Chapter 20

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_ CHAPTER XX

Marietta shook her head. She still knelt at her father's feet, holding his hands.

"I am not mad," she said. "I am in earnest. I cannot marry him. It is impossible."

"You must marry him," answered Beroviero. "You are betrothed to him, and it would be an insult to his family to break off the marriage now. Besides, you have no reason to give, not the shadow of a reason."

Marietta dropped his hands and rose to her feet lightly. She had expected a terrific outburst of anger, which would gradually subside, after which she hoped to find words with which to influence him. But like many hot-tempered men, he was sometimes unexpectedly calm at critical moments, as if he were really able to control his nature when he chose. She now almost wished that he would break out in a rage, as women sometimes hope we may, for they know it is far easier to deal with an angry man than with a determined one.

"I will not marry him," she said at last, with strong emphasis, and almost defiantly.

"My child," Beroviero answered gravely, "you do not know what you are saying."

"I do!" cried Marietta with some indignation. "I have thought of it a long time. I was very wrong not to make up my mind from the beginning, and I ask your forgiveness. In my heart I always knew that I could not do it in the end, and I should have said so at once. It was a great mistake."

"There is no question of your consent," replied Beroviero with conviction. "If girls were consulted as to the men they were to marry, the world would soon come to an end. This is only a passing madness, of which you should be heartily ashamed. Say no more about it. On the appointed day, the wedding will take place."

"It will not," said Marietta firmly; "and you will do better to let it be known at once. It is of no use to take heaven to witness, and to make a solemn oath. I merely say that I will not marry Jacopo Contarini. You may carry me to the church, you may drag me before the altar, but I will resist. I will scream out that I will not, and the priest himself will protect me. That will be a much greater scandal than if you go to the Contarini family and tell them that your daughter is mad--if you really think I am."

"You are undoubtedly beside yourself at the present moment," Beroviero answered. "But it will pass, I hope."

"Not while I am alive, and I shall certainly resist to the end. It would be much wiser of you to send me to a convent at once, than to count on forcing me to go through the marriage ceremony."

Beroviero stared at her, and stroked his beard. He began to believe that she might possibly be in earnest. Since she talked so quietly of going to a convent, a fate which most girls considered the most terrible that could be imagined. He bent his brows in thought, but watched her steadily.

"You have not yet given me a single reason for all this wild talk," he said after a pause. "It is absurd to think that without some good cause you are suddenly filled with repulsion for marriage, or for Jacopo Contarini. I have heard of young women who were betrothed, but who felt a religious vocation, and refused to marry for that reason. It never seemed a very satisfactory one to me, for if there is any condition in which a woman needs religion, it is the marriage state."

He paused in his speech, pleased with his own idea, in spite of all his troubles. Marietta had moved a few steps away from him and stood beside the table, looking down at the things on it, without seeing them.

"But you do not even make religion a pretext," pursued her father. "Have you no reason to give? I do not expect a good one, for none can have any weight. But I should like to hear the best you have."

"It is a very convincing one to me," Marietta replied, still looking down at the table. "But I think I had better not tell it to you to-day," she added. "It would make you angry."

"No," said Beroviero. "One cannot be angry with people who are really out of their senses."

"I am not so mad as you think," answered the girl. "I have told you of my decision, because it was cowardly of me not to tell you what I felt before you went away. But it might be a mistake to tell you more to-day. You have had enough to harass you already, since you came back."

"You are suddenly very considerate."

"No, I have not been considerate. I could not be, without acting a lie to you, by letting you believe that I meant to marry Messer Jacopo, and I will not do that any longer, since I know that it is a lie. But I cannot see the use of saying anything more."

"You had better tell me the whole truth, rather than let me think something that may be much worse," answered Beroviero, changing his attitude.

"There is nothing in the truth of which I am ashamed," said Marietta, holding up her head proudly. "I have done nothing which I did not believe to be right, however strange it may seem to you."

Once more their eyes met and they gazed steadily at each other; and again the blush spread over her cheeks. Beroviero put out his hand and touched the folded mantle.

"Marietta," he said, "Zorzi has stolen my precious book of secrets, and has disappeared with it. They tell me that he also stole this mantle, for it was found here just after he was arrested last night. Is it true, or has he stolen my daughter instead?"

