Venice and the Venisons
Getting back again to guides, I am reminded that our acquaintanceship
with the second member of the Mark Twain brotherhood was staged in
Paris. This gentleman wished himself on us one afternoon at the Hotel
des Invalides. We did not engage him; he engaged us, doing the trick
with such finesse and skill that before we realized it we had been
retained to accompany him to various points of interest in and round
Paris. However, we remained under his control one day only. At nightfall
we wrested ourselves free and fled under cover of darkness to German
soil, where we were comparatively safe.
I never knew a man who advanced so rapidly in a military way as he did
during the course of that one day. Our own national guard could not
hold a candle to him. He started out at ten A.M. by being an officer of
volunteers in the Franco-Prussian War; but every time he slipped away
and took a nip out of his private bottle, which was often, he advanced
in rank automatically. Before the dusk of evening came he was a corps
commander, who had been ennobled on the field of battle by the hand of
Napoleon the Third.
He took us to Versailles. We did not particularly care to go to
Versailles that day, because it was raining; but he insisted and we
went. In spite of the drizzle we might have enjoyed that wonderful place
had he not been constantly at our elbows, gabbling away steadily except
when he excused himself for a moment and stepped behind a tree, to
emerge a moment later wiping his mouth on his sleeve. Then he would
return to us, with an added gimpiness in his elderly legs, an increased
expansion of the chest inside his tight and shiny frock coat, and a
fresh freight of richness on his breath, to report another deserved
promotion.
After he had eaten luncheon--all except such portions of it as he
spilled on himself--the colonel grew confidential and chummy. He tried
to tell me an off-color story and forgot the point of it, if indeed it
had any point. He began humming the Marseillaise hymn, but broke off to
say he expected to live to see the day when a column of French troops,
singing that air, would march up Unter den Linden to stack their arms in
the halls of the Kaiser's palace. I did not take issue with him. Every
man is entitled to his own wishes in those matters. But later on, when
I had seen something of the Kaiser's standing army, I thought to myself
that when the French troops did march up Unter den Linden they would
find it tolerably rough sledding, and if there was any singing done a
good many of them probably would not be able to join in the last verse.
Immediately following this, our conductor confided to me that he had
once had the honor of serving Mr. Clemens, whom he referred to as Mick
Twine. He told me things about Mr. Clemens of which I had never heard.
I do not think Mr. Clemens ever heard of them either. Then the
brigadier--it was now after three o'clock, and between three and
three-thirty he was a brigadier--drew my arm within his.
"I, too, am an author," he stated. "It is not generally known, but I
have written much. I wrote a book of which you may have heard--'The
Wandering Jew.'" And he tapped himself on the bosom proudly.
I said I had somehow contracted a notion that a party named Sue--Eugene
Sue--had something to do with writing the work of that name.
"Ah, but you are right there, my friend," he said. "Sue wrote 'The
Wandering Jew' the first time--as a novel, merely; but I wrote him much
better--as a satire on the anti-Semitic movement."
I surrendered without offering to strike another blow and from that time
on he had his own way with us. The day, as I was pleased to note at the
time, had begun mercifully to draw to a close; we were driving back to
Paris, and he, sitting on the front seat, had just attained the highest
post in the army under the regime of the last Empire, when he said:
"Behold, m'sieur! We are now approaching a wine shop on the left. You
were most gracious and kind in the matter of luncheon. Kindly permit me
to do the honors now. It is a very good wine shop--I know it well. Shall
we stop for a glass together, eh?"
It was the first time since we landed at Calais that a native-born
person had offered to buy anything, and, being ever desirous to assist
in the celebration of any truly notable occasion, I accepted and the car
was stopped. We were at the portal of the wine shop, when he plucked at
my sleeve, offering another suggestion:
"The chauffeur now--he is a worthy fellow, that chauffeur. Shall we not
invite the chauffeur to join us?"
