The gondolier shook his head and shrugged his shoulders; he had little faith or reverence. "I will say my aves, _poveriello_," he promised; "but the lamps are already too many in San Donato. And for the bambino, I will go not only once, but twice this year to confession--the laws of our traghetto ask not so much, since once is enough. But thou art even stricter with thy rules for me."
She did not answer, and they floated on in silence.
"To-morrow," said Piero at length, "there is festa in San Pietro di Castello."
She moved uneasily, and her beautiful face lost its softness.
"It is nothing to me," she answered shortly.
"It is a pretty festa, and Messer Magagnati should take thee. By our Lady of Castello, there are others who will go!"
"It would be better for the bambino," he persisted sullenly, as she did not answer him. His voice was not the pleasanter now that its positive tone was changed to a coaxing one.
"One is enough, Piero," she said. "And for the festa of San Pietro in Castello--never, never name it to me!"
"Santa Maria!" her companion e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed under his breath; "it is the women, the gentle _donzelle_, who are hard!"
He stood, tall, handsome, well-made, swaying lightly with the motion of the gondola, which seemed to float as in a dream to the ripple and lap of the water; the blue of his shirt had changed to gray in the twilight, the black cap and sash of the "Nicolotti" accentuated the lines of the strong, lithe figure as he sprang forward on the sloping foot-rest of his gondola with that perfect grace and ease which proved him master of a craft whose every motion is a harmony. If he were proud of belonging to the Nicolotti, that most powerful faction of the populace, he knew that they were regarded by the government as the aristocrats of the people.
Marina arranged the child"s covering in silence, and stooped her face wistfully to touch his cheek, but she did not turn her head to look at the man behind her.
"L"amor ze fato per chi lo sa fare,"
he sang in the low, slow chant of the familiar folk-song, the rhythm blending perfectly with the movement of the boat in which these two were faring. His voice was pleasanter in singing, and song is almost a needful expression of the content of motion in Venice--the necessary complement of life to the gondolier, a song might mean nothing more. But Piero sang more slowly than his wont, charging the words with meaning, yet it did not soften her.
"Love is for him who knows how to win!"
He could not see how she flushed and paled with anger as he sang, for it was growing dark over the water and her face was turned from him; but she straightened herself uncompromisingly, and he was watching with subtle comprehension.
He could not have told why he persisted in this strange wooing, for there had been but one response during the two years of his widowhood, while his child had been Marina"s ceaseless care. Marina had loved the baby the more pa.s.sionately, perhaps, for the sake of her only sister Toinetta, Piero"s child-bride, who had died at the baby"s birth, because she was painfully conscious that Toinetta"s little flippant life had needed much forgiveness and had been crowned with little gladness.
Marina was now the only child of Messer Girolamo Magagnati, which was a patent of n.o.bility in Murano; and she was not the less worth winning because she held herself aloof from the freer life of the Piazza, where she was called the "donzel of Murano," though there were others with blacker eyes and redder cheeks. Piero did not think her very beautiful; he liked more color and sparkle and quickness of retort--a chance to quarrel and forgive. He was not in sympathy with so many aves, such continual pilgrimages to the cathedral, such brooding over the lives of the saints--above all, he did not like being kept in order, and Marina knew well how to do this, in spite of her quiet ways. But he liked the best for himself, and there was no one like Marina in all Murano. During all this time he had been coming more and more under her sway, changing his modes of living to suit her whims, and the only way of safety for him was to marry her and be master; then she should see how he would rule his house! His own way had always been the right way for him--rules of all orders to the contrary--whether he had been a wandering gondolier, a despised _barcariol toso_, lording it so outrageously over the established traghetti that they were glad to forgive him his bandit crimes and swear him into membership, if only to stop his influence against them; or whether it had been the stealing away of a promised bride, as on that memorable day at San Pietro in Castello, when he had married Toinetta--it was never safe to bear "vendetta" with one so strong and handsome and unprincipled as Piero.
