 | CHAPTER V. The bravo |  |
5. CHAPTER V.
Would have a queen his beggar, you must tell him
That majesty, to keep decorum, must
No less beg than a kingdom.
Antony and Cleopatra.
The silent movement of the hearse-like gondola
soon brought the fair Venetian and her female Mentor
to the water-gate of the noble, who had been
intrusted, by the senate, with the especial guardianship
of the person of the heiress. It was a residence
of more than common gloom, possessing all
the solemn but stately magnificence which then
characterized the private dwellings of the patricians
in that city of riches and pride. Its magnitude and
architecture, though rather less imposing than those
which distinguished the palace of the Donna Violetta
placed it among the private edifices of the first order,
and all its external decorations showed it to be
the noiseless steps and the air of silent distrust
among the domestics, added to the gloomy grandeur
of the apartments, rendered the abode no bad type
of the republic itself.
As neither of his present visitors was a stranger
beneath the roof of the Signor Gradenigo—for so
the proprietor of the palace was called—they ascended
its massive stairs, without pausing to consider
any of those novelties of construction that
would attract the eye of one unaccustomed to such
a dwelling. The rank and the known consequence
of the Donna Violetta assured her of a ready reception;
and while she was ushered to the suite of
rooms above, by a crowd of bowing menials, one
had gone, with becoming speed, to announce her
approach to his master. When in the ante-chamber,
however, the ward stopped, declining to proceed
any further, in deference to the convenience
and privacy of her guardian. The delay was
short; for no sooner was the old senator apprized
of her presence, than he hastened from his closet
to do her honor, with a zeal that did credit to his
fitness for the trust he filled. The countenance of
the old patrician—a face in which thought and care
had drawn as many lines as time—lighted with unequivocal
satisfaction as he pressed forward to receive
his beautiful ward. To her half-uttered apologies
for the intrusion, he would not listen; but as he
led her within, he gallantly professed his pleasure at
being honored with her visits even at moments that,
to her scrupulous delicacy, might appear the most
ill-timed.
“Thou canst never come amiss, child as thou art
of my ancient friend, and the especial care of the
state!” he added. “The gates of the Gradenigo
palace would open of themselves, at the latest period
of the night, to receive such a guest. Besides,
thy quality who would breathe the fresh evening air
on the canals. Were I to limit thee to hours and
minutes, some truant wish of the moment—some
innocent caprice of thy sex and years, might go
ungratified.—Ah! Donna Florinda, we may well
pray that all our affection—not to call it weakness—
for this persuasive girl, shall not in the end lead to
her own disadvantage!”
“For the indulgence of both, I am grateful,” returned
Violetta; “I only fear to urge my little requests
at moments when your precious time is more
worthily occupied in behalf of the state.”
“Thou overratest my consequence. I sometimes
visit the Council of Three Hundred; but my years
and infirmities preclude me now from serving the
republic as I could wish.—Praise be to St. Mark,
our patron! its affairs are not unprosperous for our
declining fortunes. We have dealt bravely with the
infidel of late; the treaty with the Emperor is not
to our wrong; and the anger of the church, for the
late seeming breach of confidence on our part, has
been diverted. We owe something in the latter affair
to a young Neapolitan, who sojourns here at
Venice, and who is not without interest at the Holy
See, by reason of his uncle, the Cardinal Secretary.
Much good is done by the influence of friends,
properly employed. 'Tis the secret of our success
in the actual condition of Venice; for that which
power cannot achieve must be trusted to favor and
a wise moderation.”
“Your declarations encourage me to become,
once more, a suitor; for I will confess that, in addition
to the desire of doing you honor, I have come,
equally with the wish, to urge your great influence,
in behalf of an earnest suit, I have.”
“What now! Our young charge, Donna Florinda,
has inherited, with the fortunes of her family,
we will not discourage the feeling, for it has a
worthy origin, and, used with discretion, it fortifies
the noble and powerful in their stations.”
“And may we not say,” mildly observed Donna
Florinda, “that when the affluent and happy employ
themselves with the cares of the less fortunate, they
not only discharge a duty, but they cultivate a
wholesome and useful state of mind?”
“Doubt it not. Nothing can be more useful than
to give to each class in society, a proper sense of
its obligations, and a just sentiment of its duties.
These are opinions I greatly approve, and which I
desire my ward may thoroughly understand.”
“She is happy in possessing instructors so able
and so willing to teach all she should know,” rejoined
Violetta. “With this admission, may I ask the
Signor Gradenigo to give ear to my petition?”