I was agreeable to that, too. So he called the chauffeur and the
chauffeur disentangled his whiskers from the steering gear and came and
joined us. The chauffeur and I each had a small glass of light wine, but
the general took brandy. Then ensued a spirited dialogue between him
and the woman who kept the shop. Assuming that I had no interest in the
matter, I studied the pictures behind the bar. Presently, having reduced
the woman to a state of comparative silence, he approached me.
"M'sieur," he said, "I regret that this has happened. Because you are a
foreigner and because you know not our language, that woman would make
an overcharge; but she forgot she had me to deal with. I am on guard!
See her! She is now quelled! I have given her a lesson she will not soon
forget. M'sieur, the correct amount of the bill is two-francs-ten. Give
it to her and let us begone!"
I still have that guide's name and address in my possession. At parting
he pressed his card on me and asked me to keep it; and I did keep it. I
shall be glad to loan it to any American who may be thinking of going
to Paris. With the card in his pocket, he will know exactly where this
guide lives; and then, when he is in need of a guide he can carefully go
elsewhere and hire a guide.
I almost failed to mention that before we parted he tried to induce us
to buy something. He took us miles out of our way to a pottery and urged
us to invest in its wares. This is the main purpose of every guide: to
see that you buy something and afterward to collect his commission from
the shopkeeper for having brought you to the shop. If you engage your
guide through the porter at your hotel you will find that he steers you
to the shops the hotel people have already recommended to you; but
if you break the porter's heart by hiring your guide outside,
independently, the guide steers you to the shops that are on his own
private list.
Only once I saw a guide temporarily stumped, and that was in Venice. The
skies were leaky that day and the weather was raw; and one of the ladies
of the party wore pumps and silk stockings. For the protection of her
ankles she decided to buy a pair of cloth gaiters; and, stating her
intention, she started to go into a shop that dealt in those articles.
The guide hesitated a moment only, then threw himself in her path.
The shops hereabout were not to be trusted--the proprietors, without
exception, were rogues and extortioners. If madame would have patience
for a few brief moments he would guarantee that she got what she wanted
at an honest price. He seemed so desirous of protecting her that she
consented to wait.
In a minute, on a pretext, he excused himself and dived into one of
the crooked ways that thread through all parts of Venice and make it
possible for one who knows their windings to reach any part of the city
without using the canals. Two of us secretly followed him. Beyond the
first turning he dived into a shoe shop. Emerging after a while he
hurried back and led the lady to that same shop, and stood by, smiling
softly, while she was fitted with gaiters. Until now evidently gaiters
had not been on his list, but he had taken steps to remedy this; and,
though his commission on a pair of sixty-cent gaiters could not have
been very large yet, as some philosopher has so truly said, every little
bit added to what you have makes just a modicum more. Indeed, the guide
never overlooks the smallest bet. His whole mentality is focused on
getting you inside a shop. Once you are there, he stations himself close
behind you, reenforcing the combined importunities of the shopkeeper
and his assembled staff with gentle suggestions. The depths of
self-abasement to which a shopkeeper in Europe will descend in an
effort to sell his goods surpasses the power of description. The London
tradesman goes pretty far in this direction. Often he goes as far as the
sidewalk, clinging to the hem of your garment and begging you to return
for one more look. But the Continentals are still worse.
A Parisian shopkeeper would sell you the bones of his revered
grandmother if you wanted them and he had them in stock; and he would
have them in stock too, because, as I have stated once before, a true
Parisian never throws away anything he can save. I heard of just one
single instance where a customer desirous of having an article and
willing to pay the price failed to get it; and that, I would say, stands
without a parallel in the annals of commerce and barter.
An American lady visiting her daughter, an art student in the Latin
Quartier, was walking alone when she saw in a shop window a lace blouse
she fancied. She went inside and by signs, since she knew no French,
indicated that she wished to look at that blouse. The woman in charge
shook her head, declining even to take the garment out of the window.
Convinced now, womanlike, that this particular blouse was the blouse she
desired above all other blouses the American woman opened her purse and
indicated that she was prepared to buy at the shopwoman's own valuation,
without the privilege of examination. The shopwoman showed deep pain
at having to refuse the proposition, but refuse it she did; and the
would-be buyer went home angry and perplexed and told her daughter what
had happened.
