 | CHAPTER XI. The bravo |  |
11. CHAPTER XI.
“Which is the merchant here, and which the Jew?”
Shakspeare.
The evening of such a day, in a city with the
habits of Venice, was not likely to be spent in the
dullness of retirement. The great square of St.
Mark was again filled with its active and motley
crowd, and the scenes already described in the
opening chapters of this work, were resumed, if possible,
with more apparent devotion to the levities of
the hour, than on the occasion mentioned. The
tumblers and jugglers renewed their antics, the cries
of the fruit-sellers and other venders of light luxuries
were again mingled with the tones of the flute and
the notes of the guitar and harp, while the idle and
the busy, the thoughtless and the designing, the conspirator
and the agent of the police, once more met
in privileged security.
The night had advanced beyond its turn, when a
gondola came gliding through the shipping of the
port, with that easy and swan-like motion, which is
peculiar to its slow movement, and touched the quay
with its beak, at the point where the canal of St.
Mark forms its junction with the bay.
“Thou art welcome, Antonio,” said one, who approached
the solitary individual that had directed
the gondola, when the latter had thrust the iron spike
of his painter between the crevices of the stones, as
gondoliers are accustomed to secure their barges;
“thou art welcome, Antonio, though late.”
“I begin to know the sounds of that voice, though
they come from a masked face,” said the fisherman.
“Friend, I owe my success to-day to thy kindness,
and though it has not had the end for which I had
both hoped and prayed, I ought not to thank thee
the world, or thou would'st not have bethought thee
of an old and despised man, when the shouts of triumph
were ringing in thy ear, and when thy own
young blood was stirred with the feelings of pride
and victory.”
“Nature gives thee strong language, fisherman.
I have not passed the hours, truly, in the games and
levities of my years. Life has been no festa to me—
but no matter. The senate was not pleased to hear
of lessening the number of the galleys' crew, and
thou wilt bethink thee of some other reward. I have,
here, the chain and golden oar in the hope that it
will still be welcome.”
Antonio looked amazed, but, yielding to a natural
curiosity, he gazed a moment with a longing at the
prize. Then, recoiling with a shudder, he uttered
moodily, and with the tones of one whose determination
was made: “I should think the bauble coined
of my grandchild's blood! Keep it: they have trusted
it to thee, for it is thine of right, and now that
they refuse to hear my prayer, it will be useless to
all but to him who fairly earned it.”
“Thou makest no allowance, fisherman, for difference
of years and for sinews that are in their vigor.
Methinks that in adjudging such a prize, thought
should be had to these matters, and then wouldest
thou be found outstripping us all. Holy St. Theodore!
I passed my childhood with the oar in hand,
and never before have I met one in Venice who has
driven my gondola so hard! Thou touchest the
water with the delicacy of a lady fingering her harp,
and yet with the force of the wave rolling on the
Lido!”
“I have seen the hour, Jacopo, when even thy
young arm would have tired, in such a strife between
us. That was before the birth of my eldest son, who
died in battle with the Ottoman, when the dear boy
sawest the comely lad, good Jacopo?”
“I was not so happy, old man; but if he resembled
thee, well mayest thou mourn his loss. Body of Diana!
I have little cause to boast of the small advantage
youth and strength gave me.”
“There was a force within that bore me and the
boat on—but of what use hath it been? Thy kindness,
and the pain given to an old frame, that hath
been long racked by hardship and poverty, are both
thrown away on the rocky hearts of the nobles.”
“We know not yet, Antonio. The good saints
will hear our prayers, when we least think they are
listening. Come with me, for I am sent to seek thee.”
The fisherman regarded his new acquaintance
with surprise, and then turning to bestow an instant
of habitual care on his boat, he cheerfully professed
himself ready to proceed. The place where they
stood was a little apart from the thoroughfare of the
quays, and though there was a brilliant moon, the
circumstance of two men, in their garbs, being there,
was not likely to attract observation; but Jacopo
did not appear to be satisfied with this security from
remark. He waited until Antonio had left the gondola,
and, then, unfolding a cloak, which had lain on
his arm, he threw it, without asking permission, over
the shoulders of the other. A cap, like that he wore
himself, was next produced, and being placed on the
gray hairs of the fisherman, effectually completed
his metamorphosis.
