Blackwoods Edinburgh Magazine | Page 9

his father, who advanced to meet him,
and, grasping his arm, fixed upon him for some moments his stern and
searching gaze.
"The picture, father!" exclaimed the terror-stricken Antonio. "For the
love of Heaven, stay me not! Let me destroy that fatal picture!"
Regardless of his son's agitation and terror, the Proveditore half led,
half forced him to a seat in a part of the room, when the red blaze from
the larch logs that were crackling on the hearth, lit up the young man's
features.
"What means this, Antonio?" he said; "what has befallen during my
absence at Gradiska? The familiars of the Inquisition have been seeking
you here--you, the last person whose name I should expect to hear in
such mouths. Alarm me it did not; for well I know that you are too
scant of energy and settled purpose to be mixed up in conspiracies
against the state."
Antonio was still too much preoccupied by his terror to understand, or
at any rate to heed, the severity of his father's remark. Collecting his
scattered thoughts, he proceeded to narrate all that had occurred to him,
not only on that day, but since his first meeting with the incognita near
the church of San Moyses, on the very same spot whither he had
conveyed her in his gondola but a short hour ago.
"Let me destroy the painting, father!" he concluded; "it may be found,
and used as testimony against me."
The Proveditore had listened with a smile, that was at once
contemptuous and sorrowful, to his son's narrative, and to the
confession of his weakness and disobedience to the injunctions of his
aged teacher. When he had finished speaking, there was a minute's
silence, broken at last by the elder Marcello.
"I have long been convinced," he said, "that Contarini would never
succeed in making of you a painter fit to rank with those old and
illustrious masters of whom Venice is so justly proud. But I had not
thought so poorly of you, Antonio, as to believe that you would want
courage to defend an object, for the attainment of which you scrupled
not to disobey your venerable instructor. What the kind entreaties and
remonstrances of Contarini could not induce you to abandon, you are
ready to annihilate on the very first symptom of danger. Oh, Venice!"

exclaimed the Proveditore, his fine countenance assuming an
expression of extreme bitterness, as he gazed mournfully at the portraits
of his ancestors, including more than one Doge, which were suspended
round the walls of the apartment--"Venice! thou art indeed degenerate,
when peril so remote can blanch the cheek of thy patrician youth."
He strode twice up and down the hall, then returning to his son, bade
him fetch the picture which he was so desirous of destroying. Antonio,
downcast and abashed by these reproaches, which, however, were
insufficient to awaken nobler aspirations in his weak and irresolute
nature, hurried to his chamber, and presently returned with a roll of
canvass in his hand, which he unfolded and spread before the
Proveditore--then, dreading to encounter his father's ridicule, he shrunk
back out of the firelight. But the effect produced upon Marcello by the
portrait of the old woman, was very different from that anticipated by
his son. Scarcely had he cast his eyes upon the unearthly visage, when
he started back with an exclamation of horror and astonishment.
"By all the saints, Antonio," cried he in an altered voice, "that is a
fearful portrait! Alas, poor wretch! thou art long since in thy grave,"
continued he, addressing the picture, and with looks and tones strangely
at variance with his usually stern and imperturbable deportment. "The
worms have preyed on thee, and thou art as dust and ashes. Why, then,
dost thou rise from the dead to fright me with that ghastly visage?"
"Is the face known to you, father?" the astonished Antonio ventured to
exclaim.
"Known to me! Ay, too well! That wrinkled skin, that unearthly
complexion, those deep-set eyes glowing like burning coals. Just so did
she glare upon me as she swung from the tree, the blood driven into her
features by the agonizing pressure of the halter. 'Tis the very look that
has haunted me for years, and caused me many bitter moments of
remorse; though, God knows, the deed was lawful and justifiable, done
in the execution of my duty to the republic. And yet she lives," he
continued musingly. "How could she have been saved? True, she had
not been hanging long when we left the place. Some of her people,
doubtless, were concealed hard by, and cut her down ere life had
entirely fled. But, ha! 'tis a clue this to the perpetrators of to-day's
outrage, for she was with them. Uzcoques, then they must