IV

Even at first, when the vexatious sense of the city of the Doges having

been reduced to earning its living as a curiosity-shop was in its

keenness, there was a great deal of entertainment to be got from lodging

on the Riva degli Schiavoni and looking out at the far-shimmering

lagoon. There was entertainment indeed in simply getting into the place

and observing the queer incidents of a Venetian installation. A great

many persons contribute indirectly to this undertaking, and it is

surprising how they spring out at you during your novitiate to remind

you that they are bound up in some mysterious manner with the

constitution of your little establishment. It was an interesting

problem, for instance, to trace the subtle connection existing between

the niece of the landlady and the occupancy of the fourth floor.

Superficially, it was not easily visible, as the young lady in question

was a dancer at the Fenice theatre--or, when that was closed, at the

Rossini--and might have been supposed to be absorbed by her professional

duties. It proved to be necessary, however, that she should hover about

the premises in a velvet jacket and a pair of black kid gloves, with one

little white button; as also, that she should apply a thick coating of

powder to her face, which had a charming oval and a sweet, weak

expression, like that of most of the Venetian maidens, who, as a general

thing (it was not a peculiarity of the landlady's niece), are fond of

besmearing themselves with flour. It soon became plain that it is not

only the many-twinkling lagoon that you behold from a habitation on the

Riva; you see a little of everything Venetian. Straight across, before

my windows, rose the great pink mass of San Giorgio Maggiore, which, for

an ugly Palladian church, has a success beyond all reason. It is a

success of position, of colour, of the immense detached Campanile,

tipped with a tall gold angel. I know not whether it is because San

Giorgio is so grandly conspicuous, and because it has a great deal of

worn, faded-looking brickwork; but for many persons the whole place has

a kind of suffusion of rosiness. If we were asked what is the leading

colour at Venice we should say pink, and yet, after all, we cannot

remember that this elegant tint occurs very often. It is a faint,

shimmering, airy, watery pink; the bright sea-light seems to flush with

it, and the pale whitish-green of lagoon and canal to drink it in. There

is, indeed, in Venice a great deal of very evident brickwork, which is

never fresh or loud in colour, but always burnt out, as it were, always

exquisitely mild. There are certain little mental pictures that rise

before the sentimental tourist at the simple mention, written or spoken,

of the places he has loved. When I hear, when I see, the magical name I

have written above these pages, it is not of the great Square that I

think, with its strange basilica and its high arcades, nor of the wide

mouth of the Grand Canal, with the stately steps and the well-poised

dome of the Salute; it is not of the low lagoon, nor the sweet

Piazzetta, nor the dark chambers of St. Mark's. I simply see a narrow

canal in the heart of the city--a patch of green water and a surface of

pink wall. The gondola moves slowly; it gives a great, smooth swerve,

passes under a bridge, and the gondolier's cry, carried over the quiet

water, makes a kind of splash in the stillness. A girl is passing over

the little bridge, which has an arch like a camel's back, with an old

shawl on her head, which makes her look charming; you see her against

the sky as you float beneath. The pink of the old wall seems to fill the

whole place; it sinks even into the opaque water. Behind the wall is a

garden, out of which the long arm of a white June rose--the roses of

Venice are splendid--has flung itself by way of spontaneous ornament. On

the other side of this small water-way is a great shabby façade of

Gothic windows and balconies--balconies on which dirty clothes are hung

and under which a cavernous-looking doorway opens from a low flight of

slimy water-steps. It is very hot and still, the canal has a queer

smell, and the whole place is enchanting. It is poor work, however,

talking about the colour of things in Venice. The sentimental tourist is

perpetually looking at it from his window, when he is not floating about

with that delightful sense of being for the moment a part of it, which

any gentleman in a gondola is free to entertain. Venetian windows and

balconies are a dreadful lure, and while you rest your elbows on these

cushioned ledges the precious hours fly away. But, in truth, Venice is

not, in fair weather, a place for concentration of mind. The effort

required for sitting down to a writing-table is heroic, and the

brightest page of MS. looks dull beside the brilliancy of your _milieu_.

