Various - Graham's Magazine Vol XXXIII No. 5 November 1848

"It is all over then," he exclaimed. "Thy hope, unhappy maiden, like mine, must perish because of thy weakness. Yet there will be bitter memories for this," he exclaimed, and his eye now sought the mother – "bitter, bitter memories! Francesca, farewell! Be happy if thou canst!"

She rushed toward him as he moved away, recovering all her strength for this one effort. A single and broken sentence – "Forgive me, O forgive!" – escaped her lips, as she sunk senseless upon the floor. He would have raised her, but they did not suffer him.

"Is this not enough, Giovanni?" said his friend reproachfully. "Seest thou not that thy presence but distracts her?"

"Thou art right, Nicolo; let us go. I am myself choking – undo me this collar! – There! Let us depart."

The organ rolled its anthem – a thousand voices joined in the hymn to the Virgin, and as the sweet but painful sounds rushed to the senses of the youth he darted through the crowd, closely followed by his friend. The music seemed to pursue him with mockery. He rushed headlong from the temple, as if seeking escape from some suffocating atmosphere in the pure breezes of heaven, and hurried forward with confused and purposeless footsteps. The moment of his disappearance was marked by the partial recovery of Francesca. She unclosed her eyes, raised her head and looked wildly around her. Her lips once more murmured his name.

"Giovanni!"

"He is gone," was the sympathizing answer from more than one lip in the assembly; and once more she relapsed into unconsciousness.

Giovanni Gradenigo was scarcely more conscious than the maiden when he left. He needed all the guidance of his friend.

"Whither?" asked Nicolo Malapiero.

"What matter! where thou wilt," was the reply.

"For the city then;" and his friend conducted him to the gondola which was appointed to await them. In the profoundest silence they glided toward the city. The gondola stopped before the dwelling of Nicolo, and he, taking the arm of the sullen and absent Giovanni within his own, ascended the marble steps, and was about to enter, when a shrill voice challenged their attention by naming Giovanni.

"How now, signor," said the stranger. "Is it thou? Wherefore hast thou left Olivolo? Why didst thou not wait the bridal."

The speaker was a strange, dark-looking woman, in coarse woollen garments. She hobbled as she walked, assisted by a heavy staff, and seeming to suffer equally from lameness and from age. Her thin depressed lips, that ever sunk as she spoke into the cavity of the mouth, which, in the process of time, had been denuded of nearly all its teeth; her yellow wrinkled visage, and thin gray hairs, that escaped from the close black cap which covered her head, declared the presence of very great age. But her eye shone still with something even more lively and impressive than a youthful fire. It had a sort of spiritual intensity. Nothing, indeed, could have been more brilliant, or, seemingly, more unnatural. But hers was a nature of which we may not judge by common laws. She was no common woman, and her whole life was characterized by mystery. She was known in Venice as the "Spanish Gipsy;" was supposed to be secretly a Jewess, and had only escaped from being punished as a sorceress by her profound and most exemplary public devotions. But she was known, nevertheless, as an enchantress, a magician, a prophetess; and her palmistry, her magic, her symbols, signs and talismans, were all held in great repute by the superstitious and the youthful of the ocean city. Giovanni Gradenigo himself, obeying the popular custom, had consulted her; and now, as he heard her voice, he raised his eyes, and started forward with the impulse of one who suddenly darts from under the gliding knife of the assassin. Before Nicolo could interfere, he had leapt down the steps, and darted to the quay from which the old woman was about to step into a gondola. She awaited his coming with a smile of peculiar meaning, as she repeated her inquiry:

"Why are not you at Olivolo?"

He answered the question by another, grasping her wrist violently as he spoke.

"Did you not promise that she should wed with me – that she should be mine – mine only?"

"Well!" she answered calmly, without struggling or seeking to extricate her arm from the strong hold which he had taken upon it.

"Well! and even now the rites are in progress which bind her to Ulric Barberigo!"

"She will never wed Ulric Barberigo," was the quiet answer. "Why left you Olivolo?" she continued.

"Could I remain and look upon these hated nuptials – could I be patient and see her driven like a sheep to the sacrifice? I fled from the spectacle, as if the knife of the butcher were already in my own heart."

