THE Queen of the Adriatic proved kindly nurse to the little Greek exile. She gave him all that childhood needs―love, home, friends, beautiful surroundings for his life. Had the noble widow of Chalcondyles and her son come destitute amongst them, the merchant princes of Venice would no doubt have had compassion and opened their well filled purses to succor them. But fortunately the only charity needed was that of sympathy and neighborly kindness, and it was freely given. The wealthy bunker to whose care they had been commended (by birth a Jew, but by creed a Christian) fulfilled his trust honorably and wisely. The sum of money which had been placed to their account, and which was augmented by the sale of most of their jewels, he lent at a rate of interest which would awaken the despairing envy of a modern speculator. In Florence at that time money lenders usually exacted thirty-three and a half per cent. It is true that these enormous gains were weighted, according to the universal law of compensation, with two great evils, obloquy and insecurity; still it was possible for a banker of high character to obtain very handsome terms for his clients, together with honor and safety. Benedetto did more; he found them a suitable and commodious dwelling at a rent merely nominal. A marble palace in the Square of St. Mark, or on the Grand Canal, might have suited the rank and the former fortunes, but it would have accorded ill with the present circumstances of the Grecian lady, while a meaner lodging in the city would have appeared to her in the light of a bitter degradation. The difficulty was solved by Benedetto finding a friend willing to share with her a good though modest dwelling in the island of Murano, famous for painters and for workers in glass. Here she lived in dignified retirement, holding little intercourse save with her fellow exiles, but regarded by her neighbors with the respect due to her rank and her misfortunes. Besides the ever-faithful Manuel, who remained through all vicissitudes constantly attached to the family of his master, she had but one servant, a Venetian woman. She practiced the most careful economy; delicious fruit was cheap and abundant, and formed the chief luxury of their simple board. Only one expense was never stinted: Raymond went as bravely clad as any young patrician of his age, and attended the first academy of the city, amongst high-born youths, who only awaited their majority to inscribe each an honored name upon the pages of the Golden Book.
Thus four years passed away quietly and uneventfully. After such an interval we may find Raymond again one summer afternoon ―in that happy climate there is summer eight months out of the twelve― taking his homeward way, book in hand, through the narrow footpaths that thread the city, and render it possible for those who desire it to dispense with the aid of the gondola. It is a beautiful city upon which he looks, with his young eager eyes. “A city of marble, nay, rather a golden city paved with emeralds; for, truly, every pinnacle and turret gleamed or glowed, overlaid with gold or bossed with jasper. Beneath, the unsullied sea drew in deep breathings to and fro its eddies of green wave. Deep-hearted, majestic terrible as the sea, the men of Venice moved in sway of power and war; pure as her pillars of alabaster stood her mothers and maidens; from foot to bromo all noble walked her knights; the low bronzed gleaming of sea-rusted armor shot angrily under their blood-red mantle folds. Fearless, faithful, patient, impenetrable, implacable―every word a fate ―sate her senate. In hope and honor, lulled by flowing of wave around isles of sacred sand, each with his name written and the cross graved at his side, lay her dead. A wonderful piece of the world. Rather, itself a world.”
Of this wonderful world the boy of fourteen saw as little and as much as boys generally see of the world in which they grow up to manhood, and which influences them so deeply. He took the loveliness and the grandeur as a matter of course, as part of the daily bread on which he lived; yet he did not really enjoy them the less on account of this simplicity and unconsciousness. Nor was he out of harmony with his surroundings. The sorrows of his childhood had passed and left no trace, save a few remembrances rather sweet than sad. Perfect in form and feature, and with the clustering golden hair many a Venetian lady envied him, simply yet tastefully clad in a sky-blue tunic with silver clasps and buckles (for blue was then the fashionable color, and Raymond, before all things, must be fashionable), he trod his pleasant path, singing low and half unconsciously a fragment of a Greek song.