All nature beckons you forth, and murmurs to you sophistically that such

hours should be devoted to collecting impressions. Afterward, in ugly

places, at unprivileged times, you can convert your impressions into

prose. Fortunately for the present proser, the weather was not always

fine; the first month was wet and windy, and it was better to look at

the lagoon from an open casement than to respond to the advances of

persuasive gondoliers. Even then, however, there was a constant

entertainment in the view. It was all cold colour, and the steel-gray

floor of the lagoon was stroked the wrong way by the wind. Then there

were charming cool intervals, when the churches, the houses, the

anchored fishing-boats, the whole gently-curving line of the Riva,

seemed to be washed with a pearly white. Later it all turned warm--warm

to the eye as well as to other senses. After the middle of May the whole

place was in a glow. The sea took on a thousand shades, but they were

only infinite variations of blue, and those rosy walls I just spoke of

began to flush in the thick sunshine. Every patch of colour, every yard

of weather-stained stucco, every glimpse of nestling garden or daub, of

sky above a _calle_, began to shine and sparkle--began, as the painters

say, to "compose." The lagoon was streaked with odd currents, which

played across it like huge, smooth finger-marks. The gondolas multiplied

and spotted it all over; every gondola and every gondolier looking, at a

distance, precisely like every other. There is something strange and

fascinating in this mysterious impersonality of the gondola. It has an

identity when you are in it, but, thanks to their all being of the same

size, shape, and colour, and of the same deportment and gait, it has

none, or as little as possible, as you see it pass before you. From my

windows on the Riva there was always the same silhouette--the long,

black, slender skiff, lifting its head and throwing it back a little,

moving yet seeming not to move, with the grotesquely-graceful figure on

the poop. This figure inclines, as may be, more to the graceful or to

the grotesque--standing in the "second position" of the dancing-master,

but indulging, from the waist upward, in a freedom of movement which

that functionary would deprecate. One may say, as a general thing, that

there is something rather awkward in the movement of even the most

graceful gondolier, and something graceful in the movement of the most

awkward. In the graceful men of course the grace predominates, and

nothing can be finer than the large firm way in which, from their point

of vantage, they throw themselves over their tremendous oar. It has the

boldness of a plunging bird, and the regularity of a pendulum.

Sometimes, as you see this movement in profile, in a gondola that passes

you--see, as you recline on your own low cushions, the arching body of

the gondolier lifted up against the sky--it has a kind of nobleness

which suggests an image on a Greek frieze. The gondolier at Venice is

your very good friend--if you choose him happily--and on the quality of

the personage depends a good deal that of your impressions. He is a part

of your daily life, your double, your shadow, your complement. Most

people, I think, either like their gondolier or hate him; and if they

like him, like him very much. In this case they take an interest in him

after his departure; wish him to be sure of employment, speak of him as

the gem of gondoliers, and tell their friends to be certain to "secure"

