A Golden Book of Venice Part 8

"There is no more to it than that?" Fra Paolo questioned.

"Nay, no more, my brother," Fra Francesco answered with conviction.

"The name then?" said Fra Paolo; and when it had been told him he recognized the man as one in whom trust was misplaced, and one who intrigued for power.

"The charge?" he asked again. And when he had patiently learned the details of which Fra Giulio's long and faithful service gave little hint, he gathered evidence wherewith to refute them, and journeyed swiftly back to Rome, returning, triumphant, to reinstate the good old friar with honor in the home and offices he loved--the manner of his return making amends to Fra Giulio for the pain he had suffered, so sweet it seemed to him to owe to this son of his affections all the gladness of his later days.

VIII

While the little Zuane was failing, Marcantonio, seeing Marina but seldom, solaced himself in preparing a royal gift to offer to his mother on the occasion of his own birthday fete. The idea had come to him that night after the Veronese had touched his own faulty sketch into such rounded life; besides, he had thought but one beautiful thought since he had, as it were, been unconsciously brought to confession by that scene in the studio. And Paolo Cagliari had been most kind in accepting his commission with an enthusiasm which promised wonderful results. Great as was his fame in those days,--and the Veronese never lived beyond his fame,--still, as in his earlier years, he was eager for any new method of proving the genius in which his own faith was as unbounded as his capacity to achieve was vigorous and tireless. And the young n.o.ble's unique fancy for a superb goblet of crystal _da Beroviero_, with a miniature of Marina of Murano enlaced in exquisite gold borders and set round with costly pearls--a trifle fit to offer to a princess--not only pleased the artist's well-known taste for luxury, but seemed to him an object worthy of his skill. In the kindness of his heart he would make the lovely face so winning that the great lady should yield to the prayer that had prompted the gift.

Among all the elaborate gift-pieces that had come from the workshops of Murano, but one had as yet approached this, and it had been sent with the homage of the Senate, by a retiring amba.s.sador of "His Most Christian Majesty," to the Queen of France, and it bore, from t.i.tian's hand, the portrait of her royal husband. This goblet, then, must surpa.s.s that one in magnificence, for it was the Veronese's opportunity; and in his soul, genial as it was, some sense of rivalry, born of t.i.tian's a.s.sumption of the highest place in Venetian art, would last forever, in spite of the great master's manifest affection. The suggestion of the pearls--an added touch--was indeed due to Paolo Cagliari's over-weening sumptuousness, and the eager young lover was scarcely more anxious for the completion of this gem, upon which his hope depended, than was the great artist who already had all Venice at his feet.

"I shall need no sitting," the Veronese had said, when they were planning for the work. "My picture is nearly completed, and it will suffice. Nay, ask her not, my Marco; she is a devote--she will not understand."

Marcantonio flushed like a boy. He knew it would be difficult to obtain her consent, and for that very reason he must win it, for he was a true knight.

"How shall I win my lady's favor," he cried hotly, "if I peril it by lack of chivalry! There is no prouder maiden among the donne n.o.bile on the Ca.n.a.l Grande."

"_Altro! Altro_!" said the master quietly. "She also shall look down from the balconies in the palazzo Giustiniani."

But when the young patrician told her glowingly of his wish to give his mother, on his great day, the most beautiful gift in all the world, it was hard to make her yield.

"It is not fitting," she answered quite simply.

"Yes, yes, Marina--since I love thee!"

"Ah, no; it is only sad." Her eyes filled with tears and she moved away, so that he could not touch her hand.

"Trust me, Marina! The Veronese knows the world, and he says it is well.

It is this that shall win the consent of my mother, and she will conquer my father. And in the Gran' Consiglio----"

He turned his eyes suddenly away from Marina lest she should trace the faintest flicker of a doubt within them, as the vision rose before him of that imperious body, so relentless in its decrees, so tenacious in its traditions, so positive in its autocracy; but the threatened invincibility of this force only nerved him to a resistance as invincible, and he turned back to her with a flashing face, almost before she had noticed the interruption.

"There also--in the Consiglio--it shall be arranged, and all will be well."