“There is no need of a mask,” he said, examining
his companion attentively, when his task was accomplished.
“None would know thee, Antonio, in
this garb.”
“And is there need of what thou hast done, Jacopo?
I owe thee thanks for a well-meant, and, but
for the hardness of heart of the rich and powerful,
for what would have proved, a great kindness. Still
my face; for what reason can there be, why one
who rises with the sun to go to his toil, and who
trusteth to the favor of the blessed St. Anthony for
the little he hath, should go abroad like a gallant
ready to steal the good name of a virgin, or a robber
at night?”
“Thou knowest our Venetian custom, and it may
be well to use some caution, in the business we are
on.”
“Thou forgettest that thy intention is yet a secret
to me. I say it again, and I say it with truth and
gratitude, that I owe thee many thanks, though the
end is defeated, and the boy is still a prisoner in the
floating-school of wickedness—but thou hast a name,
Jacopo, that I could wish did not belong to thee. I
find it hard to believe all that they have this day said,
on the Lido, of one who has so much feeling for the
weak and wronged.”
The Bravo ceased to adjust the disguise of his
companion, and the profound stillness which succeeded
his remark, proved so painful to Antonio, that
he felt like one reprieved from suffocation, when he
heard the deep respiration that announced the relief
of his companion.
“I would not willingly say—”
“No matter,” interrupted Jacopo, in a hollow
voice. “No matter, fisherman; we will speak of
these things on some other occasion. At present,
follow, and be silent.”
As he ceased, the self-appointed guide of Antonio
beckoned for the latter to come on, when he led the
way from the water-side. The fisherman obeyed,
for little did it matter to one poor and heart-stricken
as he, whither he was conducted. Jacopo took the
first entrance into the court of the doge's palace.
His footstep was leisurely, and to the passing multitude
they appeared like any others of the thousands,
or to enter into the pleasures of the piazza.
When within the dimmer and broken light of the
court, Jacopo paused, evidently to scan the persons
of those it contained. It is to be presumed he saw
no reason to delay, for with a secret sign to his
companion to follow, he crossed the area, and
mounted the well-known steps, down which the head
of the Faliero had rolled, and which, from the statues
on the summit, is called the Giant's Stairs. The
celebrated mouths of the lions were passed, and they
were walking swiftly along the open gallery, when
they encountered a halberdier of the ducal guard.
“Who comes?” demanded the mercenary, throwing
forward his long and dangerous weapon.
“Friends to the state and to St. Mark.”
“None pass, at this hour, without the word.”
Jacopo motioned to Antonio to stand fast, while
he drew nearer to the halberdier and whispered.
The weapon was instantly thrown up, and the sentinel
again paced the long gallery, with practised indifference.
The way was no sooner cleared than
they proceeded. Antonio, not a little amazed at
what he had already seen, eagerly followed his guide,
for his heart began to beat high with an exciting,
but undefined hope. He was not so ignorant of human
affairs as to require to be told, that those who
ruled would some time concede that in secret, which
policy forbade them to yield openly. Full, therefore,
of the expectation of being ushered into the presence
of the doge himself, and of having his child
restored to his arms, the old man stepped lightly
along the gloomy gallery, and darting through an
entrance, at the heels of Jacopo, he found himself
at the foot of another flight of massive steps. The
route now became confused to the fisherman, for,
quitting the more public vomitories of the palace, his
companion held his way by a secret door, through
ascended and descended frequently, as often quitting
or entering rooms of but ordinary dimensions and
decorations, until the head of Antonio was completely
turned, and he no longer knew the general direction
of their course. At length they stopped, in an apartment
of inferior ornaments, and of a dusky color,
which the feeble light rendered still more gloomy.
