"Thou askest more of Venice than I," he said, well pleased with her enthusiasm; "but have a care lest they say I have not taught thee well, or that I do not know my art, or that I claim too much. At the time of the burning of San Marco these Mosaics for the restoration were from the stabilimenti of the Republic on Rialto—so early it came to us, this glorious art. And it was one Piero, a founder of our house, though the name was other than Magagnati, who was the master in that restoration. But the first mosaics in that old San Marco—ay, and the workmen," he added with a conscious effort, so much would he have liked to claim the invention for Venice, "came hither from the East. Thou shouldst know the history of our art; it is the story of thine ancestry and the nobility of thy house. Thou hast no other."
"I have thee, my father!"
The Veronese did not paint that beautiful face the next morning as he had planned; for the first time he had encountered difficulties. Slowly, as he wended his way through the many turnings of the narrow calle to Campo San Maurizio, carrying a beautiful Moorish box filled with the pearly shells which the Venetians call "flowers of the Lido," and a bouquet of aromatic carnations for the bambino, he recalled the figure and speech of his Madonna, and they were not those of the maidens whom one might encounter at the traghetto or in the Piazza; there had been a dignity and self-forgetfulness in such perfect harmony with the face that, at the moment, this had seemed entirely natural. But the tones returned to him as he pondered, filled with a deeper melody than the usual winning speech of the Venetian; with the grace of the soft dialect there was a rare, unexpected quality, as if thought had formed the undertone. He had never heard such a voice in the Piazza—it was rare even in the palazzo; it was the voice of some sweet and gracious woman with a soul too large for the world; it held a suggestion of peace and convent bells and even-songs of nuns.
Then, still more passionately, the desire overcame him to paint that face for his Madonna; he would never give it up! Yet this maiden was not one of whom he could ask the favor that he craved, nor to whom he could offer any return.
He had come to San Maurizio to take a gondola from the traghetto, partly that he might be free to wander without comment wherever his search should lead, partly because he was always ready for a chat with the people; their experiences interested him, and he himself belonged by his artist life, as by his sympathies, to all classes. Perhaps, too, he had been moved with a vague hope that he might find the face he was seeking, for he was used to fortunate happenings. But there were no waiting Madonnas under the pergola, and the air of the early spring morning blew chill from the Lido, almost with an intimation of failure to his sensitive mood. He pushed aside an oldgransiere, without the gift of small coin that usually flowed so easily from his hand, for service rendered or unrendered, as he impatiently questioned the gondoliers.
"One who knows Murano well!" he called.
There was an instant response from an old man almost past traghetto service, but his age and probable garrulity commended him.
"I will take thee and thy gondola, since thou knowest Murano," said the artist kindly; "but I must go swiftly, and I would not tax thee. Thou shalt have thy fare, but I will pay for another gondolier also from the traghetto; he must be young and lusty. Choose thou him—and hasten."
There was a babel of voices and a self-gratulatory proffer of lithe forms, while the old gondolier turned undecidedly from one to another, and the tottering gransiere ostentatiously protected the velvet mantle of the artist as he sprang into the boat. With an impatient gesture the Veronese indicated his choice, and they were soon on their way.
"Come hither,vecchio mio, and rest thine old bones; let the young one work for us both," the padrone commanded, as he flung himself down among the cushions. "Do they treat thee well at thy traghetto?"
"Eccellenza, yes; but I am scarce older than the others; it is the young ones who make us trouble; they keep not the Mariegole, and it is only the old one may depend upon."
"Davvero, the world is changed then! It used to be good to be young."
"Eccellenza, yes; when I myself was not old, and his excellency also had no beard."
"If age and wisdom might be traded for the time of youthful pranks," said the Veronese with twinkling eyes, "I doubt if there were wisdom enough left in Venice to cavil at the barter! Yet thou and I, having wisdom thrust upon us by these same beards, if trouble come to thee, or too soon they put thee at the gransiere service, we will remember this day passed together."
"Eccellenza, thanks; the gransiere has not much beside his beard to keep him warm, and the time draws near," the old man answered with pleasant Venetian insouciance.
"Tell me," said the Veronese, turning to the younger man, "why do you young fellows make Venice ring with your scandals? You are cutting off your own 'liberties.'"
"Yes, signore." The gondolier hesitated, glancing doubtfully at the artist's sumptuous attire, which might have indicated a state much greater than he kept; for the Veronese was famed throughout Venice, in quarters where he was better known, for an unfailing splendor of costume which would have made him at all times a model for the pictures he loved to paint. Recently, for bad conduct, the gondoliers had been gradually forfeiting their licenses, or "liberties," as they were called in Venice, and the thought crossed the young fellow's mind that this splendid stranger was possibly one of those government officials who were charged with the supervision of the confraternities of the traghetti.
"It is the first time I have the honor of conducting his Excellency; he is perhaps of the Provveditori al Comun?" These officials collected the government taxes and were viewed with jealous eyes by the gondoliers.
"Nay; I am Paolo Cagliari; I belong to a better craft. But please thyself, for there is much talk of this matter."
"Signore, one must live!" the young fellow exclaimed, with a friendly shrug of his shoulders and a gleam of his white teeth; for it was easy to make friends with the genial artist. "And between the governors and theprovveditorione may scarce draw breath! One's bread and onions—" he added, with a dramatic gesture of self-pity. "It is not much to ask!"
"Altro! Nonsense!" the Veronese exclaimed, laughing, for the gondolier looked little like one who was suffering from hunger, as he stood swaying in keen enjoyment of the motion which showed his prowess, of the wind as it swept his bronzed cheek, of the talk which permitted him to exploit his grievances.
"There is the High Mass, twice in the month; there is the Low Mass—every Monday, if you will believe me! There are the priests,for nothing—Santa Maria, they are not few! The first fare in the day?—always for the Madonna of the traghetto. Thismaledettofare of the Madonna suffices for the Madonna's oil, I ask you? Ebbene non! There are the fines—and these, it must be confessed, might be fewer, for the saints are tired of keeping us out of mischief. And little there is for one's own madonna, if one would make gifts!"
"This, then, for thine own madonna," said the artist pleasantly, tossing him a considerable coin. "And may she make thee wiser; for, by thine inventory, which it doth not harm thee to rehearse, thou hast a good memory."
"Eccellenza, there is more, if you be not weary. There is the government tax; it takes long to gather—ask thegastaldo! There are the soldiers for the navy; how many good men does that leave for the traghetto service? And a license is not little to buy for a poor barcariol who would be his own man; one pays three hundredlire—not less. Does it drop into one's hand with the first fare? One must belong to the Guilds—it is less robbery!"
"But for your gastaldo, your great man, for him it is much honor—"
"Eccellenza, believe it not. If the taxes are not there for the provveditori, it is the gastaldo who pays. When the money is little it is the gastaldo who pays much. And the toso—all his faults blamed on the traghetti! Ah, signore, for the gondolier it is a life—Santa Maria!" He threw up his hands with a feint of being at a loss to convey its hardships.
