_ CHAPTER XXI
So life went on, and those who looked to see the people fail and falter under this burden which the rebellion of their rulers had brought upon them saw them, with unshaken confidence, still loyally upholding the banner of Saint Mark. Preparations for war--marshaling of soldiers, building of galleys, increased activities at the arsenal--enlarged the industries and added a judicious vivacity to the life of the people.
There was no war declared; but it was a time when border-lands should be looked to and bravery encouraged and the martial spirit developed; and the ever politic Senate tickled the fancy of its pleasure-loving people with the pomp of a fete, on the day when the newly created general-in-chief of the armies of the Republic assembled, with fanfare of trumpets and roaring of cannon, his splendidly appointed corps in the Piazza, the people thronging the arcades, crowding the windows and balconies, waving and shouting, as the stately escort of three hundred nobles, in crimson robes, led the way to San Marco for solemn dedication. And here, like a knight vowed to holiest service, the general knelt before the altar, while the Patriarch blessed his sword. "In defense of Venice and the right," with a memory of the old battle-cry of the Republic.
"Non nobis, Domine--sed tibi gloria!"
And the people, accepting as a favor the pageant which had been cunningly devised to impress them, followed, thronging, up the giant stairway, into the halls of the Council Chamber, into the stately presence of the Serenissimo and the Signoria, to hear their latest magnate profess his gratitude for the honor of his investiture and the magnificence of his outfit, with solemn oaths of loyalty.
There was no war, though talk of it had little truce in those days; but the cardinal nephews were busy in Ferrara and Ancona with the marshaling of troops, and four of the princes of the Church had been appointed by the Holy Father--vice-regent of the Prince of Peace--to superintend his military operations and prepare his army of forty thousand infantry and four thousand cavalry! Thus, in Venice, the spectacle of a general-in-chief, with his splendid accoutrements, was timely and inspiriting.
Meanwhile, in the palazzo Giustiniani the days dragged wearily, and knew no sunshine; the Senator Marcantonio had been by special favor excused from attendance in the Council Chamber; in his mind Venice was no longer regnant; one thought absorbed him wholly through all that miserable time--he had but one hope--everything centred in Marina.
When they had undressed her to apply restoratives a small, rough crucifix had been taken from the folds of her robe near her heart; it had belonged to Santa Beata Tagliapietra,--that devoted daughter of the Church,--and the Lady Beata herself had given the precious heirloom out of the treasures of the chapel of their house to her beloved Lady Marina. Possibly she reflected, with a shudder, as she laid the relic on the altar of the oratory of the palazzo Giustiniani, that the remembrance of the constant dangers of Santa Beata had incited the Lady Marina thus to peril her life. Of the long nights of vigil on the floor of the oratory and of many other austerities which had filled those last sad days since the quarrel with Rome had begun, the Lady Beata was forced to give faithful account to the physicians who were summoned in immediate consultation to the bedchamber of the Lady Marina. These practices and the horror upon which she had dwelt ceaselessly would sufficiently account for her condition, said the learned Professor Santorio; and if she could but forget it there might be hope; meanwhile, let her memory lie dormant--at present nothing must be done to rouse her.
Perhaps already she had forgotten it; for the shock had been great and life was at a very low ebb; had all memory gone from her of her life and love? They thought she knew them, but she expressed no wish; she scarcely spoke; lying listless and white under the heavy canopy of the great carved bedstead, which had become the centre of every hope in those two palaces on the Canal Grande, while the absorbing life of the Ducal Palace, so little distant, was for Marcantonio as though it did not exist. In that time of waiting--he knew not how long it was nor what was passing--life was a great void to him, echoing with one agonized hope; time had no existence, except as an indefinite point when Marina should come back to him with her soul and heart in her eyes once more.
He had gathered the few books from her oratory and boudoir, and at intervals when he could control his thought he pored over them, treasuring every faint pencil-line, every sentence blotted by tears, as an indication of having specially occupied her. Now that he could no longer discuss these moods, how eagerly he sought for the light she would so gladly have given him in those past, happier days!
In vain he asked of the Lady Beata whether they had discussed these thoughts together--whether Fra Francesco had brought her the little worn volumes.
"My lord, I know not," she answered coldly, resolved in her own heart to tell him nothing that he did not already know, since only now it had pleased him to concern himself with that religious attitude which was costing Marina so dearly. For the whole strength of the love she would once have yielded him for the asking, the Lady Beata now lavished upon Marina, in jealous devotion.
But he could not be angry with Fra Francesco, who had only been faithful in sharing his belief with her, while he, her husband, had refused to help her. "My God!" he groaned; "why are we blind until the anguish comes!"
As he drearily paced the stately chambers--so empty without Marina--what would he not have given to hear her voice again repeat those eager questions he had been so willing to repress! How could it ever have vexed him that she should wish to understand the question that was occupying Venice! But now he remembered having grown less and less patient with her as she had returned to this theme, until, in self-defense, she had said with gentle dignity, yet half-surprised at his irritation:
"Marco, have a little patience with me. Remember that our young nobles are trained in knowledge of these laws of Venice from quite early boyhood."
"It is part training, if thou wilt," he had answered lightly; "or in these questions women are stupid--I know not. But these matters concern them not." And after that, he remembered now with shame, she had troubled him no more, and he had felt it a relief; for during the few discussions they had had together he had been aware that they approached the question from a radically different point of view. He had never taken the trouble to comprehend her ground nor to give her reasons for his own; he had simply made assertions, with a sense of irritation that any repetition should be called for in a matter quite out of a woman's province; for the women of Venice had no part in that salon influence on politics which was ascribed to their sisters of France, and her attempts to gain understanding for a personal judgment had chafed him like an interference in his own special field. He, with his subtly trained intellect and legal knowledge, could so easily have convinced her, he told himself remorsefully; but he had not taken the trouble even to look through her lens, while she had been so eager to understand his point of view--and only that she might reach the truth!
