The Bravo (34 page)

"You talk like one who hath not been long a bridegroom, Signore," said
the Bravo with a hollow laugh. "A year hence, you may know what it is to
have your own wife turning your secret thoughts into gold."

"And thou servest them, Jacopo?"

"Who does not, in some manner suited to his habits? We are not masters
of our fortune, Don Camillo, or the Duke of Sant' Agata would not be
turning his influence with a relative to the advantage of the Republic.
What I have done hath not been done without bitter penitence, and an
agony of soul that your own light servitude may have spared you,
Signore."

"Poor Jacopo!"

"If I have lived through it all, 'tis because one mightier than the
state hath not deserted me. But, Don Camillo Monforte, there are crimes
which pass beyond the powers of man to endure."

The Bravo shuddered, and he moved among the despised graves in silence.

"They have then proved too ruthless even for thee?" said Don Camillo,
who watched the contracting eye and heaving form of his companion, in
wonder.

"Signore, they have. I have witnessed, this night, a proof of their
heartlessness and bad faith, that hath caused me to look forward to my
own fate. The delusion is over; from this hour I serve them no longer."

The Bravo spoke with deep feeling, and his companion fancied, strange as
it was coming from such a man, with an air of wounded integrity. Don
Camillo knew that there was no condition of life, however degraded or
lost to the world, which had not its own particular opinions of the
faith due to its fellows; and he had seen enough of the sinuous course
of the oligarchy of Venice, to understand that it was quite possible its
shameless and irresponsible duplicity might offend the principles of
even an assassin. Less odium was attached to men of that class, in Italy
and at that day, than will be easily imagined in a country like this;
for the radical defects and the vicious administration of the laws,
caused an irritable and sensitive people too often to take into their
own hands the right of redressing their own wrongs. Custom had lessened
the odium of the crime; and though society denounced the assassin
himself, it is scarcely too much to say, that his employer was regarded
with little more disgust than the religious of our time regard the
survivor of a private combat. Still it was not usual for nobles like Don
Camillo to hold intercourse, beyond that which the required service
exacted, with men of Jacopo's cast; but the language and manner of the
Bravo so strongly attracted the curiosity, and even the sympathy of his
companion, that the latter unconsciously sheathed his rapier and drew
nearer.

"Thy penitence and regrets, Jacopo, may lead thee yet nearer to virtue,"
he said, "than mere abandonment of the Senate's service. Seek out some
godly priest, and ease thy soul by confession and prayer."

The Bravo trembled in every limb, and his eye turned wistfully to the
countenance of the other.

"Speak, Jacopo; even I will hear thee, if thou would'st remove the
mountain from thy breast."

"Thanks, noble Signore! a thousand thanks for this glimpse of sympathy
to which I have long been a stranger! None know how dear a word of
kindness is to one who has been condemned by all, as I have been. I have
prayed—I have craved—I have wept for some ear to listen to my tale,
and I thought I had found one who would have heard me without scorn,
when the cold policy of the Senate struck him. I came here to commune
with the hated dead, when chance brought us together. Could I—" the
Bravo paused and looked doubtfully again at his companion.

"Say on, Jacopo."

"I have not dared to trust my secrets even to the confessional, Signore,
and can I be so bold as to offer them to you."

"Truly, it is a strange behest!"

"Signore, it is. You are noble, I am of humble blood. Your ancestors
were senators and Doges of Venice, while mine have been, since the
fishermen first built their huts in the Lagunes, laborers on the canals,
and rowers of gondolas. You are powerful, and rich, and courted; while I
am denounced, and in secret, I fear, condemned. In short, you are Don
Camillo Monforte, and I am Jacopo Frontoni!"

Don Camillo was touched, for the Bravo spoke without bitterness, and in
deep sorrow.

"I would thou wert at the confessional, poor Jacopo!" he said; "I am
little able to give ease to such a burden."

"Signore, I have lived too long shut out from the good wishes of my
fellows, and I can bear with it no longer. The accursed Senate may cut
me off without warning, and then who will stop to look at my grave!
Signore, I must speak or die!"

