A Golden Book of Venice. Mrs. Lawrence Turnbull
yet escaping all taxes. And because of the abuses which had been gradually undermining the fair reputation of the established orders of the traghetti, the Republic, by slow encroachments upon ancient concessions, was surely reducing their wealth and independence.
"Santa Maria!" Piero ejaculated after a pause, during which his wrath had been growing. "The Consiglio hath its own matters for ruling; the traghetti belong to the people!"
They had reached the little landing of the first long waterway of Murano, where one of the low arcaded houses, with its slender shafts of red Verona marble, was the dwelling of Girolamo Magagnati; the others of this little block of three were used as show-rooms and offices for the great establishment which was connected with them, in the rear, by small courtyards; and the dense smoke of the glass factories always rested over them, although this was the quarter of the aristocrats of Murano.
The buildings looked low and modest if measured by the palaces of the greater city, and their massive marble door- and window-frames increased the impression of gloom. But here and there a portal more ornate, with treble-twisted cords deeply carved, or a window of fourteenth century workmanship relieved the severity of the lines; while in this short arcade, where the houses rose but a storey in height above the square pillars which supported the overhanging fronts, these unexpected columns of rosy marble, delicate and unique, on which the windows seemed to rest, gave singular distinction to these dwellings.
Often the people passing in gondola or bark glanced carelessly into the depth of the open window space framed between those polished marble shafts, for the familiar vision of a wonderful young face, beautiful as a Madonna from some high altar in Venice; often, too, this vision of a maiden bent above a child, with rare golden hair and great eyes full of pain.
There was a little lingering on the landing as they left the gondola; for the baby, waking from his long, refreshing sleep, had claimed his share of petting before the great dark man who tossed him so restfully in his strong arms went away. There was no one who could make the little Zuane laugh like "babbo," though the tremulous, treble echo of the full tones of the gondolier had a pathos for those who listened.
III
The little Zuane had eaten his supper of polenta and, in the painted cradle which his grandfather Girolamo had bought for him from under the arcades of the Piazetta, lay at last asleep, consigned to the care of all those saints and guardian angels who make the little ones their charge, and who smiled down upon him from the golden aureoles and clouds of rose and blue on the cradle-roof while, slowly balancing, it charmed him into dreams.
And now, at her window, Marina had the night and the stars to herself, over the still lagoon and down in its mirroring depths.
It was a sad little tale soon told, this tragedy of Toinetta which had seemed so great to the dwellers in that home three years ago. A pretty, wilful child of fifteen, who had grown up impatient of all needful home restraint, finding rebellion easier because there was no mother to control her—with a love of motion, color, sunshine, sound, and laughter that made her an Ariel of Venice, as full of frolic as a kitten and as irresponsible, choosing in her latest caprice one from the many lovers who were ready for the wooing with the seriousness with which she would have chosen a partner for a festa, since to-morrow, if something else seemed better, this lover also could be changed. But the opposition of the grave father and sister made their consent the better worth winning, and set the youthful Gabriele in a more attractive light. So the betrothal had been duly made in the presence of the numerous circle of friends and relatives who stand as witnesses at a betrothal feast in this City of the Sea, and who were as ready with their smiles and their felicitations for any event in the home life of the quarter, as they would be withering in their criticism should there be any failure of complete fulfilment of those traditional observances which are imperative in Venice. Thus the boy and girl were spoza and novizio, waiting the fuller bond in all that pretty interchange of tokens so faithfully prescribed in Venetian circles of every degree; but the period had been one of quarrels and forgivenesses, of fallings away from and returns to favor, as might have been expected from two capricious, foolish children.
To make part of the pretty pageant of the "Brides of Venice," which took place on Lady Day in San Pietro in Castello, the maidens, all in white with floating hair, their dower-boxes fastened by ribbons from their shoulders, had seemed to Toinetta, as she stood each year an onlooker in the admiring crowd, a happiness devoutly to be desired. The custom was a survival of an earlier time, fast losing favor with the better classes of the people; but to Toinetta its dramatic possibilities held a greater fascination than the more sober ceremonial of the usual wedding service, and, all persuasion to the contrary, when the procession gathered in San Pietro in Castello, Toinetta, with flushed cheeks and sparkling eyes, was one of the twelve maidens. Marina looked on with offended eyes; her father consenting, yet only half-convinced, atoning for this lessening of the family dignity by the elegance of the feast he had provided, and all permitted bravery in the gondolas that were waiting to take them thence.
The ups and downs of her childish courtship had culminated in more tears and jealousies than usual on the previous day, but these were secrets between the lovers, and quite unguessed by father or sister. But when the wedding oration had been preached over those twelve bridal pairs, and the wedding benediction had been granted, it was not Gabriele, the boyish betrothed of Toinetta, who brought the blushing bride, partly in triumph and partly in pique, to her father's side, but Piero Salin, the handsomest gondolier on the lagoons, the most daring and dreaded foe of all the established traghetti. It had been impossible for the spectators from the body of the church to follow closely the movements of the twelve white-robed maidens with their attendant swains while the ceremony was progressing in the dim recesses of the choir, and the surprise and dishonor this unexpected dénouement brought upon the home were nothing to the unhappiness in store for the childish bride, whose latest and wildest freak brought neither wisdom for self-discipline nor power to endure that relentless criticism which ceased only when a little one lay in the place of the child-mother, who had been too weak to cope with the worries of the year that had followed upon that unhappy day in San Pietro.
The jilted Gabriele had accepted the situation with a parade of philosophical scorn which removed him beyond the pale of the sympathy Marina would have offered him; and Marina—whose exquisite sense of truth, decorum, and duty had been outraged to a degree beyond Toinetta's comprehension—forgot it all in the overwhelming compassion with which she took her little sister in her arms and tried to help her live her difficult life; she realized, as only a large nature could, that love was the only hope for this emergency, and, feeding on her measureless compassion, love, the diviner faculty, grew to be a power.
Slowly and very dimly she had helped the young wife to some vague comprehension of the duties she had so rashly assumed. Hitherto, for Toinetta, there had been no difficulties, and now there were so many she was frightened and did not understand; now, when Piero scolded at her tears or temper she could not run away nor change him for a pleasanter companion, and she knew no other way to manage such a difficulty; and there was no pleasure in the Piazza because of that eternal critica. There was triumph still in a canalazzo, for Piero was so handsome and so strong, and in the gondola, on the Canal Grande, one could not hear the talking—besides, Venice was not Murano; but in the home the old friends came no more, and life was very sad—quite other than it used to be!
Even her father, who traced the disgrace that had come upon his house to his over-indulgence, was now proportionately severe, and to his stern sense of honor the lawless son-in-law was a most unwelcome guest. Through that slow year of Toinetta's life Marina was the veritable angel in the house, not conscious of any self-sacrifice, but only of living intensely, making the living under the same roof possible for these two strong men who looked at life from such different standpoints, soothing the wounded pride of her father by her perfect sympathy while striving to rouse Piero to nobler ideals.
And now that it was all over—was it all over?—there lay the poor little Zuane; and Piero, over the water at his traghetto, was a great care.