“The difference is that in the one case you buy from the master and pay him, but now you are offering to pay me, who am already well paid by him for any work I may do.”
“You are very scrupulous,” said Giovanni in a disappointed tone. “Tell me, does my father never give you anything for the things you make, and which you say are in the house?”
“Oh yes,” answered Zorzi promptly. “He always pays me for them.”
“But that shows that he does not consider them as part of the work you are regularly paid to do, does it not?”
“I suppose so,” Zorzi said, turning over the question in his mind.
Giovanni took a small piece of gold from the purse he carried at his belt, and he laid it on the flat arm of the chair beside him, and put down one of his crooked forefingers upon it.
“I cannot see what objection you can have, in that case. You know very well that young painters who work for masters help them, but are always allowed to sell anything they can paint in their leisure time.”
“Yes. That is true. I will take the money, sir, and you may choose any of the pieces you like. When the master comes, I will tell him, and if I have no right to the price he shall keep it himself.”
“Do you really suppose that my father would be mean enough to take the money?” asked Giovanni, who would certainly have taken it himself under the circumstances.
“No. He is very generous. Nevertheless, I shall certainly tell him the whole story.”
“That is your affair. I have nothing to say about it. Here is the money, for which I will take the beaker I saw you finishing when I came in. Is it enough? Is it a fair price?”
“It is a very good price,” Zorzi answered. “But there may be a piece among those in the oven which you will like better. Will you not come to-morrow, when they are all annealed, and make your choice?”
“No. I have fallen in love with the piece I saw you making.”
“Very well. You shall have it, and many thanks.”
“Here is the money, and thanks to you,” said Giovanni, holding out the little piece of gold.
“You shall pay me when you take the beaker,” objected Zorzi. “It may fly, or turn out badly.”
“No, no!” answered Giovanni, rising, and putting the money into Zorzi’s hand. “If anything happens to it, I will take another. I am afraid that you may change your mind, you see, and I am very anxious to have such a beautiful thing.”
He laughed cheerfully, nodded to Zorzi and went out at once, almost before the latter had time to rise from his seat and get his crutch under his arm.
When he was alone, Zorzi looked at the coin and laid it on the table. He was much puzzled by Giovanni’s conduct, but at the same time his artist’s vanity was flattered by what had happened. Giovanni’s admiration of the glass was genuine; there could be no doubt of that, and he was a good judge. As for the work, Zorzi knew quite well that there was not a glass-blower in Murano who could approach him either in taste or skill. Old Beroviero had told him so within the last few months, and he felt that it was true.
He would have been neither a natural man nor a born artist if he had refused to sell the beaker, out of an exaggerated scruple. But the transaction had shown him that his only chance of success for the future lay in frankly telling old Beroviero what he had done in his absence, while reserving his secret for himself. The master was proud of him as his pupil, and sincerely attached to him as a man, and would certainly not try to force him into explaining how the glass was made. Besides, the glass itself was there, easily distinguished from any other, and Zorzi could neither hide it nor throw it away.
Giovanni went out upon the footway, and as he passed, Pasquale thought he had never seen him so cheerful. The sour look had gone out of his face, and he was actually smiling to himself. With such a man it would hardly have been possible to attribute his pleased expression to the satisfaction he felt in having bought Zorzi’s beaker. He had never before, in his whole life, parted with a piece of gold without a little pang of regret; but he had felt the most keen and genuine pleasure just now, when Zorzi had at last accepted the coin.
Pasquale watched him cross the wooden bridge and go into his father’s house opposite. Then the old porter shut the door and went back to the laboratory, walking slowly with his ugly head bent a little, as if in deep thought. Zorzi had already resumed his occupation and had a lump of hot glass swinging on his blow-pipe, his crutch being under his right arm.
“Half a rainbow to windward,” observed the old sailor. “There will be a squall before long.”
“What do you mean?” asked Zorzi.
“If you had seen the Signor Giovanni smile, as he went out, you would know what I mean,” answered Pasquale. “In our seas, when we see the stump of a rainbow low down in the clouds, we say it is the eye of the wind, looking out for us, and I can tell you that the wind is never long in coming!”
