He came a little way down the path, then stopped, took a short knife from his wallet and began to trim away a few withered sprigs from a rose-bush. She waited a moment, but he showed no signs of coming nearer, so she spoke to him.
“Will you come here?” she asked softly, looking towards him with half-closed eyes.
He slipped the knife back into his pouch and walked quickly to her side. She looked down again, threading the coloured beads that half filled a small basket in her lap.
“May I ask you a question?” Her voice had a little persuasive hesitation in it, as if she wished him to understand that the answer would be a favour of which she was anything but certain.
“Anything you will,” said Zorzi.
“Provided I do not ask about my father’s secret!” A little laughter trembled in the words. “You were so severe yesterday, you know. I am almost afraid ever to ask you anything again.”
“I will answer as well as I can.”
“Well — tell me this. Did you really take the boat and go to Venice last night?”
“Yes.”
Marietta’s hand moved with the needle among the beads, but she did not thread one. Nella had been right, after all.
“Why did you go, Zorzi?” The question came in a lower tone that was full of regret.
“The master sent me,” answered Zorzi, looking down at her hair, and wishing that he could see her face.
His wish was almost instantly fulfilled. After the slightest pause she looked up at him with a lovely smile; yet when he saw that rare look in her face, his heart sank suddenly, instead of swelling and standing still with happiness, and when she saw how sad he was, she was grave with the instant longing to feel whatever he felt of pain or sorrow. That is one of the truest signs of love, but Zorzi had not learned much of love’s sign-language yet, and did not understand.
“What is it?” she asked almost tenderly.
He turned his eyes from her and rested one hand against the trunk of the plane-tree.
“I do not understand,” he said slowly.
“Why are you so sad? What is it that is always making you suffer?”
“How could I tell you?” The words were spoken almost under his breath.
“It would be very easy to tell me,” she said. “Perhaps I could help you—”
“Oh no, no, no!” he cried with an accent of real pain. “You could not help me!”
“Who knows? Perhaps I am the best friend you have in the world, Zorzi.”
“Indeed I believe you are! No one has ever been so good to me.”
“And you have not many friends,” continued Marietta. “The workmen are jealous of you, because you are always with my father. My brothers do not like you, for the same reason, and they think that you will get my father’s secret from him some day, and outdo them all. No — you have not many friends.”
“I have none, but you and the master. The men would kill me if they dared.”
Marietta started a little, remembering how the workmen had looked at him in the morning, when he came out.
“You need not be afraid,” he added, seeing her movement. “They will not touch me.”
“Does my father know what your trouble is?” asked Marietta suddenly.
“No! That is — I have no trouble, I assure you. I am of a melancholy nature.”
“I am glad it has nothing to do with the secrets,” said the young girl, quietly ignoring the last part of his speech. “If it had, I could not help you at all. Could I?”
That morning it had seemed an easy thing to wait even two years before giving him a sign, before dropping in his path the rose which she would not ask of him again. The minutes seemed years now. For she knew well enough what his trouble was, since yesterday; he loved her, and he thought it infinitely impossible, in his modesty, that she should ever stoop to him. After she had spoken, she looked at him with half-closed eyes for a while, but he stared stonily at the trunk of the tree beside his hand. Gradually, as she gazed, her lids opened wider, and the morning sunlight sparkled in the deep blue, and her fresh lips parted. Before she was aware of it he was looking at her with a strange expression she had never seen. Then she faintly blushed and looked down at her beads once more. She felt as if she had told him that she loved him. But he had not understood. He had only seen the transfiguration of her face, and it had been for a moment as he had never seen it before. Again his heart sank suddenly, and he uttered a little sound that was more than a sigh and less than a groan.
“There are remedies for almost every kind of pain,” said Marietta wisely, as she threaded several beads.
“Give me one for mine,” he cried almost bitterly. “Bid that which is to cease from being, and that to be which is not earthly possible! Turn the world back, and undo truth, and make it all a dream! Then I shall find the remedy and forget that it was needed.”
“There are magicians who pretend to do such things,” she answered softly.
“I would there were!” he sighed.
“But those who come to them for help tell all, else the magician has no power. Would you call a physician, if you were ill, and tell him that the pain you felt was in your head, if it was really — in your heart?”
She had paused an instant before speaking the last words, and they came with a little effort.
“How could the physician cure you, if you would not tell him the truth?” she asked, as he said nothing. “How can the wizard work miracles for you, unless he knows what miracle you ask? How can your best friend help you if — if she does not know what help you need?”
Still he was silent, leaning against the tree, with bent head. The pain was growing worse, and harder to bear. She spoke so softly and kindly that it would have been easy to tell her the truth, he thought, for though she could never love him, she would understand, and would forgive him. He had not dreamed that friendship could be so kind.
“Am I right?” she asked, after a pause.
“Yes,” he answered. “When I cannot bear it any longer, I will tell you, and you will help me.”
“Why not now?”