“Thou art well acquainted with the dwelling of
our prince,” said the fisherman, when his companion
enabled him to speak, by checking his swift movements.
“The oldest gondolier of Venice is not
more ready on the canals, than thou appearest to be
among these galleries and corridors.”
“'Tis my business to bring thee hither, and what
I am to do, I endeavor to do well. Antonio, thou
art a man that feareth not to stand in the presence
of the great, as this day hath shown. Summon thy
courage, for a moment of trial is before thee.”
“I have spoken boldly to the doge. Except the
Holy Father, himself, what power is there on earth
beside to fear?”
“Thou mayest have spoken, fisherman, too boldly.
Temper thy language, for the great love not words
of disrespect.”
“Is truth unpleasant to them?”
“That is as may be. They love to hear their own
acts praised, when their acts have merited praise,
but they do not like to hear them condemned, even
though they know what is said to be just.”
“I fear me,” said the old man, looking with simplicity
at the other, “there is little difference between
the powerful and the weak, when the garments
are stripped from both, and the man stands
naked to the eye.”
“That truth may not be spoken here.”
“How! Do they deny that they are Christians,
and mortals, and sinners?”
“They make a merit of the first, Antonio—they
forget the second, and they never like to be called
the last, by any but themselves.”
“I doubt, Jacopo, after all, if I get from them the
freedom of the boy.”
“Speak them fair, and say naught to wound their
self-esteem, or to menace their authority—they will
pardon much, if the last, in particular, be respected.”
“But it is that authority which has taken away
my child! Can I speak in favor of the power which
I know to be unjust?”
“Thou must feign it, or thy suit will fail.”
“I will go back to the Lagunes, good Jacopo, for
this tongue of mine hath ever moved at the bidding
of the heart. I fear I am too old to say that a son
may righteously be torn from the father by violence.
Tell them, thou, from me, that I came thus far, in
order to do them respect, but, that seeing the hopelessness
of beseeching further, I have gone to my
nets, and to my prayers to blessed St. Anthony.”
As he ceased speaking, Antonio wrung the hand
of his motionless companion, and turned away, as
if to retire. Two halberds fell to the level of his
breast, ere his foot had quitted the marble floor, and
he now saw, for the first time, that armed men crossed
his passage, and that, in truth, he was a prisoner.
Nature had endowed the fisherman with a quick and
just perception, and long habit had given great steadiness
to his nerves. When he perceived his real
situation, instead of entering into useless remonstrance,
or in any manner betraying alarm, he again
turned to Jacopo with an air of patience and resignation.
“It must be that the illustrious Signore wish to do
me justice,” he said, smoothing the remnant of his
hair, as men of his class prepare themselves for the
presence of their superiors, “and it would not be
decent, in an humble fisherman, to refuse them the
were less force used here in Venice, in a matter of
simple right and wrong. But the great love to show
their power, and the weak must submit.”
“We shall see!” answered Jacopo, who had
manifested no emotion during the abortive attempt
of the other to retire.
A profound stillness succeeded. The halberdiers
maintained their rigid attitudes, within the shadow
of the wall, looking like two insensible statues, in the
attire and armor of the age, while Jacopo and his
companion occupied the centre of the room, with
scarcely more of the appearance of consciousness
and animation. It may be well to explain, here, to
the reader, some of the peculiar machinery of the
state, in the country of which we write, and which
is connected with the scene that is about to follow:
for the name of a republic, a word which, if it mean
any thing, strictly implies the representation and supremacy
of the general interests, but which has so
frequently been prostituted to the protection and
monopolies of privileged classes, may have induced
him to believe that there was, at least, a resemblance
between the outlines of that government, and the
more just, because more popular, institutions of his
own country.