Marietta's face had darkened when he began to accuse the absent man. At the question that followed she started a little, and drew herself up.

"Zorzi is neither a thief nor a traitor," she answered. "If you mean to ask me whether I love him--is that what you mean?" She paused, with flashing eyes.

"Yes," answered her father, and his voice shook.

"Then yes! I love him with all my heart, and I have loved him long. That is why I will not marry Jacopo Contarini. You know my secret now."

Beroviero groaned aloud, and his head sank as he grasped the arms of the chair. His daughter loved the man who had cheated him, betrayed him and robbed him. It was almost too much to bear. He had nothing to say, for no words could tell what he felt then, and he silently bowed his head.

"As for the accusations you bring against him," Marietta said after a moment, "they are false, from first to last, and I can prove to you that every one of them is an abominable lie."

"You cannot make that untrue which I have seen with my eyes."

"I can, though Zorzi has the right to prove his innocence himself. I may say too much, for I am not as generous as he is. Do you know that when they tried to kill him in the furnace room, and lamed him for life, he told every one, even me, that it was an accident? He is so brave and noble that when he comes here again, he will not tell you that it was your own son who tried to rob you, who did everything in his power to get Zorzi away from this room, in order to search for your manuscript, and who at last, as everything else failed, persuaded the Governor to arrest him. He will not tell you that, and he does not know that before they had taken him twenty paces from the door, Giovanni was already here, locked in and trying the stones with a hammer to find out which one covered the precious book. Did Giovanni tell you that this morning? No. Zorzi would not tell you all the truth, and I know some of it even better than he. But Zorzi was always generous and brave."

Beroviero had lifted his head now and was looking hard at her.

"And your mantle? How came it here?" he asked.

There was nothing to be done now, but to speak the truth.

"It is here," said Marietta, growing paler, "because I came here, unknown to any one except Pasquale who let me in, because I came alone last night to warn the man I love that Giovanni had planned his destruction, and to save him if I could. In my haste I left the mantle in that chair of yours, in which I had been sitting. It slipped from my shoulders as I sat, and there Giovanni must have found it. If you had seen it there you would know that what I say is true."

"I did see it," said Beroviero. "Giovanni left it where it was, and I folded it myself this morning. Zorzi did not steal the mantle. I take back that accusation."

"Nor has he stolen your secrets. Take that back, too, if you are just. You always were, till now."

"I have searched the place where he and I put the book, and it is not there."

"Giovanni searched it twelve hours earlier, and it was already gone. Zorzi saved it from your son, and then, in his rage, I suppose that Giovanni accused him of stealing it. He may even have believed it, for I can be just, too. But it is not true. The book is safe."

"Zorzi took it with him," said Beroviero.

"You are mistaken. Before he was arrested, he said that I ought to know where it was, in case anything happened to him, in order to tell you."

Beroviero rose slowly, staring at her, and speaking with an effort.

"You know where it is? He told you? He has not taken it away?"

Marietta smiled, in perfect certainty of victory.

"I know where it is," she said.

"Where is it?" he asked in extreme anxiety, for he could hardly believe what he heard.

"I will not tell you yet," was the unexpected answer Marietta gave him. "And you cannot possibly find it unless I do."

The veins stood out on the old man's temples in an instant, and the old angry fire came back to his eyes.

"Do you dare to tell me that you will not show me the place where the book is, on the very instant?" he cried.

"Oh yes," answered Marietta. "I dare that, and much more. I am not a coward like my brother, you know. I will not tell you the secret till you promise me something."

"You are trying to sell me what is my own!" he answered angrily. "You are in league with Zorzi against me, to break off your marriage. But I will not do it--you shall tell me where the book is--if you refuse, you shall repent it as long as you live--I will--"

He stopped short in his speech as he met her disdainful look.

"You never threatened me before," she said. "Why do you think that you can frighten me?"

"Give me what is mine," said the old man angrily. "That is all I demand. I am not threatening."

"Set me free from Messer Jacopo, and you shall have it," answered Marietta.

"No. You shall marry him."

"I will not. But I will keep your book until you change your mind, or else--but no! If I gave it to Zorzi, he is so honourable that he would bring it back to you without so much as looking into it. I will keep it for myself. Or I will burn it!"