him. There is usually no difficulty in securing him; there is nothing

elusive or reluctant about a gondolier. They are, for the most part,

excellent fellows, and the sentimental tourist must always have a

kindness for them. More than the rest of the population, of course, they

are the children of Venice; they are associated with its idiosyncrasy,

with its essence, with its silence, with its melancholy. When I say they

are associated with its silence, I should immediately add that they are

associated also with its sound. Among themselves they are an

extraordinarily talkative company. They chatter at the _traghetti_,

where they always have some sharp point under discussion; they bawl

across the canals; they bespeak your commands as you approach; they defy

each other from afar. If you happen to have a _traghetto_ under your

window, you are well aware that they are a vocal race. I should go even

farther than I went just now, and say that the voice of the gondolier

is, in fact, the sound of Venice. There is scarcely any other, and that,

indeed, is part of the interest of the place. There is no noise there

save distinctly human noise; no rumbling, no vague uproar, nor rattle of

wheels and hoofs. It is all articulate, personal sound. One may say,

indeed, that Venice is, emphatically, the city of conversation; people

talk all over the place, because there is nothing to interfere with

their being heard. Among the populace it is a kind of family party. The

still water carries the voice, and good Venetians exchange confidences

at a distance of half a mile. It saves a world of trouble, and they

don't like trouble. Their delightful garrulous language helps them to

make Venetian life a long _conversazione_. This language, with its soft

elisions, its odd transpositions, its kindly contempt for consonants and

other disagreeables, has in it something peculiarly human and

accommodating. If your gondolier had no other merit, he would have the

merit that he speaks Venetian. This may rank as a merit, even--some

people perhaps would say especially--when you don't understand what he

says. But he adds to it other graces which make him an agreeable feature

in your life. The price he sets on his services is touchingly small, and

he has a happy art of being obsequious, without being, or, at least,

without seeming, abject. For occasional liberalities he evinces an

almost lyrical gratitude. In short, he has delightfully good manners, a

merit which he shares, for the most part, with Venetians at large. One

grows very fond of these people, and the reason of one's fondness is the

frankness and sweetness of their address. That of the Italian people, in

general, has much to recommend it; but in the Venetian manner there is

something peculiarly ingratiating. One feels that the race is old, that

it has a long and rich civilisation in its blood, and that if it has not

been blessed by fortune, it has at least been polished by time. It has

not a genius for morality, and indeed makes few pretensions in that

direction. It scruples not to represent the false as the true, and is

liable to confusion in the attribution of property. It is peculiarly

susceptible to the tender sentiment, which it cultivates with a graceful

disregard of the more rigid formalities. I am not sure that it is very

brave, and was not struck with its being very industrious. But it has an

unfailing sense of the amenities of life; the poorest Venetian is a

natural man of the world. He is better company than persons of his class

are apt to be among the nations of industry and virtue--where people are

also, sometimes, perceived to lie and steal. He has a great desire to

please and to be pleased.

V

In this latter point the cold-blooded stranger begins at last to imitate

him; he begins to lead a life that is, before all things, good-humoured:

