She could not tell why
she had despised Jacopo Contarini from the moment she looked into his
beautiful eyes. Happily women are not expected to explain why they
sometimes judge rightly at first sight, when a wise man is absurdly
deceived. Marietta did not understand Jacopo, and she easily fancied
that because her own character was the stronger she should rule him as
easily as she managed Nella. It did not occur to her that he was already
under the domination of another woman, who might prove to be quite as
strong as she. What she saw was the weakness in his eyes and mouth. With
such a man, she thought, there was little to fear; but there was nothing
to love. If she asked, he would give, if she opposed him, he would
surrender, if she lost her temper and commanded, he would obey with
petulant docility. She should be obliged to take refuge in vanity in
order to get any satisfaction out of her life, and she was not naturally
vain. The luxuries of those days were familiar to her from her
childhood. Though she had not lived in a palace, she had been brought up
in a house that was not unlike one, she ate off silver plates and drank
from glasses that were masterpieces of her father's art, she had coffers
full of silks and satins, and fine linen embroidered with gold thread,
there was always gold and silver in her little wallet-purse when she
wanted anything or wished to give to the poor, she was waited on by a
maid of her own like any fine lady of Venice, and there were a score of
idle servants in a house where there were only two masters--there was
nothing which Contarini could give her that would be more than a little
useless exaggeration of what she had already.
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