A Golden Book of Venice Part 35

"Shall the pleasure of the lady of this n.o.ble house not be consulted?"

Piero questioned, struggling to cover his defiance under a tone of deference.

But his answer was only in the secretary's eyes,--smiling, imperious,--more defiant than his own impotent will; and in the courtly waiting att.i.tude, which had not changed, and which seemed unbearably to lengthen out the pa.s.sing seconds.

The Lady Beata, winding compa.s.sionate arms around her friend, had raised her veil, whispering words of tenderness.

But there was no recognition in the glance that met hers--only the immeasurable pathos of a hopeless surrender; the fervent pa.s.sion of Marina's will and faith had made all things seem possible of achievement, though Venice was against her, for had not the mission been given her in a vision by the Holy Madonna of San Donato--Mother of Sorrows--and was not the issue sure? And yielding all thought of self she had braced every faculty to accomplish the holy task of which she alone felt the urgency. But the overtaxed heart and brain could endure no longer thwarting; their activity and unquestioning purpose had been her only power; and the moment she ceased to struggle will and reason fled together.

Pitifully acquiescent, she went with them unresisting.

A haze that was not luminous hung in the sky; night was creeping on without a sunset, as they battled their way up the Giudecca against the current which rushed like a boiling torrent around San Giorgio--the blue calm of the waters turned to a frenzied, foam-lashed green.

The men rowed fast, with tight-furled sail, but the storm came faster; ranks of threatening clouds were hurrying from the east, gathering like armies of vengeful spirits, darker, closer about them, shutting off every breath of air; an oppression, throbbing with nameless fears, was upon them--a hush, as if life had ceased; then the scorching, withering torment of a fierce sirocco, and the moan of the wind, like a soul in pain.

Marina grew faint and wide-eyed for terror, but they could not soothe her by word or touch; she sat with clasped hands, gasping for breath, listening to the low, long boom on the sh.o.r.es of the Lido, like m.u.f.fled thunder, ceaselessly recurring--the terrible noise of the great waves beating against the sea-walls--beating and breaking in fury, tossing their spray high in air and whirling it in clouds, like rain mists, far across the lagoon. Would the barriers stand--or yield and leave them to their doom? Were the great waters of the Adriatic uprising in vengeance to overwhelm this city in her sin? Boom upon boom sounded through all the voices of the storm. Santa Maria! was it this that the Tintoretto had foretold!

A dazzling, frenzied flash of light,--a vast peal of thunder that was like the wrath of a mighty, offended G.o.d,--then darkness, and a torrent of rain--the waters in the s.h.i.+fting path of the wind leaping up to meet the waters from the sky!

The vesper bells of Venice came sobbing through the storm, tossed and broken by the tornado into a wraith of a dirge; and now, by some fantastic freak of nature, as the winds rose higher, the iron tongues from every campanile--for a brief moment of horror--came wrangling and discordant, as if tortured by some demon of despair.

"_Ave Maria, Gratia plena_!"

the women cried together, falling on their knees, while the men toiled and struggled to hold the invincible galley of the Ten outside the whirling path of the storm--advancing and retreating at the will of the elements, against which their own splendid, human strength was like the feeble, untaught effort of a helpless infant.

"_Mater Dei, Ora pro n.o.bis peccatoribus, nunc et in hora mortis nostrae_."

The words rose in a wail between the gusts.

For measureless moments, mighty as hours, they battled between San Marco and San Giorgio, tossed to and fro--now nearer the haven of the great white dome, now--as a lightning flash unveiled San Marco--near enough to see a cloud of frightened doves go whirling over the flood which swept the Piazza from end to end and poured out under the great gates of the Ducal Palace into the lagoon.

"_Summa Parens clementia--nocte surgentes_----"

x.x.xII

A Day momentous for Venice--or was it Rome?--had come and pa.s.sed; it chronicled the right of the Crown to make its own laws within its own realm, without reference to ecclesiastical claims which had hitherto been found hampering; it defined the limits of Church and State, as no protest had hitherto done.