She felt that if she had been a man, she could not have taken such an unfair advantage of him; but she was a defenceless girl, fighting for the liberty of her whole life. That might excuse much, she thought. By this time Beroviero was very angry; he stalked up and down beside the furnace, trailing his thin silk gown behind him, stroking his beard with a quick, impatient movement, and easting fierce glances at Marietta from time to time.

He was not used to being at the mercy of circumstances, still less to having his mind made up for him by his son and his daughter. Giovanni had made him believe that Zorzi had turned traitor and thief, after five years of faithful service, and the conviction had cut him to the quick; and now Marietta had demonstrated Zorzi's innocence almost beyond doubt, but had made matters worse in other ways, and was taking the high hand with him. He did not realise that from the moment when she had boldly confessed what she had done and had declared her love for Zorzi, his confidence in her had returned by quick degrees, and that the atrocious crime of having come secretly at night to the laboratory had become in his eyes, and perhaps against his will, a mere pardonable piece of rashness; since if Zorzi was innocent, anything which could save him from unjust imprisonment might well be forgiven. He had borne what seemed to him very great misfortunes with fortitude and dignity; but his greatest treasures were safe, his daughter and Paolo Godi's manuscript, and he became furiously angry with Marietta, because she had him in her power.

If a man is seated, a woman who intends to get the better of him generally stands; but if he loses his temper and begins to walk about, she immediately seats herself and assumes an exasperating calmness of manner. Accordingly Marietta sat down on a small chair near the table and watched her father in silence, persuaded that he would be obliged to yield in the end.

"No one has ever dared to browbeat me in this way, in my whole life!" cried the old man fiercely, and his voice shook with rage.

"Will you listen to me?" asked Marietta with sudden meekness.

"Listen to you?" he repeated instantly. "Have I not been listening to you for hours?"

"I do not know how long it may have been," answered the girl, "but I have much more to say. You are so angry that you will not hear me."

"Angry? I? Are you telling me that I am so beside myself with rage, that I cannot understand reason?"

"I did not say that."

"You meant it, then! What did you say? You have forgotten what you said already! Just like a girl! And you pretend to argue with me, with your own father! It is beyond belief! Silence, I say! Do not answer me!"

Marietta sat quite still, and began to look at her nails, which were very pink and well shaped. After a short silence Beroviero stopped before her.

"Well!" he cried. "Why do you not speak?" His eyes blazed and he tapped the pavement with his foot. She raised her eyebrows, smiled a little wearily and sighed.

"I misunderstood you," she said, with exasperating patience. "I thought you told me to be silent."

"You always misunderstand me," he answered angrily and walking off again. "You always did, and you always will! I believe you do it on purpose. But I will make you understand! You shall know what I mean!"

"I should be so glad," said Marietta. "Pray tell me what you mean."

This was too much. He turned sharply in his walk.

"I mean you to marry Contarini," he cried out, with a stamp of the foot.

"And you mean never to see Paolo Godi's manuscript again," suggested Marietta quietly.

"Perdition take the accursed thing!" roared the old man. "If I only knew where you have put it--"

"It is where you can never, never find it," Marietta answered. "So it is of no use to be angry with me, is it? The more angry you are, the less likely it is that I shall tell you. But I will tell you something else, father--something you never understood before. My marriage was to have been a bargain, a great name for a fortune, half your fortune for a great name and an alliance with the Contarini. Perhaps one was worth the other. I know very little of such things. But it chances that I can have a word to say about the bargain, too. Would any one say that I was doing very wrong if I gave that book to my brother, for instance? Giovanni would not give it back to you, as Zorzi would, I am quite sure."

"What abominable scheme is this?" Beroviero fairly trembled in his fury.

"I offer you a simple bargain," Marietta answered, unmoved. "I will give you your manuscript for my freedom. Will you take it, father? Or will you insist upon trying to marry me by force, and let me give the book to Giovanni? Yes, that is what I will do. Then I will marry Zorzi, and go away."

"Silence, child! You! Marry a stranger, a Dalmatian--a servant!"

"But I love him. You may call him a servant, if you choose. It would make no difference to me if it were true. He would not be less brave, less loyal or less worthy if he were forced to clean your shoes in order to live, instead of sharing your art with you. Did he ever lie to you?"

"No!" cried the old man. "I would have broken his bones!"

