IN the month of February, in the year 1580, a young man was crossing, at break of day, the Piazzetta, in Venice. His clothes were in disorder: his hat, on which was a fine scarlet plume waving in the breeze, was pushed down over his forehead. He was walking rapidly toward the Riva degli Schiavoni, his sword and mantle dragging in the dust, while, with a disdainful air, he cautiously stepped over the forms of the fishermen scattered on the ground. Having reached the Ponte della Paglia, he stopped and looked about him. The moon was setting behind the Giudecca, and the aurora of the morning was gilding the Ducal Palace. A thick smoke and a brilliant light from time to time escaped from a neighboring palace. Beams, stones, enormous blocks of marble, and other debris encumbered the Canal of Prisons. In the midst of the waters a fire had just destroyed a patrician's home. Flying sparks rose upward every moment, and by this brilliant light an armed soldier was to be seen mounting guard over the ruins.
But our young man seemed struck neither by this spectacle of destruction nor by the beauty of a sky tinged with the most delicate colors. For a time he looked in the distance, as if to distract his dazzled eyes. But the light of day seemed to have a disagreeable influence on him, for he folded his mantle round him and hastened on his way. He soon came to a stop at the door of a palace, on which he knocked. A valet, holding a candle in his hand, opened immediately. At the moment of entering he turned, and, casting a look at the sky, cried:
"By Bacchus, my carnival is costing me dearly!" This young man was named Pomponio Filippo Vecellio. He was Titian's second son, a child full of spirits and imagination, whose father cherished fond hopes for him, but whose passion for play led him continually into riotous ways. It was scarce four years since the great painter and his eldest son Orazio had died, almost at the same time, and young Pippo, in four years, had already squandered the greater part of the immense fortune that this double inheritance had brought him. Instead of cultivating his natural abilities and sustaining the glory of his name, he spent his days in sleeping and his nights in playing at the house of a certain Comtesse, or at least so-called Comtesse, Orsini, who made the ruination of the young Venetians her business. There assembled at her house every night a numerous company of nobles and courtiers. There they supped and played, and as their supper cost them nothing, it goes without saying, that the dice took care to indemnify the mistress of the house. While the sequins were piling up in heaps, Cyprus wine was flowing, and the victims were ogling their hostess and, doubly dazed, left behind them both their money and their reason.
It was from this dangerous spot that we have just seen emerge the hero of this tale, and he had suffered that night more than one loss. Besides having emptied his pockets at dice, the only picture he had ever completed, a picture that the connoisseurs voted excellent, had just been destroyed in the fire at the Dolfino Palace. It was an historical subject, treated with a spirit and a boldness of touch almost worthy of Titian himself. Sold to a wealthy senator, this canvas had suffered the same lot as a great number of valuable works. The imprudence of a valet had reduced this wealth to ashes. But that was Pippo's smallest trouble. He thought only of the bad luck which had followed him with such unusual obstinacy and of the dice which had caused his loss.
On returning home, his first act was to remove the cloth that covered his table and to count the money remaining in his drawer: then, being naturally of a gay and heedless character, when he had undressed, he sat at the window in his dressing-gown. Seeing that it was broad daylight, he wondered if he should close the shutters and go to bed or wake up like the rest of the world. It was a long time since he had seen the sun in the quarter whence it rises, and he found the sky more pleasing than usual. Before deciding to get up or to sleep, and still struggling against slumber, he took his chocolate on the balcony. As soon as his eyes closed, he could see a table, agitated hands and pale figures, and could hear the sound of the dice-boxes. "What fatal luck!" he murmured. "It is scarcely credible for one to lose with fifteen." And he saw his usual adversary, the old Vespasiano Memmo, throwing eighteen and taking possession of the gold that lay piled on the table. He quickly opened his eyes, to remove this bad dream, and watched the young girls walking on the quay. He seemed to see afar off a masked woman. He was astonished, although a carnival was taking place, for poor people are not masked, and it was strange that a Venetian lady should be out alone and on foot at such an hour.[1] But he saw that what he had taken for a mask was the face of a negress. He saw her soon from a closer point of view and noticed that she was possessed of tolerable good looks. She walked very fast, and a gust of wind driving her dress, streaked with flowers, tight against her hips, showed the outline of a graceful figure. Pippo leaned on the balcony and saw, not without surprise, that the negress was knocking at his door.
