The Bravo, James Fenimore Cooper [best book reader .txt] 📗

short, he was an aristocrat; and no man had more industriously or more successfully persuaded himself into the belief of all the dogmas that were favorable to his caste. He was a powerful advocate of vested rights, for their possession was advantageous to himself; he was sensitively alive to innovations on usages and to vicissitudes in the histories of families, for calculation had substituted taste for principles; nor was he backward, on occasion, in defending his opinions by analogies drawn from the decrees of Providence. With a philosophy that seemed to satisfy himself, he contended that, as God had established orders throughout his own creation, in a descending chain from angels to men, it was safe to follow an example which emanated from a wisdom that was infinite. Nothing could be more sound than the basis of his theory, though its application had the capital error of believing there was any imitation of nature in an endeavor to supplant it.


CHAPTER VII.

"The moon went down; and nothing now was seen
Save where the lamp of a Madonna shone
Faintly."
ROGERS.


Just as the secret audiences of the Palazzo Gradenigo were ended, the great square of St. Mark began to lose a portion of its gaiety. The cafés were now occupied by parties who had the means, and were in the humor, to put their indulgences to more substantial proof than the passing gibe or idle laugh; while those who were reluctantly compelled to turn their thoughts from the levities of the moment to the cares of the morrow, were departing in crowds to humble roofs and hard pillows. There remained one of the latter class, however, who continued to occupy a spot near the junction of the two squares, as motionless as if his naked feet grew to the stone on which he stood. It was Antonio.

The position of the fisherman brought the whole of his muscular form and bronzed features beneath the rays of the moon. The dark, anxious, and stern eyes were fixed upon the mild orb, as if their owner sought to penetrate into another world, in quest of that peace which he had never known in this. There was suffering in the expression of the weather-worn face; but it was the suffering of one whose native sensibilities had been a little deadened by too much familiarity with the lot of the feeble. To one who considered life and humanity in any other than their familiar and vulgar aspects, he would have presented a touching picture of a noble nature, enduring with pride, blunted by habit; while to him, who regards the accidental dispositions of society as paramount laws, he might have presented the image of dogged turbulence and discontent, healthfully repressed by the hand of power. A heavy sigh struggled from the chest of the old man, and, stroking down the few hairs which time had left him, he lifted his cap from the pavement, and prepared to move.

"Thou art late from thy bed, Antonio," said a voice at his elbow. "The triglie must be of good price, or of great plenty, that one of thy trade can spare time to air himself in the Piazza at this hour. Thou hearest, the clock is telling the fifth hour of the night."

The fisherman bent his head aside, and regarded the figure of his masked companion, for a moment, with indifference, betraying neither curiosity nor feeling at his address.

"Since thou knowest me," he answered, "it is probable thou knowest that in quitting this place I shall go to an empty dwelling. Since thou knowest me so well, thou should'st also know my wrongs."

"Who hath injured thee, worthy fisherman, that thou speakest so boldly beneath the very windows of the Doge?"

"The state."

"This is hardy language for the ear of St. Mark! Were it too loudly spoken, yonder lion might growl. Of what dost thou accuse the Republic?"

"Lead me to them that sent thee, and I will spare the trouble of a go-between. I am ready to tell my wrongs to the Doge, on his throne; for what can one, poor and old as I, dread from their anger?"

"Thou believest me sent to betray thee?"

"Thou knowest thine own errand."

The other removed his mask, and turned his face towards the moon.

"Jacopo!" exclaimed the fisherman, gazing at the expressive Italian features; "one of thy character can have no errand with me."

A flush, that was visible even in that light, passed athwart the countenance of the Bravo; but he stilled every other exhibition of feeling.

"Thou art wrong. My errand is with thee."

"Does the senate think a fisherman of the Lagunes of sufficient importance to be struck by a stiletto? Do thy work, then!" he added, glancing at his brown and naked bosom; "there is nothing to prevent thee!"

"Antonio, thou dost me wrong. The senate has no such purpose. But I have heard that thou hast reason for discontent, and that thou speakest openly, on the Lido and among the islands, of affairs that the patricians like not to be stirred among men of your class. I come, as a friend, to warn thee of the consequences of such indiscretion, rather than as one to harm thee."

"Thou art sent to say this?"

"Old man, age should teach thy tongue moderation. What will avail vain complaints against the Republic, or what canst thou hope for, as their fruits, but evil to thyself, and evil to the child that thou lovest?"