"It certainly is strange," the daughter said. "I thought everything in
Paris, except possibly Napoleon's tomb, was for sale. This thing will
repay investigation. Wait until I pin my hat on. Does my nose need
powdering?"
Her mother led her back to the shop of the blouse and then the puzzle
was revealed. For it was the shop of a dry cleanser and the blouse
belonged to some patron and was being displayed as a sample of the work
done inside; but undoubtedly such a thing never before happened in Paris
and probably never will happen again.
In Venice not only the guides and the hotel clerks and porters but even
the simple gondolier has a secret understanding with all branches of
the retail trade. You get into a long, snaky, black gondola and fee the
beggar who pushes you off, and all the other beggars who have assisted
in the pushing off or have merely contributed to the success of the
operation by being present, and you tell your gondolier in your best
Italian or your worst pidgin English where you wish to go. It may be you
are bound for the Rialto; or for the Bridge of Sighs, which is chiefly
distinguished from all the other bridges by being the only covered one
in the lot; or for the house of the lady Desdemona. The lady Desdemona
never lived there or anywhere else, but the house where she would
have lived, had she lived, is on exhibition daily from nine to five,
admission one lira. Or perchance you want to visit one of the ducal
palaces that are so numerous in Venice. These palaces are still tenanted
by the descendants of the original proprietors; one family has perhaps
been living in one palace three or four hundred years. But now the
family inhabits the top floor, doing light housekeeping up there, and
the lower floor, where the art treasures, the tapestries and the family
relics are, is in charge of a caretaker, who collects at the door and
then leads you through.
Having given the boatman explicit directions you settle back in your
cushion seat to enjoy the trip. You marvel how he, standing at the
stern, with his single oar fitted into a shallow notch of his steering
post, propels the craft so swiftly and guides it so surely by those
short, twisting strokes of his. Really, you reflect, it is rowing by
shorthand. You are feasting your eyes on the wonderful color effects and
the groupings that so enthuse the artist, and which he generally
manages to botch and boggle when he seeks to commit them to canvas; and
betweenwhiles you are wondering why all the despondent cats in Venice
should have picked out the Grand Canal as the most suitable place in
which to commit suicide, when--bump!--your gondola swings up against
the landing piles in front of a glass factory and the entire force
of helpers rush out and seize you by your arms--or by your legs, if
handier--and try to drag you inside, while the affable and accommodating
gondolier boosts you from behind. You fight them off, declaring
passionately that you are not in the market for colored glass at this
time. The hired hands protest; and the gondolier, cheated out of his
commission, sorrows greatly, but obeys your command to move on. At least
he pretends to obey it; but a minute later he brings you up broadside at
the water-level doors of a shop dealing in antiques, known appropriately
as antichitas, or at a mosaic shop or a curio shop. If ever you do
succeed in reaching your destination it is by the exercise of much
profanity and great firmness of will.
The most insistent and pesky shopkeepers of all are those who hive in
the ground floors of the professedly converted palaces that face on
three sides of the Square of Saint Mark's. You dare not hesitate for the
smallest fractional part of a second in front of a shop here. Lurking
inside the open door is a husky puller-in; and he dashes out and grabs
hold of you and will not let go, begging you in spaghettified English to
come in and examine his unapproachable assortment of bargains. You are
not compelled to buy, he tells you; he only wants you to gaze on
his beautiful things. Believe him not! Venture inside and decline to
purchase and he will think up new and subtle Italian forms of insult and
insolence to visit on you. They will have brass bands out for you if you
invest and brass knuckles if you do not.
There is but one way to escape from their everlasting persecutions, and
that is to flee to the center of the square and enjoy the company of the
pigeons and the photographers. They--the pigeons, I mean--belong to
the oldest family in Venice; their lineage is of the purest and most
undefiled. For upward of seven hundred years the authorities of the city
have been feeding and protecting the pigeons, of which these countless
blue-and-bronze flocks are the direct descendants. They are true
aristocrats; and, like true aristocrats, they are content to live on the
public funds and grow fat and sassy thereon, paying nothing in return.