Now he had much time to understand it all! He recalled a strange, hurt look when her questions had ceased, but it had not troubled him then; she would forget it,--would understand that he preferred to talk about other things,--he had said to himself, and he had been careful in gracious little ways to show her that he was not displeased. And she had been wise and had vexed him no more; there had been no arguments on this or any other theme. And then the days of strain had come and the labors of the Council had absorbed him. Now he saw that she had been too proud and strong to subject herself to repeated insinuations of inferiority of understanding, as she had been too loving and dutiful to prolong the contest. And so--he groaned aloud as his mistake revealed itself to him in those long, unhappy hours--he had lost the dear opportunity of leading her aright; for he contemplated but one possible issue of such an attempt on his part; he had scorned her entreaty when she came to him for understanding of a mystery that was killing her, and he had driven her to take up the study alone, with the help of her father confessor, who knew but one side of the vexed question, and that
not the side of Venice!
He was sure that it was a matter of conscience and not of contest with Marina, therefore she
must know; he should have realized that! How had Fra Francesco met her questions? Had he told her it was a matter beyond the comprehension of women? Or had he been patient with her difficulties and solved them with terrible positiveness? Was it he who had brought her these manuals on "Fasts and Penances," "The Use and Nature of the Interdict," "The Duty of the Believer," which completed for her the pictures of horror her faith had already outlined? Marcantonio had taken in all their dread meaning in rapid glances. How could she believe those terrible things he had seen in her eyes--those terrible, terrible things!
Nay, how should she not believe them? And how implicitly she must have believed them to have endured so much in hope of averting this doom!
"Marina! Carina!" his heart went out to her in a great wail of pity; a woman--so tender, so young--kneeling at night in her chapel, alone with the vision of the horror she was praying to avert; bearing the fasting and the penance and the weakness, all alone, in the hope that God would be merciful; gathering up her failing strength so bravely for that thankless scene in the Senate. And he, her husband, who had never meant that his love should fail her, could have spared her all this pain by a little comprehension! Could she ever forgive him? And would she understand some day? Might he reason it all out lovingly with her when her strength came back to her--"For baby's sake!" that sweet, womanly, natural plea which he had disregarded?
"Signor Santorio," he moaned, "if I might but reason with her, I might cure her!"
"Nay," said Santorio, "not yet; the shadow hath not left her eyes. Let her forget."
She had been growing stronger, they said, doing quite passively the things they asked of her toward her restoration; she recognized them all, but she expressed neither wish nor emotion, lying chiefly with closed eyes in the cavernous depths of the great invalid chair where they laid her each day, yet responding by some movement if they called her name--rarely with any words; nothing roused her from that mood of unbroken brooding.
"She will not forget," the great Santorio said in despair. "We must try to rouse her. Let her child be brought."
The ghost of a smile flitted for an instant about her pale lips and over the shadowy horror in her eyes, as Marcantonio leaned over her with their boy in his arms. "Carina," he cried imploringly, "our little one needeth thee!"
She half-opened her arms, but this wraith of the mother, he remembered, frightened the child, who clung sobbing to his father.
Marina fell back with a cry of grief, struggling for the words which came slowly--her first connected speech since her illness. "It is the curse! It parts even mothers and children!"
A strange strength seemed to have come to her; a sudden light gleamed in her eyes; she turned from one to the other, as if seeking some one in authority to answer her question, and fixed upon Santorio's as the strongest face.
"The official acts of a Pope are infallible?" she questioned, with feverish insistence, after the first futile attempt to speak. "The Holy Father who succeeds him may not undo his acts of mercy?"
"Yes, yes, it is true," Santorio assented, waiting eagerly for the sequence.
A little color had crept into her cheeks; her hands were burning; they grasped the physician's arm like a vise; the change was alarming.
"The edict cannot hurt my baby! Santissima Maria, thou hast saved him!" she cried. "For he hath the special blessing of his Holiness Pope Clement, and our Holy Father cannot reach him with this curse of Venice!"
"We cannot keep her mind from it," said Santorio, aside to Marcantonio; "it is essential to calm it with the right view--no argument, it might induce the most dangerous excitement. Send for some bishop or theologian who takes the right view; let him present it as a fact, and with authority; her life depends upon it."
He leaned down to his patient in deep commiseration to tell her that all was well--that Venice was under no ban, that God's blessing still shielded her churches and her children; but she raised her eyes steadily to his, and the strength of the belief, which he saw clearly written within them, filled him with awe and hushed his speech. How was it possible to make her understand!
"Nay," said Marina faintly, still holding him with her sad, solemn eyes, "do not speak. Since Fra Francesco comes no more there is but one who speaketh truth to me. It is the vision of my beautiful Mater Dolorosa of San Donato, which leaveth me not."
There was a stir in the depths of the streets below--a noise of the populace coming nearer, following along the banks of the Canal Grande, as if the cause of their excitement were in some hurried movement on its placid waters; the shouts and jeers of the strident voices were broken by authoritative commands of the Signori della Notte--the officers of police--and the tramp of their guards failing to create order; and above the hubbub rose the cry, distinctly repeated again and again--the cry of an angry populace, "Ande in malora! Ande in malora!" ("Curses go with you!") _