Things happened closer to home, too, not all of them joyous things. In fairly close succession, my father and then my Zio Mafio and then my Marègna Fiordelisa died. Their funerals were of such splendid pomp and thronged attendance and citywide mourning as almost to overshadow the obsequies for the Doge Gradenigo, who died shortly afterward. About the same time, we here in Venice were set aghast when the Frenchman who had become Pope Clement V summarily removed the Apostolic See from Rome to Avignon in his native France, so that His Holiness might remain near to his mistress, who, being the wife of the Count of Périgord, could not conveniently visit him in the Eternal City. We might have looked tolerantly on that as a temporary aberrancy, typical of a Frenchman, except that, three years ago, Clement was succeeded by another Frenchman, and John XXII seems satisfied that the papal palace remain in Avignon. My correspondents have not kept me well informed of what the rest of Christendom thinks of this sacrilege, but, to judge from the tempest it has raised here in Venice—including some not at all frivolous suggestions that we Venetian Christians contemplate shifting our allegiance to the Greek Church—I must surmise that poor San Piero is raging in his Roman catacomb.
The Doge succeeding Gradenigo was only briefly in office before he too died. The current Doge Zuàne Soranzo is a younger man and should be with us for a while. He has also been a man of innovations. He instituted an annual race of gòndole and batèli on the Grand Canal, and called it the Regata, because prizes were awarded to the winners. In each of the four years since, the Regata has got more lively and colorful and popular—being now a day-long festa, with races for boats of one oar, of two oars, even boats rowed by women, and the prizes have got ever richer and more sought after—until the Regata has become as much of a yearly spectacle as the Wedding of the Sea.
Another thing the Doge Soranzo did was to ask me to assume civic office again, as one of the Proveditori of the Arsenàl, and I still continue in that post. It is purely a ceremonial duty, like being supracomito of a warship, but I do go out to that end of the island once in a while, to pretend that I really am supervising the shipyard. I enjoy being out there in the eternal aroma of boiling pitch, watching a galley begin life at one corner of the yard as just a single keel timber—then take shape as it moves along the ways, from one team of workers to the next, getting ribs and planking and, still slowly moving all the time, goes on through the sheds where workers on both sides stock its hull and holds with every necessity, from cordage and spare sails to armaments and staple provisions, while its decking and upper works are still being finished by other arsenaloti—until it floats out into the Arsenàl basin, a complete new vessel ready for auction to some buyer, ready to dip oars or hoist sail and go a-journeying. It is a poignant sight to one who will journey no more.
I shall not be going away again, not anywhere, and in many respects I might almost never have been away. I am still esteemed in Venice, but as a fixture now, not a novelty, and children do not prance behind me in the streets any more. An occasional visitor from some foreign country, where the
Description of the World
has just made its first appearance, still comes seeking to meet me, but my fellow Venetians have tired of hearing my reminiscences and they do not thank me for my contributions of ideas I picked up in far places.
Not long ago, at the Arsenàl, the Master Shipwright got quite red in the face when I told, at some length, how the Han mariners somehow guide their massive chuan vessels more deftly—with only a single, centered steering oar—than do the helmsmen of our smaller galeazze with their double oars, one on each side. The Master Shipwright listened patiently while I discoursed, but he went away grumbling audibly about “dilettanti disrespectful of tradition.” Only a month or so afterward, though, I saw a new galley come down the ways, not with the usual lateen sail but square-rigged in the manner of a Flemish cog, and with only a single, centered, stern-mounted steering oar. I was not invited aboard for that ship’s trial voyage, but it must have handled well, for the Arsenàl has since been turning out more and more of the same design.
Also not long ago, when I was honored with an invitation to dine at the palazzo of the Doge Soranzo, the dinner was accompanied by muted music from a band of players in the gallery overlooking the chamber. At a lull in the conversation, I remarked to the table at large:
“Once upon a time, in the palace of Pagan, in the nation of Ava, in the lands of Champa, we were entertained at dinner by a troupe of musicians who were all blind men. I inquired of a steward if blind men in that country found easiest employment as musicians. The steward told me, ‘No, U Polo. If a child shows a talent for music, he is deliberately blinded by his parents, so that his hearing will sharpen and he will concentrate his attention only on perfecting his music, so that someday he may be accorded a place as a palace musician.’”
