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Updated: May 20, 2025
But when it was dark at last, Pasquale cast off and headed the skiff for Murano. Jacopo Contarini's luck at dice had changed of late, and his friends no longer spoke of losing like him, but of winning as he did, on almost every throw. "Nevertheless," said the big Foscari to Zuan Venier, "his love affairs seem to prosper! The Georgian is as beautiful as ever, and he is going to marry a rich wife."
If he had sent word to young Contarini that the answer should be given him in a week, that was merely an imaginary formality invented to cover his own dignity, since he had so far derogated from it as to allow the young man to see Marietta. In reality the marriage had been determined and settled between Beroviero and Contarini's father before anything had been said to either of the young people.
Then he contemplated his work, and laughed at the weak jaw and the womanish mouth. "You look like an ugly woman in man's clothes," he said, by way of consoling his victim. He rose now, for he feared lest Contarini's friends might break open the door downstairs. He shouldered the heavy bundle with ease, set his blue cap on the back of his head and bade Arisa go with him.
But that night, when Contarini's friends were assembled and had counted their members, some one asked what had become of the Murano glass-blower, and whether he was not going to attend their meetings in future; and Contarini answered that Zorzi had hurt his foot and was on crutches, and sent a greeting to the guests.
Contarini now lay motionless, and Aristarchi went to work. With the utmost neatness he cropped off the silky hair, so close to Jacopo's skull that it almost looked as if it had been shaved with a razor. In the same way he clipped the splendid beard away, and even the brown eyebrows, till there was not a hair left on Contarini's head or face.
"Michael will wait for us below, in one of the ship's boats. There is room for all Contarini's possessions, if we could only get at them." "Would it not be better to be content with what we have already, and to go at once?" asked Arisa rather timidly. "No," replied Aristarchi. "I am going to say good-bye to your old friend in my own way."
He would have come on Contarini's behalf, if for no other reason, but he had spent much time that morning in laying Zorzi's case before his friends and all the members of the Grand Council who could have any special influence with the Ten, or with the aged Doge, who, although in his eightieth year, frequently assisted in person at their meetings, and whose Counsellors were always present.
Far from feigning ignorance, he boldly challenged comparison with his predecessors by imitating the very title of Guarini's play, or yet closer, had he known it, that of Contarini's Fida ninfa . A glance at the dramatis personae reveals a curious artificial symmetry which, as we shall shortly see, is significant of the spirit in which Fletcher approached the composition of his play.
Contarini's hands relaxed altogether, now, and he bent his ear to Zorzi's lips. "Whisper your message," he said quickly. Zorzi obeyed. "Angelo Beroviero bids you wait by the second pillar on the left in Saint Mark's church, next Sunday morning, at one hour before noon, till you shall see him, and in a week from that time you shall have an answer; and be silent, if you would succeed."
He seemed a true incarnation of his magnificent city, a century before the rest of all Italy in luxury, in extravagance, in the art of wasteful trifling with great things which is a rich man's way of loving art itself; and there were many others of the company who were of the same stamp as he, but whose faces had no interest for Zorzi compared with Contarini's.
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