"Come non c'è altro!" said the Veronese, laughing; "there is none like it."
"Ebbene—va bene!" the gondolier confessed, joining heartily in the merriment, his grievance, which was nevertheless a real one, infinitely lessened by confession.
Suddenly the old man rose and bowed his head, and both gondoliers crossed themselves. The Veronese also bared his head and made the sign of reverence, for they were passing the island of San Michele, toward which a mournful procession of boats, each with its torch and its banner of black, was slowly gliding, while back over the water echoed the dirge from those sobbing cellos. Here, where only the dead were sleeping, the sky was as blue and the sea as calm as if sorrow had never been born in the world.
Before them Murano, low-lying, scattered, was close at hand, the smoke of its daily activities tremulous over it, dimming the beauty of sky and sea.
"His Excellency knows Murano? The Duomo, with its mosaics? Wonderful! there are none like them; and it is old—'ma antica'! And the stabilimenti?—it is glory enough for one island! Ah, the padrone wishes to visit the stabilimento Magagnati?"
Paolo Cagliari had not known what he would do until the old man's suggestion seemed to make his vision less vaguely inaccessible, and before they reached the landing he had learned, by a judicious indifference which sharpened his companion's loquacity, that Messer Girolamo lived there alone with his daughter, who went about always with a bambino in her arms—the child of a dead sister.
There could be no doubt; yet, to keep the old man talking, he put the question, "She is very beautiful, the donzella?"
"Eccellenza"—with a pause and deprecatory movement of the shoulders—"cosi—so-so—a little pale—like a saint—devote. For the poor? Good,gentile, the donzel of Messer Girolamo.Bella, with rosy colors?Non!"
With the Venetians there could be no sharp distinction between the decorative and the fine arts, as the fine arts were employed by them without limit in their sumptuous decorations; and that which elsewhere would have been merely decorative they raised, by exquisite quality and finish, to a point which deserved to be termed art, without qualifications.
The Veronese, who had been knighted by the Doge, could scarcely go unrecognized to any art establishment in any quarter of Venice, and with unconcealed pleasure Girolamo bowed low before this master who had come to do him honor; displaying all that the initiated would hold most precious among his treasures—that design, faded and dim, almost unrecognizable, of those early mosaics of the Master Pietro—he held nothing back. It was a day of honor for his house, and the two were alone in his cabinet.
The Veronese had a gift of sympathy; his heart opened to those who loved art and had conquered difficulties in her service, and the talk flowed freely. "I believe," he said, as together they laid away the parchment, "that in our modern mosaics we should keep to the massive lines of these earlier models—greater dignity and simplicity in outline and coloring. It is a mistake to attempt to confound this art with painting."
"It is good, then, for our art, Messer Cavalière, that at San Donato, our mother church, we workmen of Murano have our Lady in that old Byzantine type; there is none earlier—nor in all Venice more perfect of its time—and the setting is of marvelous richness and delicacy."
"It is most interesting," said the Veronese. "Sometimes a question has come to me, if an artist cannot do theall, is he most the artist who stops below his limitation or beyond it? A question of the earlier hint, or the later realization."
"Between the mosaic and the painting, perhaps?" Girolamo questioned, greatly interested.
"Nay, not between the arts, but of that which is possible to each. It is not a Venetian question. Here all is warmth, color, beauty, joy; here art is the expression of redundancy—it hath lost its symbolism."
"I know only Venice—the Greek and the Venetian types. But I have heard that the Michelangelo was in himself a type?"
"He was a prophet," the Veronese answered reverently, "like the greatFlorentine—a seer of visions; but at Rome only one understands why hewas born. He was a maker, creating mighty meanings under formlessness.His great shapes seem each a mystery, wrestling with a message."
"I had thought there was none who equaled him in form—that he was even as a sculptor in his painting."
"And it was even so. When I spake of 'formlessness' it was not the less, but the more; as if,before the visions had taken mortal shape, he, being greater than men, saw them as spirits."
"Never before have I talked with one who knew this master," saidGirolamo, "and it is a feast."
"Nay, I knew him not, for it was not easy to get speech with him, nor a favor a young man might crave. But once I saw him at his work in San Pietro, where he wrought most furiously and would take no payment—'for the good of his soul,' he said, that he might end his life with a pious work. The night was coming on, and already his candle was fastened to his hat, that he might lose no time. They had brought him a little bread and wine for his evening meal, for often he went not home when the mood of work possessed him; and beside him was a writing of the man Savonarola—this and the Holy Evangel and the 'Inferno' fashioned his thoughts. He lived not long after that, for we were still in Rome when they made for him that great funeral in Santa Croce of Florence, the rumor of which is dear to artist hearts. He was great and lonely, and he knew no joy; there hath been none like him."
"And the Tintoretto, at Santa Maria dell' Orto?"
"He, too, is afurioso, wonderful in form—and the Michelangelo had not the coloring of our Jacopo. But the terror of the Tintoretto is very terrible and very human. The Michelangelo fills a great gloom with phantasms—they question—and one cannot escape."
"It hath been a morning of delights," Girolamo said with grave courtesy when the talk had come to an end. "I thank the master for this honor."
"Nay," answered the knightly Veronese; "it is I who have received. And more, yet more would I ask. I know not if in this chamber of treasures I may leave the trifle which I came to bring for the bambino?" he added with hesitation, as he placed upon the table his little inlaid box of baubles and his bunch of spicy flowers. "Yet it was a promise."
And while Girolamo listened in astonishment he told abruptly the story of his meeting with Marina and the little one, unconsciously weaving his thoughts into such a picture as he talked, that Girolamo recognized the inspiration and was already won to plead his cause.
"This," continued the artist, unfolding a letter, "is the order which hath been sent me by Fra Paolo Sarpi, of the convent of the Servi, a man most wise and of high repute in Venice. 'The face,' this learned friar sayeth, 'must be full of consolation and one to awaken holy thoughts. And I, being not an artist' (which, because he is greater than so many of his craft, he hath the grace to acknowledge!), 'have no other word to say, save that it shall be noble and most spiritual, as befitteth our religion.' And such a face till now, Messer Girolamo Magagnati—so beautiful and holy—I have not found. But now it is a vision sent to me from heaven, quite other than any picture I have ever dreamed, and I will paint no other for this Madonna of the Servi. I also, like the Angelo, would give my holiest work for the good of my soul; for the days of man are numbered, though his blood be warm in his veins like wine! It would be a pious act for the maiden; and if she will most graciously consent, the picture shall be an offering for the altar of the chapel of Consolation in the Servi."
