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Updated: June 20, 2025
Then he got a cypress broom and swept the earth carefully away into a heap. Beroviero himself brought the shovel and held it close to the stones while Zorzi pushed the loose earth upon it. "Carry it out and scatter it in the garden," said the old man. It was the first time that he had allowed his affection for Zorzi to express itself so strongly, for he was generally a very cautious person.
It suddenly occurred to him that this might be a decisive moment in his life, in which the future would depend on the decision he made. In all the years since he had been with Beroviero he had never worked at one of the great furnaces among the other men.
He unlocked the box and took out what seemed to be a small book, carefully tied up in a sheet of parchment. The ends of the silk cord below the knot were pinched in a broad red seal. Zorzi examined the wax. "You sealed it with a glass seal," he observed. "It would not be hard to make another." "Do you think it would be so easy?" asked Beroviero, who had made the seal himself many years ago.
Most of them were glad that he was not there, for he was not of their own order, and his presence caused a certain restraint in their talk. Besides, he was poor, and did not play at dice. "He works with Angelo Beroviero, does he not?" asked Zuan Venier in a tone of weary indifference. "Yes," answered Contarini with a laugh. "He is in the service of my future father-in-law."
Moreover, Contarini offered a trusty and swift oarsman to take the order to Murano, and the Governor wrote it on the supper table, between two draughts of Greek wine, which he drank from a goblet made by Angelo Beroviero himself in the days when he still worked at the art.
And there was old Contarini, who was himself one of the Ten; Beroviero knew his character well and judged that he would not be lenient towards any one who had been forcibly rescued, no matter how innocent he might be. Moreover the law against foreigners who attempted to work in glass was in force, and very stringent.
The mere thought is absurd." "Quite," said Zorzi. Sad as he was, he could almost have laughed at the old man's inconsequent speeches. "I am glad that you so heartily agree with me," answered Beroviero in perfect sincerity. "I do not mean to say that I would ask your opinion about my daughter's marriage. You would not expect that.
He had no social right to be what he was, and he knew it when he called himself a servant, for the cruel law would not allow him to be anything else so long as he helped Angelo Beroviero. Suddenly, while Marietta watched the men, Zorzi was there among them, coming out as they went in. He must have risen early, she thought, for she did not know that he had slept in the laboratory.
Zorzi was attempting to reproduce that too, for he had the master's notes of what the pot had contained, and it was almost ready to be tried; he even had the piece of copper carefully weighed to be equal in bulk with the ladle that had been melted. If he succeeded there also, that was a new secret for Beroviero, but the other was for himself.
If Beroviero had been watching him he would have been astonished at the skill with which the young man accomplished what it requires two persons to do; but Zorzi had tricks of his own, and the pontil supported itself on a board while he cracked the pear from the blow-pipe with a wet iron, as well as if a boy had held it in place for him; and then heating and reheating the piece, he fashioned it and cut it with tongs and shears, rolling the pontil on the flat arms of his stool with his left hand, and modelling the glass with his right, till at last he let it cool to its natural colour, holding it straight downward, and then swinging it slowly, so that it should fan itself in the air.
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