The Glassmaker

by Tracy Chevalier

garzonetti—young boys who helped out around furnaces with an expectation of becoming a garzone—an apprentice training to work in glass.

This was Maria Barovier, daughter of Angelo, sister of Maestro Giovanni.

Glass families were not unfriendly, but they didn’t share their spaces, their work, their secrets.

It was the Muranese way to be supportive of the island and the industry in general, but to criticize others’ work behind their backs: techniques not refined enough, work derivative or dull. Their own was always better.

The Doge of Venice even granted Maria Barovier permission to set up her own small furnace and produce the special bead she had created. A woman tending her own furnace: this was something new. It was unlikely to happen again unless the world changed substantially.

Bald, with a barrel chest and strong arms, silent Paolo was Lorenzo’s servente—his main assistant, just below maestro—and handled glass skillfully.

He was a gentle teacher, never shouting or scolding, but simply adjusting a hand to reshape a piece, or handing over a different tool, or nodding at the furnace for the glass to be reheated.

The maestro was in the center of a dance, the conductor orchestrating everything going on around him.

“Che Dio abia pietà della

They must take the time to work out what they can make well, rather than follow what your father made. Each glassmaker is different, just as each singer sounds different, or every woman’s pasta is different.

“Beads fill the spaces between things,” Maria explained. “They don’t get in the way. They are inconsequential, and women can make them because of that. No man will be threatened by you making beads. But they’re in demand now.

Maria Barovier grunted. “I always wanted a daughter, to slice through all the men.”

When you already know how to do something, it can be hard to put yourself in the shoes of someone who doesn’t.

Orsola nodded. She too had no intention of entering a convent, as so many spare women did. She had no intention of being spare.

“Che San Nicolò te tegna ’na man sul cao!”

How have we come to be ruled by a young tyrant? Orsola thought. But she knew: her parents had not reined in Marco but let him have his way and believe he was right in all things.

campanile,

Two hundred years before, the Doge had sent glassmakers to work solely on Murano, to isolate the fiery furnaces from the dense city and to keep track of the artisans so they wouldn’t run away to the mainland with Muranese glass secrets.

“I would rather work with beauty. I’ve seen what maestros make.”

Anger burned out, but humiliation could run long and deep, wrecking any chance of his ever valuing her and her work.

Marco was performing a monologue, not a dialogue, and the rest of the family couldn’t add anything without him talking over them or chiding them for being so ignorant. It was boring and exhausting to listen to.

Orsola sighed. “Glass is so hard to control.” “That’s what I like about it. It’s an unpredictable mistress; it has its own laws.

“Are you going to be arguing with me for the rest of our lives?” “I won’t waste my breath.” But privately she thought: Sì.

Eventually what she felt about Antonio subsided into a hard knot under the surface that she could mostly ignore but occasionally press to feel the pleasurable pain. She had enough to keep her busy anyway,

Children were such a huge demand on time and energy, especially when there was no one else to hand them on to when you were busy or tired.

As Elena Barovier once told her, the beads they made became their children, spread around the world.

“Mi dispiace tanto, amore mio,”

“Bene, bene, he’s fine. I must get back to work.” Marco left abruptly—angry either at his wife for being ill, at God for allowing it to happen or at himself for being weak and scared.

“He cares,” Giacomo replied. “Marco deals with bad things by ignoring them. It’s easier. He’s always felt the weight of being the eldest. It’s a heavy burden, made worse by Padre dying when he did, before Marco was ready. You are as harsh a judge as he is.” “I am not!”

It was like that for some: coming out of quarantine was almost harder than being in it. When locked in, there were few decisions to make: all you could do was to wait and keep yourself alive in the meantime. Once out, suddenly there was freedom, and with it, choices.

“Men are unreliable. It’s best not to get too attached.”

Whatever else was going wrong in her life, this process of creation was still in her hands and her eyes, still satisfying, still comforting.

“You see,” he said when they were done, “the true value of something is the price which neither side is quite content with, where each thinks he—or she—should get more.” Orsola smiled wryly. “That sounds like a lesson for life.”

“Vattene, peasant.”

“You know very little about the way business works, then. I am sorry to tell you that the world of commerce turns because of human sweat, much of it unpaid.

“Do you think, signora, that being paid for work makes such a difference? Sometimes you can feel like a slave even with coins in your pocket.”

“Then why do you want to go to terraferma?” To stand on ground that connected in some way—through millions of footsteps and rocks and fields and snow and mountains—to where he was, or had been, making dolphins in a workshop up north. But she wouldn’t say that to Domenego, because it was ridiculous.

“My beads have gone everywhere—even to Africa. But I have gone nowhere. I want to go somewhere.”

For the first time in many visits, Giovanna looked interested. “Who?” “His name is Giacomo Casanova.”

It was a fantasy, but she held on to it because it pushed her to work harder and create better.

your father was making when he died? A chandelier. For the first time. Then a piece of it killed him. After that, no one wanted a Rosso chandelier. Marco wants to break that curse.”

Whenever a dolphin arrived, however—whether six months or six years after the last—Orsola felt a jolt of satisfaction. Time might race and freeze, expand and contract, but the continuity of Antonio’s dolphins, the knowledge that she was still remembered after so long, was the solid foundation upon which her life was built,

When a man wanted to rage, it was best not to reason with him, but let him burn himself out.

the Rossos were shifting from workshop to factory, from quality to quantity, from art to commerce. It kept them fed, but they paid a price.

“Très à la mode.

“No, you’re not. You’re chained to the family and to Murano.” “I’m loyal to the family and to Murano. Most people are. And scared of what happens on terraferma. Aren’t you?”

“I’m not going to work here,” Orsola snapped. Like a puttana on show, she thought. “I’m working at home.”

you never recover from losing someone; you just learn to accommodate the hole it makes in you.

It was over forty years since she had last seen Antonio. The bruising was long gone—just a light press on her heart, the ghostly trace of her desire.

Floods were only fascinating to those who hadn’t experienced them.