Still there was a little cloud―a very little one―on Raymond’s clear brow that day. Even in Venice one has something left to wish for. It was not that he was unsuccessful at school. Good abilities and the happy accident of owning Greek as his native tongue (even though it was but the barbarous Greek of the Lower Empire) enabled him to take a high place, and to give his masters signal satisfaction. By his companions too he was beloved; but with one exception, and this exception was “the little speck within the garnered fruit” that spoiled his enjoyment. The schoolfellow who happened to be the object of his profound and fervent admiration―and no hero-worship is more enthusiastic than that of the boy for the youth a few years his senior―was the only one who regarded him with indifference, if not with dislike. As he walked and sang he pondered, in an undercurrent of thought, what way he should take to win esteem, whether by brilliant disputation, by Latin verses, “pure Tully every line,” or by Greek chorus rendered into musical Italian numbers―for in these things the studious youth of that generation placed their joy and pride.
Presently he paused. He was now about to turn into the Fondaco Nuovo, and he found himself standing close to one of the many palazzos whose marble steps reach down to the limpid emerald waters of the canal. A little fruit-seller―member of a class characteristic of Venice, whose children were merchants from the cradle―had stopped near the same spot, overcome with weariness. Sleep had surprised him, half standing, half-reclining against the lowest pillar of the portico, one bare brown knee resting on the pediment, while the other sturdy little limb still partly supported his body. His modest stock in trade, consisting of a dish, a knife, and half an enormous melon, lay at his feet. Raymond stood and looked at him. “What a picture he would make,” he thought; “or, still better, a little marble statue. Wait now,―if I had only a bit of clay.”
His wish was granted to the letter, though not at all in the spirit. Just at that moment “a bit of clay,” a morsel of the muddy ooze of the canal hardened into an effective pellet, struck him smartly on the forehead.
The transformation was instantaneous and complete. His eyes kindled, an angry flush mounted to his cheeks, the blue veins in his forehead swelled and tightened like cords. After a moment’s quick glance around him, he flung his book, a MS. worth its weight in gold, on the step beside the fruit seller’s dish, and sprang dauntlessly into the midst of a knot of young men who stood at the comer of the street.
There was a rivalry of long standing, half jest, half earnest, between the inhabitants of the two halves of Venice, called respectively Nicoloti and Castellani. Though this was properly the affair of the gondoliers, or at least of the class from which they were drawn, the nobles, and even the Doge, condescended, to take sides, partly for amusement, but more from motives of policy. The young gentlemen of the Academy were not likely to prove indifferent to what afforded continual opportunities for the display of personal prowess. They chose to consider themselves Castellani, like the Doge, preferring to band together under the standard of the district in which the Academy was situated. Raymond’s assailants were a band of Nicoloti, through whose quarter he was passing, and who probably had some mischievous pranks to average on the young academicians. They were therefore more than a little angry, and perhaps a little unfair. It was one of the laves of those street combats that no weapons were to be used, but this prudent role was often disregarded, and Raymond received upon this occasion some severe blows from heavy staves. Mad with passion, he struck right and left, dealing vigorous but unscientific blows. But his assailants were too numerous, and the contest too unequal to last long. He felt blood trickling from his wounds, and then a sense of faintness and a feeling of utter despair stole over him―though still he had no thought of asking for quarter. He just managed to put his back against a wall, and to utter once more, in a languid but defiant tone, the war-cry of the Castellani, when a loud “Sciar!” in a voice he knew, changed everything.
A gondola put its prow to the land close beside him, and a young man leaped from it and came to his aid. One of the rowers followed, and the scale thus turned, the conflict ended in the utter discomfiture of the Nicoloti. Raymond, to his great joy, recognized in his deliverer the object of his boyish admiration, Theodore Benedetto, the Phœnix of the Academy, as he was styled on account of his brilliant abilities. He was a tall, slender youth of about eighteen, dark-haired, dark-eyed, with features that showed his Jewish extraction, and with much of the striking physical beauty that often distinguishes the youth of that nation.