"Did he ever betray a secret, since you know that the book is safe?"

"No."

"Have you trusted him far more than your own sons, for many years?"

"Yes--of course--"

"Then call him your servant if you like, and call your sons what you please," concluded Marietta, "but do not tell me that such a man is not good enough to be the husband of a glass-blower's daughter, who does not want a great name, nor a palace, nor a husband who sits in the Grand Council. Do not say that, father, for it would not be true--and you never told a lie in your life."

"I tell you that marriage has nothing to do with all this!" He began walking again, to keep his temper hot, for he was dimly conscious that he was getting the worst of the encounter, and that her arguments were good.

"And I tell you that a marriage that has nothing to do with love, and with honour, and with trust, is no marriage at all!" answered the girl. "Say what you please of customs, and traditions, and of station, and all that! God never meant that an innocent girl should be bought and sold like a slave, or a horse, for a name, nor for money, nor for any imaginary advantage to herself or to her father! I know what our privilege is, that the patricians may marry us and not lose their rank. I would rather keep my own, and marry a glass-worker, even if I were to be sold! Do you know what your money would buy for me in Venice? The privilege of being despised and slighted by patricians and great ladies. You know as well as I that it would all end there, in spite of all you may give. They want your money, you want their name, because you are rich and you have always been taught to think that the chief use of money is to rise in the world."

"Will you teach me what I am to think?" asked old Beroviero, amazed by her sudden flow of words.

"Yes," she answered, before he could say more. "I will teach you what you should think, what you should have always thought--a man as brave and upright and honest in everything as you are! You should think, you should know, that your daughter has a right to live, a right to be free, and a right to love, like every living creature God ever made!"

"This is the most abominable rebellion!" retorted Beroviero. "I cannot imagine where you learned--"

"Rebellion?" she cried, interrupting him in ringing tones. "Yes, it is rank rebellion, sedition and revolt against slavery, for life and love and freedom! You wonder where I have learned to turn and face this oppression of the world, instead of yielding to it, one more unhappy woman among the thousands that are bought and sold into wifehood every year! I have learned nothing, my heart needed no teaching for that! It is enough that I love an honest man truly--I know that it is wrong to promise my faith to another, and that it is a worse wrong in you to try to get that promise from me by force. A vow that could be nothing but a solemn lie! Would the ring on my finger be a charm to make me forget? Would the priest's words and blessing be a spell to root out of my heart what is the best part of my life? Better go to a nunnery, and weep for the truth, than to hope for peace in such a lie as that--better a thousand, thousand times!"

She had risen now, and was almost eloquent, facing her father with flashing eyes.

"Oh, you have always been kind to me, good to me, dear to me," she went on quickly. "It is only in this that you will not understand. Would it not hurt you a little to feel that you had sent me to a sort of living death from which I could never come back to life? That I was imprisoned for ever among people who looked down upon me and only tolerated me for my fortune's sake? Yet that would be the very least part of it all! I could bear all that, if it were for any good. But to become the creature, the possession, the plaything of a man I do not love, when I love another with all my heart--oh, no, no, no! You cannot ask me that!"

His anger had slowly subsided, and he was listening now, not because she had him in her power, but because what she said was true. For he was a just and honourable man.

"I wish that you might have loved any man but Zorzi," he said, almost as if speaking to himself.

"And why another?" she asked, following up her advantage instantly. "You would have had me marry a Trevisan, perhaps, or the son of any of the other great glass-makers? Is there one of them who can compare with Zorzi as an artist, let alone as a man? Look at those things he has made, there, on the table! Is there a man living who could make one of them? Not you, yourself; you know it better than I do!"

"No," answered Beroviero. "That is true. Nor is there any one who could make the glass he used for them without the secrets that are in the book--and more too, for it is better than my own."

Marietta looked at him in surprise. This was something she had not known.

"Is it not your glass?" she asked.

"It is better. He must have added something to the composition set down in the book."

"You believe that although the book itself is safe, he has made use of it."

"Yes. I cannot see how it could be otherwise."

"Was the book sealed?"

"Yes, and looked in an iron box. Here is the key. I always wear it."

He drew out the small iron key, and showed it to her.

"If you find the box locked, and the seals untouched, will you believe that Zorzi has not opened the manuscript?" asked Marietta.