There was a general silence. Then the Dogaressa said crisply, “I do not think that a fit story for the dining table, Messer Marco.” And I have not been invited there since.
When a young man named Marco Bragadino, who has lately been making the cascamorto at my eldest daughter Fantina, lavishing on her languishing looks and heartfelt sighs, finally took his courage in both hands and came to me to inquire if he might commence formal calls of courtship, I tried to put him at ease by saying jovially:
“That reminds me, young Bragadino, of an occurrence in Khanbalik once upon a time. There was hauled into the Cheng—into the court of justice—a man accused of beating his wife. The Tongue of the Cheng asked the man if he had good reason for this behavior, and the wretch said yes, he was beating his wife for her having suffocated their baby daughter immediately after its birth. The wife was asked if she had anything to say, and she cried, ‘It was only a daughter, my lords. There is no crime in disposing of excess daughters. Anyway, that happened fifteen years ago.’ The Tongue then asked the man, ‘Man, why in the world are you beating your wife for that
now
?’ And the man said, ‘My lords, fifteen years ago it did not matter. But recently a plague of some female disease has killed off almost all the other young maidens in our district. Brides are now at a premium, and the few available are fetching princess prices!’”
After a while, young Bragadino cleared his throat and asked, “Er, is that all, Messere?”
“That is all,” I said. “I do not remember how the Cheng ruled in that case.”
When young Bragadino had departed, looking confused and shaking his head, my wife and Fantina stormed into the room and began berating me. They had evidently both been listening behind the door.
“Papà, what have you done? Gramo mi, you have repulsed my best hope of marriage! I shall be a lonely and despised zitella all my life! I shall die with the jewel! What have you done?”
“Marcolfo vechio!” said Donata, in the memorable style of her own mother. “We have no scarcity of daughters in this house! You can ill afford to turn away any of their suitors!” She spared Fantina none of her frankness, either. “It is not as if they were sensational beauties, much sought after!” Fantina gave a despairing wail and flung herself out of the room. “Can you not curb your everlasting old reminiscences and your wandering old wits?”
“You are right, my dear,” I said contritely. “I know better. One of these days I shall
do
better.”
She
was
right, too. I concede that. In the matter of children, Donata had reposed her confidence in her Lord’s goodness, but, after giving us three daughters, evidently her good Lord despaired of ever providing a son and heir to the Venetian house of Polo. That I had no male issue did not crushingly disappoint me or blight my life. It is not very Christian of me to say so, I know, but I do not believe that when my own life is over I shall be taking much interest in the affairs of this world, or wringing the pale hands of my soul because I left no Marcolino Polo in charge of all the warehouse goods and zafran plantations I could not take with me. I did not confess this recusancy of mine to old Pare Nardo before he died (and that clement old man would probably have given me small penance for it)—and I shall not confess it to the grim-lipped young Pare Gasparo (who would be righteously severe)—but I am inclined to believe that if there is a Heaven I have not much hope of it; if there is a Hell, I daresay I will have other things to worry about than how my progeny are faring on the Rialto.
I may be less than a model Christian, but neither am I like those Eastern fathers whom I have heard say such things as: “No, I have no children. Only three daughters.” I have never been prejudiced against daughters. Of course, I might have hoped for daughters with better looks and brighter wits. I am perhaps overparticular in that regard, having myself been blessed with the knowing of so many extraordinarily beautiful and intelligent women in my younger days. But Donata was one of those, in
her
younger days. If she could not replicate herself in her daughters, the fault must be mine.
The little Raja of the Hindus once harangued me about no man’s ever knowing with surety who is the father of any of his children, but I have never had the least cause for anxiety. I have only to look at any one of them—Fantina, Bellela or Morata—they all look too exactly like me for there to be any doubt. Now, I hasten to asseverate that Marco Polo has all his life been no bad-looking man. But I should not wish to be a nubile young maiden and look like Marco Polo. If I was, and did, I should hope at least to have a bright intelligence by way of compensation. Unfortunately, my daughters have been scanted in that respect, as well. I do not mean to say that they are drooling imbeciles; they are no worse than unperceptive and lackluster and charmless.