"I will ask her," said the father simply, and felt no surprise at what he had granted when he was left alone with his thoughts, for Paolo Cagliari, because of a way he had that men could not resist, already seemed to him a friend; for the rare mingling of knightly grace and artistic enthusiasm, overcoming spasmodically the usual assertiveness of his demeanor, seemed at such moments to mean more than when assumed by those who were never passionate nor brusque, and his very incongruities held a fascination for his friends.
Marina came often to the studio of the Veronese in San Samuele, while theMadonna del Sorrisogrew slowly into life; it was not that most perfect life of which the artist had dreamed, for hitherto beauty had sufficed to him and he had never sought to burden his creations with questions of the soul; but now the sadness of the unattainable that was growing within him looked out of the wonderful eyes of the maiden on his canvas, yet he tossed his brushes aside in discontent. "Her smile eludeth me, though it hath the candor of a child's," the master cried.
Within his studio his pupils came and went, some earnest to follow in the footsteps of the master, absorbed in their tasks; others, golden youths, painting a little because Art was beautiful—not overcoming.
In the inner chamber, which was the artist's sanctum, were only the Veronese and his brother Benedetto at work; his brother, who was architect and sculptor too, was putting in the background of an elaborate palace in a fine Venetian group upon which Paolo worked when not occupied with his Madonna; and a favorite pupil, the young nobleman Marcantonio Giustiniani, was in attendance upon the master. The lovely girlish face, of a spiritual type rare in Venice, seemed to the young patrician more beautiful than that of any of the noble, smiling ladies who were waiting to be won by him, and in those hours of blissful service he, too, made a study—crude and inartistic.
"Thy hand hath yet to learn its cunning," the master said, as in much confusion, one morning when they were quite alone, his pupil revealed his roughly executed head; "yet thou hast painted the soul! The heart hath done it, Signorino mio, for thou art not yet an artist. There is no other lady for Marcantonio Giustiniani; yet she comes not of a noble house."
"She makes it noble!" cried the young fellow, flushing hotly, "for she is like her face."
"Ay, for me and thee she is noble," said the Veronese compassionately, for he loved the boy. "But for the noble Senator, thy father—of the Council of the Ten—he will not find this maiden's name in the 'Libro d'Oro.' I am sorry for thee."
"Master!" cried Marcantonio imploringly, "art thou with me?"
"Verily, but I can do naught for thee."
"Listen, then! One day the nobles shall find that name inscribed in the'Libro d'Oro'; it shall be there, for mine shall suffice."
The master answered nothing, but bending over the sketch which his pupil had made he caressed it, here and there, with loving touches of his magic brush, while the young nobleman poured forth his vehement speech, forgetting to watch the master's fingers.
"Once in the annals of the Republic there is noted such a marriage; a daughter of Murano, of the house of Beroviero—nay, not so beautiful as Marina—wedded with one of our noblest names; and the children, by decree of the Senate, were written every one in the 'Libro d'Oro.'"
"Thishave I done for thee!" said the master, moving away from the sketch and disclosing it to the young fellow, who gazed at it in silent amazement. "Only the eyes have I not touched," the Veronese explained; "for thou hast made them more soulful than even unto me they seemed, and thus have I read thy secret."
"Maestro mio!" cried Marcantonio at length, in ecstasy; "none among us may learn the marvel of thine art!"
"I have but touched thy sketch with the power that mine art could give," the master answered, well pleased. "Yet it is thou who hast read the secret of the face that was not revealed to me."
"We were speaking of the 'Libro d'Oro,'" the young patrician interrupted eagerly.
"It may be so, I know not," the Veronese answered indifferently, for he himself was not written in that noble chronicle. "My art deals little with these cumbrous records of the Republic."
"Thou art wrong to scorn them, caro maestro, for in them is chronicled the glory of Venice."
"The saying doeth honor—from a pupil to his master!" the artist burst forth with his quick, uncontrollable temper. "The Tablets of Stone were reserved for the highest dignity of the Law; and in that Sala dei Capi, where at this moment sits Giustinian Giustiniani—one of the chosen three of the Council of the Ten—my name is written largely with mine own hand, as artists write their names,abovethe heads of rulers for all coming time to see! TheAvvogadorido not keep my 'Libro d'Oro'; the entrance to it is by divine right!"
He flung his brushes fiercely aside, in one of those moods that seemed all unwarranted in comparison with the slightness of the provocation—moods that alternated with the lovable, genial, generous impulses of an artist soul, overwhelming in energy and great in friendship; yet jealous, to a degree a lesser nature could scarcely pardon, of anything that seemed to touch upon his province as an artist and the claims of art to highest honor.
* * * * *
The day was drawing near when Marcantonio Giustiniani, the only son of Giustinian Giustiniani, a noble of the Senate and of the Council of the Ten, should present himself before theAvvocato del Comunto claim admission to the Great Council as a noble, born in lawful wedlock, of noble parents, inscribed in the Golden Book.
To the young fellow himself this twenty-fifth anniversary of his birth, when, by Venetian law, the ceremony must take place, approached with needlessly rapid footsteps; he was not yet ready for the duties it would bring, so much more did he incline to that measure of boyish freedom which had thus far been his, so unwilling was he to renounce his longing for some form of art life—the impulse to which fretted him almost unbearably, in view of the political career which opened mercilessly before him, threatening every dearer project.
Not that he felt himself born to be an artist—Paolo Cagliari laughed at his studies while he encouraged his coming to the studio, telling him that for one who had not chosen Art for his mistress the drawings were "well enough"; and from the Veronese the words were consoling. His mother had been afraid of this taste for art, which, for a short time, had exercised such sway over his fancy, stimulated by hiscultefor the beautiful, that he had plead with her to win his father's consent for an art life. Yet he had himself acquiesced in her quiet but inflexible showing of the futility of attempting such an overturning of Giustiniani traditions, though he still went with dangerous frequency to the studio of the Veronese, to which she had procured him entrance upon his promise that he would not seriously consider that impossible possibility at which he had hinted. There had been mention of Pordenone and of Aretino, with a certain cool scorn that was worse than censure, and as convincing, there was the Titian, than whom, in art and sumptuousness, one could not be greater; but, even for him, Cavalière of France, there was no place in the Consiglio!
Not that Marcantonio would voluntarily have relinquished his hereditary place in the state, his possible part in its glory—the dream which came to all young noblemen of the portrait in that splendid Sala di Consiglio of his own face grown venerable, wearing the ermine and the ducal coronet, in token of that supremacy so dear to each Venetian heart, but jealously held by every noble of the Republic within confines which lessened with each succession, until the crown was assumed in trembling and ignominious restriction—if with external pomp and honor that might befit a king.
But he wanted time; he wanted liberty to choose his own life or enjoy his restlessness, and he realized the more keenly, from the sense of power that was so chafed in the curbing, that he was too young to be forced into such ruthless service; and he could not but acquiesce the less fervently because it was not open to him togivehimself, since the claim of Venice was absolute and resistance was a crime.
