There was a general silence. Then the Dogaressa said crisply, “I do not think that a fit story for the dining table, Messer Marco.” And I have not been invited there since.
When a young man named Marco Bragadino, who has lately been making the cascamorto at my eldest daughter Fantina, lavishing on her languishing looks and heartfelt sighs, finally took his courage in both hands and came to me to inquire if he might commence formal calls of courtship, I tried to put him at ease by saying jovially:
“That reminds me, young Bragadino, of an occurrence in Khanbalik once upon a time. There was hauled into the Cheng—into the court of justice—a man accused of beating his wife. The Tongue of the Cheng asked the man if he had good reason for this behavior, and the wretch said yes, he was beating his wife for her having suffocated their baby daughter immediately after its birth. The wife was asked if she had anything to say, and she cried, ‘It was only a daughter, my lords. There is no crime in disposing of excess daughters. Anyway, that happened fifteen years ago.’ The Tongue then asked the man, ‘Man, why in the world are you beating your wife for that now?’ And the man said, ‘My lords, fifteen years ago it did not matter. But recently a plague of some female disease has killed off almost all the other young maidens in our district. Brides are now at a premium, and the few available are fetching princess prices!’”
After a while, young Bragadino cleared his throat and asked, “Er, is that all, Messere?”
“That is all,” I said. “I do not remember how the Cheng ruled in that case.”
When young Bragadino had departed, looking confused and shaking his head, my wife and Fantina stormed into the room and began berating me. They had evidently both been listening behind the door.
“Papà, what have you done? Gramo mi, you have repulsed my best hope of marriage! I shall be a lonely and despised zitella all my life! I shall die with the jewel! What have you done?”
“Marcolfo vechio!” said Donata, in the memorable style of her own mother. “We have no scarcity of daughters in this house! You can ill afford to turn away any of their suitors!” She spared Fantina none of her frankness, either. “It is not as if they were sensational beauties, much sought after!” Fantina gave a despairing wail and flung herself out of the room. “Can you not curb your everlasting old reminiscences and your wandering old wits?”
“You are right, my dear,” I said contritely. “I know better. One of these days I shall dobetter.”
She wasright, too. I concede that. In the matter of children, Donata had reposed her confidence in her Lord’s goodness, but, after giving us three daughters, evidently her good Lord despaired of ever providing a son and heir to the Venetian house of Polo. That I had no male issue did not crushingly disappoint me or blight my life. It is not very Christian of me to say so, I know, but I do not believe that when my own life is over I shall be taking much interest in the affairs of this world, or wringing the pale hands of my soul because I left no Marcolino Polo in charge of all the warehouse goods and zafran plantations I could not take with me. I did not confess this recusancy of mine to old Pare Nardo before he died (and that clement old man would probably have given me small penance for it)—and I shall not confess it to the grim-lipped young Pare Gasparo (who would be righteously severe)—but I am inclined to believe that if there is a Heaven I have not much hope of it; if there is a Hell, I daresay I will have other things to worry about than how my progeny are faring on the Rialto.
I may be less than a model Christian, but neither am I like those Eastern fathers whom I have heard say such things as: “No, I have no children. Only three daughters.” I have never been prejudiced against daughters. Of course, I might have hoped for daughters with better looks and brighter wits. I am perhaps overparticular in that regard, having myself been blessed with the knowing of so many extraordinarily beautiful and intelligent women in my younger days. But Donata was one of those, in heryounger days. If she could not replicate herself in her daughters, the fault must be mine.
The little Raja of the Hindus once harangued me about no man’s ever knowing with surety who is the father of any of his children, but I have never had the least cause for anxiety. I have only to look at any one of them—Fantina, Bellela or Morata—they all look too exactly like me for there to be any doubt. Now, I hasten to asseverate that Marco Polo has all his life been no bad-looking man. But I should not wish to be a nubile young maiden and look like Marco Polo. If I was, and did, I should hope at least to have a bright intelligence by way of compensation. Unfortunately, my daughters have been scanted in that respect, as well. I do not mean to say that they are drooling imbeciles; they are no worse than unperceptive and lackluster and charmless.
But they are of my making. Should the potter despise the only pots he will ever produce? And they are good girls, with good hearts, or so I am repeatedly and consolingly told by my acquaintances who possess comely daughters. All I can say, from my own knowledge, is that my girls are cleanly of person and smell good. No, I can also say that they are fortunate in having a Papà who can dower them with the attractions of affluence.
Young Bragadino was not so repulsed by my dithering that day as to stay away forever, and the next time he called I confined my disquisition to topics like bequests and prospects and inheritances. He and Fantina are now formally betrothed, and Bragadino the Elder and I will shortly be convening with a notary for the impalmatura. My second daughter, Bellela, is being sedulously courted by a young man named Zanino Grioni. Morata will have someone, too, in due time. I have no doubt that all three girls will be grateful to be known no longer as the Damìne Milione, and I have no overwhelming regrets that the Compagnia and the fortune and the house of Polo will henceforth percolate down through the generations as the Compagnie and houses of Bragadino, Grioni, Eccètera. If the precepts of the Han are true, this may cause consternation among my ancestors, from Nicolò all the way back to the Dalmatian Pavlo, but it causes not much to me.
8
IF I had any real lament to make about our lack of sons, it would be a lament for what that did to Donata. She was only about thirty-two years old when Morata was born, but the birth of a third daughter clearly convinced her that she was incapable of male issue. And, as if to avert any hazard of producing yet another daughter, Donata thereafter began to discourage our further indulgence in conjugal relations. She never, by word or gesture, refusedmy amorous overtures, but she began to dress and look and comport herself in a manner calculated to diminish her appeal for me and dampen my ardor for her.
At thirty-two she began to let her face lose its radiance and her hair its luster and her eyes their lively sparkle, and she started dressing in the black bombazine and shawls of an old woman. At thirty-two! I was then fifty years old, but I was still straight and slim and strong, and I wore the rich garb to which my station entitled me and my taste for color inclined me. My hair and beard were still more life-colored than gray, and my blood was still unthinned, and I still had all my lusty appetites for life and pleasure, and my eyes still kindled when I glimpsed a lovely lady. But I have to say that they glazed when I looked at Donata.
Her posturing as an old woman madeher an old woman. She is younger today than I was when Morata was born. But over these ensuing fifteen years, she has put on all the unsightly lineaments and contours of a woman many years older—the sagging facial features, the stringed and corded throat and that old-woman’s hump at the back of the neck, and those tendons that operate the fingers are visible through the spotted skin of her hands, and her elbows have become like old coins, and the meat of her upper arms hangs loose and wobbly, and when she raises her skirt to hobble and lurch from the Corte landing down the steps to one of our boats, I can see that her ankles lop over her shoes. What has become of the milk-white and shell-pink and golden-flossed body, I do not know; I have not seen it in a long time.