And where two were ready for the end that should be gained the pleading was not over-long, though the thought was very strange for this simple maiden of Murano; so the precious painting was finished and in the hands of the decorators. And meanwhile, during those days when Marina had been watching the flickering of the little Zuane's pale flame of life and there had been no spare moments for Marcantonio, he had tried to absorb himself, as far as possible, in the preparation of this gift--since she would not let him go to her--and he had come to regard it as the symbol of success; for failure was never for an instant contemplated in his vision of the future. There were pearls to be selected, one by one, in visits innumerable to the Fondaco dei Turchi, where the finest of such treasures were not secured at a first asking, and in these his mother was a connoisseur; but there were many more anxious visits to Murano, to be a.s.sured that no step in the fashioning of his gift was endangering its perfection.

But even for the most impatient, time may not tarry indefinitely, and the lagging moments had at last brought round that festa of San Marco which meant so much for Venice, with its splendid pageants for the Church, its festivities for the people, its fluttering of doves in the Piazza, and of timid, eager maiden hearts, waiting in a sort of shy a.s.surance for that earliest Venetian love-token, the _boccolo_--the rosebud which breathed the secret of many a young Venetian lover to his _inamorata_ under those April skies, on the festa of this patron saint of Venice.

And the next morning the stately lady of the Giustiniani stood quite alone on the balcony of the great palace at the bend of the Ca.n.a.l Grande, leaning upon her gold-embroidered cushions to watch the gondola that was just landing at the step of the Piazzetta; the restless movements of her tapering jeweled fingers were the only sign of an emotion she rarely betrayed, though doubtless, under the faultless dignity of her bearing, there were often currents of feeling and thwartings hard to be endured.

She was thinking of her boy with a great and sudden tenderness, now that the moment had come in which she would be less to him and the world of men must be more, as from the distance she saw the gondola touch the landing and watched him until he pa.s.sed out of sight, after pausing with his father for a moment before the great columns of San Marco and San Teodoro, looking up perhaps with a keener sense of the dread scenes they had witnessed than had ever before possessed him, though the sunshine streamed brilliantly over the water and life seemed full of promise for this only son of the Ca' Giustiniani, on his way to take the oath of "Silence and Allegiance to the Republic," as a "_n.o.bile di Gran'

Consiglio_."

Marcantonio had entered the gondola gaily, with a full, pleasurable sense of the beauty of life, and well content with that portion which had fallen to his lot; for he was easily affected, and the air of the palace was full of the excitement of his fete. The only forebodings that shadowed his sunshine were connected with Marina and the gift which he should offer to his mother upon his return from the Ducal Palace. But the day was one to banish every hint of failure, making him more conscious of his power than he had ever been before, and he felt himself floating toward attainment--whatever the difficulties might be. But with his first step upon the Piazzetta he forgot the glory of the sunshine flashing over the blue waters, and a sudden sense of fate possessed him, as his father made an almost imperceptible pause in his grave progress toward the Ducal Palace, and with the slightest possible movement of his hand seemed to direct his son's attention to the great granite columns which bore the emblems of the patron saints of Venice.

A hundred times, in crossing the Piazzetta, Marcantonio had been vaguely aware of them as appropriate emblems of barbaric force and splendor and allegoric Christian allegiance; but suddenly they stood to him for historic records--the echoes of dread deeds avenged there rolled forth from the s.p.a.ce between the columns, and the jeweled eyes of the terrible winged Lion flashed defiance upon any who questioned, in the remotest way, the will or the act of the Republic. He glanced toward the elder man, some deprecatory comment rising to his lips as he strove to dissipate the symbolic mood which was surely possessing him, for he felt himself uncomfortably conscious of the meaning wrought into the very stones about him, and to-day this over-mastering a.s.sertion of Venice--always Venice dominant--was oppressive.

But his father, apparently unaware of Marcantonio's turbulent sensations, wore his usual reserved and dignified mien; even the motion he had seemed to make before the columns in the Piazzetta was probably only due to Marcantonio's imagination, and the young fellow's light rejoinder pa.s.sed unuttered, intensifying his discomfort. He realized that he was not searching for this symbolism with a poet's appreciation, nor as an archaeologist delighting in curios, but as a son of the Republic--to gather her history and her purpose, to make himself one with her, to put himself under her yoke--and in his heart he rebelled.

