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Updated: June 20, 2025
"And you are a most ungrateful daughter," continued Beroviero, "if you do not appreciate my kindness and liberality of mind in allowing you to see him before you are formally betrothed." "Perhaps he is even more pleased by your liberality of mind than I could possibly be," retorted the young girl with unbending coldness.
Beroviero had lifted his head now and was looking hard at her. "And your mantle? How came it here?" he asked. There was nothing to be done now, but to speak the truth.
Moreover, I will give any further information of the same kind which your Magnificence may desire. At Murano, in the house of Angelo Beroviero, my father, this third day of July, in the year of the Salvation of the World fourteen hundred and seventy, Giovanni Beroviero, the glass-maker." Giovanni had taken a long time in the composition of this remarkable document.
The porter took a long time to shut the door, and instead of answering Beroviero, shook his ugly head discontentedly, and muttered imprecations on all makers of locks, latches, bolts, bars and other fastenings, living, dead and yet unborn. So it came to pass that Marietta came upon Zorzi suddenly and alone, when she least expected to meet him.
Zorzi believed that they were grey, but when he saw them in his dreams they were violet; and one day she opened them wide for an instant, at something old Beroviero said to her, and then Zorzi fancied that they were like sapphires, but before he could be sure, the lids and lashes shaded them again, and he only knew that they were there, and longed to see them, for her father had spoken of her marriage, and she had not answered a single word.
She stood in mute astonishment before the faultless gift, this perfect bit of Beroviero crystal, opalesque and lucent, reflecting hidden rainbow tints, enhanced by the golden traceries delicate and artistic the beautiful young face framed in those sea-gems dear to the Venetian heart, each pearl a study of changing light. "There is none like it in Venice!" she exclaimed; "nor hath there ever been.
There was therefore great surprise in the household when Angelo Beroviero went up the steps of his house, and his own astonishment that no one should be there to receive him was almost as great. The gondolier explained, and told him what Pasquale had said. It was enough to rouse the old man's suspicions at once.
"There is nothing in the truth of which I am ashamed," said Marietta, holding up her head proudly. "I have done nothing which I did not believe to be right, however strange it may seem to you." Once more their eyes met and they gazed steadily at each other; and again the blush spread over her cheeks. Beroviero put out his hand and touched the folded mantle.
He stood still before the hanging shelves on which he had placed the objects he had occasionally made, and which his master allowed him to keep there light, air-thin vessels of graceful shapes: an ampulla of exquisite outline with a long curved spout that bent upwards and then outwards and over like the stalk of a lily of the valley; a large drinking-glass set on a stem so slender that one would doubt its strength to carry the weight of a full measure, yet so strong that the cup might have been filled with lead without breaking it; a broad dish that was nothing but a shadow against the light, but in the shadow was a fair design of flowers, drawn free with a diamond point; there were a dozen of such things on the shelves, not the best that Zorzi had made, for those Beroviero took to his own house and used on great occasions, while these were the results of experiments unheard of in those days, and which not long afterwards made a school.
"Zorzi took it with him," said Beroviero. "You are mistaken. Before he was arrested, he said that I ought to know where it was, in case anything happened to him, in order to tell you." Beroviero rose slowly, staring at her, and speaking with an effort. "You know where it is? He told you? He has not taken it away?" Marietta smiled, in perfect certainty of victory. "I know where it is," she said.
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