But they are of my making. Should the potter despise the only pots he will ever produce? And they are good girls, with good hearts, or so I am repeatedly and consolingly told by my acquaintances who possess comely daughters. All I can say, from my own knowledge, is that my girls are cleanly of person and smell good. No, I can also say that they are fortunate in having a Papà who can dower them with the attractions of affluence.
Young Bragadino was not so repulsed by my dithering that day as to stay away forever, and the next time he called I confined my disquisition to topics like bequests and prospects and inheritances. He and Fantina are now formally betrothed, and Bragadino the Elder and I will shortly be convening with a notary for the impalmatura. My second daughter, Bellela, is being sedulously courted by a young man named Zanino Grioni. Morata will have someone, too, in due time. I have no doubt that all three girls will be grateful to be known no longer as the Damìne Milione, and I have no overwhelming regrets that the Compagnia and the fortune and the house of Polo will henceforth percolate down through the generations as the Compagnie and houses of Bragadino, Grioni, Eccètera. If the precepts of the Han are true, this may cause consternation among my ancestors, from Nicolò all the way back to the Dalmatian Pavlo, but it causes not much to me.
IF I had any real lament to make about our lack of sons, it would be a lament for what that did to Donata. She was only about thirty-two years old when Morata was born, but the birth of a third daughter clearly convinced her that she was incapable of male issue. And, as if to avert any hazard of producing yet another daughter, Donata thereafter began to discourage our further indulgence in conjugal relations. She never, by word or gesture,
refused
my amorous overtures, but she began to dress and look and comport herself in a manner calculated to diminish her appeal for me and dampen my ardor for her.
At thirty-two she began to let her face lose its radiance and her hair its luster and her eyes their lively sparkle, and she started dressing in the black bombazine and shawls of an old woman. At thirty-two! I was then fifty years old, but I was still straight and slim and strong, and I wore the rich garb to which my station entitled me and my taste for color inclined me. My hair and beard were still more life-colored than gray, and my blood was still unthinned, and I still had all my lusty appetites for life and pleasure, and my eyes still kindled when I glimpsed a lovely lady. But I have to say that they glazed when I looked at Donata.
Her posturing as an old woman
made
her an old woman. She is younger today than I was when Morata was born. But over these ensuing fifteen years, she has put on all the unsightly lineaments and contours of a woman many years older—the sagging facial features, the stringed and corded throat and that old-woman’s hump at the back of the neck, and those tendons that operate the fingers are visible through the spotted skin of her hands, and her elbows have become like old coins, and the meat of her upper arms hangs loose and wobbly, and when she raises her skirt to hobble and lurch from the Corte landing down the steps to one of our boats, I can see that her ankles lop over her shoes. What has become of the milk-white and shell-pink and golden-flossed body, I do not know; I have not seen it in a long time.
During these years, I repeat, she never denied me any of my conjugal rights, but she always moped afterward, until the moon came round again and relieved her of the fear that she might again be pregnant. After a while, of course, that became nothing to fear, and anyway by then I was not giving her any cause to fear it. By then, too, I was occasionally spending an afternoon or a whole night away from home, but she never even required from me a mendacious excuse, let alone castigated me for my pecatazzi. Well, I could not complain of her forbearance; there are many husbands who would be glad to have themselves such a lenient and unshrewish wife. And if today, at the age of forty-seven, Donata is woefully and prematurely ancient, I have caught up to her. I am now in my sixty-fifth year, so there is nothing premature or extraordinary in my looking as old as she does, and I no longer spend nights away from home. Even if I wished to wander, I do not get many alluring invitations to do so, and I should regretfully have to decline them if I did.