Gabriele, the jilted lover of Toinetta, over whom Piero had triumphed, soon became the husband of another _donzel_, handsomer than Toinetta had been--poor, foolish Toinetta!--and the retributive tragedy of her little life had warmed the sullen Gabriele into a magnanimity that rendered him at least a safe, if a moody and unpleasant, member of the traghetto in which Piero had since become a rising star. A man with a home to keep may not "cast away his chestnuts," and so when Piero, in that masterful way of his, swept everything before him in the traghetto--never asking nor caring who stood for him or against him, but carrying his will whenever he chose to declare it--to set one"s self against such a man was truly a useless sort of fret, only a "gnawing of one"s chain," in the expressive jargon of the people.
Piero finished his song, and there was a little pause. They were nearing the long, low line of Murano.
"It is not easy," he said, "when women are in the way, "to touch the sky with one"s finger.""
She turned with a sudden pa.s.sionate motion as if she would answer him, and then, struggling for control, turned back without a word, drawing the child closer and caressing him until she was calm again. When she raised her head she spoke in a resolute, restrained voice.
"Since thou wilt have it, Piero--listen. And rest thine oar, for we are almost home; and to-night must be quite the end of all this talk. It can never be. Thou hast no understanding of such matters, so I forgive thee for myself. But for Toinetta--I do not think I ever can forgive thee, may the good Madonna help me!"
"There are two in every marriage," Piero retorted sullenly, for he was angry now.
"It is just that--oh, it is just that!" Marina cried, clasping her hands pa.s.sionately. "Thou art so strong and so compelling, and thou dost not stop for the right of it. She was such a child, she knew no better, poverina! And thou--a man--not for love, nor right, nor any n.o.ble thing"--the words came with repressed scorn--"to coax her to it, just for a little triumph! To expose a child to such endless _critica_!"
Only a Venetian of the people could comprehend the full sting of this word, which conveyed the searching, persistent disapproval of an entire cla.s.s, whose code, if viewed from the moral point of view, was painfully slack, though from its own standard of decorum it was immutable.
"It has been said, once for all--thou dost not forgive."
"It is the last time, for this also, Piero; I meant never to speak of it again, but those words of thine of the festa in San Pietro in Castello made me forget. It came over me quite suddenly, that this is how thou spendest the beautiful, great strength G.o.d gave thee to make a leader of thee in real things. But whether it be great or small, or good or ill, thou always wilt have thy way!"
"It"s a poor fool of a fellow that wouldn"t keep himself uppermost, like oil," he cried, hesitating only for a moment between anger and gratification, and choosing the way that ministered to his pride. "Santa Maria! I"ll b.u.t.ter thy macaroni with fine cheese every time!"
"Nay, spare thy pains, Piero, and be serious for one moment. There is no _barcariol_ in all Venice who hath greater opportunities, but thou must use them well. They spoil thee at the traghetto; and if a man hath his will always, it will either spoil him or make him n.o.ble."
"What wouldst thou have me to do?" he questioned sullenly.
"They would be afraid of thee--thou couldst quiet these troubles in the traghetti--thou must use thy strength and thy will for the good of the people. It is terrible to have power and to use it wrongly."
Piero moved back to his place again and took up his oar, throwing himself in position for a forward stroke. "Forget not," he said, poising, "that I need not listen to thee if I do not choose. I may not stay _in casa_ Magagnati--not any more, if thou art always scolding."
"I shall scold--always--until thou dost quiet this disorder of the traghetti," she answered, undaunted.
"And thou wilt return; for there is always the bambino."
"If I come back," he said in a softer tone, responding to the appeal for his child, "I must speak of what I will."