“Thy little requests are ever welcome. I would
merely observe, that generous and ardent temperaments
sometimes regard a distant object so steadily,
as to overlook others that are not only nearer, and
perhaps of still more urgent importance, but more
attainable. In doing a benefit to one, we should be
wary not to do injury to many. The relative of
some one of thy household may have thoughtlessly
enlisted for the wars?”
“Should it be so, I trust the recruit will have the
manhood not to quit his colors.”
“Thy nurse, who is one little likely to forget the
service she did thy infancy, urges the claim of some
kinsman, to an employment in the customs?”
“I believe all of that family are long since placed,”
said Violetta laughing, “unless we might establish
the good mother herself, in some station of honor.
I have naught to ask in their behalf.”
“She who hath reared thee, to this goodly and
healthful beauty, would prefer a well-supported suit,
pampered by thy liberality. Thy private purse is
drained by demands on thy charity;—or, perhaps,
the waywardness of a female taste hath cost thee
dear, of late?”
“Neither.—I have little need of gold, for one of
my years cannot properly maintain the magnificence
of her condition. I come, guardian, with a far
graver solicitation than any of these.”
“I hope none, in thy favor, have been indiscreet
of speech!” exclaimed the Signor Gradenigo, casting
a hasty and suspicious look at his ward.
“If any have been so thoughtless, let them abide
the punishment of their fault.”
“I commend thy justice. In this age of novel
opinions, innovations of all descriptions cannot be
too severely checked. Were the senate to shut its
ears to all the wild theories that are uttered by the
unthinking and vain, their language would soon penetrate
to the ill-regulated minds of the ignorant and
idle. Ask me, if thou wilt, for purses in scores, but
do not move me to forgetfulness of the guilt of the
disturber of the public peace!”
“Not a sequin.—My errand is of nobler quality.”
“Speak without riddle, that I may know its object.”
Now that nothing stood between her wish to
speak, and her own manner of making known the
request, Donna Violetta appeared to shrink from
expressing it. Her color went and came, and she
sought support from the eye of her attentive and
wondering companion. As the latter was ignorant
of her intention, however, she could do no more
than encourage the supplicant, by such an expression
of sympathy as woman rarely refuses to her
sex, in any trial that involves their peculiar and distinctive
feelings. Violetta struggled with her diffidence,
she continued—
“You know, Signor Gradenigo,” she said, with a
loftiness that was not less puzzling, though far more
intelligible, than the agitation which, a moment before,
had embarrassed her manner, “that I am the last of
a line, eminent for centuries, in the state of Venice.”
“So sayeth our history.”
“That I bear a name long known, and which it
becomes me to shield from all imputation of discredit,
in my own person.”
“This is so true, that it scarce needed so clear
an exposure;” drily returned the senator.
“And that, though thus gifted by the accidents of
fortune and birth, I have received a boon that remains
still unrequited, in a manner to do no honor
to the house of Thiepolo.”
“This becometh serious! Donna Florinda, our
ward is more earnest than intelligible, and I must
ask an explanation at your hands. It becometh her
not to receive boons of this nature from any.”
“Though unprepared for this request,” mildly replied
the companion, “I think she speaks of the boon
of life.”
The Signor Gradenigo's countenance assumed a
dark expression.
“I understand you,” he said, coldly. “It is true
that the Neapolitan was ready to rescue thee, when
the calamity befell thy uncle of Florence, but Don
Camillo Monforte is not a common diver of the
Lido, to be rewarded like him who finds a bauble
dropped from a gondola. Thou hast thanked the
cavalier; I trust that a noble maiden can do no
more, in a case like this.”
“That I have thanked him, and thanked him from
my soul, is true!” fervently exclaimed Violetta.
“When I forget the service, Maria Santissima, and
the good saints, forget me!”
“I doubt, Signora Florinda, that your charge
hath spent more hours among the light works of
her late father's library, and less time with her
missal, than becomes her birth?”
The eye of Violetta kindled, and she folded an
arm around the form of her shrinking companion,
who drew down her veil at this reproof, though she
forbore to answer.
“Signor Gradenigo,” said the young heiress, “I
may have done discredit to my instructors, but if
the pupil has been idle, the fault should not be visited
on the innocent. It is some evidence that the commands
of holy church have not been neglected, that
I now come to entreat favor in behalf of one, to
whom I owe my life. Don Camillo Monforte has
long pursued, without success, a claim so just, that
were there no other motive to concede it, the character
of Venice should teach the senators the danger
of delay.”
“My ward has spent her leisure with the doctors
of Padua! The republic hath its laws, and none
who have right of their side appeal to them in vain.