“Did you say anything to make him smile?” asked Zorzi, going on with his work.
“I am not a mountebank,” growled the porter. “I am not a strolling player at the door of his booth at a fair, cracking jokes with those who pass! But perhaps it was you who said something amusing to him, just before he left? Who knows? I always took you for a grave young man. It seems that I was mistaken. You make jokes. You cause a serious person like the Signor Giovanni to die of laughing.”
CHAPTER XV
GIOVANNI SAT IN his father’s own room at home, with shut doors, and he was writing. He had received as good an education as any young nobleman or rich merchant’s son in Venice, but writing was always irksome to him, and he generally employed a scribe rather than take the pen himself. To-day he preferred to dispense with help, instead of trusting the discretion of a secretary; and this is what he was setting down.
“I, Giovanni Beroviero, the son of Angelo, of Murano, the glass-maker, being in my father’s absence and in his stead the Master of our honourable Guild of Glass-makers, do entreat your Magnificence to interfere and act for the preservation of our ancient rights and privileges and for the maintenance of the just laws of Venice, and for the honour of the Republic, and for the public good of Murano. There is a certain Zorzi, called the Ballarin, who was a servant of the aforesaid Angelo Beroviero, a Dalmatian and a foreigner and a fellow of no worth, who formerly swept the floor of the said Angelo’s furnace room, which the said Angelo keeps for his private use. This fellow therefore, this foreigner, the said Angelo being absent on a long journey, was left by him to watch the fire in the said room, there being certain new glass in the crucibles of the said furnace, which the said Zorzi, called the Ballarin, was to keep hot a certain number of days. And now in the torrid heat of summer, the canicular days being at hand, the furnaces in the glass-house of the said Angelo have been extinguished. But this Zorzi, called the Ballarin, although he has removed from the furnace of the said Angelo the glass which was to be kept hot, does insolently and defiantly refuse to put out the fire in the said furnace, and forces the boys to make the fire all night, to the great injury of their health, because the canicular days are approaching. But the said Zorzi, called the Ballarin, like a raging devil come upon earth from his master Satan, heeds no heat. And he has no respect of laws, nor of persons, nor of the honourable Guild, nor of the Republic, working day and night at the glass-blower’s art, just as if he were not a Dalmatian, and a foreigner, and a low fellow of no worth. Moreover, he has made glass himself, which it is forbidden for any foreigner to make throughout the dominions of the Republic. Moreover, it is a good white glass, which he could not have made if he had not wickedly, secretly and feloniously stolen a book which is the property of the aforesaid Angelo, and which contains many things concerning the making of glass. Moreover, this Zorzi, called the Ballarin, is a liar, a thief and an assassin, for of the good white glass which he has melted by means of the said Angelo’s secrets, he makes vessels, such as phials, ampullas and dishes, which it is not lawful for any foreigner to make. Moreover, in the vile wickedness o
f his shameless heart, the said Zorzi, called the Ballarin, has the presumption and effrontery to sell the said vessels, openly admitting that he has made them. And they are well made, with diabolical skill, and the sale of the said vessels is a great injury to the glass-blowers of Murano, and to the honourable Guild, besides being an affront to the Republic. I, the aforesaid Giovanni, was indeed unable to believe that such monstrous wickedness could exist. I therefore went into the furnace room myself, and there I found the said Zorzi, called the Ballarin, working alone and making a certain piece in the form of a beaker. And though he knows me, that I am the son of his master, he is so lost to all shame, that he continued to work before me, as if he were a glass-blower, and though I fanned myself in order not to die of heat, he worked before the fire, and felt nothing, raging like a devil. I therefore offered to buy the beaker he was making and I put down a piece of money, and the said Zorzi, called the Ballarin, a liar, a thief and an assassin, took the said piece of money, and set the said beaker within the annealing oven of the said furnace, wherein I saw many other pieces of fine workmanship, and he said that I should have the said beaker when it was annealed. Wherefore I, being for the time the Master of the honourable Guild in the stead of the said Angelo, entreat your Magnificence on behalf of the said Guild to interfere and act for the preservation of our ancient rights and privileges, and for the honour of the Republic. Moreover, I entreat your Magnificence to send a force by night, in order that there may be no scandal, to take the said Zorzi, called the Ballarin, and to bind him, and carry him to Venice, that he may be tried for his monstrous crimes, and be questioned, even with torture, as to others which he has certainly committed, and be exiled from all the dominions of the Republic for ever on pain of being hanged, that in this way our laws may be maintained and our privileges preserved. Moreover, I will give any further information of the same kind which your Magnificence may desire. At Murano, in the house of Angelo Beroviero, my father, this third day of July, in the year of the Salvation of the World fourteen hundred and seventy, Giovanni Beroviero, the glass-maker.”
