Marietta | Page 3

motionless hi her seat under the plane-tree
for a long time when she was thinking, and she never told any one her
thoughts.
She was not unlike her father in looks, and that was doubtless the
reason why he assumed that she must be like him in character. No one
would have said that she was handsome, but sometimes, when she
smiled, those who saw that rare expression in her face thought she was
beautiful. When it was gone, they said she was cold. Fortunately, her
hair was not red, as her father's had been or she might sometimes have
seemed positively ugly; it was of that deep ruddy, golden brown that
one may often see in Venice still, and there was an abundance of it,
though it was drawn straight back from her white forehead and braided
into the smallest possible space, in the fashion of that time. There wag
often a little colour in her face, though never much, and it was faint, yet
very fresh, like the tint within certain delicate shells; her lips were of
the same hue, but stronger and brighter, and they were very well shaped
and generally closed, like her father's. But her eyes were not like his,
and the lids and lashes shaded them in such a way that it was hard to
guess their colour, and they had an inscrutable, reserved look that was
hard to meet for many seconds. Zorzi believed that they were grey, but
when he saw them in his dreams they were violet; and one day she
opened them wide for an instant, at something old Beroviero said to her,

and then Zorzi fancied that they were like sapphires, but before he
could be sure, the lids and lashes shaded them again, and he only knew
that they were there, and longed to see them, for her father had spoken
of her marriage, and she had not answered a single word.
When they were alone together for a moment, while the old man was
searching for more materials in the next room, she spoke to Zorzi.
"My father did not mean you to hear that," she said.
"Nevertheless, I heard," answered Zorzi, pushing a small piece of beech
wood into the fire through a narrow slit on one side of the brick furnace.
"It was not my fault."
"Forget that you heard it," said Marietta quietly, and as her father
entered the room again she passed him and went out into the garden.
But Zorzi did not even try to forget the name of the man whom
Beroviero appeared to have chosen for his daughter. He tried instead, to
understand why Marietta wished him not to remember that the name
was Jacopo Contarini. He glanced sideways at the girl's figure as she
disappeared through the door, and he thoughtfully pushed another piece
of wood into the fire. Some day, perhaps before long, she would marry
this man who had been mentioned, and then Zorzi would be alone with
old Beroviero in the laboratory. He set his teeth, and poked the fire
with, an iron rod.
It happened now and then that Marietta did not come to the glass-house.
Those days were long, and when night came Zorzi felt as if his heart
were turning into a hot stone in his breast, and his sight was dull, and
he ached from his work and felt scorched by the heat of the furnace.
For he was not very strong of limb, though he was quick with his hands
and of a very tenacious nature, able to endure pain as well as weariness
when he was determined to finish what he had begun. But while
Marietta was in the laboratory, nothing could tire him nor hurt him, nor
make him wish that the hours were less long. He thought therefore of
what must happen to him if Jacopo Contarini took Marietta away from
Murano to live in a palace in Venice, and he determined at least to find

out what sort of man this might be who was to receive for his own the
only woman in the world for whose sake it would be perfect happiness
to be burned with slow fire. He did not mean to do Contarini any harm.
Perhaps Marietta already loved the man, and was glad she was to marry
him. No one could have told what she felt, even from that one flashing
look she had given her father. Zorzi did not try to understand her yet;
he only loved her, and she was his master's daughter, and if his master
found out his secret it would be a very evil day for him. So he poked
the fire with his iron rod, and set his teeth, and said nothing, while old
Beroviero moved about the