unless, indeed, he allow himself, like Mr. Ruskin, to be put out of his

good-humour by Titian and Tiepolo. The hours he spends among the

pictures are his best hours in Venice, and I am ashamed of myself to

have written so much of common things when I might have been making

festoons of the names of the masters. But, when we have covered our page

with such festoons, what more is left to say? When one has said

Carpaccio and Bellini, the Tintoret and the Veronese, one has struck a

note that must be left to resound at will. Everything has been said

about the mighty painters, and it is of little importance to record that

one traveller the more has found them to his taste. "Went this morning

to the Academy; was very much pleased with Titian's 'Assumption.'" That

honest phrase has doubtless been written in many a traveller's diary,

and was not indiscreet on the part of its author. But it appeals little

to the general reader, and we must, moreover, not expose our deepest

feelings. Since I have mentioned Titian's "Assumption," I must say that

there are some people who have been less pleased with it than the

gentleman we have just imagined. It is one of the possible

disappointments of Venice, and you may, if you like, take advantage of

your privilege of not caring for it. It imparts a look of great richness

to the side of the beautiful room of the Academy on which it hangs; but

the same room contains two or three works less known to fame which are

equally capable of inspiring a passion. "The 'Annunciation' struck me as

coarse and superficial": that was once written in a simple-minded

traveller's note-book. At Venice, strange to say, Titian is altogether a

disappointment; the city of his adoption is far from containing the best

of him. Madrid, Paris, London, Florence, Dresden, Munich--these are the

homes of his greatness. There are other painters who have but a single

home, and the greatest of these is the Tintoret. Close beside him sit

Carpaccio and Bellini, who make with him the dazzling Venetian trio. The

Veronese may be seen and measured in other places; he is most splendid

in Venice, but he shines in Paris and in Dresden. You may walk out of

the noon-day dusk of Trafalgar Square in November, and in one of the

chambers of the National Gallery see the family of Darius rustling and

pleading and weeping at the feet of Alexander. Alexander is a beautiful

young Venetian in crimson pantaloons, and the picture sends a glow into

the cold London twilight. You may sit before it for an hour, and dream

you are floating to the water-gate of the Ducal Palace, where a certain

old beggar, with one of the handsomest heads in the world--he has sat to

a hundred painters for Doges, and for personages more sacred--has a

prescriptive right to pretend to pull your gondola to the steps and to

hold out a greasy, immemorial cap. But you must go to Venice, in fact,

to see the other masters, who form part of your life while you are

there, and illuminate your view of the universe. It is difficult to

express one's relation to them; for the whole Venetian art-world is so

near, so familiar, so much an extension and adjunct of the actual world,

that it seems almost invidious to say one owes more to one of them than

to another. Nowhere (not even in Holland, where the correspondence

between the real aspects and the little polished canvases is so constant

and so exquisite) do art and life seem so interfused and, as it were, so

consanguineous. All the splendour of light and colour, all the Venetian

air and the Venetian history, are on the walls and ceilings of the

palaces; and all the genius of the masters, all the images and visions

they have left upon canvas, seem to tremble in the sunbeams and dance

upon the waves. That is the perpetual interest of the place--that you

live in a certain sort of knowledge as in a rosy cloud. You don't go

into the churches and galleries by way of a change from the streets; you

go into them because they offer you an exquisite reproduction of the

things that surround you. All Venice was both model and painter, and

life was so pictorial that art could not help becoming so. With all

diminutions life is pictorial still, and this fact gives an

extraordinary freshness to one's perception of the great Venetian works.

You judge of them not as a connoisseur, but as a man of the world, and

you enjoy them because they are so social and so actual. Perhaps, of all

works of art that are equally great, they demand least reflection on the

part of the spectator--they make least of a mystery of being enjoyed.

Reflection only confirms your admiration, but it is almost ashamed to

show its head. These things speak so frankly and benignantly to the

sense that we feel there is reason as well in such an address. But it is

hard, as I say, to express all this, and it is painful as well to

attempt it--painful, because in the memory of vanished hours so filled

with beauty the sense of present loss is overwhelming. Exquisite hours,

enveloped in light and silence, to have known them once is to have

always a terrible standard of enjoyment. Certain lovely mornings of May

and June come back with an ineffaceable fairness. Venice is not

smothered in flowers at this season, in the manner of Florence and Rome;

but the sea and sky themselves seem to blossom and rustle. The gondola

waits at the wave-washed steps, and if you are wise you will take your

place beside a discriminating companion. Such a companion, in Venice,

should, of course, be of the sex that discriminates most finely. An

intelligent woman who knows her Venice seems doubly intelligent, and it

makes no woman's perceptions less keen to be aware that she cannot help

looking graceful as she glides over the waves. The handsome Pasquale,

with uplifted oar, awaits your command, knowing, in a general way, from

observation of your habits, that your intention is to go to see a

picture or two. It perhaps does not immensely matter what picture you

choose: the whole affair is so charming. It is charming to wander

through the light and shade of intricate canals, with perpetual

architecture above you and perpetual fluidity beneath. It is charming to

disembark at the polished steps of a little empty _campo_--a sunny,

shabby square, with an old well in the middle, an old church on one

side, and tall Venetian windows looking down. Sometimes the windows are

tenantless; sometimes a lady in a faded dressing-gown is leaning vaguely

on the sill. There is always an old man holding out his hat for coppers;

there are always three or four small boys dodging possible

umbrella-pokes while they precede you, in the manner of custodians, to

the door of the church.