The timid and conscious girl did not answer. Her cheek was never bright, for, like a flower reared in the shade, it had the delicate hue of her secluded life; but at this question it became pale. Accustomed to the ingenuous habits of the sensitive being at his side, the Bravo studied her speaking features intently. He moved swiftly to a window, and looking out, his eye fell upon a narrow and gloomy ca.n.a.l. Crossing the gallery, he cast a glance beneath him, and saw the same dark watery pa.s.sage, leading between the masonry of two ma.s.sive piles to the quay and the port.
"Gelsomina!" he cried, recoiling from the sight, "this is the Bridge of Sighs!"
"It is, Carlo; hast thou ever crossed it before?"
"Never: nor do I understand why I cross it now. I have long thought that it might one day be my fortune to walk this fatal pa.s.sage, but I could not dream of such a keeper!"
The eye of Gelsomina brightened, and her smile was cheerful.
"Thou wilt never cross it to thy harm with me."
"Of that I am certain, kind Gessina," he answered, taking her hand. "But this is a riddle that I cannot explain. Art thou in the habit of entering the palace by this gallery?"
"It is little used, except by the keepers and the condemned, as doubtless thou hast often heard; but yet they have given me the keys, and taught me the windings of the place, in order that I might serve, as usual, for thy guide."
"Gelsomina, I fear I have been too happy in thy company to note, as prudence would have told me, the rare kindness of the council in permitting me to enjoy it!"
"Dost thou repent, Carlo, that thou hast known me?"
The reproachful melancholy of her voice touched the Bravo, who kissed the hand he held with Italian fervor.
"I should then repent me of the only hours of happiness I have known for years," he said. "Thou hast been to me, Gelsomina, like a flower in a desert--a pure spring to a feverish man--a gleam of hope to one suffering under malediction. No, no, not for a moment have I repented knowing thee, my Gelsomina!"
""Twould not have made my life more happy, Carlo, to have thought I had added to thy sorrows. I am young, and ignorant of the world, but I know we should cause joy, and not pain, to those we esteem."
"Thy nature would teach thee this gentle lesson. But is it not strange that one like me should be suffered to visit the prison unattended by any other keeper?"
"I had not thought it so, Carlo; but surely, it is not common!"
"We have found so much pleasure in each other, dear Gessina, that we have overlooked what ought to have caused alarm."
"Alarm, Carlo!"
"Or, at least, distrust; for these wily senators do no act of mercy without a motive. But it is now too late to recall the past if we would; and in that which relates to thee I would not lose the memory of a moment. Let us proceed."
The slight cloud vanished from the face of the mild auditor of the Bravo; but still she did not move.
"Few pa.s.s this bridge, they say," she added tremulously, "and enter the world again; and yet thou dost not even ask why we are here, Carlo!"
There was a transient gleam of distrust in the hasty glance of the Bravo, as he shot a look at the undisturbed eye of the innocent being who put this question. But it scarcely remained long enough to change the expression of manly interest she was accustomed to meet in his look.
"Since thou wilt have me curious," he said, "why hast thou come hither, and more than all, being here, why dost thou linger?"
"The season is advanced, Carlo," she answered, speaking scarcely above her breath, "and we should look in vain among the cells."
"I understand thee," he said; "we will proceed."
Gelsomina lingered to gaze wistfully into the face of her companion, but finding no visible sign of the agony he endured she went on. Jacopo spoke hoa.r.s.ely, but he was too long accustomed to disguise to permit the weakness to escape, when he knew how much it would pain the sensitive and faithful being who had yielded her affections to him with a singleness and devotion which arose nearly as much from her manner of life as from natural ingenuousness.
In order that the reader may be enabled to understand the allusions, which seem to be so plain to our lovers, it may be necessary to explain another odious feature in the policy of the Republic of Venice.
Whatever may be the pretension of a state, in its acknowledged theories, an unerring clue to its true character is ever to be found in the machinery of its practice. In those governments which are created for the good of the people, force is applied with caution and reluctance, since the protection and not the injury of the weak is their object: whereas the more selfish and exclusive the system becomes, the more severe and ruthless are the coercive means employed by those in power.
Thus in Venice, whose whole political fabric reposed on the narrow foundation of an oligarchy, the jealousy of the Senate brought the engines of despotism in absolute contact with even the pageantry of their t.i.tular prince, and the palace of the Doge himself was polluted by the presence of the dungeons. The princely edifice had its summer and winter cells. The reader may be ready to believe that mercy had dictated some slight solace for the miserable in this arrangement. But this would be ascribing pity to a body which, to its latest moment, had no tie to subject it to the weakness of humanity. So far from consulting the sufferings of the captive, his winter cell was below the level of the ca.n.a.ls, while his summers were to be pa.s.sed beneath the leads exposed to the action of the burning sun of that climate. As the reader has probably antic.i.p.ated already, that Jacopo was in the prison on an errand connected with some captive, this short explanation will enable him to understand the secret allusion of his companion. He they sought had, in truth, been recently conveyed from the damp cells where he had pa.s.sed the winter and spring, to the heated chambers beneath the roof.
Gelsomina continued to lead the way with a sadness of eye and feature that betrayed her strong sympathy with the sufferings of her companion, but without appearing to think further delay necessary. She had communicated a circ.u.mstance which weighed heavily on her own mind, and, like most of her mild temperament, who had dreaded such a duty, now that it was discharged she experienced a sensible relief. They ascended many flights of steps, opened and shut numberless doors, and threaded several narrow corridors in silence, before reaching the place of destination.
While Gelsomina sought the key of the door before which they stopped, in the large bunch she carried, the Bravo breathed the hot air of the attic like one who was suffocating.
"They promised me that this should not be done again!" he said. "But they forget their pledges, fiends as they are!"
"Carlo! thou forgettest that this is the palace of the Doge!" whispered the girl, while she threw a timid glance behind her.
"I forget nothing that is connected with the Republic! It is all here,"
striking his flushed brow--"what is not there, is in my heart!"
"Poor Carlo! this cannot last for ever--there will be an end!"
"Thou art right," answered the Bravo hoa.r.s.ely. "The end is nearer than thou thinkest. No matter; turn the key, that we may go in."
The hand of Gelsomina lingered on the lock, but admonished by his impatient eye, she complied, and they entered the cell.
"Father!" exclaimed the Bravo, hastening to the side of a pallet that lay on the floor.
The attenuated and feeble form of an old man rose at the word, and an eye which, while it spoke mental feebleness, was at that moment even brighter than that of his son, glared on the faces of Gelsomina and her companion.
"Thou hast not suffered, as I had feared, by this sudden change, father!" continued the latter, kneeling by the side of the straw. "Thine eye, and cheek, and countenance are better, than in the damp caves below!"
"I am happy here," returned the prisoner; "there is light, and though they have given me too much of it, thou canst never know, my boy, the joy of looking at the day, after so long a night."
"He is better, Gelsomina. They have not yet destroyed him. See! his eye is bright even, and his cheek has a glow!"
"They are ever so, after pa.s.sing the winter in the lower dungeons,"
whispered the gentle girl.
"Hast thou news for me, boy? What tidings from thy mother?"
Jacopo bowed his head to conceal the anguish occasioned by this question, which he now heard for the hundredth time.
"She is happy, father--happy as one can be, who so well loves thee, when away from thy side."
"Does she speak of me often?"
"The last word that I heard from her lips, was thy name."
"Holy Maria bless her! I trust she remembers me in her prayers?"
"Doubt it not, father, they are the prayers of an angel!"
"And thy patient sister? thou hast not named her, son."