"I know not; but when the heart is sore the tongue will speak. They have taken away my boy, and they have left little behind that I value. The life they threaten is too short to be cared for."

"Thou should'st temper thy regrets with wisdom. The Signor Gradenigo has long been friendly to thee, and I have heard that thy mother nursed him. Try his ears with prayers, but cease to anger the Republic with complaints."

Antonio looked wistfully at his companion, but when he had ceased he shook his head mournfully, as if to express the hopelessness of relief from that quarter.

"I have told him all that a man, born and nursed on the Lagunes, can find words to say. He is a senator, Jacopo; and he thinks not of suffering he does not feel."

"Art thou not wrong, old man, to accuse him who hath been born in affluence of hardness of heart, merely that he doth not feel the misery thou would'st avoid, too, were it in thy power? Thou hast thy gondola and nets, with health and the cunning of thy art, and in that art thou happier than he who hath neither; would'st thou forget thy skill, and share thy little stock with the beggar of San Marco, that your fortunes might be equal?"

"There may be truth in what thou sayest of our labor and our means, but when it comes to our young, nature is the same in both. I see no reason why the son of the patrician should go free and the child of the fisherman be sold to blood. Have not the senators enough of happiness in their riches and greatness, that they rob me of my son?"

"Thou knowest, Antonio, the state must be served, and were its officers to go into the palaces in quest of hardy mariners for the fleet, would they, think you, find them that would honor the winged lion in the hour of his need? Thy old arm is muscular, and thy leg steady on the water, and they seek those who, like thee, have been trained to the seas."

"Thou should'st have said, also, and thy old breast is scarred. Before thy birth, Jacopo, I went against the infidel, and my blood was shed, like water, for the state. But they have forgotten it, while there are rich marbles raised in the churches, which speak of what the nobles did, who came unharmed from the same wars."

"I have heard my father say as much," returned the Bravo, gloomily, and speaking in an altered voice. "He, too, bled in that war; but that is forgotten."

The fisherman glanced a look around, and perceiving that several groups were conversing near, in the square, he signed to his companion to follow him, and walked towards the quays.

"Thy father," he said, as they moved slowly on together, "was my comrade and my friend. I am old, Jacopo, and poor; my days are passed in toil, on the Lagunes, and my nights in gaining strength to meet the labor of the morrow; but it hath grieved me to hear that the son of one I much loved, and with whom I have so often shared good and evil, fair and foul, hath taken to a life like that which men say is thine. The gold that is the price of blood was never yet blessed to him that gave or him that received."

The Bravo listened in silence, though his companion, who, at another moment, and under other emotions, would have avoided him as one shrinks from contagion, saw, on looking mournfully up into his face, that the muscles were slightly agitated, and that a paleness crossed his cheeks, which the light of the moon rendered ghastly.

"Thou hast suffered poverty to tempt thee into grievous sin, Jacopo; but it is never too late to call on the saints for aid, and to lay aside the stiletto. It is not profitable for a man to be known in Venice as thy fellow, but the friend of thy father will not abandon one who shows a penitent spirit. Lay aside thy stiletto, and come with me to the Lagunes. Thou wilt find labor less burdensome than guilt, and though thou never canst be to me like the boy they have taken, for he was innocent as the lamb! thou wilt still be the son of an ancient comrade, and a stricken spirit. Come with me then to the Lagunes, for poverty and misery like mine cannot meet with more contempt, even for being thy companion."

"What is it men say, that thou treatest me thus?" demanded Jacopo, in a low, struggling voice.

"I would they said untruth! But few die by violence, in Venice, that thy name is not uttered."

"And would they suffer one thus marked to go openly on the canals, or to be at large in the great square of San Marco?"

"We never know the reasons of the senate. Some say thy time is not yet come, while others think thou art too powerful for judgment."

"Thou dost equal credit to the justice and the activity of the inquisition. But should I go with thee to-night, wilt thou be more discreet in speech among thy fellows of the Lido, and the islands?"

"When the heart hath its load, the tongue will strive to lighten it. I would do anything to turn the child of my friend from his evil ways, but forget my own. Thou art used to deal with the patricians, Jacopo; would there be possibility for one, clad in this dress, and with a face blackened by the sun, to come to speak with the Doge?"

"There is no lack of seeming justice in Venice, Antonio; the want is in the substance. I doubt not thou would'st be heard."

"Then will I wait, here, upon the stones of