No; I take that part back--they do pay something in return; a full
measure. They pay by the beauty of their presence, and they are surely
very beautiful, with their dainty mincing pink feet and the sheen on the
proudly arched breast coverts of the cock birds; and they pay by giving
you their trust and their friendship. To gobble the gifts of dried
peas, which you buy in little cornucopias from convenient venders
for distribution among them, they come wheeling in winged battalions,
creaking and cooing, and alight on your head and shoulders in that
perfect confidence which so delights humans when wild or half-wild
creatures bestow it on us, though, at every opportunity, we do our level
best to destroy it by hunting and harrying them to death.
At night, when the moon is up, is the time to visit this spot. Standing
here, with the looming pile of the Doge's Palace bulked behind you,
and the gorgeous but somewhat garish decorations of the great cathedral
softened and soothed into perfection of outline and coloring by the half
light, you can for the moment forget the fallen state of Venice, and
your imagination peoples the splendid plaza for you with the ghosts of
its dead and vanished greatnesses. You conceive of the place as it must
have looked in those old, brave, wicked days, filled all with knights,
with red-robed cardinals and clanking men at arms, with fair ladies and
grave senators, slinking bravos and hired assassins--and all so gay with
silk and satin and glittering steel and spangling gems.
By the eye of your mind you see His Illuminated Excellency, the frosted
Christmas card, as he bows low before His Eminence, the pink Easter egg;
you see, half hidden behind the shadowed columns of the long portico, an
illustrated Sunday supplement in six colors bargaining with a stick of
striped peppermint candy to have his best friend stabbed in the back
before morning; you see giddy poster designs carrying on flirtations
with hand-painted valentines; you catch the love-making, overhear the
intriguing, and scent the plotting; you are an eyewitness to a slice
out of the life of the most sinister, the most artistic, and the most
murderous period of Italian history.
But by day imperious Caesar, dead and turn'd to clay, stops a hole to
keep the wind away; and the wild ass of the ninety-day tour stamps his
heedless hoofs over the spot where sleeps the dust of departed grandeur.
By day the chug of the motor boat routs out old sleepy echoes from
cracked and crannied ruins; the burnished golden frescoes of Saint
Mark's blare at you as with brazen trumpets; every third medieval
church has been turned into a moving-picture place; and the shopkeeping
parasites buzz about you in vermin swarms and bore holes in your
pocketbook until it is all one large painful welt. The emblem of Venice
is the winged lion. It should be the tapeworm.
In Rome it appears to be a standing rule that every authenticated guide
shall be a violent Socialist and therefore rampingly anticlerical in all
his views. We were in Rome during the season of pilgrimages. From all
parts of Italy, from Bohemia and Hungary and Spain and Tyrol, and even
from France, groups of peasants had come to Rome to worship in their
mother church and be blessed by the supreme pontiff of their faith. At
all hours of the day they were passing through the streets, bound for
Saint Peter's or the Vatican, the women with kerchiefs over their heads,
the men in their Sunday best, and all with badges and tokens on their
breasts.
At the head of each straggling procession would be a black-frocked
village priest, at once proud and humble, nervous and exalted. A man
might be of any religion or of no religion at all, and yet I fail to see
how he could watch, unmoved, the uplifted faces of these people as they
clumped over the cobbles of the Holy City, praying as they went. Some of
them had been saving up all their lives, I imagine, against the
coming of this great day; but our guide--and we tried three different
ones--never beheld this sight that he did not sneer at it; and not once
did he fail to point out that most of the pilgrims were middle-aged or
old, taking this as proof of his claim that the Church no longer kept
its hold on the younger people, even among the peasant classes. The
still more frequent spectacle of a marching line of students of one of
the holy colleges, with each group wearing the distinctive insignia of
its own country--purple robes or green sashes, or what not--would excite
him to the verge of a spasm.
But then he was always verging on a spasm anyway--spasms were his normal
state.