The Bravo (7 page)

"My master's signet."

"I know thee not."

"That image of San Teodoro could testify that this is holy truth, if it
would but speak! I have not the honor of your friendship, Signor Jacopo;
but one may have affairs even with a stranger. If you met a peaceable
and innocent gondolier in the court of the palace since the clock of the
piazza told the last quarter, and got from him a ring, which can be of
but little use to any but its rightful owner, one so generous will not
hesitate to return it."

"Dost thou take me for a jeweller of the Rialto that thou speakest to me
of rings?"

"I take you for one well known and much valued by many of name and
quality, here in Venice, as witness my errand from my own master."

"Remove thy mask. Men of fair dealing need not hide the features which
nature has given them."

"You speak nothing but truths, Signor Frontoni, which is little
remarkable considering thy opportunities of looking into the motives of
men. There is little in my face to pay you for the trouble of casting a
glance at it. I would as lief do as others in this gay season, if it be
equally agreeable to you."

"Do as thou wilt; but I pray thee to give me the same permission."

"There are few so bold as to dispute thy pleasure, Signore."

"It is, to be alone."

"Cospetto! There is not a man in Venice who would more gladly consult
it, if my master's errand were fairly done!" muttered Gino, between his
teeth. "I have here a packet, which it is my duty to put into your
hands, Signore, and into those of no other."

"I know thee not—thou hast a name?"

"Not in the sense in which you speak, Signore. As to that sort of
reputation I am as nameless as a foundling."

"If thy master is of no more note than thyself the packet may be
returned."

"There are few within the dominions of St. Mark of better lineage or of
fairer hopes than the Duke of Sant' Agata."

The cold expression of the Bravo's countenance changed.

"If thou comest from Don Camillo Monforte, why dost thou hesitate to
proclaim it? Where are his requests?"

"I know not whether it is his pleasure or that of another which this
paper contains, but such as it is, Signor Jacopo, my duty commands me to
deliver it to thee."

The packet was received calmly, though the organ which glanced at its
seal and its superscription, gleamed with an expression which the
credulous gondolier fancied to resemble that of the tiger at the sight
of blood.

"Thou said'st something of a ring. Dost thou bear thy master's signet? I
am much accustomed to see pledges ere I give faith."

"Blessed San Teodore grant that I did! Were it as heavy as a skin of
wine, I would willingly bear the load; but one that I mistook for you,
Master Jacopo, has it on his own light finger, I fear."

"This is an affair that thou wilt settle with thy master," returned the
Bravo, coldly, again examining the impression of the seal.

"If you are acquainted with the writing of my master," hurriedly
remarked Gino, who trembled for the fate of the packet, "you will see
his skill in the turn of those letters. There are few nobles in Venice,
or indeed in the Sicilies, who have a more scholarly hand, with a quill,
than Don Camillo Monforte; I could not do the thing half so well
myself."

"I am no clerk," observed the Bravo, without betraying shame at the
confession. "The art of deciphering a scroll, like this, was never
taught me; if thou art so expert in the skill of a penman, tell me the
name the packet bears."

"'Twould little become me to breathe a syllable concerning any of my
master's secrets," returned the gondolier, drawing himself up in sudden
reserve. "It is enough that he bid me deliver the letter; after which I
should think it presumption even to whisper more."

The dark eye of the Bravo was seen rolling over the person of his
companion, by the light of the moon, in a manner that caused the blood
of the latter to steal towards his heart.

"I bid thee read to me aloud the name the paper bears," said Jacopo,
sternly. "Here is none but the lion and the saint above our heads to
listen."

"Just San Marco! who can tell what ear is open or what ear is shut in
Venice? If you please, Signor Frontoni, we will postpone the examination
to a more suitable occasion."

"Friend, I do not play the fool! The name, or show me some gage that
thou art sent by him thou hast named, else take back the packet; 'tis no
affair for my hand."

"Reflect a single moment on the consequences, Signor Jacopo, before you
come to a determination so hasty."

