Stradella | Page 2

fastened a fine string of pearls round her
throat, kissed her on the forehead, and left her alone to meditate on her
good fortune.
Her reflections were of a mixed character, however, and not all pleasant.
The idea that she could disobey or resist did not occur to her, of course,
for the Senator had always appeared to her as the absolute lord of his
household, against whose will it was useless to make any opposition,
and she knew what an important person he was considered to be
amongst his equals.
But in her inmost heart she knew that he was not really what he made
people think he was. She had a ready sense of humour, and she felt that
under his ponderous disguise of importance he was quite a ridiculous

person. He was miserly to meanness; he was as vain as an ape; he was a
man who had flattered himself, and had been flattered by others, into a
sort of artificially inflated doll that imposed on many people and
deceived almost all. And yet Ortensia was aware of something in him
that frightened her a little, though she could not quite tell what it was.
Possibly, like many externally artificial people, there was a cruel side
to his character. There are men who become ridiculous as soon as they
cease to be dangerous, and who are most dangerous when they fear that
they are just going to become a laughing-stock.
Ortensia reflected on these things after her uncle had given her the
pearls and had kissed her on the forehead. The pearls were very
beautiful, but the kiss had been distinctly disagreeable. The Senator
waxed his moustaches to make them stay up, as many men did then,
and she thought that if a cold hard-boiled egg, surrounded with bristles
like a hair-brush, had touched her forehead, the sensation would have
been very much the same, and she shook her delicate shoulders in
disgust at the thought, and slowly rubbed the offended spot with two
fingers, while her other hand played with the string of pearls in her lap.
It would be a great thing, of course, to be a senator's wife and the
mistress of such a house as the Palazzo Pignaver, which she had first
entered as a little orphan waif ten years ago. But to be kissed daily,
even on the forehead, by her Uncle Michele, would be a high price to
pay for greatness. She supposed that he would kiss her every day when
she was married, for that was probably a part of marriage, which had
always seemed to her a mysterious affair at best. Young girls looked
forward to it with delight, and old women seemed to look back on it
with disappointment, while those who were neither old nor young
never said anything about it, but often seemed to be on bad terms with
their husbands.
But Ortensia was a fatalist, like most Venetian maidens of her time.
Whatever the master of the house and the head of the family decided
would be done, and there could be no question of resistance. In due
course she would marry her uncle, she would hold her tongue like other
married women while he lived, and when he was dead she would be at

liberty to tell her friends that her marriage had been a disappointment.
Of course Uncle Michele would die long before her--that was one
consolation--and the position of a rich widow in Venice was enviable.
Happily she had six months before her, during which time her
education was to be completed; happily, too, a large part of it now
consisted in music lessons, for she had a sweet voice, and the Senator
meant that she should astound Venetian society by singing his own
compositions to them, accompanying herself. She had great beauty, as
well as some real talent, and he judged that the effect of his verses and
music, when rendered by her, would be much enhanced by the magic
light in her hazel eyes, by the contrasted splendour of her auburn hair
and ivory complexion, and by the pretty motion of her taper fingers as
they fluttered over the strings. He looked forward to exhibiting the
loveliest young woman in Venice, who should sing his own songs
divinely to an admiring circle of envious friends. That would be a
magnificent and well-deserved triumph, after his long career as a gifted
amateur and critic--and it would cost nothing. Why should a wife be
more expensive than a niece? His first wife's brocades and velvets
could easily be made over for Ortensia; and for that matter the young
girl expected nothing better, since she had no family of her own to give
her a great carved chest full of beautiful new clothes and laces.