"Yes," answered Beroviero after a moment's thought. "I showed him the seal, and I remember that he said a man might make one like it. But I should know by the wax. I am sure I could tell whether it had been tampered with. Yes, I should believe he had not opened the book, if I found it as I left it."

"Then you will be convinced that Zorzi is altogether innocent of all the charges Giovanni made against him. Is that true?"

"Yes. If he has learnt the art in spite of the law, that is my fault, not his. He was unwise in selling the beaker to Giovanni. But what is that, after all?"

"Promise me then," said Marietta, laying her hand upon her father's arm, "promise me that if Zorzi comes back, he shall be safe, and that you will trust him as you always have."

"Though he dares to be in love with you?"

"Though I dare to love him--or apart from that. Say that if it were not for that, you would treat him just as before you went away."

"Yes, I would," answered Beroviero thoughtfully.

"The book is there," said Marietta.

She pointed to the big earthen jar that contained the broken glass, and her father's eyes followed her land.

"It is for Zorzi's sake that I tell you," she continued. "The book is buried deep down amongst the broken bits. It will take a long time to get it out. Shall I call Pasquale to help us?"

"No," answered her father.

He went to the other end of the room and brought back the crowbar. Then he placed himself in a good position for striking, and raised the iron high in air with both his hands.

"Stand back!" he cried as Marietta came nearer.

The first blow knocked a large piece of earthenware from the side of the strong jar, and a quantity of broken red glass poured out, as red as blood from a wound, and fell with little crashes upon the stone floor. Beroviero raised the crowbar again and again and brought it down with all his might. At the fourth stroke the whole jar went to pieces, leaving nothing but a red heap of smashed glass, round about which lay the big fragments of the jar. In the middle of the heap, the corner of the iron box appeared, sticking up like a black stone.

"At last!" exclaimed the old man, flushed with satisfaction. "Giovanni had not thought of this."

He cleared away the shivers and gently pushed the box out of its bed with the crowbar. He soon got it out on the floor, and with some precaution, lest any stray splinter should cut his fingers, he set it upon the table. Then he took the key from his neck and opened it.

Marietta's belief in Zorzi had never wavered, from the first, but Beroviero was more than half sure that the book had been opened. He took it up with care, turned it over and over in his hands, scrutinised the seal, the strings, the knots, and saw that they were all his own.

"It is impossible that this should have been undone and tied up again," he said confidently.

"Any one could see that at once," Marietta answered. "Do you believe that Zorzi is innocent?"

"I cannot help believing. But I do not understand. There is the red glass, made by dropping the piece of copper into it. That is in the book, I am sure."

"It was an accident," said Marietta. "The copper ladle fell into the glass. Zorzi told me about it."

"Are you sure? That is possible. The very same thing happened to Paolo Godi, and that was how he discovered the colour. But there is the white glass, which is so like mine, though it is better. That may have been an accident too. Or the boy may have tried an experiment upon mine by adding something to it."

"It is at least sure that the book has not been touched, and that is the main thing. You admit that he is quite innocent, do you not? Quite, quite innocent?"

"Yes, I do. It would be very unjust not to admit it."

Marietta drew a long breath of relief, for she had scarcely hoped to accomplish so much in so short a time. The rest would follow, she felt sure.

"I would give a great deal to see Zorzi at once," said her father, at last, as he replaced the manuscript in the box and shut the lid.

"Not half as much as I would!" Marietta almost laughed, as she spoke. "Father," she added gently, and resting one hand upon his shoulder, "I have given you back your book, I have given you back the innocent man you trusted, instead of the villain invented by my brother. What will you give me?"

She smiled and rubbed her cheek against his shoulder. He shook his head a little, and would not answer.

"Would it be so hard to say that you ask another year's time before the marriage? And then, you know, you could ask it again, and they would soon be tired of waiting and would break it off themselves."

"Do not suggest such woman's tricks to me," answered her father; but he could not help smiling.

"Oh, you may find a better way," Marietta said. "But that would be so easy, would it not? Your daughter is so young--her health is somewhat delicate--"

She was interrupted by a knock at the door, and Pasquale entered.

"The Signor Giovanni is without, sir," said the porter. "He desires to take leave of you, as he is returning to his own house to-day."

"Let him come in," said Beroviero, his face darkening all at once. _

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