But with quite other sentiments the preparations for the fête were progressing in that ancient family of Giustiniani, where the day was awaited with an impatience which increased the fervor and the pomp of preparation, but was not otherwise manifested in any sign of undignified eagerness. No house in Venice had held this right for more generations; no house was princelier in its bearing, nor more superbly republican! No member of that Supreme Council was more esteemed than the stern Giustinian, who had been again and again elected to the most important missions of the state; nodonna nobileof all the Venetians was prouder, more highly born, more beautiful, nor more coldly gracious than the mother of Marcantonio.
In such an environment there was but one career possible for the only son of the house, who had been carefully trained, according to the traditions that made culture for the young Venetian of those days; he had even attended courses of those philosophical conferences which had become the fashion since the sittings of the famous Council of Trent, and which had been conducted in various convents by distinguished professors from Padua and Bologna, and even by some of the learned men of Rome; it was a species of amusement creditable for a young nobleman—it would quicken the reasoning powers and give more subtlety in debate, when government problems should later absorb his gifts.
But if, like other golden youth of his time, he was like a Greek in possession of their liquid tongue and in a mastery of oratory that filled the soul of Giustinian Giustiniani with satisfaction, the young patrician himself had acquired this learning, less with a thought of one day shining in the Senate than because it pleased him as a touch of finish. He was, in some sort, a reaction from the proud and typical Venetian so ably represented by the elder Giustinian, who claimed unchallenged descent from the Emperor Justinian, upheld by the traditions of that long line of ancestry and by the memory of many honorable offices most honorably discharged by numerous members of his house. Marcantonio, on the contrary, was handsome, winning, pleasure-loving—after an innocent fashion, which brought some sneers from his compeers, the gay "company of the hose;" but he thought life not made for pain, nor ugliness, nor hardness of any sort; he was bred to luxury, yet his intellectual inheritance made learning easy for him; he was many sided and vacillating, an exquisite in taste and the science of trifles. His affectionate nature, repressed and chilled, refused absolute subjection to that purpose which the elder Giustinian held relentlessly before him; he wished to live for himself a little, and not wholly for Venice. He was an embodiment of that late time of Venetian culture when its magnificence, its artistic and intellectual development had touched their height, and the hint of decadence shadowed its splendor with a pathos unguessed except by the thoughtful few.
He had dabbled a little in costly manuscripts—a taste for an exquisite in those days, when Venice was the envy of the world for the marvels of her press; and already he possessed a volume or two, for his cabinet, from the atelier of Aldus Manutius—that famous edition of Aristotle, the first ever printed in Greek, with the Aldine mark of anchor and dolphin on the title-page. But a volume more precious still, with its dainty finish and piquant history, conferred distinction, it was said, among the literati, upon its youthful owner; this was no less a treasure than that first copy of "Le Cose Volgare di Messer Francesco Petrarca," most exquisitely printed in type modeled after the poet's own elegant handwriting, and the volume had been superintended by many learned heads,—awaited with impatience, as a triumph for its makers,—and thought a thing rare enough to be offered, like a jewel, to the learned and illustrious lady, Isabella of Mantua. Marcantonio was no pedant, but these treasures simply had their place in the richly painted cabinet, beside many other bits of exquisite workmanship, because rare things in every art were beautiful to our dilettante, and possessions of all kinds came to him easily.
There lay the golden necklace presented by Henry III. of France to a Giustinian who had been one of the young nobles set apart for the household of the king, when on his visit to Venice; and beside it a curious volume of songs, all in honor of France and of the king, entitled "Il Magno Enrico III., difensore di Santa Chiesa, di Francia è di Polonia Re christianissimo." Here was also preserved that still more curious allegorical drama which had been given at the grand fête at the Ducal Palace in honor of this over-adulated monarch. It was natural that some of these literary curiosities, of which the visit of Henry III. had been prolific, should have remained in possession of the masters of the palace which had been tendered for his residence. The volume, bound in azure velvet, embroidered with golden fleurs-de-lis and seeded with pearls, lay open at the page "Chapter in which the Most Holy Catholic Religion is introduced conversing with the most Christian, most powerful and most holy Henry III., the most glorious King of France and Poland."
The noble lady Laura Giustiniani, who looked with pride upon these costly trifles of the cabinet of Marcantonio, was a Venetian in every throb of her patrician veins—first a patriot and then a mother—she earnestly coveted for her son that he should render vast services to the state, receive in his early years the Patriarch's blessing upon his alliance with some ancient Venetian house, and close his noble career with the Doge's coronet. She admitted reluctantly to herself, although she would never have confessed it openly, that in these latter days of the Republic the ermine was not likely to be offered to one so stern and masterful as her husband; while she also knew, and the knowledge held its compensation, that Giustinian Giustiniani could not be spared from the Councils of his government. She knew her history well, and she realized that the days of the Michieli and Orseoli were over, and that the supreme honor was no longer for the strong but for the pliant; this had made her the more willing that her son should partake of the facile and gracious mood of this time of Renaissance, and had led her to shape his education more in consonance with his natural tastes than with her own views of fitness for a Venetian noble. She knew that this was weakness for a Giustinian; but it was hard to see the noble line pass down through the centuries without that coveted sign of honor—the minikin Lion of San Marco, the mighty symbol—carved upon their palaces.
Meanwhile, for a suitable alliance there were already schemes on foot, and mothers of noble young Venetian ladies paid frequent court to the stately Lady Laura in her palace on the Canal Grande; and fathers, in the Senate, in moments of unbending, discussed the probability of the immediate rise of the young Giustinian upon his admission to the Consiglio—he was competent and not positive, gracious and no fool, he could be made to see the wisdom of other people's opinions, which, with the elder Giustinian, was unheard of!
Among the maidens who should grace the banquet to be given on Marcantonio's birthnight, more than one had sat for hours in some high balcony of her palace, preparing for Venetian belle-ship with a patience worthy of a better cause—her long locks, mysteriously treated, streaming over the broad brim of the great, crownless hat which protected her fair face, while the sun bestowed its last touch of beauty in bleaching the dark tresses to that rich, red, burnished gold which the Venetians prized.
The young patrician was already esteemed a connoisseur in the most exquisite industries of Venice, and the Lady Laura had confided to her son the ordering of a set of goblets ofgirasolefor the banquet—a new opalescent glass, with iridescent borderings, such as had never yet been seen at any Venetian fête.
Thus the gondola of the Giustiniani floated for long hours before the famous establishment of Girolamo Magagnati, so delicate and intricate was the work that had been ordered from him; and the gondoliers, meanwhile, in their splendid liveries, held converse with other gondoliers in lazily drifting barks, with hatchments of other noble houses embroidered on their sleeves; and their tones were strident and quarrelsome, or self-complacent and patronizing, as the quality of the silken sashes which displayed the color of their house was heavier or poorer than their own.