But Venice was calm in her triumph as she had been unmoved in disaster, and would not reflect the jubilant tone of the cardinal when he had returned from Rome empowered to withdraw the censures upon the terms stipulated by the Republic.

Yet, at this latest moment, the cardinal mediator, from lack of discretion, had come near to failure; for the terms being less favorable than he had desired to obtain for the Holy Father, he could not resist attempting to win some little further grace before p.r.o.nouncing the final word, when the Signoria, weary of temporizing, told him plainly that his Holiness must come at once to a decision, or Venice would forget that she had so far yielded as to listen to any negotiations.

There was no pageant at the close of this long drama of which the princes of Europe had been interested spectators. Venice sat smiling and unruffled under her April skies when the ducal secretary escorted the two famous prisoners from the dungeons of the Palace to the residence of the French amba.s.sador, and there, _without prejudice to the Republic's right of jurisdiction over criminal ecclesiastics_, explicitly stipulated, bestowed this gift--so fitting for the gratification of a "Most Christian Majesty"--upon the representative of France, who must indeed have breathed more freely when this testimonial of favor, with its precious burden of nameless crimes, had been consigned by him to one who waited as an appointee of the Pope.

The Doge and the Signoria sat in their accustomed places in their stately a.s.sembly Chamber when the cardinal came with congratulations upon the withdrawal of the interdict, and the words of the Serenissimo, as he gave the promised parchment, were few and dignified.

"I thank the Lord our G.o.d that his Holiness hath a.s.sured himself of the purity of our intentions and the sincerity of our deeds."

And the writing of that parchment, sealed with the seal of Saint Mark, stood thus:

"Essendo state levate le Censure e restate parimente rivocato il Protesto." ("The censures having been taken off the protest remains equally revoked.")

It was whispered low that the cardinal, under his cape, made the sign of the cross and murmured a word of absolution. But if the Signoria suspected his intention there was no movement of acquiescence; only, when the short ceremony of the pa.s.sing of the doc.u.ment was completed, they observed the usual forms of courtesy with which the audience of so princely an envoy is closed when his mission is accomplished.

If Paul V had surrendered with reluctance his hope of a sumptuous ceremony in San Pietro, where delegates of penitent Venetians should kneel in public and confess and be graciously absolved--if the Cardinal di Gioiosa had indulged flattering visions of a procession of priests and people to the patriarchal church in the Piazza, with paeans of joy-bells and shouts of gladness that Venice was again free to resume her wors.h.i.+p, and that her penitent people were pardoned sons of the Church--he was doomed to disappointment. The cardinals of Spain and France, attended only by their households, celebrated Ma.s.s in the ducal chapel of San Marco; and the people came and went--as they did before and after, through that day and all the days since the interdict had been p.r.o.nounced, in this and all the churches of Venice--and scarcely knew that their doom was lifted, as they had hardly realized that the curse had ever penetrated from those distant doors of San Pietro to the sanctuary of San Marco!

But the world knew and never forgot how that stately court of Venice had met the thunder of the Vatican and lessened its power forever.

The cause had been won in moderation and dignity upon a basis of civil justice that was none the less accredited because the Teologo Consultore who sat in chancelor's robes behind the throne was a zealous advocate of the primitive principles of Christianity, and defended, without fear of obloquy or death, the right of the individual conscience to interpret for itself the laws of right,--as founded upon the words of Christ,--because the extraordinary keenness, fineness, and breadth of his masterly mind enabled him to conceive with unusual definiteness the limits of civil and spiritual authority, and to ascribe the overgrowth of error upon the Church he loved to the misconception and weakness of human nature. He did not place Venice, the superb,--with her pride and pomp and power and intellectual astuteness, with her faults and worldliness and her magnificent statesmans.h.i.+p,--against the _spiritual_ kingdom of Christ's Church on earth and declare for Venice _against_ the Church.

But he weighed in the clear poise of his brain the Book of the Divine Law--which none knew better than he--with the laws of the princes of this world--which also few knew better--and declared that _One_, lowly and great, had defined the limits of the Church's jurisdiction when He said, "My kingdom is not of this world."