Thy gratitude is not to be censured; it is rather
worthy of thy origin and hopes; still, Donna Violetta,
we should remember how difficult it is to winnow
the truth from the chaff of imposition and legal
subtlety, and, most of all, should a judge be certain,
before he gives his decree, that, in confirming the
claims of one applicant, he does not defeat those of
another.”
“They tamper with his rights! Being born in a
foreign realm, he is required to renounce more in
the land of the stranger, than he will gain within
the limits of the republic. He wastes life and
youth in pursuing a phantom! You are of weight
in the senate, my guardian, and were you to lend
him the support of your powerful voice and great
instruction, a wronged noble would have justice, and
would better deserve the character of which she is
so jealous.”
“Thou art a persuasive advocate, and I will think
of what thou urgest,” said the Signor Gradenigo,
changing the frown, which had been gathering about
his brow, to a look of indulgence, with a facility that
betrayed much practice in adapting the expression
of his features to his policy. “I ought only to
hearken to the Neapolitan, in my public character
of a judge; but his service to thee, and my weakness
in thy behalf, extorts that thou would'st have.”
Donna Violetta received the promise, with a bright
and guileless smile. She kissed the hand he extended,
as a pledge of his faith, with a fervor that gave
her attentive guardian serious uneasiness.
“Thou art too winning, even to be resisted by one
wearied with rebutting plausible pretensions,” he
added. “The young and the generous, Donna Florinda,
believe all to be as their own wishes and simplicity
would have them. As for this right of Don
Camillo—but no matter—thou wilt have it so, and it
shall be examined with that blindness which is said
to be the failing of justice.”
“I have understood the metaphor to mean blind
to favor, but not insensible to the right.”
“I fear that is a sense which might defeat our
hopes—but we will look into it. My son has been
mindful of his duty and respect of late, Donna Violetta,
as I would have him? The boy wants little
urging, I know, to lead him to do honor to my ward,
and the fairest of Venice. Thou wilt receive him
with friendship, for the love thou bearest his father?”
Donna Violetta curtsied, but it was with womanly
reserve.
“The door of my palace is never shut on the
Signor Giacomo, on all proper occasions,” she said,
hardly be other than an honored visitor.”
“I would have the boy attentive—and even more,
I would have him prove some little of that great
esteem,—but we live in a jealous city, Donna Florinda,
and one in which prudence is a virtue of the
highest price. If the youth is less urgent than I
could wish, believe me, it is from the apprehension
of giving premature alarm to those who interest
themselves in the fortunes of our charge.”
Both the ladies bowed, and by the manner in
which they drew their cloaks about them, they made
evident their wish to retire. Donna Violetta craved
a blessing, and after the usual compliments, and a
short dialogue of courtesy, she and her companion
withdrew to their boat.
The Signor Gradenigo paced the room, in which
he had received his ward, for several minutes in
silence. Not a sound of any sort was audible
throughout the whole of the vast abode, the stillness
and cautious tread of those within, answering to
the quiet town without; but a young man, in whose
countenance and air were to be seen most of the
usual signs of a well-bred profligacy, sauntering
along the suite of chambers, at length caught the
eye of the senator, who beckoned him to approach.
“Thou art unhappy, as of wont, Giacomo,” he
said, in a tone between paternal indulgence and
reproach. “The Donna Violetta has, but a minute
since, departed, and thou wert absent. Some unworthy
intrigue with the daughter of a jeweller, or
some more injurious bargain of thy hopes, with the
father, hath occupied the time that might have been
devoted more honorably, and to far better profit.”
“You do me little justice,” returned the youth.
“Neither Jew, nor Jewess, hath this day greeted my
eye.”
“The calendar should mark the time, for its singularity!
to a right advantage the occasion of my guardianship,
and if thou thinkest, with sufficient gravity, of
the importance of what I urge?”
“Doubt it not, father. He who hath so much suffered
for the want of that which the Donna Violetta
possesses in so great profusion, needeth little prompting
on such a subject. By refusing to supply my
wants, you have made certain of my consent. There
is not a fool in Venice who sighs more loudly beneath
his mistress's window, than I utter my pathetic
wishes to the lady—when there is opportunity, and
I am in the humor.”
“Thou knowest the danger of alarming the
senate?”
“Fear me not. My progress is by secret and
gradual means. Neither my countenance nor my
mind is unused to a mask,—thanks to necessity! My
spirits have been too buoyant not to have made me
acquainted with duplicity!”
“Thou speakest, ungrateful boy, as if I denied thy
youth the usual indulgences of thy years and rank.
It is thy excesses, and not thy spirits, I would check.
But I would not, now, harden thee with reproof.