“Step into my gondola,” he said to Raymond; “I will take you home.”
“Murano is far out of your way,” Raymond objected.
“I have no way; I sail for my pleasure.” Then with a quick glance at Raymond’s face, “What I going to play the girl?” he asked sharply. “Rest a moment here.” He beckoned to the little fruit seller, who, awakened by the noise of the quarrel, had been looking on with great interest, and at the same time keeping guard over Raymond’s book. This Theodore took from his hand, and gave him a piece of money and a command.
But his sharp words and scornful tone roused Raymond more effectually than vine.
“No,” he said, shaking off the momentary weakness; “it is nothing; I am quite well,” and rejecting the proffered aid of Benedetto, who, even in rendering a service, had contrived to implant a sting, he stepped into the boat. Benedetto followed, bidding the rower await the return of their little messenger from the nearest wine shop.
The gondola was a private one, luxuriously fitted up. A delicious sense of rest and ease stole over Raymond as he reclined on the soft silken cushions, while Theodore drew the crimson curtain close, making a rosy twilight in the little cabin. The wine having been brought, Theodore made him drink some of it; and then, as they glided softly and swiftly over the still waters of the lagoon, he began without ceremony to examine his hurts. “Do you not know am to be a physician?” he said, when Raymond would have resisted. “Already I understand such a simple matter as this. And you will naturally wish to save your lady mother a little uneasiness.”
Raymond felt the force of the last argument. Besides, he could not contend the point; his schoolfellow had him in his power. A little water from the crystal flask that lay on the table, a fine white kerchief from the looms of Cambray, and a pair of gentle, firm, skillful hands soon accomplished the task. Theodore’s words sometimes missed their aim, and hurt where they meant to heal, his fingers never. Their very form―long, slender, sensitive―evidenced at once fineness of perception and exquisite dexterity.
Meanwhile the schoolfellows talked of the unfair and dastardly conduct of the Nicoloti, and formed plans of revenge. What they said was commonplace enough, but they speedily established a friendly understanding with each other.
“I had not known you were destined to be a physician,” said Raymond. “Is not that to sacrifice your genius and your learning?”
“I do not see it in that light; but if it were, my father wishes it.”
Physicians were highly honored in Venice. They took rank with the nobility, many of whose privileges, in matters of dress and etiquette, they were permitted to assume. Raymond was not of an age to understand how attractive these advantages for his son might appear to the Jewish banker, who― however wealthy and respected―was still condemned to stand outside the jealous circle of Venetian nobles, with the sense of a definite and rigid line drawn between him and them. He knew indeed that Theodore Benedetto was the only student in the Academy whose father’s name was not in the Golden Book; but he only thought with pride of the signal abilities of his hero, which had procured him entrance there. He loved to repeat the words of the learned “Grecian,” Francesco Filelfo, the light of Venice and the glory of the Academy, who had expressly stipulated that Benedetto was to be amongst his pupils, saving that his class fellows “might be glad hereafter to have their names immortalized with his.”
“But do you like it?” he asked simply.
“Passably. A physician’s studies are like all the rest, I suppose―all words and names.”
Raymond looked at him curiously.
“I have heard you say that before,” he said. “When your themes are praised, or your verses, you look as if you care nothing, and sometimes you murmur, ‘All words and names.’”
“Is it not so?” asked Theodore. “We spend our lives learning what old Greeks and Romans said about the things they saw, instead of seeing things for ourselves. Where is the use?”
Raymond did not know what to say, and therefore wisely said nothing. Already he was steeped to the lips in that admiration for antiquity which was the ruling passion of his day; so that Theodore’s words, had he allowed himself to criticize them, would have seemed to him open heresy. But his respect for Theodore’s abilities and learning made him prefer to assume that he had misunderstood him, or was not clever enough to comprehend his meaning. So he turned to a practical question.