The little question might have been ruinous to all his resolution, if Zorzi had not been almost like a child in his simplicity — or like a saint in his determination to be loyal. For he thought it loyalty to be silent, not only for the sake of the promise he had given in return for his life, but in respect of his master also, who put such great trust in him.
“Pray do not press me with the question,” he said. “You tempt me very much, and I do not wish to speak of what I feel. Be my friend in real truth, if you can, and do not ask me to say what I shall ever after wish unsaid. That will be the best friendship.”
Marietta looked across the garden thoughtfully, and suddenly a chilling doubt fell upon her heart. She could not have been mistaken yesterday, she could not be deceived in him now; and yet, if he loved her as she believed, she had said all that a maiden could to show him that she would listen willingly. She had said too much, and she felt ashamed and hurt, almost resentful. He was not a boy. If he loved her, he could find words to tell her so, and should have found them, for she had helped him to her utmost. Suddenly, she almost hated him, for what his silence made her feel, and she told herself that she was glad he had not dared to speak, for she did not love him at all. It was all a sickening mistake, it was all a miserable little dream; she wished that he would go away and leave her to herself. Not that she should shed a single tear! She was far too angry for that, but his presence, so near her, reminded her of what she had done. He must have seen, all through their talk, that she was trying to make him tell his love, and there was nothing to tell. Of course he would despise her. That was natural, but she had a right to hate him for it, and she would, with all her heart! Her thoughts all came together in a tumult of disgust and resentment. If Zorzi did not go away presently, she would go away herself. She was almost resolved to get up and leave the garden, when the door opened.
“Zorzi!” It was Beroviero’s voice.<
br />
Aristarchi already stood in the doorway taking leave of Beroviero with, many oily protestations of satisfaction in having made his acquaintance. Zorzi went forward to accompany the Greek to the door.
“I shall never forget that I have had the honour of being received by the great artist himself,” said Aristarchi, who held his big cap in his hand and was bowing low on the threshold.
“The pleasure has been all on my side,” returned Beroviero courteously.
“On the contrary, quite on the contrary,” protested his guest, backing away and then turning to go.
Zorzi walked beside him, on his left. As they reached the entrance to the corridor Aristarchi turned once more, and made an elaborate bow, sweeping the ground with his cap, for Beroviero had remained at the door till he should be out of sight. He bent his head, making a gracious gesture with his hand, and went in as the Greek disappeared. Zorzi followed the latter, showing him out.
Marietta saw the door close after her father, and she knew that Zorzi must come back through the garden in a few moments. She bent her head over her beads as she heard his step, and pretended not to see him. When he came near her he stood still a moment, but she would not look up, and between annoyance and disappointment and confusion she felt that she was blushing, which she would not have had Zorzi see for anything. She wondered why he did not go on.
“Have I offended you?” he asked, in a low voice.
Oddly enough, her embarrassment disappeared as soon as he spoke, and the blush faded away.
“No,” she answered, coldly enough. “I am not angry — I am only sorry.”
“But I am glad that I would not answer your question,” returned Zorzi.
“I doubt whether you had any answer to give,” retorted Marietta with a touch of scorn.
Zorzi’s brows contracted sharply and he made a movement to go on. So her proffered friendship was worth no more than that, he thought. She was angry and scornful because her curiosity was disappointed. She could not have guessed his secret, he was sure, though that might account for her temper, for she would of course be angry if she knew that he loved her. And she was angry now because he had refused to tell her so. That was a woman’s logic, he thought, quite regardless of the defect in his own. It was just like a woman! He sincerely wished that he might tell her so.
In the presence of Marietta the man who had confronted sudden death less than twenty-four hours ago, with a coolness that had seemed imposing to other men, was little better than a girl himself. He turned to go on, without saying more. But she stopped him.
“I am sorry that you do not care for my friendship,” she said, in a hurt tone. She could not have said anything which he would have found it harder to answer just then.
“What makes you think that?” he asked, hoping to gain time.
“Many things. It is quite true, so it does not matter what makes me think it!”
She tried to laugh scornfully, but there was a quaver in her voice which she herself had not expected and was very far from understanding. Why should she suddenly feel that she was going to cry? It had seemed so ridiculous in poor Nella that morning. Yet there was a most unmistakable something in her throat, which frightened her. It would be dreadful if she should burst into tears over her beads before Zorzi’s eyes. She tried to gulp the something: down, and suddenly, as she bent over the basket, she saw the beautiful, hateful drops falling fast upon the little dry glass things; and even then, in her shame at being seen, she wondered why the beads looked, bigger through the glistening tears — she remembered afterwards how they looked, so she must have noticed them at the time.
Zorzi knew too little of women to have any idea of what he ought to do under the circumstances. He did not know whether to turn his back or to go away, so he stood still and looked at her, which was the very worst thing he could have done. Worse still, he tried to reason with her.
“I assure you that you are mistaken,” he said in a soothing tone. “I wish for your friendship with all my heart! Only, when you ask me—”
“Oh, go away! For heaven’s sake go away!” cried Marietta, almost choking, and turning her face quite away, so that he could only see the back of her head.
