A Golden Book of Venice | Page 6

his wonderful reasoning faculty stilled every other
emotion. His voice grew positive as his thought asserted itself; his
learning was a mystery, but argument after argument was met and
conquered with the quoted wisdom of unanswerable names.
One after another the great men left the choir and came down into the
area before the pulpits, that they might lose nothing.

One after another the Frari chose out champions to confute the
child-philosopher, but he was armed on every side; and the childish
face, the boyish manner and voice lent a wonderful charm to the words
he uttered, which were not eloquent, but absolutely dispassionate and
reasonable, and the fewest by which he might prove his claim.
Again and again his audience forgot themselves in murmurs of
applause, rising beyond decorum, and once into a storm of approbation;
then his timidity returned, he became self-conscious, fumbling with the
white cowl that hung partly over his face, forgetting that it was not a
hat, and gravely taking it off in salute.
The next day it was proclaimed on the Piazza, as a bit of news for the
people of Venice--for which, indeed, those who had not witnessed the
contest in the church of the Frari cared little and understood
nothing--that "in the Philosophical Contest which had taken place
between the Friars of the Frari and the Friars of the Servi, the victory
had been won by Fra Paolo Sarpi, of the Servi, who had honorably
triumphed through his vast understanding of the wisdom of the Fathers
of the Church."
This was also published in the black frame beside the great door of the
Frari and posted upon the entrance to the church of the Servi, while in
the refectories of the respective convents it formed a theme of
absorbing interest.
The Frari discussed the possibilities of childish mouthpieces for learned
doctors, miraculously concealed--but low, for fear of scandal. The
Servi said it out, for all to hear, "that it was a modern wonder of a Child
in the Temple!"
But Fra Gianmaria hushed them, and was afraid; for often while he
taught he came upon some new surprise, for he perceived that the boy's
mind held some hidden spring of knowledge which was to him
unfathomable.
"It is most wonderful," he said one evening to Fra Giulio, as they talked
together in the cloister after vespers; "I solemnly declare that it hath
happened to me to ask him a question of which I, verily, knew not the
answer; and he, keeping in quiet thought for some moments, hath so
lucidly responded that his words have carried with them the conviction
that he had made a discovery which I knew not."
"It is some lesson which Don Ambrogio hath taught him."

"Not so--for Don Ambrogio hath little learning; but Paolo will cover us
with honor. In learning he is never weary, yet hath he an understanding
greater than mine own, and in docility he hath no equal. In his duty in
the convent and in the church he is even more punctilious."
"Is it strange--or is it well," asked Fra Giulio with hesitation, "that in
this year he hath spent with us he asks not for his mother, nor the little
maid his sister, nor seemeth to grieve for them? For the boy is young."
"Nay," answered Fra Gianmaria, sternly; "it is no lack, but a grace that
hath been granted him."
"Knowledge is a wonderful mystery," Fra Giulio answered; but softly
to himself, as he crossed the cloister, he added, "but love is sweet, and
the boy is very young."
The boy was kneeling placidly before the crucifix in his cell when Fra
Giulio went to give him his nightly benediction; but the good friar's
heart was troubled with tenderness because of a vision, that would not
leave him, of a hungering mother's face.

II
Many years later one of the great artists of Venice, wandering about at
sunset with an elusive vision of some wonderful picture stirring
impatience within his soul, found a maiden sitting under the
vine-covered pergola of the Traghetto San Maurizio, where she was
waiting for her brother-in-law, who would presently touch at this ferry
on his homeward way to Murano. A little child lay asleep in her arms,
his blond head, which pitying Nature had kept beautiful, resting against
her breast; the meagre body was hidden beneath the folds of her mantle,
which, in the graceful fashion of those days, passed over her head and
fell below the knees; her face, very beautiful and tender, was bent over
the little sufferer, who had forgotten his pain in the weariness it had
brought him as a boon.
The delicate purple bells of the vine upon the trellis stirred in the
evening breeze, making a shimmer of perfume and color