Yet it was he, this time, who paused, undeniably, before the great window on the Piazzetta. The sun streamed in broad flashes of light over the soft rose-tinted walls of the palazzo and over the splendid balcony from which the Doge was wont to view the processions and fetes of the Republic; the richly sculptured decorations detached themselves at once in allegory, the figures all leading up to Venice enthroned, holding out to the world her proud motto, "Fortis, justa, trono furias, mare sub pede pono." (Strong, just, I put the furies beneath my throne and the sea beneath my foot.) He walked on under a spell, feeling that the coils were tightening around him; he was a n.o.ble, but not free; yet he would not have surrendered his opportunities for the freer life of the people who had no part in the Consiglio.

He quickened his pace that the moment of irresolution might be the sooner over.

"Wait!" his father commanded, as Marcantonio would have entered the palace gate; "haste ill befits thy grave and dignified purpose. Before thou enterest the Consiglio I would have thee reverently mark how, at the palace gate, Justice sits enthroned on high, between the Lions of St. Mark, while Courage, Prudence, Hope, and Charity wait upon her."

"And below," answered Marcantonio, because he could think of nothing else to say, and because he knew every angle and carving of the palace from the aesthetic point of view better than his father did; "below is the Doge Foscari, kneeling very reverently to our n.o.ble Lion."

His father slowly scanned him with his inscrutable gaze, but answered nothing, and they pa.s.sed under the magnificent Porta della Carta quite silently. Under the deep shadow of the gateway the business of the Ducal Palace was already progressing. Secretaries at their desks were preparing papers for discussion, while their a.s.sistants came and went with messages from the various departments of the great body of workers within the palace; they were too absorbed to look up as this Chief of the Ten pa.s.sed them, so oblivious were they of anything but their duty that the stir about them left them serene and undisturbed, not even penetrating the realm of their consciousness.

"There is no more learned nor devoted body of scribes in the world,"

said Giustinian, with pride; "they have not a thought beyond their papers, and most wonderfully do they sift and prepare them for the Council, working often far into the night."

"It is machinery, not life!" Marcantonio exclaimed, hastening beyond the portal.

The great courtyard, under the wonderful blue of the sky, was aglow with color; the palace facades, broken into irregular carvings, seemed to hold the sunshine in their creamy surfaces; the superb wells of green bronze, magnificently wrought and dimmed as yet by little weather-staining, offered a treasury of luminous points. Here, in the early morning, the women of the neighborhood gathered with their water-jars, but now the court was filled with those who had business in the Ducal Palace--red-robed senators and members of the Consiglio talking in knots; a councillor in his violet gown, a group of merchant-princes in black robes, enriched with costly furs and relieved by ma.s.sive gold chains, absorbed in discussion of some practical details for the better ordering of the _Fondachi_, those storehouses and marts for foreign trade peculiar to Venice; some grave attorney, more soberly arrayed, making haste toward the gloom of the secretary's corner; a sprinkling of friars on ecclesiastical business, of gondoliers in the varied liveries of the senators waiting their masters' call; here and there a figure less in keeping with the magnificence around him, too full of his trouble to be abashed, going to ask for justice at the Doge's feet--the heart of Venice was pulsing in the court, and under the arches came the gleam and shimmer of the sea. Up and down the splendid stairway that opened immediately from the Porta della Carta the Venetians came and went--n.o.bles old and young; the people, bringing wrongs to be adjusted, or favors to be granted, or some secret message for the terrible _Bocca di Leone_; the people, rich and poor, in continuous tread upon this Giant Stairway, guarded by the G.o.ds of war and of the sea; the winged Lion enthroned above, just over the landing where the elected n.o.ble dons the rank of _Serenissimo_--this kaleidoscopic epitome of the life of the Republic was bewildering.

"How was it possible that all these people could take part in it without emotion?" the young patrician asked himself, forgetting that in this familiar scene the emotion only was new for him.

At the head of the landing on the Giant Stairway the Senator arrested his son with a gesture of command. "Welcome," he said, "to the Consiglio, Marcantonio Giustiniani. Thou wilt not forget that thou comest of a house which has held honors in Church and State. May this day be memorable for Venice and for thee!"