One boasts of the lantern, all of brass, "Wrought by Messer Alessandro Leopardi—'come no c'è altro!'—there is no other like it—which he, the favored gondolier, has been burnishing for the banquet of the Dandolo, to which he shall that night convey the noble lady of the Giustiniani!"
"It is less beautiful," retorts a gondolier of the house of Mocenigo, the fringes of his sash of rose sweeping the bridge of his gondola as it moves forward, slightly tilting on its side, with a quick, disdainful motion called forth by proper Mocenigo pride—so pliant are these barks of Venice to the moods of the gondolier. "It is less beautiful—by the Holy Madonna of San Castello!—than the lantern of wrought iron with the jewels ofrubinothat Messer Girolamo Magagnati makes this day, by order of the Eccellentissimo Andrea Mocenigo, with the jewels of the fine glass of Murano that shall be like roses flashing in the night!"
And he has sworn so great an oath, by that most ancient Madonna of Castello, and so well has he vindicated the honor and splendor of his house in thus early appropriating this recent glory of Venetian workmanship in its own family emblem, that there is no present need of distance between him and his rival, and resting upon his oar, as he stands with a proud and graceful bearing of victory, he allows the gondola to glide back into position with the lapping of the water.
For the gondoliers of the house of Giustiniani are unfolding, with quick, ringing, jubilant voices, vast confidential tales of the fêtes that are in preparation for the marriage of the young noble of the Council, their master, of which this banquet is only the precursor. "For of course there will be asposalizia! Santa Maria! there is no room on the Canal Grande for the gondolas that come to the palazzo—from everycasain the 'Libro d'Oro'—to win the favor of the donna nobile of the Giustiniani, for some bella donzella who shall be chosen for their young master—who is like a prince, and will end one day in being Doge! Santa Maria di Castello, he does not wait that day to scatter his golden coins!"
If that question of "sposalizia" is not imminent there is truth enough for any Venetian conscience in the story of the ranks of princely gondolas at the bend of the Canal Grande, on the days when the donna nobile of the Giustiniani gives welcome to her guests—princely gondolas they are, withfelzesof brocaded and embroidered stuffs, the framework inlaid with ivory and mother of pearl, with metal fittings curiously wrought, and all that bravery of pomp so dear to the Venetian heart, which calls forth surly decrees from those stern Signori of the Council—the much unloved "Provveditori alle Pompe," the sumptuary officers of this superb Republic.
Meanwhile, in this narrow water-street, sunk a few feet below the paved foot path that stretches to the doors of the dwellings, there are sudden grumbling movements among the retainers of the patrician families, as they steer their gorgeous gondolas from side to side, to avoid humiliating contact with that slow procession of barges bringing produce from the island gardens of Mazzorbo, there are other barges laden with great, white wooden tubs of water from Fusina, fresh and very needful to these cities of the sea, and the dark hulks of barks curiously entangled with nets and masts and unwieldy tackle of sailor and fisher, show flashes of brilliant color as the water plays through the netted baskets swinging low against their sides, while the sunlight glances back from the gold and silver glory of the scales of living fish, crowded and palpitating within their meshes.
The fisherfolk who guide these barks are gray and gnomelike in their coloring, tanned by sky and sea and ceaseless atmospheres of fish, into a neutral tint,—less vivid in hues of skin and hair, with eyes less brilliant, with less vivacity and charm of bearing than the gay Venetians,—but they are the descendants of those island tribes from which the commerce and greatness of Venice issued; there is almost a show of stateliness in the aggravating slowness with which their heavily freighted barks proceed, serenely occupying the best of the narrow waterway. They are not envious of the hangers-on of those palaces of the nobles, these free fisherfolk of the islands; they have only haughty stares for the servile set of gondoliers in lacings of gold and scarlet—who are not nobles nor fishers, nor people of the soil—and they pass them silently, with much ostentation of taking all the gondoliers of Murano into the friendliness of their jests and curses, as the barges touch and clash with some swiftly gliding gondolier of their own rank, who wears no bravery or armorial bearings.
Their homes—long, low, white-washed cottages—spread along the main channel and reach in lessening, dotted lines far off into the sea, where other islands lie in friendly nearness; but the Bridge, with the Lions of St. Mark on archivolt and parapet—the invariable official signet of Venetian dominion—stretches between that simpler quarter and this, which holds the great houses of Murano, whose masters, a sort ofpetite noblesse, have made their names illustrious by marvelous inventions in that exquisite industry in which Venice has no rival.
The "Madonna del Sorriso" now lacked only the finishing touches upon the exquisite central figure, which reached more nearly to the spiritual ideal than anything that had ever come from the brush of the Veronese, and already the Servite friars, in their long black robes and white cowls, had visited the studio with suggestions many and fruitless, serving only to arouse the artist's indignant protest and increase his determination to image more perfectly the poetic vision that had been vouchsafed to him.
"It hath not the beauty of the 'Venezia' in the palazzo," said one.
"And the church is dark," said another, "and the people like the red and blue of the colors of the true Madonna."
"And a frate, of the Servi—since it hath been painted for the convent—here—kneeling," suggested another, more timidly; for it was known that the Veronese was not always docile in these days, since he had become great.
"Nay, leave me," said the Veronese fiercely; "for this one thing Iknow, and this will I paint, for the good of my soul, as mine art shall prompt me and not otherwise. And if it please not him—Fra Paolo, who hath given the order—I will bestow it elsewhere."
Then a friar habited like the others, who had stood apart and had not spoken, came and threw back his cowl, dismissing the group with a gesture. The features thus disclosed were unimportant, apart from the domelike forehead, which might well belong to the most learned man of his learned age; but Fra Paolo's face owed its distinction to the rare impression it gave the beholder of invincible calm and self-mastery, with a certain mysterious hint of power and a promise of unswervingness. His gaze held no suggestion of concealment; yet for the deeper thoughts that move the spirit of man, to those who knew him well his mild blue eyes remained inscrutable, while his courtesy to all made one forget that his words were few, and that of himself he had revealed nothing.
"It is well," he said, "toknowthat we know. Serve faithfully the God who gave the gift and take no counsel from men who know not."
Then he stood silent for a while before the picture, as if he would learn its meaning, the artist watching anxiously, not guessing his thought.
"The pious wish hath made the offering noble," he said at length, in quiet, measured tones. "And for the face, it is holy—of the beauty that God permits—yet I pretend no criticism, since Art is not of mine understanding. I will not take the honor of the gift away from the giver, though I had meant it otherwise."
After Fra Paolo had left the studio the Veronese was still studying his picture, pleased and serious, feeling that this man, who was not an artist, had comprehended the deepest mood in which he had ever approached his art, when Marina entered.
