At the end of a long glorious day, unhappy is that mortal whom the
Hermes of a cosmopolitan hotel, white-chokered and white-waistcoated,
marshals to the Hades of the _table-d'hote_. The world has often been
compared to an inn; but on my way down to this common meal I have, not
unfrequently, felt fain to reverse the simile. From their separate
stations, at the appointed hour, the guests like ghosts flit to a gloomy
gas-lit chamber. They are of various speech and race, preoccupied with
divers interests and cares. Necessity and the waiter drive them all to a
sepulchral syssition, whereof the cook too frequently deserves that old
Greek comic epithet--+hadou mageiros+--cook of the Inferno. And just as
we are told that in Charon's boat we shall not be allowed to pick our
society, so here we must accept what fellowship the fates provide. An
English spinster retailing paradoxes culled to-day from Ruskin's
handbooks; an American citizen describing his jaunt in a gondola from
the railway station; a German shopkeeper descanting in one breath on
Baur's Bock and the beauties of the Marcusplatz; an intelligent aesthete
bent on working into clearness his own views of Carpaccio's genius: all
these in turn, or all together, must be suffered gladly through
well-nigh two long hours. Uncomforted in soul we rise from the expensive
banquet; and how often rise from it unfed!
Far other be the doom of my own friends--of pious bards and genial
companions, lovers of natural and lovely things! Nor for these do I
desire a seat at Florian's marble tables, or a perch in Quadri's
window, though the former supply dainty food, and the latter command a
bird's-eye view of the Piazza. Rather would I lead them to a certain
humble tavern on the Zattere. It is a quaint, low-built, unpretending
little place, near a bridge, with a garden hard by which sends a
cataract of honeysuckles sunward over a too-jealous wall. In front lies
a Mediterranean steamer, which all day long has been discharging cargo.
Gazing westward up Giudecca, masts and funnels bar the sunset and the
Paduan hills; and from a little front room of the _trattoria_ the view
is so marine that one keeps fancying oneself in some ship's cabin.
Sea-captains sit and smoke beside their glass of grog in the pavilion
and the _caffe_. But we do not seek their company at dinner-time. Our
way lies under yonder arch, and up the narrow alley into a paved court.
Here are oleanders in pots, and plants of Japanese spindle-wood in tubs;
and from the walls beneath the window hang cages of all sorts of
birds--a talking parrot, a whistling blackbird, goldfinches, canaries,
linnets. Athos, the fat dog, who goes to market daily in a _barchetta_
with his master, snuffs around. "Where are Porthos and Aramis, my
friend?" Athos does not take the joke; he only wags his stump of tail
and pokes his nose into my hand. What a Tartufe's nose it is! Its bridge
displays the full parade of leather-bound brass-nailed muzzle. But
beneath, this muzzle is a patent sham. The frame does not even pretend
to close on Athos' jaw, and the wise dog wears it like a decoration. A
little farther we meet that ancient grey cat, who has no discoverable
name, but is famous for the sprightliness and grace with which she bears
her eighteen years. Not far from the cat one is sure to find Carlo--the
bird-like, bright-faced, close-cropped Venetian urchin, whose duty it is
to trot backwards and forwards between the cellar and the dining-tables.
At the end of the court we walk into the kitchen, where the black-capped
little _padrone_ and the gigantic white-capped _chef_ are in close
consultation. Here we have the privilege of inspecting the larder--fish
of various sorts, meat, vegetables, several kinds of birds, pigeons,
tordi, beccafichi, geese, wild ducks, chickens, woodcock, &c .,
according to the season. We select our dinner, and retire to eat it
either in the court among the birds beneath the vines, or in the low
dark room which occupies one side of it. Artists of many nationalities
and divers ages frequent this house; and the talk arising from the
several little tables, turns upon points of interest and beauty in the
life and landscape of Venice. There can be no difference of opinion
about the excellence of the _cuisine_, or about the reasonable charges
of this _trattoria_. A soup of lentils, followed by boiled turbot or
fried soles, beef-steak or mutton cutlets, tordi or beccafichi, with a
salad, the whole enlivened with good red wine or Florio's Sicilian
Marsala from the cask, costs about four francs. Gas is unknown in the
establishment. There is no noise, no bustle, no brutality of waiters, no
_ahurissement_ of tourists. And when dinner is done, we can sit awhile
over our cigarette and coffee, talking until the night invites us to a
stroll along the Zattere or a _giro_ in the gondola.