At last I succeeded in making out that the rumor of my approaching marriage to the signora was current in the house. A few impatient words which some one had heard her say to Salomé were sufficient to put that rumor in circulation. The signora had said just this, speaking of me: "The time is not far away when you will take orders from him instead of giving him orders."—I obstinately denied that these words had any such meaning, and pretended that I did not understand them at all.
"Very good," said Mandola; "that's the answer you ought to make, even to me, although I am your friend. But I have eyes of my own; I don't ask you any questions, I never have done it, Nello! but I came to warn you that you must be prudent. The Aldinis are just looking for an excuse for taking the guardianship of Signora Alezia away from the signora, and she will die of grief if they take her child away from her."
"What do you say?" I cried; "what? they will take her daughter away because of me?"
"If you were to marry her, certainly," replied the worthy gondolier; "otherwise—as there are some things that can't be proved,—"
"Especially when they don't exist," I rejoined warmly.
"You speak as you should speak," replied Mandola; "continue to be on your guard; trust nobody, not even me, and if you have any influence over the signora, urge her to hide her feelings, especially from Salomé. Salomé will never betray her; but her voice is too loud, and when she quarrels with the signora, everybody in the house hears what they say. If any of the signora's friends should suspect what is happening, everything would go wrong; for friends aren't like servants; they don't know how to keep a secret, and yet people trust their friends more than they do us!"
Honest Mandola's advice was not to be despised, especially as it was in perfect accord with my instinct. The next evening we took the signora to the Zueca Canal, and Mandola, understanding that I had something to say to her, obligingly fell asleep at his post. I put out the light, stole into the cabin, and talked a long while with Bianca. She was surprised by my objections and said everything that she considered likely to overcome them. I spoke firmly, I told her that I would never allow it to be said of me that I had married a woman for her wealth; that I cared as much for the good name of my family as any patrician in Venice; that my kinsmen would never forgive me if I afforded any such cause for scandal, and that I did not propose either to fall out with my dear old father or to make trouble between the signora and her daughter; for she ought to and doubtless did care more for Alezia than for all the world beside. This last argument was more powerful than any other. She burst into tears and poured forth her admiration for me and gratitude to me with the enthusiasm of passion.
From that day peace reigned once more in the Aldini Palace. That little secondary society had passed through its revolutionary crisis. It had its own peacemaker, and I laughed to myself at my rôle of great citizen, with childlike heroism. Mandola, who was beginning to acquire some education, was amazed to see me engage in the hardest sort of work, and would call me under his breath, with a paternal air, his Cincinnatus or his Pompilius.
I had in fact resolved—and I kept steadfastly to my resolution—not to accept the slightest favor from a woman whose lover I wished to be. Inasmuch as the only means of possessing her in secret was to remain in her house on the footing of a servant, it seemed to me that I could re-establish equality between her and myself by making my services correspond to my wages. Hitherto my wages had been large and entirely out of proportion to my work, which, for some time past, had been absolutely nothing. I determined to make up for lost time. I set about keeping things in order, cleaning, doing errands, bringing wood and water, polishing and brushing the gondola—in a word, doing the work of ten men; and I did it cheerfully, humming my most beautiful operatic airs and my noblest epic strophes. The task that afforded me the most amusement was the taking care of the family pictures and brushing off the dust which obscured Torquato's majestic glance every morning. When I had completed his toilet, I would remove my cap with profound respect and ironically repeat to him some parody of my heroic verses.
The Venetian lower classes, especially the gondoliers, have, as you know, a liking for jewels. They spend a good part of what they earn in antique rings, shirt studs, scarf pins, chains and the like. I had previously accepted many trinkets of the sort. I carried them all back to Signora Aldini, and would not even wear silver buckles on my shoes. But my most meritorious sacrifice was my abandonment of music. I considered that my work, laborious as it was, was no compensation for the expense which my constant theatre-going and my singing lessons imposed on the signora. I persistently declared that I had a cold in my head, and instead of going to the performance at La Fenice with her, I adopted the practice of reading in the lobby of the theatre. I realized that I was ignorant; and, although my mistress was scarcely less so, I determined to extend my ideas a little, and not to make her blush for my blunders. I studied my mother tongue earnestly, and strove to break myself of the habit of murdering verses, as all gondoliers do. Moreover, something told me that that study would be useful to me later, and that what I lost in the way of progress in singing I should gain in the perfecting of my pronunciation and accent.