VENICE,
March 24, 1891.
I am now in Venice. I arrived here two days ago from Vienna. One thing I
can say: I have never in my life seen a town more marvellous than Venice.
It is perfectly enchanting, brilliance, joy, life. Instead of streets and
roads there are canals; instead of cabs, gondolas. The architecture is
amazing, and there is not a single spot that does not excite some
historical or artistic interest. You float in a gondola and see the palace
of the Doges, the house where Desdemona lived, homes of various painters,
churches. And in the churches there are sculptures and paintings such as we
have never dreamed of. In fact it is enchantment.
All day from morning till night I sit in a gondola and glide along the
streets, or I saunter about the famous St. Mark’s Square. The square is as
level and clean as a parquet floor. Here there is St. Mark’s--something
impossible to describe--the Palace of the Doges, and other buildings which
make me feel as I do listening to part singing--I feel the amazing beauty
and revel in it.
And the evenings! My God! One might almost die of the strangeness of it.
One goes in a gondola ... warmth, stillness, stars.... There are no
horses in Venice, and so there is a silence here as in the open country.
Gondolas flit to and fro, ... then a gondola glides by, hung with
lanterns. In it are a double-bass, violins, a guitar, a mandolin and
cornet, two or three ladies, several men, and one hears singing and
music. They sing from operas. What voices! One goes on a little further
and again meets a boat with singers, and then again, and the air is
full, till midnight, of the mingled strains of violins and tenor voices,
and all sorts of heart-stirring sounds.
Merezhkovsky, whom I have met here, is off his head with ecstasy. For us
poor and oppressed Russians it is easy to go out of our minds here in a
world of beauty, wealth, and freedom. One longs to remain here for ever,
and when one stands in the churches and listens to the organ one longs to
become a Catholic.
The tombs of Canova and Titian are magnificent. Here they bury great
artists like kings in churches; here they do not despise art as with us;
the churches provide a shelter for pictures and statues however naked they
may be.
In the Palace of the Doges there is a picture in which there are about ten
thousand human figures.
To-day is Sunday. There will be a band playing in St. Mark’s Square....
If you ever happen to come to Venice it will be the best thing in your
life. You ought to see the glass here! Your bottles [Footnote: His brother
Ivan was teaching in a school attached to a glass factory.] are so hideous
compared with the things here, that it makes one sick to think of them.