian vivacity of charm in which at first she had found her lacking.

"Thou hast a way of winning," she said, "which many might envy thee; and in seeming not to ask, thou shalt be served for love. It is the grace of one born to rule. But hast thou _no_ wish? Is there no one place I may make all beautiful at thine asking, within thy palace, to prove, sweet Marina, how thy Marco's mother loves thee?"

She parted her soft hair and kissed her forehead, but neither of them noticed that it was a first caress.

"I should like the oratory to be beautiful!" Marina cried, clasping her hands with sudden enthusiasm; "very beautiful--like a gift to the Holy Mother!"

"And it shall bring a blessing on thy marriage," the Lady Laura answered her.

So when the secretary and his young wife had returned to Venice and their palace was thrown open to guests, the private chapel of the Lady Marina was discovered to be a marvel of decoration--with superb Venetian frescoes set in marvelous scrollwork by Vittoria, with carvings of mother-of-pearl from Constantinople, with every sumptuous detail that could be devised; for, during the three years of their absence, the Lady Laura had not wearied of her gracious task nor stayed her hand. And into this incongruous setting--costly, overloaded, composite, and dest.i.tute of true religious feeling, a very type of the time in Venice--Marina brought the redeeming note of consecration, a priceless altar--ancient, earth-stained, and rude, almost grotesque in symbolism--as a great prize and by special dispensation, from an underground chapel in Rome. Also the rare and beautiful ivory crucifix had its history; the malachite basin for holy water had been a gift to the infant Giustinian from his eminence the cardinal-sponsor on the day of his baptism; there were other treasures, more rare and sacred still, within the shrine of the oratory, and there was a gift from his Holiness Pope Clement VIII.

There was no banquet hall in the palazzo Marcantonio Giustiniani, but it was not needed, for the two palaces were like one.

The Lady Laura was radiant. If there had ever been a question of the place that Marcantonio's bride should occupy in that patrician circle, the distinction conferred upon her by the Senate had sufficed to establish it. There could be no jealousy of one who occupied the highest place, of one so gracious and equal to her honors, only of those who should win her favor. So all came in the hope of it, and all were won; but there were no partialities, no intimacies; for all ambitions of the young and newly created patrician, the fullness of the home life sufficed to her.

Marina had grown more beautiful out of the joy of loving and the increased satisfaction of her religious life, to which she was more than ever devoted; her pa.s.sion for beauty expressed itself by delight in sumptuous ceremonial, while her love of romance and her unquestioning faith were alike nourished on the legends of the saints which had become far more to her during her stay in Rome, where every hour had been happiness. These three years of absence had made some subtle difference in the Lady Marina; there was more mystery about her with less reserve, and a certain calm acceptance of the position all conceded had given her courage to discuss religious history and opinions in a serious way that was quite charming to the older prelates who mingled in Venetian social circles, where simple earnestness of soul was a quality so rare that it might have been mistaken for a depth of subtlety; but the Lady Marina talked or listened only because the themes were of vital interest for her. Besides, she had now her child to guide and she must know; and the learned men who gave their lives to the study of higher things were those, above all others, from whom she could learn the most; and with this unconscious flattery a little court, of a character somewhat unusual in Venice, had gathered in her salons. Her husband, coming in late from the Council Chamber one evening, rallied her upon it, saying that her receptions might be mistaken for those of a lady abbess--there were so many friars and grave ecclesiastics among her guests. His light tone concealed a little uneasiness, for the friar's warning had more than once recurred to him.

But it was impossible to convey anything to Marina by a half-concealed thrust, her nature was so essentially ingenuous, incapable of imagining intrigues of any sort.

"Yes, it is indeed an honor!" she answered, with her ready, trusting smile. "It is good of them, they are so much more interesting than the others; and to-night the talk was quite delightful! I would thou hadst been here, my Marco! Life is so much more beautiful since we have been to Rome! _Everything_ that was delightful came with our marriage," she added, turning her radiant face toward him.