"You were wrong; but the fates have spoken, and their decrees are unchangeable. I tell you I have seen your bridal with Francesca Ziani. No Ulric weds that maiden. She is reserved for you alone. You alone will interchange with her the final vows before the man of God. But hasten, that this may find early consummation. I have seen other things! Hasten – but hasten not alone, nor without your armor! A sudden and terrible danger hangs over San Pietro di Castella, and all within its walls. Gather your friends, gather your retainers. Put on the weapons of war and fly thither with all your speed. I see a terrible vision, even now, of blood and struggle! I behold terrors that frighten even me! Your friend is a man of arms. Let your war-galleys be put forth, and bid them steer for the Lagune of Caorlo. There will you win Francesca, and thenceforth shall you wear her – you only – so long as it may be allowed you to wear any human joy!"

Her voice, look, manner, sudden energy, and the wild fire of her eyes, awakened Giovanni to his fullest consciousness. His friend drew nigh – they would have conferred together, but the woman interrupted them.

"You would deliberate," said she, "but you have no time! What is to be done must be done quickly. It seems wild to you, and strange, and idle, what I tell you, but it is nevertheless true; and if you heed me not now bitter will be your repentance hereafter. You, Giovanni, will depart at least. Heed not your friend – he is too cold to be successful. He will always be safe, and do well, but he will do nothing further. Away! if you can but gather a dozen friends and man a single galley, you will be in season. But the time is short. I hear a fearful cry – the cry of women – and the feeble shriek of Francesca Ziani is among the voices of those who wail with a new terror! I see their struggling forms, and floating garments, and disheveled hair! Fly, young men, lest the names of those whom Venice has written in her Book of Gold, shall henceforth be written in a Book of Blood!"

The reputation of the sybil was too great in Venice to allow her wild predictions to be laughed at. Besides, our young Venetians – Nicolo no less than Giovanni, in spite of what the woman had spoken touching his lack of enthusiasm – were both aroused and eagerly excited by her speech. Her person dilated as she spoke – her voice seemed to come up from a fearful depth, and went thrillingly deep into the souls of the hearers. They were carried from their feet by her predictions. They prepared to obey her counsels. Soon had they gathered their friends together, enough to man three of the fastest galleys of the city. Their prows were turned at once toward the Lagune of Caorlo, whither the woman had directed them. She, meanwhile, had disappeared, but the course of her gondola lay for Olivolo.

It will be necessary that we should go back in our narrative but a single week before the occurrence of these events. Let us penetrate the dim and lonesome abode on the confines of the "Jewish Quarter," but not within it, where the "Spanish Gipsy" delivered her predictions. It is midnight, and still she sits over her incantations. There are vessels of uncouth shape and unknown character before her. Huge braziers lie convenient, on one of which, amidst a few coals, a feeble flame may be seen to struggle. The atmosphere is impregnated with a strong but not ungrateful perfume, and through its vapors objects appear with some indistinctness. A circular plate of brass or copper – it could not well be any more precious metal – rests beneath the eye and finger of the woman. It is covered with strange and mystic characters, which she seems busily to explore, as if they had a real significance in her mind. She evidently united the highest departments of her art with its humblest offices; and possessed those nobler aspirations of the soul, which, during the middle ages, elevated in considerable degree the professors of necromancy. But our purpose is not now to determine her pretensions. We have but to exhibit and to ascertain a small specimen of her skill in the vulgar business of fortune-telling – an art which will continue to be received among men, to a greater or less extent, so long as they shall possess a hope which they cannot gratify, and feel a superstition which they cannot explain. Our gipsy expects a visiter. She hears his footstep. The door opens at her bidding and a stranger makes his appearance. He is a tall and well made man, of stern and gloomy countenance, which is half concealed beneath the raised foldings of his cloak. His beard, of enormous length, is seen to stream down upon his breast; but his cheek is youthful, and his eye is eagerly and anxiously bright. But for a certain repelling something in his glance, he might be considered a very handsome man – perhaps by many persons he was thought so. He advanced with an air of dignity and power. His deportment and manner – and when he spoke, his voice – all seemed to denote a person accustomed to command. The woman did not look up as he approached – on the contrary she seemed more intent than ever in the examination of the strange characters before her. But a curious spectator might have seen that a corner of her eye, bright with an intelligence that looked more like cunning than wisdom, was suffered to take in all of the face and person of the visiter that his muffling costume permitted to be seen.