"I know no consequences which can befall a man who refuses to receive a
message like this."

"Per Diana! Signore, the Duca will not be likely to leave me an ear to
hear the good advice of Father Battista."

"Then will the Duca save the public executioner some trouble."

As he spoke, the Bravo cast the packet at the feet of the gondolier, and
began to walk calmly up the piazzetta. Gino seized the letter, and, with
his brain in a whirl, with the effort to recall some one of his master's
acquaintances to whom he would be likely to address an epistle on such
an occasion, he followed.

"I wonder, Signor Jacopo, that a man of your sagacity has not remembered
that a packet to be delivered to himself should bear his own name."

The Bravo took the paper, and held the superscription again to the
light.

"That is not so. Though unlearned, necessity has taught me to know when
I am meant."

"Diamine! That is just my own case, Signore. Were the letter for me,
now the old should not know its young quicker than I would come at the
truth."

"Then thou canst not read?"

"I never pretended to the art. The little said was merely about writing.
Learning, as you well understand, Master Jacopo, is divided into
reading, writing, and figures; and a man may well understand one,
without knowing a word of the others. It is not absolutely necessary to
be a bishop to have a shaved head, or a Jew to wear a beard."

"Thou would'st have done better to have said this at once; go, I will
think of the matter."

Gino gladly turned away, but he had not left the other many paces before
he saw a female form gliding behind the pedestal of one of the granite
columns. Moving swiftly in a direction to uncover this seeming spy, he
saw at once that Annina had been a witness of his interview with the
Bravo.

"'T will make me think
The world is full of rubs, and that my fortune
Runs 'gainst the bias."
RICHARD THE SECOND.

Though Venice at that hour was so gay in her squares, the rest of the
town was silent as the grave. A city in which the hoof of horse or the
rolling of wheels is never heard, necessarily possesses a character of
its own; but the peculiar form of the government, and the long training
of the people in habits of caution, weighed on the spirits of the gay.
There were times and places, it is true, when the buoyancy of youthful
blood, and the levity of the thoughtless, found occasion for their
display—nor were they rare; but when men found themselves removed from
the temptation, and perhaps from the support of society, they appeared
to imbibe the character of their sombre city.

Such was the state of most of the town, while the scene described in the
previous chapter was exhibited in the lively piazza of San Marco. The
moon had risen so high that its light fell between the range of walls,
here and there touching the surface of the water, to which it imparted a
quivering brightness, while the domes and towers rested beneath its
light in a solemn but grand repose. Occasionally the front of a palace
received the rays on its heavy cornices and labored columns, the gloomy
stillness of the interior of the edifice furnishing, in every such
instance, a striking contrast to the richness and architectural beauty
without. Our narrative now leads us to one of these patrician abodes of
the first class.

A heavy magnificence pervaded the style of the dwelling. The vestibule
was vast, vaulted, and massive. The stairs, rich in marbles, heavy and
grand. The apartments were imposing in their gildings and sculpture,
while the walls sustained countless works on which the highest geniuses
of Italy had lavishly diffused their power. Among these relics of an age
more happy in this respect than that of which we write, the connoisseur
would readily have known the pencils of Titian, Paul Veronese, and
Tintoretto—the three great names in which the subjects of St. Mark so
justly prided themselves. Among these works of the higher masters were
mingled others by the pencils of Bellino, and Montegna, and Palma
Vecchio—artists who were secondary only to the more renowned colorists
of the Venetian school. Vast sheets of mirrors lined the walls, wherever
the still more precious paintings had no place; while the ordinary
hangings of velvet and silk became objects of secondary admiration, in a
scene of nearly royal magnificence. The cool and beautiful floors, made
of a composition in which all the prized marbles of Italy and of the
East polished to the last degree of art, were curiously embedded, formed
a suitable finish to a style so gorgeous, and in which luxury and taste
were blended in equal profusion.