"Of all but one thing, Piero;" for it was not possible to misunderstand him, and she was resolute. "If this is not the end I shall speak with my father--and the bambino----"
They were both silent. He knew that no one could ever care for his invalid child as she had done; and all that he owed her and must continue to owe her restrained him under her chiding, for the baby could not live away from her. Sometimes, too, there were moments of strange tenderness within him for this helpless, suffering morsel of humanity that called him "babbo!" He did not know what might happen if the wrath of the redoubtable Magagnati were to be invoked against him, for this quarrel could not be disposed of as those small matters with the gondoliers had invariably been. So far from threatening this before, Marina had hitherto shielded Piero, in her unanswerable way, from everything that might hasten the rupture that seemed always impending between these two dissimilar natures; and Messer Magagnati had two thoughts only, his daughter and his _stabilimento_--the great gla.s.s furnaces which were the pride of Venice.
Piero had no suspicion that Marina always touched the best that was in him; he thought she made him weaker, and it was not easy to yield the point that had become a habit. No one else had ever moved him from any purpose, but now he perceived that there would be no reversal of that sentence--that he should continue to come to see his child, and that he must continue to submit to Marina"s influence. It was she who had, in some unaccountable way, persuaded him out of his unlawful trade of _barcariol toso_, and had forced his reluctant acceptance of the overtures that were made to him from the Guild of Santa Maria Zobenigo, where he had risen to be one of the _bancali_ or governors, his qualities of force and daring making him useful in this age when lawlessness was on the increase. He was beginning to feel a sense of satisfaction, not all barbaric, in the position he had won among men who had some views of order, and to perceive that there might be a lawful use, almost as pleasant, for those very attributes which had rendered him so formidable a foe outside the pale of traghetto civilization.
"_Ecco_!" he announced, with a slow, sullen emphasis which declared his unwilling surrender, while he plied his oar with quick, wrathful strokes. "It will take more than aves to make a saint of thee! And thou mayst hold thy head too high, looking for better than wheaten bread! But I"m not the man to wear a curb, nor to put up with thorns where I looked for roses! Thou hast no right to mind what chances to me--yet thou hast made me give up the old life."
"Because I knew thou couldst do better. See where thou standest to-day!
It is not a little thing to be a governor of the Nicolotti!"
"It is a truth," Piero confessed, "upside down, and not to boast of, for whoever tries it would wish it less. The bancali are "like a.s.ses who carry wine and drink water," for the good of the clouts, in days like these."
"I heard them talking to-day, Piero. The _barcarioli tosi_ are worse than Turks; one must pay, to suit their whim, in the middle of the Ca.n.a.l Grande, or one may wait long for the landing! And there was a scandal about a friar of San Zanipolo, of whom they had asked a fare for the crossing; I know not the truth of it! And at Santa Sofia the great cross with the beautiful golden l.u.s.tre is gone, and one says it is the "tosi.""
Piero winced, for, to an ancient "toso," or even to a "bancalo" of to-day, such enormities had not the exciting novelty that might have been expected, and Marina had a curious habit of seeming entirely to forget his past when she wished to exact his best of him.
"And Gabriele--"
"Fash not thyself for a man of his measure, that is fitter to "beat the fishes" like a galley-slave than to serve an honest gondola!" Piero interrupted scornfully.
"But Piero, Gabriele hath sold his license to one worse than he, and there was great talk of quarrels along the Riva, and how that yesterday they sent for Padre Gervasio from San Gregorio to bring the Host to quiet them."
"Ah, the Castellani!" said Piero, with the contempt that was always ready for any mention of this great rival faction of the people whose division into one or other of these factions was absolute.
"But the Nicolotti have their scandal also," Marina a.s.serted, uncompromisingly; "among themselves it is told they break the laws like men not bound by vows! Some say there will be an appeal to the Consiglio."
"Nay," said Piero, with an ominous frown; "the _bancali_ and _gastaldi_ are enough; we need no bossing by crimson robes."
This question of the traghetti and their abuses had lately grown to large proportions among the people, and it possessed a deep interest for all cla.s.ses quite apart from the antiquity and picturesqueness of these honorable inst.i.tutions of the Republic--since all must use the ferries and wish for safety in their water-streets. For centuries these confraternities of gondoliers who presided over the ferries, or traghetti, of Venice had been corporations, self-governing, with officers and endowments recognized by the Republic, and with a standard of gondolier morals admirably defined in their codes--those "Mariegole"