Giacomo, thou hast a rival in the stranger. His act
in the Giudecca has won upon the fancy of the girl,
and like all of generous and ardent natures, ignorant
as she is of his merits, she supplies his character
with all necessary qualities by her own ingenuity.”
“I would she did the same by me!”
“With thee, Sirrah, my ward might be required
to forget, rather than invent. Hast thou bethought
thee of turning the eyes of the council on the danger
which besets their heiress?”
“I have.”
“And the means?”
“The plainest and the most certain—the Lion's
mouth.”
“Ha!—that, indeed, is a bold adventure.”
“And, like all bold adventures, it is the more
likely to succeed. For once Fortune hath not been
a niggard with me.—I have given them the Neapolitan's
signet by way of proof.”
“Giacomo! dost thou know the hazard of thy
temerity? I hope there is no clue left in the handwriting,
or by any other means taken to obtain the
ring?”
“Father, though I may have overlooked thy instruction
in less weighty matters, not an admonition
which touches the policy of Venice hath been forgotten.
The Neapolitan stands accused, and if thy
Council is faithful, he will be a suspected, if not a
banished, man.”
“That the Council of Three will perform its trust
is beyond dispute. I would I were as certain that
thy indiscreet zeal may not lead to some unpleasant
exposure!”
The shameless son stared at the father a moment
in doubt, and then he passed into the more private
parts of the palace, like one too much accustomed
to double-dealing, to lend it a second, or a serious
thought. The senator remained. His silent walk
was now manifestly disturbed by great uneasiness;
and he frequently passed a hand across his brow, as
if he mused in pain. While thus occupied, a figure
stole through the long suite of ante-chambers, and
stopped near the door of the room he occupied.
The intruder was aged; his face was tawny by exposure,
and his hair thinned and whitened by time.
His dress was that of a fisherman, being both scanty
and of the meanest materials. Still there was a
naturally noble and frank intelligence in his bold eye
and prominent features, while the bare arms and
naked legs exhibited a muscle and proportion, which
proved that nature was rather at a stand than in the
decline. He had been many moments dangling his
his presence was observed.
“Ha! thou here, Antonio!” exclaimed the senator,
when their eyes met. “Why this visit?”
“Signore, my heart is heavy.”
“Hath the calendar no saint—the fisherman no
patron? I suppose the sirocco hath been tossing
the waters of the bay, and thy nets are empty.—
Hold! thou art my foster-brother, and thou must
not want.”
The fisherman drew back with dignity, refusing
the gift simply, but decidedly, by the act.
“Signore, we have lived from childhood to old
age since we drew our milk from the same breast;
in all that time, have you ever known me a beggar?”
“Thou art not wont to ask these boons, Antonio,
it is true; but age conquers our pride with our
strength. If it be not sequins that thou seekest,
what would'st thou?”
“There are other wants than those of the body,
Signore, and other sufferings beside hunger.”
The countenance of the senator lowered. He
cast a sharp glance at his foster-brother, and ere he
answered he closed the door which communicated
with the outer chamber.
“Thy words forebode disaffection, as of wont.
Thou art accustomed to comment on measures and
interests that are beyond thy limited reason, and
thou knowest that thy opinions have already drawn
displeasure on thee. The ignorant and the low are,
to the state, as children, whose duty it is to obey,
and not to cavil.—Thy errand?”
“I am not the man you think me, Signore. I am
used to poverty and want, and little satisfies my
wishes. The senate is my master, and as such I
honor it; but a fisherman hath his feelings as well
as the doge!”
“Again!—These feelings of thine, Antonio, are
as if they were the engrossing concerns of life.”
“Signore, are they not to me? Though I think
mostly of my own concerns, still I can have a
thought for the distress of those I honor. When
the beautiful and youthful lady, your eccellenza's
daughter, was called away to the company of the
saints, I felt the blow as if it had been the death of
my own child; and it has pleased God, as you very
well know, Signore, not to leave me unacquainted
with the anguish of such a loss.”
“Thou art a good fellow, Antonio,” returned the
senator, covertly removing the moisture from his
eyes; “an honest and a proud man, for thy condition!”
“She, from whom we both drew our first nourishment,
Signore, often told me that, next to my
own kin, it was my duty to love the noble race she
had helped to support. I make no merit of natural
feeling, which is a gift from Heaven, and the greater
is the reason that the state should not deal lightly
with such affections.”
“Once more the state!—Name thy errand.”
“Your eccellenza knows the history of my humble
life. I need not tell you, Signore, of the sons
which God, by the intercession of the Virgin and
blessed St. Anthony, was pleased to bestow on me,
or of the manner in which he hath seen proper to
take them, one by one, away.”