The influences of their surroundings were strong upon them both; but the young fellow, in his bounding life, craved something more than this formal induction into the official life of his sumptuous state--he longed to feel the human throb beneath it, that the sense of its weight might be lifted; but he could not find his voice until they had pa.s.sed through the loggia and reached the chambers of the _Avvogadori_, where sat the keepers of the Golden Book.

He stretched out his hand wistfully and touched the elder man.

"Father!" he cried, in a voice not well controlled. And again, more steadily, though no answer came, "Father, I will not forget!"

The finding of his name among the birth records of the n.o.bles of Venice, the registration witnessed by the three solemn Avvogadori,--those officers of the law whose rulings in their department were inexorable,--the act of confirmation before the Imperial Senate, whither, in grave procession, they immediately fared, preceded by the sacred "Libro d'Oro," upon which the oath of allegiance was sworn with bended knee--the ceremony was soon over, and Marcantonio stood enrolled among the ruling body of the great Republic.

As they returned through the splendid halls of the palace, Giustinian paused frequently to exchange a greeting with some old senator who came forward to welcome the young n.o.ble to the grave circle of rulers, and they were followed with glances of interest as they pa.s.sed through the Piazza. For it was whispered in the _Broglio_ that there were reasons--valid and patriotic, as were all the arguments of Venice--for the fact that no member of that ancient and loyal house had worn the highest honor of the state. "_The Ca' Giustiniani was too old, too wealthy, too influential--too much a part of Venice itself_."

"Like the Orseoli!" said Morosini Morosini, who was a friend of the Giustiniani, and who, like many another strong-brained Venetian, knew the taste of unsatisfied longings, yet kept a brave heart for the records of the Republic. And as he spoke there came to some of them who knew their annals well a stinging memory of the tale--which was no legend--of that pathetic group in their island sanctuary--the brothers who were left, after the death of Otto, the exiled Doge, and of Orso, the n.o.ble bishop-prince, all of the house of Orseoli, who, with their abbess-sister Felicia, were wounded to the heart because for the crime of too great love and service the jealous and unrequiting Senate had banished them forever from the Venice so loyally served--had decreed the extinction of a family to whom, as Doge and Patriarch, the Republic owed the wisest and most self-sacrificing of her rulers!

"Nay," said another speaker quickly, a friend to Morosini the historian--for the Broglio had been known to have a voice as well as ears, and the subject was a dangerous one, not honorable to Venice--"Nay, there are no Orseoli. But it is for honor to the Giustiniani that none hath been chosen for the Serenissimo. He is strong, grave, and very silent; but most wise in council, most prudent in resource. He is needed among the _Savii_."

"And the coronation oath hath grown over straight since the days of the Michieli," responded Morosini. "The Giustinian is not a man for our _promissione_ which, verily, fitteth ill with the dignity of our Prince--a man of spirit may well find it hard to a.s.sume the beretta under such restrictions!"

IX

With the nonchalance that concealed a skill all Venetian the gondoliers of the Giustiniani guided them gracefully through the floating craft moored to the stakes which rose in sheafs before their palace, announcing the colors of their n.o.ble house. Barges bearing flowers and decorations for the fete, fruits and game, were unloading on the broad marble steps, and through the wrought open-work of the splendid gates a scene of activity was disclosed in the nearer court which served as an office for the various departments of the household; while the house-master had come down the steps from his cozy lodge beside the entrance, and stood dispensing orders to a group of eager domestics.

In the deep shadow of the entrance-court the open one, through which the light streamed radiantly, seemed far distant, and when the great bell sent clanging echoes from court to court, gondoliers in undress liveries, who were lazily lounging and chatting, sprang to a show of activity over all those finishing touches of polish and nicety which had been achieved long before; and the lithe figures coming and going, throwing themselves into graceful att.i.tudes over their semblance of labor, exchanging joyous sallies in antic.i.p.ation of the evening's revelry, awoke a contagious merriment. Marcantonio rallied from the heaviness of the morning and felt young again, as he yielded to their influence and wandered among them, tossing compliments and repartees with Venetian freedom.

In the midst of this harmless trifling the voice of Giustinian Giustiniani sounded sternly.