"Fra Paolo hath found our offering worthy," he said very gravely; and suddenly remembering that Marina had come for the last time, "Benedetto hath need of me in the outer studio for some measurements," he said to Marcantonio, "but I shall soon return. Do thou, meanwhile, show thedamigellathy sketch."
She turned inquiringly toward Marcantonio, who placed it silently before her. When he gathered courage to look at her she stood flushed and trembling with clasped hands.
"Marina!" he cried.
She moved suddenly away from him, drawing herself up to her full height, one hand slightly extended, as if to keep him from coming nearer; but her face, as she turned it frankly to his, was lighted with a smile the Veronese would never copy, and her eyes shone through her tears.
"Is it true, Marina?" he questioned radiantly, as he tried to seize her hand.
But she still moved backward—not as if she were afraid, but as though she would help him by a motion to understand.
"You have confessed me unawares," she said, "and shown me mine own secret, which I knew not. It is not to confess nor deny."
"Yet you move away, Marina, as if you would not have it so."
"Because only the renunciation of it is for us," she answered firmly."For I am of the people, and you—of the Giustiniani!"
"As you shall also be!" he affirmed, undaunted.
"Marco, at Venice this is not easy!" The tone was a caress which she made no effort to withhold, yet he dared not try again to touch her hand; he already felt her strength.
"None the less, because it is not easy it shall be done. Reach me your hand, Marina, to prove that you trust my vow."
He was not wont to crave favor so humbly, but a new reverence had entered into his soul.
She hesitated for a moment, then her words came brokenly, yet with dignity.
"Marco mio, not yet. Because I am of the people, and because the others—your father and mother, who are of the nobles, and my father, who is of the people—may not consent, we will make no vows until this difficulty is conquered."
"They shall not keep us from it."
She shook her head sadly, but came no nearer. "Will Giustinian Giustiniani ask a daughter of the people? But Girolamo Magagnati is not less proud."
"I will return now with thee to Murano. Perhaps thy father will befriend us."
"No, no; without their consent it would be useless. I think I shall not tell him—it would be only a grief."
"Because it meaneth much to thee?" Marco questioned, luminous and ungenerous.
She did not answer.
"Thou dost verily make too much of the nobles and the people, Marina; we are all Venetians."
"Venice is of the sea and of the land—not like other cities; and the Venetian people is not one, but twain; my father hath often said it. Some other day, perhaps—I do not know—if it is needful for the picture, I may come again. Will you tell the maestro? I think he is our friend, and he will understand."
He would have followed her, but she waved him back.
The day had a melancholy cast in the narrow waterways of Murano, where clouds of smoke, dense and constant, rose from hundreds of glass-workers' chimneys, dimming the reflections in the lagoon and obscuring that wonderful coloring of sky which is nowhere so radiant as at Venice.
Beyond the bridge, which the ubiquitous Lion guards with menacing, uplifted paw, beyond the Piazzetta of San Pietro where the acacia trees are growing, down by the main canal, where the breath comes freer—for it is broader than the one where the gondolas from the great houses of Venice gather and float lazily; past the line of low, whitewashed cottages bordering the narrow foot-path on either side, over the little wooden bridge that spans the lagoon, fifty feet across from bank to bank with its ugly traghetto at the farther end, a figure was often seen wending, with a child held in tender mother fashion, to the campo of the "Matrice," the mother church of San Donate.
To-day when Marina had returned from Venice she had caught the little Zuane to her breast with such a passion of tenderness that he looked up into her face with startled eyes; hers were brimming with smiles and tears, and with that wise child-knowledge, which is not granted to earth's learned ones, he put up his tiny hand with a wan smile and stroked her cheek.
"We will go to San Donato, Zuanino mio," she said caressingly, as he nestled closer, "and I havethee, my bimbo!"
She put the little one gently down as they entered the triangular field where the grass grew green and long—whiteness of sand gleaming in irregular patches between the clumps of coarse blades; but to her this poor turf was something precious associated with that island sanctuary, restful and strange, and she drew a long breath with a sense of suppressed pleasure; for sometimes the water, with its shimmering, uncertain surfaces, wearied her, and unconsciously she craved something more positive.
The child, with uncertain steps, tottered toward the standard of San Marco, which floated proudly from the staff that rose from the rude stone pillar in the center of the campo, where other little ones were playing; in the corner by the well groups of women, from the cottages that bounded the campo on one side, were waiting to draw water for the evening meal, putting down their jugs and going first into the Duomo to say an ave, that the good Madonna might bless the cup.
A few feet only from the Duomo the campanile drew her vision skyward; the film of smoke was lighter here, and the sky seemed nearer—bluer. She turned to her little charge with a beaming face—her moods were so easily wrought upon by phases of nature, but slowly moved by personal influences. "See'st thou, bimbo, how it is beautiful here by the Duomo?"
But the little fellow, in one of his sudden spasms of pain, was striking the air impotently with small, clenched fists, frightening the children who were gathering around him, joining in his cries.
Her caress and passionate forgiveness were always ready for the paroxysm in which she was violently pushed away and combated with struggling feet and hands, before came the period of exhaustion in which he nestled close, panting from weakness. Then she carried him into the church, where, kneeling before the Mother of Sorrows, whose outstretched hands seemed to touch her own in responsive sympathy and gift of calm, she prayed and wept.
"O Holy Mater Dolorosa! Why need the children suffer?—they are so tender and so dear!"
She knelt with loving, protecting arms folded close about the little form now breathing softly and at rest, while an agony of questioning filled her prayer to that beseeching Mater Dolorosa, who, wrapped in the clinging folds of her long blue robe, still leaned forward from the marble background of the apse, compassionate for the suffering ones of earth, with imploring hands and ceaseless dropping tears, symbol of love abounding—a symbol, too, of the dignity of those who suffer and are pure in heart.
This sanctuary was almost a home to the maiden, who came hither to praise or question, for life was full of enigmas. Here, too, where she came from duty and deep devotion, with an intricate sensitiveness of conscience which often rendered her unintelligible to her confessor, she lingered for delight. For the tracery on the arches—the color, the wonderful delicacy of the sculpture—were of that time when art was suggestive and faint, in tint and meaning, like a dream, and its message was always spiritual.
"It is not Thou, O Christ," she said, "who willest pain; but thy children, who are not always loving!"
For in her reverie she was comforted by that vision of a legendary time when the Holy Mother had stood, beautiful, compassionate, and commanding, in this field of flaming scarlet lilies; when a great emperor had obeyed her bidding, and San Donato, the Duomo of Murano, had arisen as a refuge for the sorrowing.
In tender language of the people it was the mother church—"Matrice."
She made a cushion of her cloak and laid the little one upon it, for he still slept and she would not waken him; and then, though the quaint, inlaid pavement was cold and bare, she knelt again, her rosary dropping from her hands as she shyly whispered the burden of her strange new confession to this ever-waiting, tender Mother—her confession more full of pain than joy, yet already dear, and a thing not to be surrendered, though it should bring her only pain.