“Thou hast known sorrow, poor Antonio; I well
remember thou hast suffered, too.”
“Signore, I have. The deaths of five manly and
honest sons is a blow to bring a groan from a rock.
But I have known how to bless God, and be
thankful!”
“Worthy fisherman, the doge himself might envy
this resignation. It is often easier to endure the
loss than the life of a child, Antonio!”
“Signore, no boy of mine ever caused me grief,
but the hour in which he died. And even then,” the
old man turned aside, to conceal the working of his
features—“I struggled to remember, from how much
pain, and toil, and suffering they were removed, to
enjoy a more blessed state.”
The lip of the Signor Gradenigo quivered, and
he moved to and fro with a quicker step.
“I think, Antonio,” he said, “I think, honest Antonio,
I had masses said for the souls of them all?”
“Signore, you had; St. Anthony remember the
kindness in your own extremity! I was wrong in
saying that the youths never gave me sorrow but in
dying, for there is a pain the rich cannot know, in
being too poor to buy a prayer for a dead child!”
“Wilt thou have more masses? Son of thine
shall never want a voice with the saints, for the
ease of his soul!”
“I thank you, eccellenza, but I have faith in what
has been done, and, more than all, in the mercy of
God. My errand now is in behalf of the living.”
The sympathy of the senator was suddenly checked,
and he already listened with a doubting and
suspicious air.
“Thy errand?” he simply repeated.
“Is to beg your interest, Signore, to obtain the
release of my grandson from the galleys. They
have seized the lad in his fourteenth year, and condemned
him to the wars with the Infidels, without
thought of his tender years, without thought of evil
example, without thought of my age and loneliness,
and without justice; for his father died in the last
battle given to the Turk.”
As he ceased, the fisherman riveted his look on
the marble countenance of his auditor, wistfully endeavoring
to trace the effect of his words. But all
there was cold, unanswering, and void of human
sympathy. The soulless, practised, and specious
feeling in the senator, on any subject that touched an
interest so vital as the maritime power of the republic.
He saw the hazard of innovation in the
slightest approach to interests so delicate, and his
mind was drilled by policy into an apathy that no
charity could disturb, when there was question of
the right of St. Mark to the services of his people.
“I would thou hadst come to beg masses, or
gold, or aught but this, Antonio!” he answered,
after a moment of delay. “Thou hast had the
company of the boy, if I remember, from his birth,
already?”
“Signore, I have had that satisfaction, for he was
an orphan born; and I would wish to have it until
the child is fit to go into the world, armed with an
honesty and faith that shall keep him from harm.
Were my own brave son here, he would ask no
other fortune for the lad, than such counsel and aid
as a poor man has a right to bestow on his own
flesh and blood.”
“He fareth no worse than others; and thou
knowest that the republic hath need of every arm.”
“Eccellenza, I saw the Signor Giacomo land
from his gondola, as I entered the palace.”
“Out upon thee, fellow! dost thou make no distinction
between the son of a fisherman, one trained
to the oar and toil, and the heir of an ancient house?
Go to, presuming man, and remember thy condition,
and the difference that God hath made between
our children.”
“Mine never gave me sorrow but the hour in
which they died,” said the fisherman, uttering a
severe but mild reproof.
The Signor Gradenigo felt the sting of this retort,
which in no degree aided the cause of his indiscreet
foster-brother. After pacing the room in agitation
as to answer more mildly, as became his rank.
“Antonio,” he said, “thy disposition and boldness
are not strangers to me—If thou would'st have
masses for the dead, or gold for the living, they are
thine; but in asking for my interest with the general
of the galleys, thou askest that which, at a moment
so critical, could not be yielded to the son of the
doge, were the doge—”
“A fisherman,” continued Antonio, observing
that he hesitated—“Signore, adieu; I would not
part in anger with my foster-brother, and I pray the
saints to bless you and your house. May you never
know the grief of losing a child by a fate far worse
than death—that of destruction by vice.”
As Antonio ceased, he made his reverence and
departed by the way he had entered. He retired
unnoticed, for the senator averted his eyes, with a
secret consciousness of the force of what the other,
in his simplicity, had uttered; and it was some time
before the latter knew he was alone. Another step,
however, soon diverted his attention. The door reopened,
and a menial appeared. He announced
that one without sought a private audience.
“Let him enter,” answered the ready senator,
smoothing his features to the customary cautious
and distrustful expression.
The servant withdrew, when one masked, and
wearing a cloak, quickly entered the room. When
the latter instrument of disguise was thrown upon
an arm, and the visor was removed, the form and
face of the dreaded Jacopo became visible.
| CHAPTER V. The bravo | |