"Thy case is piteous, Jacopo! Thou hast need of ghostly counsel."

"Here is no priest, Signore, and I carry a weight past bearing. The only
man who has shown interest in me, for three long and dreadful years, is
gone!"

"But he will return, poor Jacopo."

"Signore, he will never return. He is with the fishes of the Lagunes."

"By thy hand, monster!"

"By the justice of the illustrious Republic," said the Bravo, with a
smothered but bitter smile.

"Ha! they are then awake to the acts of thy class? Thy repentance is
the fruit of fear!"

Jacopo seemed choked. He had evidently counted on the awakened sympathy
of his companion, notwithstanding the difference in their situations,
and to be thus thrown off again, unmanned him. He shuddered, and every
muscle and nerve appeared about to yield its power. Touched by so
unequivocal signs of suffering, Don Camillo kept close at his side,
reluctant to enter more deeply into the feelings of one of his known
character, and yet unable to desert a fellow-creature in so grievous
agony.

"Signor Duca," said the Bravo, with a pathos in his voice that went to
the heart of his auditor, "leave me. If they ask for a proscribed man,
let them come here; in the morning they will find my body near the
graves of the heretics."

"Speak, I will hear thee."

Jacopo looked up with doubt expressed on his features.

"Unburden thyself; I will listen, though thou recounted the
assassination of my dearest friend."

The oppressed Bravo gazed at him, as if he still distrusted his
sincerity. His face worked, and his look became still more wistful; but
as Don Camillo faced the moon, and betrayed the extent of his sympathy,
the other burst into tears.

"Jacopo, I will hear thee—I will hear thee, poor Jacopo!" cried Don
Camillo, shocked at this exhibition of distress in one so stern by
nature. A wave from the hand of the Bravo silenced him, and Jacopo,
struggling with himself for a moment, spoke.

"You have saved a soul from perdition, Signore," he said, smothering his
emotion. "If the happy knew how much power belongs to a single word of
kindness—a glance of feeling, when given to the despised, they would
not look so coldly on the miserable. This night must have been my last,
had you cast me off without pity—but you will hear my tale,
Signore—you will not scorn the confession of a Bravo?"

"I have promised. Be brief, for at this moment I have great care of my
own."

"Signore, I know not the whole of your wrongs, but they will not be less
likely to be redressed for this grace."

Jacopo made an effort to command himself, when he commenced his tale.

The course of the narrative does not require that we should accompany
this extraordinary man though the relation of the secrets he imparted to
Don Camillo. It is enough for our present purposes to say, that, as he
proceeded, the young Calabrian noble drew nearer to his side, and
listened with growing interest. The Duke of Sant' Agata scarcely
breathed, while his companion, with that energy of language and feeling
which marks Italian character, recounted his secret sorrows, and the
scenes in which he had been an actor. Long before he was done, Don
Camillo had forgotten his own private causes of concern, and, by the
time the tale was finished, every shade of disgust had given place to an
ungovernable expression of pity. In short, so eloquent was the speaker,
and so interesting the facts with which he dealt, that he seemed to play
with the sympathies of the listener, as the improvisatore of that region
is known to lead captive the passions of the admiring crowd.

During the time Jacopo was speaking, he and his wondering auditor had
passed the limits of the despised cemetery; and as the voice of the
former ceased, they stood on the outer beach of the Lido. When the low
tones of the Bravo were no longer audible, they were succeeded by the
sullen wash of the Adriatic.

"This surpasseth belief!" Don Camillo exclaimed after a long pause,
which had only been disturbed by the rush and retreat of the waters.

"Signore, as holy Maria is kind! it is true."

"I doubt you not, Jacopo—poor Jacopo! I cannot distrust a tale thus
told! Thou hast, indeed, been a victim of their hellish duplicity, and
well mayest thou say, the load was past bearing. What is thy intention?"

"I serve them no longer, Don Camillo—I wait only for the last solemn
scene, which is now certain, and then I quit this city of deceit, to
seek my fortune in another region. They have blasted my youth, and
loaded my name with infamy—God may yet lighten the load!"