But there was no other friend to whom she told it.
Soon, alas! the days grew over-full of pain, and Marina came more often to the Mater Dolorosa, for the little Zuane had not grown stronger with the coming of the spring; sleep came to him more easily, but it did not bring refreshment, and the roses on his cheeks were only signs of failing bloom. Passionately Marina's loving prayers were breathed before the shrine of the Madonna San Donato, but the little one grew weaker every day, till, after a long night of watching, a sweet-voiced nun stood with Marina beside the cradle.
"The burden of the baby's suffering life is changed to blessing," she said. "Earth held no joy for him; God hath been merciful beyond thy prayer, my daughter."
Fra Paolo Sarpi—this friar so grave and great and unemotional—had been since he had entered the convent in his precocious boyhood the central figure, fascinating the interest of his community by the marvel of his progress, so that those who had been his teachers stood reverently aside, before he had attained to manhood, recognizing gifts beyond their leading which had already won homage from the savants of Europe and crowned the order of the Servi with unexampled honors. The element of the unusual in the young Paolo's endowments had transformed this Benjamin of the convent into a hero, and surrounded the calm flow of his studious life with a halo of romance for these Servite friars; yet the good Fra Giulio in those early days, having little learning wherewith to estimate his progress and watching over him like a father, had been grieved at his strange placidity. "He sorely needeth some touch of emotion," he said yearningly; "methinks I love the lad as if he were mine own son, and I feel something lacking in his life."
"Fret not the lad needlessly with those fanciful notions of thine," Fra Gianmaria had retorted with much asperity. "It is the most marvelous piece of mental mechanism that I have ever dreamed. Already he hath attained to larger knowledge than thou, with thy gray hairs, canst comprehend."
Fra Giulio had crossed himself devoutly, as if confessing to some earthliness. "I measure not my simple mind with that of a genius, my brother; for so God hath endowed our lad. Yet it may be that He meaneth man to garner other blessings besides knowledge. We received him as a child into our fold, and we are responsible for his development. But his condition is not normal."
"Genius is abnormal," Fra Gianmaria had responded shortly.
"He hath no wish but for this ceaseless mental labor; all natural youthful fancies, all joy in the things of beauty—for these he careth naught."
The elder friar's troubled utterance had stirred no tremor in his companion's stern reply. "Thou and I, my brother, have attained by penances and years of abnegation to that mood which hath been granted the boy as a gift to fit him for the cloister life. It were small kindness to implant a struggle of which he knows not the beginnings."
And now, after all these years, through which the good Fra Giulio had watched this son of his affections, whom he loved with a love "passing the loves of earth" he pathetically told himself,—"as if God thus made up to him for all the loves he had resigned,"—now that the name of Fra Paolo was uttered with reverence while his own was unknown, he still expressed his heart in many tender cares, providing the new cassock before the scholar had noticed that the one he wore was seamed and frayed, with such other gentle ministries as the convent rule permitted toward one who never gave a worldly thought to the morrow.
And still, after all these years, the fatherly friar often fondly recurred to a time when he had first seemed to catch some dim, shadowed glimpse of that inner self which Fra Paolo so rarely expressed. He had been endeavoring to rouse the lad to enthusiasm. "Never have I known one show so little pleasure in nature," he had said. They were standing on the terrace of a convent among the hills beyond the plains of Venetia, and the view was beautiful and new for the youth.
"What is nature?" the lad had responded quietly.
"Nature?" Fra Giulio echoed, startled at the question. "Why, nature isGod's creation. Dost thou not find this bit of nature beautiful?"
"It is pleasant," the young friar had assented, without enthusiasm. "But hath God created anything nobler than the mind and soul of man? The earth is but for his habitation."
"Nay," the old man had replied, in a tone of disappointment, "it is more for me—much more for those whom we call poets."
"Poets are dreamers," the lad had said, turning to his old friend with a smile which seemed affectionate, yet was baffling, and went not deep enough for love. "I would not dream; I must know."
"A little dreaming would not hurt thee, my Paolo; for sometimes it seemeth to those who care for thee that thou needest rest."
"Rest is satisfaction," the lad answered quickly. "If there be a problem to be solved, I would rather think than dream. I would rather come in contact with the nobler activities—the mental and spiritual forces—through the minds and works of men. I would find such attrition more helpful than this phase of creation which thou callest 'nature,' whose unfolding is more passive, depending on its inherent law."
"This also is of God's gift, Paolo mio," Fra Giulio had said yearningly."Sometimes thou seemest to find too little beauty in thy life, and whenI brought thee hither I hoped it might move thy soul."
"What can be more beautiful," the young philosopher had questioned earnestly, "than the fitting of all to each, the search for hidden keys, the linking of problems that seemed apart? These are the things that move me. I must walk soberly, Fra Giulio, lest I miss some revelation, so sacred and so mysterious is knowledge! And the love of it leaves me no room for questions of outside beauty—this ordered beauty of hidden law is so wonderful!"
For one moment, as Fra Giulio had looked at him, he fancied that he had seen deeper into his eyes than ever before; then the veil had seemed to rise up from the boy's heart and close over its depths. If it had been a moment of self-revelation the young friar was again protected by that baffling calm as he glanced about him, turning affectionately to his old friend. "It pleaseth me that thou art pleased," he said.
Fra Giulio had answered with a sigh. It was hard for one who loved so truly to get so near, yet be no nearer. "I could wish that thou also shouldst take pleasure in this beauty, my Paolo, for thou art missing a joy that God permits."
Then the youthful scholar had turned his eyes upon him silently; and it had seemed to the old man, in his great love, that a sudden glory had transfigured the grave young face like a consecration. He still remembered the tones of that clear voice saying serenely: "My Father, when God speaketh a message in our souls, the peace and beauty which come to us as we follow its call, are in the measure which He hath decreed for us."
Now that the convent rang with his triumphs, and Fra Paolo was often absent from his cell on missions of honor, the old friar sometimes wondered how many of those philosophic and scientific truths which had made him famous as an original thinker had come to the lad in glimmerings on that first night among the hills, when, turning to his old friend and stretching out his hands with a solemn, imploring motion which seemed to confess a desperate need of isolation, he had said only, "Let me think!"
Had his seeming nearness to the stars in the conventloggiabrought him a premonition of the later message which had made him the "friend and master" of Galileo?
Did he develop his "Laws of Sound" in that voiceful silence; or was it in that solitude he had first watched the gentle ebb and flow of his own life-current and learned the secret which Harvey, later, uttered to the world?
Or had he been wholly absorbed in those philosophical questions which he so brilliantly disputed at the learned Court of Mantua?