In an age, when rulers were profane enough to
assert, and the ruled weak enough to allow, that the
right of a man to govern his fellows was a direct
gift from God, a departure from the bold and selfish
principle, though it were only in profession, was
thought sufficient to give a character of freedom
and common sense to the polity of a nation. This
belief is not without some justification, since it establishes
in theory, at least, the foundations of government
on a base sufficiently different from that
which supposes all power to be the property of one,
and that one to be the representative of the faultless
first of these principles we have nothing to do, except
it be to add that there are propositions so inherently
false that they only require to be fairly stated
to produce their own refutation; but our subject necessarily
draws us into a short digression on the
errors of the second, as they existed in Venice.
It is probable that when the patricians of St.
Mark created a community of political rights in
their own body, they believed their state had done
all that was necessary to merit the high and generous
title it assumed. They had innovated on a generally
received principle, and they cannot claim the distinction
of being either the first, or the last, who
have imagined that to take the incipient steps in political
improvement, is at once to reach the goal of
perfection. Venice had no doctrine of divine right,
and as her prince was little more than a pageant,
she boldly laid claim to be called a republic. She
believed that a representation of the most prominent
and brilliant interests in society was the paramount
object of government, and, faithful to the seductive,
but dangerous, error, she mistook to the last, collective
power for social happiness.
It may be taken as a governing principle, in all
civil relations, that the strong will grow stronger,
and the feeble more weak, until the first become unfit
to rule, or the last unable to endure. In this important
truth is contained the secret of the downfall
of all those states which have crumbled beneath the
weight of their own abuses. It teaches the necessity
of widening the foundations of society, until the base
shall have a breadth capable of securing the just
representation of every interest, without which the
social machine is liable to interruption from its own
movement, and eventually to destruction from its
own excesses.
Venice, though ambitious and tenacious of the
and an exceedingly heartless oligarchy. To the
former title she had no other claim than her denial
of the naked principle already mentioned, while her
practice is liable to the reproach of the two latter,
in the unmanly and narrow character of its exclusion,
in every act of her foreign policy, and in
every measure of her internal police. An aristocracy
must ever want the high personal feeling which
often tempers despotism by the qualities of the
chief, or the generous and human impulses of a
popular rule. It has the merit of substituting things
for men, it is true, but unhappily it substitutes the
things of a few men for those of the whole. It partakes,
and it always has partaken, though necessarily
tempered by circumstances and the opinions of
different ages, of the selfishness of all corporations,
in which the responsibility of the individual, while
his acts are professedly submitted to the temporizing
expedients of a collective interest, is lost in the subdivision
of numbers. At the period of which we
write, Italy had several of these self-styled commonwealths,
in not one of which, however, was there
ever a fair and just confiding of power to the body
of the people, though perhaps there is not one that
has not been cited, sooner or later, in proof of the
inability of man to govern himself! In order to
demonstrate the fallacy of a reasoning, which is so
fond of predicting the downfall of our own liberal system,
supported by examples drawn from trans-atlantic
states of the middle ages, it is necessary only to recount
here, a little in detail, the forms in which power
was obtained and exercised, in the most important
of them all.
Distinctions in rank, as separated entirely from
the will of the nation, formed the basis of Venetian
polity. Authority, though divided, was not less a
birthright, than in those governments in which it was
The patrician order had its high and exclusive privileges,
which were guarded and maintained with a
most selfish and engrossing spirit. He who was
not born to govern, had little hope of ever entering
into the possession of his natural rights; while he
who was, by the intervention of chance, might
wield a power of the most fearful and despotic
character. At a certain age, all of senatorial rank
(for, by a specious fallacy, nobility did not take its
usual appellations) were admitted into the councils
of the nation. The names of the leading families
were inscribed in a register, which was well entitled
the “Golden Book,” and he who enjoyed the envied
distinction of having an ancestor thus enrolled,
could, with a few exceptions (such as that named in
the case of Don Camillo), present himself in the
senate, and lay claim to the honors of the “Horned
Bonnet.” Neither our limits, nor our object will
permit a digression of sufficient length to point out
the whole of the leading features of a system so vicious,
and which was, perhaps, only rendered tolerable
to those it governed, by the extraneous contributions
of captured and subsidiary provinces, on
which, in truth, as in all cases of metropolitan rule,
the oppression weighed most grievously. The
reader will at once see, that the very reason why
the despotism of the self-styled republic was tolerable
to its own citizens, was but another cause of its
eventual destruction.