The building, which, on two of its sides, literally rose from out the
water, was, as usual, erected around a dark court. Following its
different faces, the eye might penetrate, by many a door, open at that
hour for the passage of the air from off the sea, through long suites of
rooms, furnished and fitted in the manner described, all lighted by
shaded lamps that spread a soft and gentle glow around. Passing without
notice ranges of reception and sleeping rooms—the latter of a
magnificence to mock the ordinary wants of the body—we shall at once
introduce the reader into the part of the palace where the business of
the tale conducts us.

At the angle of the dwelling on the side of the smaller of the two
canals, and most remote from the principal water-avenue of the city on
which the edifice fronted, there was a suite of apartments, which, while
it exhibited the same style of luxury and magnificence as those first
mentioned in its general character, discovered greater attention in its
details to the wants of ordinary life. The hangings were of the richest
velvets or of glossy silks, the mirrors were large and of exquisite
truth, the floors of the same gay and pleasing colors, and the walls
were adorned with their appropriate works of art. But the whole was
softened down to a picture of domestic comfort. The tapestries and
curtains hung in careless folds, the beds admitted of sleep, and the
pictures were delicate copies by the pencil of some youthful amateur,
whose leisure had been exercised in this gentle and feminine employment.

The fair being herself, whose early instruction had given birth to so
many skilful imitations of the divine expression of Raphael, or to the
vivid tints of Titian, was at that hour in her privacy, discoursing with
her ghostly adviser, and one of her own sex, who had long discharged the
joint trusts of instructor and parent. The years of the lady of the
palace were so tender that, in a more northern region, she would
scarcely have been deemed past the period of childhood, though in her
native land, the justness and maturity of her form, and the expression
of a dark, eloquent eye, indicated both the growth and the intelligence
of womanhood.

"For this good counsel I thank you, my father, and my excellent Donna
Florinda will thank you still more, for your opinions are so like her
own, that I sometimes admire the secret means by which experience
enables the wise and the good to think so much alike, on a matter of so
little personal interest."

A slight but furtive smile struggled around the mortified mouth of the
Carmelite, as he listened to the naive observation of his ingenuous
pupil.

"Thou wilt learn, my child," he answered, "as time heaps wisdom on thy
head, that it is in concerns which touch our passions and interests
least, we are most apt to decide with discretion and impartiality.
Though Donna Florinda is not yet past the age when the heart is finally
subdued, and there is still so much to bind her to the world, she will
assure thee of this truth, or I greatly mistake the excellence of that
mind, which hath hitherto led her so far blameless, in this erring
pilgrimage to which we are all doomed."

Though the cowl was over the head of the speaker, who was evidently
preparing to depart, and his deeply-seated eye never varied from its
friendly look at the fair face of her he instructed, the blood stole
into the pale cheeks of the maternal companion, and her whole
countenance betrayed some such reflection of feeling at his praise, as a
wintry sky exhibits at a sudden gleam from the setting sun.

"I trust that Violetta does not now hear this for the first time,"
observed Donna Florinda, in a voice so meek and tremulous as to be
observed.

"Little that can be profitably told one of my inexperience has been left
untaught," quickly answered the pupil, unconscious herself that she
reached her hand towards that of her constant monitor, though too intent
on her object to change her look from the features of the Carmelite.
"But why this desire in the Senate to dispose of a girl who would be
satisfied to live for ever, as she is now, happy in her youth, and
contented with the privacy which becomes her sex?"

"The relentless years will not stay their advance, that even one
innocent as thou may never know the unhappiness and trials of a more
mature age. This life is one of imperious and, oftentimes, of tyrannical
duties. Thou art not ignorant of the policy that rules a state which
hath made its name so illustrious by high deeds in arms, its riches, and
its widely-spread influence. There is a law in Venice which commandeth
that none claiming an interest in its affairs shall so bind himself to
the stranger as to endanger the devotion all owe to the Republic. Thus
may not the patrician of St. Mark be a lord in other lands, nor may the
heiress of a name, great and valued as thine, be given in marriage to
any of note, in a foreign state, without counsel and consent from those
who are appointed to watch over the interests of all."