A German company has recently opened a branch manufactory here in Venice, producing a newly perfected sort of looking glass, and they sell every one they make, and no fashionable Venetian household, including ours, can be without one or two of those. I admire the lucent mirrors and the undistorted reflections they provide, but I consider them also a mixed blessing. I should prefer to believe that what I see when I look into a glass is blamable on imperfection and distortion, rather than have to concede that I am seeing what I really look like. The now totally gray beard and the thinning gray hair, the wrinkles and liverish skin splotches, the dispirited pouches under eyes that are now bleared and dimmed …
“No need to have dim eyes, friend Marco,” said Dotòr Abano, who has been our family physician all these years, and who is as old as I am. “Those ingenious Germans have created another marvel of glass. They call this device the Brille—occhiale, if you prefer. The two glass pieces in it do wonders for the eyesight. Merely hold the thing up before your face and look at this page of writing. Is it not clearer to read? Now look at yourself in the mirror.”
I did, and murmured, “Once, in a harsh wintertime, at a place called Urumqi, I saw some savage-looking men come out of the frozen Gobi, and they frightened me to terror, for they all had great gleaming
eyes of copper.
When they got nearer, I saw that they were each wearing a device rather like this. A sort of dòmino mask made of thin copper and pierced with many pinholes. A man could not see very well through the thing, but they said it protected them from going blind in the snow glare.”
“Yes, yes,” Abano said impatiently. “You have told me more than once about the men with the copper eyes. But what do you think of the occhiale? Cannot you see more vividly?”
“Yes,” I said, but not very enthusiastically, for what I was seeing was myself in the mirror. “I am noticing something I never noticed before. You are a mèdego, Abano. Is there a medical reason to account for my losing the hair from the top of my head but simultaneously growing bristles on
the point of my nose
?”
Still impatiently, he said, “The recondite medical term for that is ‘old age.’ Well, what of the occhiale? I can order a device made especially for you. Plain or ornate, made for holding in the hand or strapping around the head, gem-inlaid wood or tooled leather—”
“Thank you, old friend, but I think not,” I said, laying down the mirror and giving him back the apparatus. “I have seen much in my lifetime. It might be a mercy now not to see all the signs of decay.”
Just today, I realized that this is the twentieth day of the month of September. My birthday. I am no longer in my sixty-fifth year. I have this day tottered across the invisible but all too distinct line into my sixty-sixth. The realization bowed me down for a moment, but I raised myself to my fullest height—ignoring the twinge in my lower back—and squared my shoulders. Determined not to wallow in a maudlin mood of self-pity, thinking to cheer myself up, I ambled into the kitchen and leaned on the chopping block while our cook bustled about at her work, and I said conversationally:
“Nastàsia, I will tell you an improving and edifying tale. About this time every year, in the Kithai and Manzi lands, the Han people celebrate what they call the Moon Cake Festa. It is a warm and loving family holiday, nothing grandiose. The families simply gather affectionately together and enjoy the eating of Moon Cakes. Those are small, round pastries, heavy with richness and very tasty. I will tell you how they are made, and perhaps you would oblige me by making some, and the Dona and the Damìne and I could pretend we are celebrating in the Han manner. You take nuts and dates and cinnamon and—”
And almost immediately I was out of the kitchen and careering about the house in search of Donata. I found her in her dressing chamber, doing needlework, and I bellowed:
“I have just been expelled from my own kitchen by my own cook!”
Donata, not looking up, said with mild reproof, “Have you been bothering Nata again?”
“Bothering her, indeed! Is she employed to serve us or is she not? The woman had the effrontery to complain that she is tired of hearing of the sumptuous viands I used to enjoy abroad, and she will hear not another word about them! Che braga! Is that any way for a domestic to speak to her own master?”
Donata clucked sympathetically. I stumped about the room for a bit, peevishly kicking things that got in my way. Then I resumed, and tragically:
“Our domestics, the Dogaressa, even my fellows on the Rialto, they all seem disinclined nowadays to
learn
anything. They wish only to stagnate, and not to be stirred or leavened out of their stagnation. Mind you, Donata, I do not much care about outsiders, but
my own daughters!
My own daughters heave sighs and drum their fingers and look out the window when I try to relate some improving and edifying tale from which they might derive great benefit. Are you by any chance encouraging this disrespect for the patriarch of the family? I think it is reprehensible. I begin to feel like that prophet of whom Jesus spoke—the one who was
not
without honor, save in his own country and in his own house.”