But in Rome the reasoning was not so simple, and threats of vengeance pursued this "terrible friar," whose bold judgments had ruled the councils of rebellious Venice.

But though peace was declared with Rome the labors of the Senate were scarcely lessened; there were still adjustments to be made which were not whispered abroad--there were emba.s.sies to be dissolved and appointed, gifts to be voted, honors to be heaped upon the head of the man whose counsels had led to such results, and in whose person the Senate now united the three offices of the Counsellors to the Doge, making Fra Paolo sole Teologo Consultore.

It was the first time in the history of the Republic that such honors had been voted, for Venice was not wont to be over-generous in recognition of individual service; and this friend of statesmen, scholars, and princes temporal and spiritual, preserved the greatness of his simplicity unspoiled in prosperity and power--as was possible only to a spirit ruled by inflexible principle and faith.

When the Senate voted him a palace near San Marco he preferred his simple quarters among his brethren of the Servi. When, in proof of their appreciation, they doubled his salary and would have trebled it again--"Nay," said he, "it is but my duty that I have done. May the honorable words of the Senate's recognition but hold before me that which, by G.o.d's help, I may yet accomplish"; and he would take but so much as he might bestow in charity and gifts to his convent, having for himself no need nor tastes that were not met by the modest provision of his order.

And when, having refused to go to Rome for reconciliation--being not penitent--or for preferment, which would not come without penitence, Fra Paolo still pursued, unmoved, the quiet tenor of his daily round, from convent to palace, without pause or tremor, in spite of continued warning;--"My life," he said, "is in the hands of G.o.d. My duty hath he confided to mine own effort."

The Lady Marina was a guest in the Ducal Palace, detained under surveillance, yet treated with much honor; her friends might see her in the presence of the ducal guards who watched within the doors of her sumptuous chambers, but she was not free to go to her own, who had guarded her with such laxity that in striving to reach the court of the enemy she had imperiled the dignity of the Republic by her silent censure. Marcantonio had trembled more when, the morning after the storm, news had reached him that the fugitive was in the keeping of the Signoria, than if the message had announced her death. What might he not expect of their jealousy!

But a ducal secretary had received him with courtesy and conducted him at once into the audience chamber of the Doge, who bade him send for her maidens that she might be cared for tenderly, for her stay at the Palace would be indefinite. It was a royal command, against which pleading or rebellion were alike useless.

"Most Serene Prince!" cried Marcantonio in agony, "I beseech thee leave me that gift which a gracious Senate once so generously bestowed! I have never swerved in loyalty--though my heart was nigh to breaking that I might not grant her prayer!"

But one in attendance spoke quickly; for the face of the good Leonardo Donato was full of compa.s.sion, and he might not be trusted to serve the higher interests of the Republic.

"It is of the clemency of the Serenissimo," said that inflexible voice, "that the Lady Marina reaps not the penalty of her flight and of her disloyalty to the State, since she hath sought to place her private judgment beyond the wisdom of the rulers of Venice."

The figure stood motionless in the shadow of a column, m.u.f.fled in a long black mantle, a black beretta partially concealing the face.

There was an icy inflection in the tones which sent a chill to Marcantonio's heart as he listened. One of the Chiefs of the Ten was always a member of the still more dreaded Inquisition, whose ident.i.ty was never known, and the pa.s.sionless voice held a hint of indisputable authority--was his suffering wife to rely upon the mercy of the most puissant member of this terrible commission!

"Take my life for hers!" he implored, so beside himself with grief and terror that he disclosed his fear for Marina; "and bid her return to care for our little one."

"Not so," said the emotionless voice; "the Lady Marina hath disproved her right to care for a n.o.ble of Venice. It would be to imperil his loyalty to leave the child under his mother's influence."

"My G.o.d!" cried Marcantonio bitterly; "take me to her and let us die together--if the Republic may grant us so much grace!"

Again the Doge would have spoken compa.s.sionate words, but the other interposed: