A Golden Book of Venice | Page 9

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 passionately, 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 nobility 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 passionate 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
passionately. "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 noble
thing"--the words came with repressed scorn--"to coax her to it, just for
a