As the senate became too numerous to conduct,
with sufficient secrecy and dispatch, the affairs of a
state that pursued a policy alike tortuous and complicated,
the most general of its important interests
were intrusted to a council composed of three hundred
of its members. In order to avoid the publicity
and delay of a body large even as this, a second
selection was made, which was known as the Council
power, that aristocratical jealousy withheld from
the titular chief of the state, was confided. To
this point the political economy of the Venetian republic,
however faulty, had at least some merit for
simplicity and frankness. The ostensible agents of
the administration were known, and though all real
responsibility to the nation was lost, in the superior
influence and narrow policy of the patricians, the
rulers could not entirely escape from the odium that
public opinion might attach to their unjust or illegal
proceedings. But a state, whose prosperity was
chiefly founded on the contribution and support of
dependants, and whose existence was equally menaced
by its own false principles, and by the growth
of other and neighboring powers, had need of a still
more efficient body, in the absence of that executive
which its own republican pretensions denied to
Venice. A political inquisition, which came in
time to be one of the most fearful engines of police
ever known, was the consequence. An authority,
as irresponsible as it was absolute, was periodically
confided to another and still smaller body, which
met and exercised its despotic and secret functions,
under the name of the Council of Three. The
choice of these temporary rulers was decided by
lot, and in a manner that prevented the result from
being known to any but to their own number, and
to a few of the most confidential of the more permanent
officers of the government. Thus there
existed, at all times, in the heart of Venice, a mysterious
and despotic power, that was wielded by
men who moved in society unknown, and apparently
surrounded by all the ordinary charities of life;
but which, in truth, was influenced by a set of political
maxims, that were perhaps as ruthless, as tyranmic,
and as selfish as ever were invented by the evil
ingenuity of man. It was, in short, a power that
virtue and infinite intelligence, using the terms in a
sense limited by human means; and yet it was here
confided to men, whose title was founded on the
double accident, of birth—and the colors of balls,
and by whom it was wielded, without even the
check of publicity.
The Council of Three met in secret, ordinarily
issued its decrees without communicating with any
other body, and had them enforced with a fearfulness
of mystery, and a suddenness of execution,
that resembled the blows of fate. The doge himself
was not superior to its authority, nor protected from
its decisions, while it has been known that one of the
privileged three has been denounced by his companions.
There is still in existence a long list of the
state maxims which this secret tribunal recognized
as its rule of conduct, and it is not saying too much
to affirm, that they set at defiance every other consideration
but expediency,—all the recognized laws
of God, and every principle of justice, which is esteemed
among men. The advances of the human
intellect, supported by the means of publicity, may
temper the exercise of a similar irresponsible power,
in our own age, but in no country has this substitution,
of a soulless corporation for an elective representation,
been made, in which a system of rule has
not been established, that sets at naught the laws of
natural justice and the rights of the citizen. Any
pretension to the contrary, by placing profession
in opposition to practice, is only adding hypocrisy
to usurpation.
It appears to be an unavoidable general consequence
that abuses should follow, when power is exercised
by a permanent and irresponsible body,
from whom there is no appeal. When this power
is secretly exercised, the abuses become still more
grave. It is also worthy of remark, that in the nations
and dangerous influences, the pretensions to
justice and generosity are of the most exaggerated
character; for while the fearless democrat vents
his personal complaints aloud, and the voice of the
subject of professed despotism is smothered entirely,
necessity itself dictates to the oligarchist the policy
of seemliness, as one of the conditions of his own
safety. Thus Venice prided herself on the justice
of St. Mark, and few states maintained a greater
show, or put forth a more lofty claim to the possession
of the sacred quality, than that whose real
maxims of government were veiled in a mystery
that even the loose morality of the age exacted.
| CHAPTER XI. The bravo | |