[1 In bygone times, the Venetians were out and masked as long as the carnival lasted.]
The porter was slow in opening.
"What do you want?" cried the young man. "Is it I that you want, brunette? My name is Vecellio, and, as they are keeping you waiting, I will come and open the door myself."
The negress raised her head.
"Is your name Pomponio Vecellio?"
"Yes, or Pippo, whichever you wish."
"You are Titian's son?"
"At your service. What can I do for you?"
After casting a rapid and curious glance at Pippo, the negress stepped back a pace or two and cleverly threw up on the balcony a small box done up in paper, then rushed off precipitately, occasionally turning round. Pippo picked up the box, opened it and found a delicate purse wrapped up in cotton. He suspected with reason that under the cotton there might be a note explaining this adventure. The note was there, all right, but was as mysterious as the rest, for it contained but these words:
"Do not spend too lavishly what I enclose. When you go out put to my charge a gold piece; that is sufficient for one day. And if in the evening there is anything left, however little it may be, you can find a beggar who will thank you for it."
When the young man had turned the box a hundred different ways, examined the purse, and again looked at the quay, at least he saw clearly that he could discover no more. "I must admit," he thought, "that this gift is peculiar, but is cruelly ill-timed. The advice I am given is good, but it is too late to tell any one he is drowning, when he is at the bottom of the Adriatic. Who the devil can have sent me this?"
Pippo had easily recognized that the negress was a servant. He began to rack his brains as to who was the woman, or the friend, likely to send him this present, and as his modesty did not blind him, he persuaded himself that it was more likely to be a woman than one of his friends. The purse was of velvet, embroidered with gold. It seemed to him that it was too delicately made to have come from any store. So he reviewed in his mind the most beautiful women in Venice, then those who were the opposite. But here he stopped and wondered what he could do to find out who had sent him the purse. Thereupon, he dreamed most deep and sweet dreams: more than once he thought he had guessed. His heart throbbed while he was doing his best to recognize the writing. There was a Princess of Bologna who formed her capital letters in this way, and a beautiful lady of Brescia whose writing was very similar.
Nothing is more disagreeable than an unpleasant idea suddenly gliding in among dreams of a like nature. It is just as if, while walking in a field of flowers, one stepped on a serpent. And it was just what Pippo felt when he suddenly remembered a certain Monna Bianchina, who latterly had particularly worried him. With this woman he had had an adventure at a masked ball, and although she was pretty, he felt no love whatever for her. Monna Bianchina, on the contrary, had suddenly fallen in love with him, and she had even forced herself to perceive love where, in reality, there was but politeness. She attached herself to him, wrote often and overwhelmed him with tender reproaches. But, on leaving her one day, he had sworn never to return, and he kept his word scrupulously. So he began to think that Monna Bianchina might well have made him a purse and sent it to him. This suspicion destroyed his gaiety and the illusions which buoyed him up. The more he reflected, the more likely he thought this supposition. Out of temper, he closed his window and decided to go to bed.
But he was unable to sleep. In spite of all the probabilities, it was impossible for him to give up a doubt that flattered his vanity. He continued involuntarily to dream. He wished to forget the purse and to think no more about it: he wanted to forget the very existence of Monna Bianchina. Nevertheless he had drawn the curtains and had turned his face toward the wall so as not to see daylight.
Suddenly he leaped out of bed and summoned his servants. He had suddenly thought of something, simple enough, that had hitherto escaped him. Monna Bianchina was far from rich. She had but one servant and this servant was not a negress, but a large girl from Chioja. How had she on this occasion been able to obtain this unknown messenger whom Pippo had never seen in Venice? "Blessed be your black skin," he cried, "and the African sun that colored it." And without waiting longer, he called for his doublet and ordered his gondola.