At the same time, she tapped the ground impatiently with her foot, and to make matters worse, the little basket of beads began to slip off her knees at the same moment. She caught at it desperately, trying not to look round and half blinded by her tears, but she missed it, and but for Zorzi it would have fallen. He put it into her hands very gently, but she was not in the least grateful.
“Oh, please go away!” she repeated. “Can you not understand?”
He did not understand, but he obeyed her and turned away, very grave, very much puzzled by this new development of affairs, and sincerely wishing that some wise familiar spirit would whisper the explanation in his ear, since he could not possibly consult any living person.
She heard him go and she listened for the shutting of the laboratory door. Then she knew that she was quite alone in the garden, and she let the tears flow as they would, bending her head till it touched the trunk of the tree, and they wet the smooth bark and ran down to the dry earth.
Zorzi went in, and began to tend the fire as usual, until it should please the master to give him other orders. Old Beroviero was sitting in the big chair in which he sometimes rested himself, his elbow on one of its arms, and his hand grasping his beard below his chin.
“Zorzi,” he said at last, “I have seen that man before.”
Zorzi looked at him, expecting more, but for some time Beroviero said nothing. The young man selected his pieces of beech wood, laying them ready before the little opening just above the floor.
“It is very strange,” said Beroviero at last. “He seems to be a rich merchant now, but I am almost quite sure that I saw him in Naples.”
“Did you know him there, sir?” asked Zorzi.
“No,” answered his master thoughtfully. “I saw him in a cart with his hands tied behind him, on his way to be hanged.”
“He looks as if one hanging would not be enough for him,” observed Zorzi.
Beroviero was silent for a moment. Then he laughed, and he laughed very rarely.
“Yes,” he said. “It is not a face one could forget easily,” he added.
Then he rose and went back to his table.
CHAPTER VII
THE SUN WAS high over Venice, gleaming on the blue lagoons that lightly rippled under a southerly breeze, filling the vast square of Saint Mark’s with blinding light, casting deep shadows behind the church and in the narrow alleys and canals to northward, about the Merceria. The morning haze had long since blown away, and the outlines of the old church and monastery on Saint George’s island, and of the buildings on the Guidecca, and on the low-lying Lido, were hard and clear against the cloudless sky, mere designs cut out in rich colours, as if with a sharp knife, and reared up against a background of violent light. In Venice only the melancholy drenching rain of a winter’s day brings rest to the eye, when water meets water and sky is washed into sea and the city lies soaking and dripping between two floods. But soon the wind shifts to the northeast, out breaks the sun again, and all Venice is instantly in a glare of light and colour and startling distinctness, like the sails and rigging of a ship at sea on a clear day.
It was Sunday morning and high mass was over in Saint Mark’s. The crowd had streamed out of the central door, spreading like a bright fan over the square, the men in gay costumes, red, green, blue, yellow, purple, brown, and white, their legs particoloured in halves and quarters, so that when looking at a group it was mere guesswork to match the pair that belonged to one man; women in dresses of one tone, mostly rich and dark, and often heavily embroidered, for no sumptuary laws could effectually limit outward display, and the insolent vanity of an age still almost mediaeval made it natural that the rich should attire themselves as richly as they could, and that the poor should be despised for wearing poor clothes.
Angelo Be
roviero had a true Venetian’s taste for splendour, but he was also deeply imbued with the Venetian love of secrecy in all matters that concerned his private life. When he bade Marietta accompany him to Venice on that Sunday morning, he was equally anxious that she should be as finely dressed as was becoming for the daughter of a wealthy citizen, and that she should be in ignorance of the object of the trip. She was not to know that Jacopo Contarini would be standing beside the second column on the left, watching her with lazily critical eyes; she was merely told that she and her father were to dine in the house of a certain Messer Luigi Foscarini, Procurator of Saint Mark, who was an old and valued friend, though a near connection of Alvise Trevisan, a rival glass-maker of Murano. All this had been carefully planned in order that during their absence Beroviero’s house might be suitably prepared for the solemn family meeting which was to take place late in the afternoon, and at which her betrothal was to be announced, but of which Marietta knew nothing. Her father counted upon surprising her and perhaps dazzling her, so as to avoid all discussion and all possibility of resistance on her part. She should see Contarini in the church, and while still under the first impression of his beauty and magnificence, she should be told before her assembled family that she was solemnly bound to marry him in two months’ time.
Beroviero never expected opposition in anything he wished to do, but he had always heard that young girls could find a thousand reasons for not marrying the man their parents chose for them, and he believed that he could make all argument and hesitation impossible. Marietta doubtless expected to have a week in which to make up her mind. She should have five hours, and even that was too much, thought Beroviero. He would have preferred to march her to the altar without any preliminaries and marry her to Contarini without giving her a chance of seeing him before the ceremony. After all, that was the custom of the day.
Complete Works of F Marion Crawford Page 987