But to be near him was only to wonder more at the mystery which enveloped him; and Fra Giulio, now that the lad had reached his prime, often went reverently back to that night under the stars, when the gifted youth had first stood, distanced as it were from men, remote from human habitations and alone with the One whom only he acknowledged as Master—then, perhaps, he had first been conscious of his latent power; surely then the manifold message of his life must have whispered within him many premonitions!
The time was long past when a question could arise as to the right of the Augustinians to rich possessions in church and convent; and the priceless treasures of art, flung sometimes in atonement upon their quiet walls by a world-worn artist, or sent in propitiation for some unconfessed sin by a prince of Church or State, were found side by side with the gifts and legacies of the faithful, which, in sincere devotion, they often impoverished their families to bestow.
But none of these things had charms for Fra Paolo. Not even the beauty of the cloisters, where the low, gray arches rested on slender shafts of marble, wrought and twisted into as many devices, drew his thoughts from the ceaseless contemplation of his problems; not even the petted rose-tree, lovingly trained by the gentle Fra Francesco and lifting its pink glory to the crest of the colonnade, won his eyes to wander from the absorbing treasures of the great library where he passed his days. Here many a brother had taught himself patience over the fine, endless text of an ancient gospel, or wrought into the exquisite illumination of some missal which stood to him in the place of his daily living those yearning, torturing, hungering affections which had so enriched a gentle home—as a brother, less disciplined, had carved his unruly tempers into the grotesque figures of the reading desks. But for Fra Paolo the great library of the convent held no unsatisfied yearnings—only an infinite content and power to achieve.
From the days when those curious in philosophical research had flocked from the neighboring universities to see this professor of theology who could not be conquered in argument, and had been confronted by a smooth-faced lad of twenty, until now, he was still the glory of the Servi; and well might the friars watch in triumph, as one by one he gathered laurels for their order. A little human flush of triumph or of self-conceit would have added charm to his argument, but these notes were lacking; clearly, logically, unanswerably, he met each question, convincing without emotion and hastening from the gay court, of which these intellectual tourneys were the delight, to the welcome seclusion of the convent. If he seemed to have missed a real childhood,—its follies, its innocent pleasures, its winsome affections,—so later, the temptations that would naturally beset a career so extraordinary fell harmlessly away from him, for a passion for knowledge burned within him, consuming all ignoble motives and keeping this young scholar, in friar's robes, in marvelous singleness of heart, in the midst of a flattering and luxurious court.
Always he had been a law to himself, both morally and intellectually; never before did it seem that genius had been cast in a mold so orderly and calm. In that state of intense concentration which was his habitual mood, he accomplished without apparent effort the things for which others paid by a life-time of struggle; and morally he had no visible combats, not seeming to be even reached by the things which tempted other men. His wants were fewer than the simplest rule of his convent allowed, and it seemed less that he had triumphed over the usual earthly temptations than that he had been created abnormally free from them that his whole strength might spend itself in the solving of problems. In a certain sense he stood mysteriously alone, though his friends were many and devoted and among the wise and venerated of the earth; but there was always a door closed to them beyond the affection which he returned them. "Always," he said once, "we veil our faces": yet none doubted his sincerity.
From time to time, as the years sped, some echo of the jealousy which his phenomenal success and the boldness of his bearing naturally evoked, penetrated to the cloisters of the Servi; and more than once there had been a denunciation to the Inquisition to discuss; some one in authority had found fault with his theological opinions and denounced him for his reading of a passage in Genesis, upon which he based his argument—the affair was grave indeed.
"Ah, the pity of it—the pity of it!" Fra Giulio had exclaimed. "They should show mercy—he is still so young a man!"
"Ay, young enough to need much discipline," bravely muttered a friar who dared to disbelieve in their prodigy.
"Silence!" commanded Father Gianmaria, who was now the Superior, in a stentorian tone; for within these walls there was no appeal from his judgment or his temper. "The man who speaks only what heknowsis old in wisdom;" and turning he addressed the company in great dignity: "It doth appear that Rome approveth Fra Paolo's rendering and hath gravely censured the Inquisitor who hath cited him, commanding him to meddle only with that of which he hath some understanding."
"There are then tale-bearers whose jealousy would ruin our Paolo!" FraGiulio had exclaimed in anxiety.
"It was none other than Fra Paolo himself who carried the tale," the Superior retorted in scorn of the old man's weak affection. "Fra Paolo refused to appear before the Inquisitor who had cited him, who, he alleged, knew not Hebrew nor Greek, and had therefore no knowledge upon which to base his judgment; and on this ground Fra Paolo appealed to Rome."
"It were a pity," said a gentle-faced young friar, who had been listening silently, but with an expression of deep and affectionate interest, "that one of so rare learning should remain long in a position of danger to orthodoxy. Already the Court of Mantua hath been censured by the Holy Father for heretical opinions."
"Nay; but for harboring heretics, hunted and driven," Fra Giulio corrected warmly. "There be deeds of mercy that will be forgiven us."
A look of perplexity crossed the candid, boyish face of Fra Francesco.
"But the law of obedience is more simple," he said timidly; "and ourHoly Father—"
"Thou, not yet out of thy novitiate, doest well, verily, to prate of obedience and doctrines," interrupted Father Gianmaria, less severely than he was wont to treat such breaches of etiquette; for Fra Francesco had deep, spiritual, loving eyes, in which an unuttered wonder sometimes seemed to chide, for all his gentleness; and his ways were winsome.
So, through the years, whether he were present or absent, the life of the convent had centered about Fra Paolo, who now, after many missions of importance, had once more returned to his old cell in the Servi, with another added for his books and labors, since often it suited him to be alone. The breath of jealousy still clouded the serenity of his sky, and he was not without some unfulfilled longings; but no scandal had ever touched him. He was great enough now to be smitten through his friends, and the good Fra Giulio had been the victim taken in his stead; upon Fra Paolo's last homecoming to the convent the loving, fatherly greeting had failed him.
"Ask the nuns, to whom he is father confessor; they will have no other, and refuse admittance to one of our order who hath been sent to take this duty upon him. And our good Fra Giulio hath been removed in humiliation, and languisheth in Bologna, by order of the Patriarch who hath been won by the tale of one who loveth thee not."
"There is no more to it than that?" Fra Paolo questioned.
"Nay, no more, my brother," Fra Francesco answered with conviction.
"The name then?" said Fra Paolo; and when it had been told him he recognized the man as one in whom trust was misplaced, and one who intrigued for power.
"The charge?" he asked again. And when he had patiently learned the details of which Fra Giulio's long and faithful service gave little hint, he gathered evidence wherewith to refute them, and journeyed swiftly back to Rome, returning, triumphant, to reinstate the good old friar with honor in the home and offices he loved—the manner of his return making amends to Fra Giulio for the pain he had suffered, so sweet it seemed to him to owe to this son of his affections all the gladness of his later days.