V
Marina came often to the studio of the Veronese in San Samuele, while the Madonna del Sorriso grew slowly into life; it was not that most perfect life of which the artist had dreamed, for hitherto beauty had sufficed to him and he had never sought to burden his creations with questions of the soul; but now the sadness of the unattainable that was growing within him looked out of the wonderful eyes of the maiden on his canvas, yet he tossed his brushes aside in discontent. \"Her smile eludeth me, though it hath the candor of a child''''s,\" the master cried.
Within his studio his pupils came and went, some earnest to follow in the footsteps of the master, absorbed in their tasks; others, golden youths, painting a little because Art was beautiful—not overcoming.
In the inner chamber, which was the artist''''s sanctum, were only the Veronese and his brother Benedetto at work; his brother, who was architect and sculptor too, was putting in the background of an elaborate palace in a fine Venetian group upon which Paolo worked when not occupied with his Madonna; and a favorite pupil, the young nobleman Marcantonio Giustiniani, was in attendance upon the master. The lovely girlish face, of a spiritual type rare in Venice, seemed to the young patrician more beautiful than that of any of the noble, smiling ladies who were waiting to be won by him, and in those hours of blissful service he, too, made a study—crude and inartistic.
\"Thy hand hath yet to learn its cunning,\" the master said, as in much confusion, one morning when they were quite alone, his pupil revealed his roughly executed head; \"yet thou hast painted the soul! The heart hath done it, Signorino mio, for thou art not yet an artist. There is no other lady for Marcantonio Giustiniani; yet she comes not of a noble house.\"
\"She makes it noble!\" cried the young fellow, flushing hotly, \"for she is like her face.\"
\"Ay, for me and thee she is noble,\" said the Veronese compassionately, for he loved the boy. \"But for the noble Senator, thy father—of the Council of the Ten—he will not find this maiden''''s name in the ''''Libro d''''Oro.'''' I am sorry for thee.\"
\"Master!\" cried Marcantonio imploringly, \"art thou with me?\"
\"Verily, but I can do naught for thee.\"
\"Listen, then! One day the nobles shall find that name inscribed in the The master answered nothing, but bending over the sketch which his pupil had made he caressed it, here and there, with loving touches of his magic brush, while the young nobleman poured forth his vehement speech, forgetting to watch the master''''s fingers.
\"Once in the annals of the Republic there is noted such a marriage; a daughter of Murano, of the house of Beroviero—nay, not so beautiful as Marina—wedded with one of our noblest names; and the children, by decree of the Senate, were written every one in the ''''Libro d''''Oro.''''\"
\" This have I done for thee!\" said the master, moving away from the sketch and disclosing it to the young fellow, who gazed at it in silent amazement. \"Only the eyes have I not touched,\" the Veronese explained; \"for thou hast made them more soulful than even unto me they seemed, and thus have I read thy secret.\"
\"Maestro mio!\" cried Marcantonio at length, in ecstasy; \"none among us may learn the marvel of thine art!\"
\"I have but touched thy sketch with the power that mine art could give,\" the master answered, well pleased. \"Yet it is thou who hast read the secret of the face that was not revealed to me.\"
\"We were speaking of the ''''Libro d''''Oro,''''\" the young patrician interrupted eagerly.
\"It may be so, I know not,\" the Veronese answered indifferently, for he himself was not written in that noble chronicle. \"My art deals little with these cumbrous records of the Republic.\"
\"Thou art wrong to scorn them, caro maestro, for in them is chronicled the glory of Venice.\"
\"The saying doeth honor—from a pupil to his master!\" the artist burst forth with his quick, uncontrollable temper. \"The Tablets of Stone were reserved for the highest dignity of the Law; and in that Sala dei Capi, where at this moment sits Giustinian Giustiniani—one of the chosen three of the Council of the Ten—my name is written largely with mine own hand, as artists write their names, above the heads of rulers for all coming time to see! The Avvogadori do not keep my ''''Libro d''''Oro''''; the entrance to it is by divine right!\"
He flung his brushes fiercely aside, in one of those moods that seemed all unwarranted in comparison with the slightness of the provocation—moods that alternated with the lovable, genial, generous impulses of an artist soul, overwhelming in energy and great in friendship; yet jealous, to a degree a lesser nature could scarcely pardon, of anything that seemed to touch upon his province as an artist and the claims of art to highest honor.
* * * * *
The day was drawing near when Marcantonio Giustiniani, the only son of Giustinian Giustiniani, a noble of the Senate and of the Council of the Ten, should present himself before the Avvocato del Comun to claim admission to the Great Council as a noble, born in lawful wedlock, of noble parents, inscribed in the Golden Book.
To the young fellow himself this twenty-fifth anniversary of his birth, when, by Venetian law, the ceremony must take place, approached with needlessly rapid footsteps; he was not yet ready for the duties it would bring, so much more did he incline to that measure of boyish freedom which had thus far been his, so unwilling was he to renounce his longing for some form of art life—the impulse to which fretted him almost unbearably, in view of the political career which opened mercilessly before him, threatening every dearer project.
Not that he felt himself born to be an artist—Paolo Cagliari laughed at his studies while he encouraged his coming to the studio, telling him that for one who had not chosen Art for his mistress the drawings were \"well enough\"; and from the Veronese the words were consoling. His mother had been afraid of this taste for art, which, for a short time, had exercised such sway over his fancy, stimulated by his culte for the beautiful, that he had plead with her to win his father''''s consent for an art life. Yet he had himself acquiesced in her quiet but inflexible showing of the futility of attempting such an overturning of Giustiniani traditions, though he still went with dangerous frequency to the studio of the Veronese, to which she had procured him entrance upon his promise that he would not seriously consider that impossible possibility at which he had hinted. There had been mention of Pordenone and of Aretino, with a certain cool scorn that was worse than censure, and as convincing, there was the Titian, than whom, in art and sumptuousness, one could not be greater; but, even for him, Cavalière of France, there was no place in the Consiglio!
Not that Marcantonio would voluntarily have relinquished his hereditary place in the state, his possible part in its glory—the dream which came to all young noblemen of the portrait in that splendid Sala di Consiglio of his own face grown venerable, wearing the ermine and the ducal coronet, in token of that supremacy so dear to each Venetian heart, but jealously held by every noble of the Republic within confines which lessened with each succession, until the crown was assumed in trembling and ignominious restriction—if with external pomp and honor that might befit a king.