Giovanni had taken a long time in the composition of this remarkable document. He sat in his linen shirt and black hose, but he had paused often to fan himself with a sheet of paper, and to wipe the perspiration from his forehead, for although he was a lean man he suffered much from the heat, owing to a weakness of his heart.
He folded the two sheets of his letter and tied them with a silk string, of which he squeezed the knot into pasty red wax, which he worked with his fingers, and upon this he pressed the iron seal of the guild, using both his hands and standing up in order to add his weight to the pressure. The missive was destined for the Podestà of Murano, which is to say, for the Governor, who was a patrician of Venice and a most high and mighty personage. Giovanni did not mean to trust to any messenger. That very afternoon, when he had slept after dinner, and the sun was low, he would have himself rowed to the Governor’s house, and he would deliver the letter himself, or if possible he would see the dignitary and explain even more fully that Zorzi, called the Ballarin, was a liar, a thief and an assassin. He felt a good deal of pride in what he had written so carefully, and he was sure that his case was strong. In another day or two, Zorzi would be gone for ever from Murano, Giovanni would have the precious manuscript in his possession, and when old Beroviero returned Giovanni would use the book as a weapon against his father, who would be furiously angry to find his favourite assistant gone. It was all very well planned, he thought, and was sure to succeed. He would even take possession of the beautiful red glass, and of the still more wonderful white glass which Zorzi had made for himself. By the help of the book, he should soon be able to produce the same in his own furnaces. The vision of a golden future opened before him. He would outdo all the other glass-makers in every market, from Paris to Palermo, from distant England to Egyptian Alexandria, wheresoever the vast trade of Venice carried those huge bales of delicate glass, carefully packed in the dried seaweed of the lagoons. Gold would follow gold, and his wealth would increase, till it became greater than that of any patrician in Venice. Who could tell but that, in time, the great exception might be made for him, and he might be admitted to sit in the Grand Council, he and his heirs for ever, just as if he had been born a real patrician and not merely a member of the half-noble caste of glass-blowers? Such things were surely possible.
In the cooler hours of the afternoon he got into his father’s gondola, for he was far too economical to keep one of his own, and he had himself rowed to the house of the Governor, on the Grand Canal of Murano. But at the door he was told that the official was in Venice and would not return till the following day. The liveried porter was not sure where he might be found, but he often went to the palace of the Contarini, who were his near relations. The Signor Giovanni, to whom the porter was monstrously civil, might give himself the fatigue of being taken there in his gondola. In any case it would be easy to find the Governor. He would perhaps be on the Grand Canal in Venice at the hour when all the patricians were taking the air. It was very probable indeed.
The porter bowed low as the gondola pushed off, and Giovanni leaned back in the comfortable seat, to repeat again and again in his mind what he meant to say if he succeeded in speaking with the Governor. He had his letter of complaint safe in his wallet, and he could remember every word he had written. In order to go to Venice, the nearest way was to return from the Grand Canal of Murano by the canal of San Piero, and to pass the glass-house. The door was shut as usual, and Giovanni smiled as he thought of how the city archers would go in, perhaps that very night, to take Zorzi away. He would not be with them, but when they were gone, he would go and find the book under one of the stones. When he had got it, his father might come home, for all Giovanni cared.
