CASA ROSA, _May_ 20.
One of the pleasantest sights to be noted from our windows at breakfast
time is Angelo making ready our private gondola for the day. Angelo
himself is not attractive to the eye by reason of the silliest possible
hat for a man of forty-five whose hair is slightly grey. It is a white
straw sailor, with a turned-up brim, a blue ribbon encircling the crown,
and a white elastic under the chin; such a hat as you would expect to see
crowning the flaxen curls of mother’s darling boy of four.
I love to look at the gondola, with its solemn caracoling like that of a
possible water-horse, of which the arched neck is the graceful _ferro_.
This is a strange, weird, beautiful thing when the black gondola sways a
little from side to side in the moonlight. Angelo keeps ours polished so
that it shines like silver in the morning sun, and he has an exquisite
conscientiousness in rubbing every trace of brass about his precious
craft. He has a little box under the prow full of bottles and brushes
and rags. The cushions are laid on the bank of the canal; the pieces of
carpet are taken out, shaken, and brushed, and the narrow strips are laid
over the curved wood ends of the gondola to keep the sun from cracking
them. The _felze_, or cabin, is freed of all dust, the tiny four-legged
stools and the carved chair are wiped off, and occasionally a thin coat
of black paint is needed here and there, and a touching-up of the gold
lines which relieve the sombreness. The last thing to be done is to
polish the vases and run back into the garden for nosegays, and when
these are disposed in their niches on each side of the _felze_, Angelo
waves his infantile hat gaily to us at the window, and smiles his
readiness to be off.
On other mornings we watch the loading and unloading of grain. There are
many small boats always in view, their orange sails patched with all
sorts of emblems and designs in a still deeper colour, and day before
yesterday a large ship appeared at our windows and attached itself to our
very doorsteps, much to the wrath of Salemina, who finds the poetry of
existence much disturbed under the new conditions. All is life and
motion now. The men are stripped naked to the waist, with bright
handkerchiefs on their heads, and, in many cases, others tied over their
mouths. Each has a thick wisp of short twine strings tucked into his
waistband. The bags are weighed by one, who takes out or puts in a
shovelful of grain, as the case may be. Then the carrier ties up his bag
with one of the twine strings, two other men lift it to his shoulder,
while a boy removes a pierced piece of copper from a long wire and gives
it to him, this copper being handed in turn to still another man, who
apparently keeps the account. This not uninteresting, indeed, but sordid
and monotonous operation began before eight yesterday morning and even
earlier to-day, obliging Salemina to decline strawberries and eat her
breakfast with her back to the window.
This afternoon at four the injured lady departed on a tour in Miss
Palett’s gondola. Miss Palett is a water-colourist who has lived in
Venice for five years and speaks the language “like a native.” (You are
familiar with the phrase, and perhaps familiar, too, with the native like
whom they speak.)
Returning after tea, Salemina was observed to radiate a kind of subdued
triumph, which proved on investigation to be due to the fact that she had
met the _comandante_ of the offending ship and that he had gallantly
promised to remove it without delay. I cannot help feeling that the
proper time for departure had come; but this destroys the story and robs
the _comandante_ of his reputation for chivalry.
As Miss Palett’s gondola neared the grain-ship, Salemina, it seems, spied
the commanding officer pacing the deck.
“See,” she said to her companion, “there is a gang-plank from the side of
the ship to that small flat-boat. We could perfectly well step from our
gondola to the flat-boat and then go up and ask politely if we may be
allowed to examine the interesting grain-ship. While you are
interviewing the first officer about the foreign countries he has seen, I
will ask the _comandante_ if he will kindly tie his boat a little farther
down on the island. No, that won’t do, for he may not speak English; we
should have an awkward scene, and I should defeat my own purposes. You
are so fluent in Italian, suppose you call upon him with my card and let
me stay in the gondola.”
“What shall I say to the man?” objected Miss Palett.
“Oh, there’s plenty to say,” returned Salemina. “Tell him that Penelope
and I came over from the hotel on the Grand Canal only that we might have
perfect quiet. Tell him that if I had not unpacked my largest trunk, I
should not stay an instant longer. Tell him that his great, bulky ship
ruins the view; that it hides the most beautiful church and part of the
Doge’s Palace. Tell him that I might as well have stayed at home and
built a cottage on the dock in Boston Harbour. Tell him that his
steam-whistles, his anchor-droppings, and his constant loadings or
unloadings give us headache. Tell him that seven or eight of his
sailormen brought clean garments and scrubbing brushes and took their
bath at our front entrance. Tell him that one of them, almost absolutely
nude, instead of running away to put on more clothing, offered me his arm
to assist me into the gondola.”
Miss Palett demurred at the subject-matter of some of these remarks, and
affirmed that she could not translate others into proper Italian. She
therefore proposed that Salemina should write a few dignified protests on
her visiting-card, and her own part would be to instruct the man in the
flat-boat to deliver it at once to his superior officer. The
_comandante_ spoke no English,—of that fact the sailorman in the
flat-boat was certain,—but as the gondola moved away, the ladies could
see the great man pondering over the little piece of pasteboard, and it
was plain that he was impressed. Herein lies perhaps a seed of truth.
The really great thing triumphs over all obstacles, and reaches the
common mind and heart in some way, delivering its message we know not
how.
Salemina’s card teemed with interesting information, at least to the
initiated. Her surname was in itself a passport into the best society.
To be an X— was enough of itself, but her Christian name was one peculiar
to the most aristocratic and influential branch of the X—s. Her mother’s
maiden name, engraved at full length in the middle, established the fact
that Mr. X— had not married beneath him, but that she was the child of
unblemished lineage on both sides. Her place of residence was the only
one possible to the possessor of three such names, and as if these
advantages were not enough, the street and number proved that Salemina’s
family undoubtedly possessed wealth; for the small numbers, and
especially the odd numbers, on that particular street, could be flaunted
only by people of fortune.
You have now all the facts in your possession, and I can only add that
the ship weighed anchor at twilight, so Salemina again gazed upon the
Doge’s Palace and slept tranquilly.
V