“Do you intend to finish your studies at Padua?” he asked.
This was the general custom of young Venetians.
“No; at the end of this year I go to the school of medicine at Montpellier.”
“And I,” said Raymond, with a little air of shyness, which showed that he was revealing a favorite and cherished dream― “I hope one day to go to Rome, and to complete my studies at the new Academy there.”
“We are near Murano,” Theodore said, drawing back the curtain. “Look!”
A scene of beauty burst upon their sight. It was the glorious sunset of Venice, dear to poet and to pointer. “The sun was setting behind the Venetian hills; great violet clouds crossed the sky above Venice. The tower of St. Mark, the cupolas of St. Maria, and that forest of spires and minarets which rises from all parts of the city, painted themselves in black on the sparkling shield of the horizon. The sky was shaded in marvelous gradation, from cherry red to cobalt blue; and the water, calm and limpid like glass, received the exact reflection of this immense radiation. Underneath Venice it looked like a great mirror of molten copper. The city, a black shadow between the sky and the living waters, seemed to float in a sea of fire, and looked like the majestic dream of the poet of the Apocalypse, when he saw the New Jerusalem descend from heaven like a bride adorned for her bridegroom.”
Both gazed in silence, spellbound by the sight. At last Theodore said―half raising himself and leaning his cheek on his hand, to gaze intently across the water at the spires and domes of the stately Ocean Queen― “Think, Lord Raymond, all that lies yonder―the glory, the splendor, the wealth past counting I Think of San Marco alone―from gold-encrusted roof and alabaster wall to pavement of priceless marble―all beauteous with the spoils of the East. Nay, east, west, north, and south have brought their glory into thee, fair Queen of the Adriatic I Stately are thy palaces, but fairer still and statelier thy hundred churches. Trophies of war are in thee, for thy soldiers are strong of heart and hand; trophies of peace yet more precious, for thy merchants are the honorable men of the earth, and science, genius, art, have all conspired to consecrate thee.” Then his tones grew measured, earnest, musical, until at last they became half a chant, as he went on: “Thou sealest up the sum, full of wisdom and perfect in beauty. Thou hast been in Eden, the garden of God; every precious stone was thy covering―the sardius, topaz, and the diamond, the beryl, the onyx, and the jasper, the sapphire, the emerald, and the carbuncle, and gold. Thou art the anointed cherub that covereth, and I have set thee so; thou wast upon the hay mountain of God. Thou hast walked up and down in the midst of the stones of fire. Thou wast perfect in thy ways, from the day that thou wast created, till iniquity was found in thee. With thy wisdom and thine understanding thou hast gotten thee riches, and hast gotten gold and silver into thy treasures. By thy great wisdom and thy traffic hast thou increased thy riches, and thy heart is lifted up because of thy riches. By the multitude of thy merchandise they have filled the midst of thee with violence, and thou hast sinned; therefore I will cast thee as profane out of the mountain of God, and I will destroy thee, O covering cherub, from the midst of the stones of fire.’ Alas, alas! that is true of thee, fair Venice, Spouse of the Sea, Queen of the Adriatic.”
“What is it all?” asked Raymond, wondering. “Is it poetry?”
“Yes, from an old poem, older than Eschylus, in the tongue of my forefathers. ―Stali!”
This, to the gondolier, meant turn to the right. They did so, and then shot up the narrow water street that forms the quay of Murano. A few strong, dexterous strokes of the paddle the gondolier uses for an oar brought them to the steps of a one-storied, but fair and substantial dwelling, with a front of marble adorned with quaint carvings.
“Come in,” said Raymond; “my mother would like to thank you.”
“Not now. Good night, sir.” And Theodore raised his small woolen cap with some ceremony to his schoolfellow, who, as he was too proud to forget, was greatly his superior in rank.
But Raymond, with a happy instinct, stretched out his hand, and said frankly and warmly, “Good night, my dear Theodore. I am very much obliged to you.”