Before long the gondola was winding its way through the narrow canals, now shooting swiftly along a short straight stretch, between a monastery and a palace, now brought to by a turn of the hand at a corner, as the man at the oar shouted out a direction meant for whoever might be coming, by the right or left, as one should say “starboard helm” or “port helm,” and both doing the same, two vessels pass clear of one another; and to this day the gondoliers of Venice use the old words, and tell long-winded stories of their derivation and first meaning, which seem quite unnecessary. But in Beroviero’s time, the gondola had only lately come into fashion, and every one adopted it quickly because it was much cheaper than keeping horses, and it was far more pleasant to be taken quickly by water, by shorter ways, than to ride in the narrow streets, in the mud in winter and in the dust in summer, jostling those who walked, and sometimes quarrelling with those who rode, because the way was too narrow for one horse to pass another, when both had riders on their backs. Moreover, it was law that after nine o’clock in the morning no man who had reached the fig-tree that grew in the open space before San Salvatore, should ride to Saint Mark’s by the Merceria, so that people had to walk the rest of the way, leaving their horses to grooms. The gondola was therefore a great convenience, besides being a notable economy, and old Francesco Sansovino says that in his day, which was within a lifetime of Angelo Beroviero’s, there were nine or ten thousand gondolas in Venice. But at first they had not the high peaked stem of iron, and stem and stern were made almost alike, as in the Venetian boats and skiffs of our own time.
Giovanni got out at the steps of the Contarini palace, which, of the many that even then belonged to different branches of that great house, was distinguished above all others by its marvellous outer winding staircase, which still stands in all its beauty and slender grace. But near the great palace there were little wooden houses of two stories, some new and straight and gaily painted, but some old and crooked, hanging over the canals so that they seemed ready to topple down, with crazy outer balconies half closed in by lattices behind which the women sat for coolness, and sometimes even slept in the hot months. For the great city of stone and brick was not half built yet, and the space before Saint Mark’s wa
s much larger than it is now, for the Procuratie did not yet exist, nor the clock, but the great bell-tower stood almost in the middle of an open square, and there were little wooden booths at its base, in which all sorts of cheap trinkets were sold. There were also such booths and small shops at the base of the two columns. Also, the bridge of Rialto was a broad bridge of boats, on which shops were built on each side of the way, and the middle of the bridge could be drawn out, for the great Bucentoro to pass through, when the Doge went out in state to wed the sea.
Giovanni Beroviero was well known to Contarini’s household, for all knew of the approaching marriage, and the servants were not surprised when he inquired for the Governor of Murano, saying that his business was urgent. But the Governor was not there, nor the master of the house. They were gone to the Grand Canal. Would the Signor Giovanni like to speak with Messer Jacopo, who chanced to be in the palace and alone? It was still early, and Giovanni thought that the opportunity was a good one for ingratiating himself with his future brother-in-law. He would go in, if he should not disturb Messer Jacopo. He was announced and ushered respectfully into the great hall, and thence up the broad staircase to the hall of reception above. And below, his gondoliers gossiped with the servants, talking about the coming marriage, and many indiscreet things were said, which it was better that their masters should not hear; as for instance that Jacopo was really living in the house of the Agnus Dei, where he kept a beautiful Georgian slave in unheard-of luxury, and that this was a great grief to his father, who was therefore very desirous of hastening the marriage with Marietta. The porter winked one eye solemnly at the head gondolier, as who should imply that the establishment at the Agnus Dei would not be given up for twenty marriages; but the gondolier said boldly that if Jacopo did not change his life after he had married Marietta, something would happen to him. Upon this the porter inquired superciliously what, in the name of a great many beings, celestial and infernal, could possibly happen to any Contarini who chose to do as he pleased. The gondolier answered that there were laws, the porter retorted that the laws were made for glass-blowers but not for patricians, and the two might have come to blows if they had not just then heard their masters’ voices from the landing of the great staircase; and of coarse it was far more important to overhear all they could of the conversation than to quarrel about a point of law.
Complete Works of F Marion Crawford Page 999