Night in Venice! Night is nowhere else so wonderful, unless it be winter
among the high Alps. But the nights of Venice and the nights of the
mountains are too different in kind to be compared.
There is the ever-recurring miracle of the full moon rising, before day
is dead, behind San Giorgio, spreading a path of gold on the lagoon
which black boats traverse with the glow-worm lamp upon their prow;
ascending the cloudless sky and silvering the domes of the Salute;
pouring vitreous sheen upon the red lights of the Piazzetta; flooding
the Grand Canal, and lifting the Rialto higher in ethereal whiteness;
piercing but penetrating not the murky labyrinth of _rio_ linked with
_rio_, through which we wind in light and shadow, to reach once more the
level glories and the luminous expanse of heaven beyond the
Misericordia.
This is the melodrama of Venetian moonlight; and if a single impression
of the night has to be retained from one visit to Venice, those are
fortunate who chance upon a full moon of fair weather. Yet I know not
whether some quieter and soberer effects are not more thrilling.
To-night, for example, the waning moon will rise late through veils of
_scirocco_. Over the bridges of San Cristoforo and San Gregorio, through
the deserted Calle di Mezzo, my friend and I walk in darkness, pass the
marble basements of the Salute, and push our way along its Riva to the
point of the Dogana. We are out at sea alone, between the Canalozzo and
the Giudecca. A moist wind ruffles the water and cools our forehead. It
is so dark that we can only see San Giorgio by the light reflected on
it from the Piazzetta. The same light climbs the Campanile of S. Mark,
and shows the golden angel in mystery of gloom. The only noise that
reaches us is a confused hum from the Piazza. Sitting and musing there,
the blackness of the water whispers in our ears a tale of death. And now
we hear a plash of oars and gliding through the darkness comes a single
boat. One man leaps upon the landing-place without a word and
disappears. There is another wrapped in a military cloak asleep. I see
his face beneath me, pale and quiet. The _barcaruolo_ turns the point in
silence. From the darkness they came; into the darkness they have gone.
It is only an ordinary incident of coastguard service. But the spirit of
the night has made a poem of it.
Even tempestuous and rainy weather, though melancholy enough, is never
sordid here. There is no noise from carriage traffic in Venice, and the
sea-wind preserves the purity and transparency of the atmosphere. It had
been raining all day, but at evening came a partial clearing. I went
down to the Molo, where the large reach of the lagoon was all
moon-silvered, and San Giorgio Maggiore dark against the blueish sky,
and Santa Maria della Salute domed with moon-irradiated pearl, and the
wet slabs of the Riva shimmering in moonlight, the whole misty sky, with
its clouds and stellar spaces, drenched in moonlight, nothing but
moonlight sensible except the tawny flare of gas-lamps and the orange
lights of gondolas afloat upon the waters. On such a night the very
spirit of Venice is abroad. We feel why she is called Bride of the Sea.
Take yet another night. There had been a representation of Verdi's
"Forza del Destino" at the Teatro Malibran. After midnight we walked
homeward through the Merceria, crossed the Piazza, and dived into the
narrow _calle_ which leads to the _traghetto_ of the Salute. It was a
warm moist starless night, and there seemed no air to breathe in those
narrow alleys. The gondolier was half asleep. Eustace called him as we
jumped into his boat, and rang our _soldi_ on the gunwale. Then he arose
and turned the _ferro_ round, and stood across towards the Salute.
Silently, insensibly, from the oppression of confinement in the airless
streets to the liberty and immensity of the water and the night we
passed. It was but two minutes ere we touched the shore and said
good-night, and went our way and left the ferryman. But in that brief
passage he had opened our souls to everlasting things--the freshness,
and the darkness, and the kindness of the brooding, all-enfolding night
above the sea.