"Reproach not thyself beyond reason, Jacopo, for the happiest and most
fortunate of us all are not above the power of temptation. Thou knowest
that even my name and rank have not, altogether, protected me from their
arts."

"I know them capable, Signore, of deluding angels! Their arts are only
surpassed by their means, and their pretence of virtue by their
indifference to its practice."

"Thou sayest true, Jacopo: the truth is never in greater danger, than
when whole communities lend themselves to the vicious deception of
seemliness, and without truth there is no virtue. This it is to
substitute profession for practice—to use the altar for a worldly
purpose—and to bestow power without any other responsibility than that
which is exacted by the selfishness of caste! Jacopo—poor Jacopo! thou
shalt be my servitor—I am lord of my own seignories, and once rid of
this specious Republic, I charge myself with the care of thy safety and
fortunes. Be at peace as respects thy conscience: I have interest near
the Holy See, and thou shalt not want absolution!"

The gratitude of the Bravo was more vivid in feeling than in expression.
He kissed the hand of Don Camillo, but it was with a reservation of
self-respect that belonged to the character of the man.

"A system like this of Venice," continued the musing noble, "leaves none
of us masters of our own acts. The wiles of such a combination are
stronger than the will. It cloaks its offences against right in a
thousand specious forms, and it enlists the support of every man under
the pretence of a sacrifice for the common good. We often fancy
ourselves simple dealers in some justifiable state intrigue, when in
truth we are deep in sin. Falsehood is the parent of all crimes, and in
no case has it a progeny so numerous as that in which its own birth is
derived from the state. I fear I may have made sacrifices to this
treacherous influence, I could wish forgotten."

Though Don Camillo soliloquized, rather than addressed his companion, it
was evident, by the train of his thoughts, that the narrative of Jacopo
had awakened disagreeable reflections on the manner in which he had
pushed his own claims with the Senate. Perhaps he felt the necessity of
some apology to one who, though so much his inferior in rank, was so
competent to appreciate his conduct, and who had just denounced, in the
strongest language, his own fatal subserviency to the arts of that
irresponsible and meretricious body.

Jacopo uttered a few words of a general nature, but such as had a
tendency to quiet the uneasiness of his companion; after which, with a
readiness that proved him qualified for the many delicate missions with
which he had been charged, he ingeniously turned the discourse to the
recent abduction of Donna Violetta, with the offer of rendering his new
employer all the services in his power to regain his bride.

"That thou mayest know all thou hast undertaken," rejoined Don Camillo,
"listen, Jacopo, and I will conceal nothing from thy shrewdness."

The Duke of Sant' Agata now briefly, but explicitly, laid bare to his
companion all his own views and measures with respect to her he loved,
and all those events with which the reader has already become
acquainted.

The Bravo gave great attention to the minutest parts of the detail, and
more than once, as the other proceeded, he smiled to himself, like a man
who was able to trace the secret means by which this or that intrigue
had been effected. The whole was just related, when the sound of a
footstep announced the return of Gino.

"Pale she looked,
Yet cheerful; though methought, once, if not twice.
She wiped away a tear that would be coming."
ROGERS.

The hours passed as if naught had occurred, within the barriers of the
city, to disturb their progress. On the following morning men proceeded
to their several pursuits, of business or of pleasure, as had been done
for ages, and none stopped to question his neighbor of the scene which
might have taken place during the night. Some were gay, and others
sorrowing; some idle, and others occupied; here one toiled, there
another sported; and Venice presented, as of wont, its noiseless,
suspicious, busy, mysterious, and yet stirring throngs, as it had before
done at a thousand similar risings of the sun.

The menials lingered around the water-gate of Donna Violetta's palace
with distrustful but cautious faces, scarce whispering among themselves
their secret suspicions of the fate of their mistress. The residence of
the Signor Gradenigo presented its usual gloomy magnificence, while the
abode of Don Camillo Monforte betrayed no sign of the heavy
disappointment which its master had sustained. The Bella Sorrentina
still lay in the port, with a yard on deck, while the crew repaired its
sails in the lazy manner of mariners who work without excitement.