Donata sat smiling through my tirade, and imperturbably plying her needle, and when I was out of breath she said, “The girls are young. Young folk often find us older folk tiresome.”
I roved about the room some more, until my wheezing abated. Then I said, “Old. Yes. Behold us dismal old folk. At least I can claim that I got old in the ordinary way, through the accumulation of years. But you did not have to, Donata.”
“Everybody gets old,” she said placidly.
“You are just about exactly the same age now, Donata, as I was on our wedding day. Was I old then?”
“You were in your prime of life. Stalwart and handsome. But women age differently than men do.”
“Not if they do not wish to. You only desired to hasten past the childbearing years. And you need not have done. I told you long ago that I knew simple things that would prevent—”
“Things not fit to be mentioned by a Christian tongue, or heard by Christian ears. I do not wish to hear them now, any more than I did then.”
“If you had listened then,” I said accusingly, “you would not now be an Autumn Fan.”
“A what?” she said, looking up at me for the first time.
“It is a very descriptive term the Han have. An Autumn Fan means a woman past her years of appeal and attractiveness. You see, in the autumn the air is cool and there is no
necessity
for a fan. It becomes an object without use or purpose or reason for existence. Just so, a woman who has ceased to be womanly, as you deliberately did, solely to avoid having more children—”
“All these years,” she interrupted, but in a very soft voice. “All these years, have you thought that was why?”
I stopped, with my mouth still open. She laid down her needlework on her black bombazine lap, and folded her yellowed hands atop it, and fixed me with the faded eyes that had once been bright blue, and said:
“I ceased being a woman when I could no longer deceive myself. When I wearied of pretending to myself that you loved me.”
I blinked in bewilderment and disbelief, and had to grope for my voice. “Donata, was I ever anything but tender and caring? Did I fail you in any way? Was I ever less than a good husband?”
“There. Even now you do not speak the word.”
“I thought it was implicit. I am sorry. Very well, then. I did love you.”
“There was something or someone you loved more, and always have. At our closest, Marco, we were never close. I could look into your face and see only distance, far distance. Was it farness of miles or of years? Was it another woman? God forgive me for believing this, but … was it not my mother?”
“Donata, she and I were
children
.”
“Children who are parted forget each other when they are grown. But you mistook me for her when we first met. On our wedding night, I was still wondering if I might not be just a substitute. I was a virgin, yes, and innocent. All I knew to expect was what I had been told by older confidantes, and you made it much better than what I had expected it to be. Nevertheless, I was not oblivious and obtuse, as one of our empty-headed daughters might be. In our cleaving together, Marco, there seemed to be … something … not quite right. That first time and every time afterward.”
Justifiably affronted, I said stiffly, “You never made complaint.”
“No,” she said, looking pensive. “And that was part of the seeming wrongness: that I
did
enjoy it—always—and somehow felt I should not. I cannot explain it to you, any more than I could explain it to myself. All I ever could think was: it must be that I am enjoying what should rightly have been my mother’s.”
“How ridiculous. Whatever in your mother I was fond of, I have found also in you. And more. You have been much more to me, Donata —and much more dear to me—than she ever was.”
Donata moved her hand across her face, as if brushing away a cobweb that had fallen there. “If it was not she, if it was not some other woman, then it must have been the sheer distance that I felt always between us.”
“Come, my dear! I have scarcely been out of your sight since our wedding day, and never out of your reach.”
“Not in your physical person, no. But yes, in the parts of you I could not see or reach. You have been ever in love with distance. You never really came home at all. It was unfair of you, to ask a woman to vie for your love with a rival she never could best. The distance. The far horizons.”
“You exacted a promise about those far horizons. I made the promise. I kept to it.”
“Yes. In your physical person, you kept to it. You never went away again. But did you ever once talk or think of anything but journeying?”
“Gèsu! Who is being unfair now, Donata? For nearly twenty years I have been as passive and compliant as that zerbino by the door yonder. I gave you possession of me, and the saying of where I should be and what I should do. Are you now complaining that I gave you no authority over my memory, my thoughts, my sleeping or waking dreams?”