The night before the wedding we had a supper-party in my rooms. We were
twelve in all. My friend Eustace brought his gondolier Antonio with
fair-haired, dark-eyed wife, and little Attilio, their eldest child. My
own gondolier, Francesco, came with his wife and two children. Then
there was the handsome, languid Luigi, who, in his best clothes, or out
of them, is fit for any drawing-room. Two gondoliers, in dark blue
shirts, completed the list of guests, if we exclude the maid Catina, who
came and went about the table, laughing and joining in the songs, and
sitting down at intervals to take her share of wine. The big room
looking across the garden to the Grand Canal had been prepared for
supper; and the company were to be received in the smaller, which has a
fine open space in front of it to southwards. But as the guests arrived,
they seemed to find the kitchen and the cooking that was going on quite
irresistible. Catina, it seems, had lost her head with so many
cuttlefishes, _orai_, cakes, and fowls, and cutlets to reduce to order.
There was, therefore, a great bustle below stairs; and I could hear
plainly that all my guests were lending their making, or their marring,
hands to the preparation of the supper. That the company should cook
their own food on the way to the dining-room, seemed a quite novel
arrangement, but one that promised well for their contentment with the
banquet. Nobody could be dissatisfied with what was everybody's affair.
When seven o'clock struck, Eustace and I, who had been entertaining the
children in their mothers' absence, heard the sound of steps upon the
stairs. The guests arrived, bringing their own _risotto_ with them.
Welcome was short, if hearty. We sat down in carefully appointed order,
and fell into such conversation as the quarter of San Vio and our
several interests supplied. From time to time one of the matrons left
the table and descended to the kitchen, when a finishing stroke was
needed for roast pullet or stewed veal. The excuses they made their host
for supposed failure in the dishes, lent a certain grace and comic charm
to the commonplace of festivity. The entertainment was theirs as much as
mine; and they all seemed to enjoy what took the form by degrees of
curiously complicated hospitality. I do not think a well-ordered supper
at any _trattoria_, such as at first suggested itself to my imagination,
would have given any of us an equal pleasure or an equal sense of
freedom. The three children had become the guests of the whole party.
Little Attilio, propped upon an air-cushion, which puzzled him
exceedingly, ate through his supper and drank his wine with solid
satisfaction, opening the large brown eyes beneath those tufts of
clustering fair hair which promise much beauty for him in his manhood.
Francesco's boy, who is older and begins to know the world, sat with a
semi-suppressed grin upon his face, as though the humour of the
situation was not wholly hidden from him. Little Teresa too was happy,
except when her mother, a severe Pomona, with enormous earrings and
splendid _fazzoletto_ of crimson and orange dyes, pounced down upon her
for some supposed infraction of good manners--_creanza_, as they vividly
express it here. Only Luigi looked a trifle bored. But Luigi has been a
soldier, and has now attained the supercilious superiority of
young-manhood, which smokes its cigar of an evening in the piazza and
knows the merits of the different cafes.
The great business of the evening began when the eating was over, and
the decanters filled with new wine of Mirano circulated freely. The four
best singers of the party drew together; and the rest prepared
themselves to make suggestions, hum tunes, and join with fitful effect
in choruses. Antonio, who is a powerful young fellow, with bronzed
cheeks and a perfect tempest of coal-black hair in flakes upon his
forehead, has a most extraordinary soprano--sound as a bell, strong as a
trumpet, well-trained, and true to the least shade in intonation. Piero,
whose rugged Neptunian features, sea-wrinkled, tell of a rough
water-life, boasts a bass of resonant, almost pathetic quality.
Francesco has a _mezza voce_, which might, by a stretch of politeness,
be called baritone. Piero's comrade, whose name concerns us not, has
another of these nondescript voices. They sat together with their
glasses and cigars before them, sketching part-songs in outline,
striking the keynote--now higher and now lower--till they saw their
subject well in view. Then they burst into full singing, Antonio leading
with a metal note that thrilled one's ears, but still was musical.
Complicated contrapuntal pieces, such as we should call madrigals, with
ever-recurring refrains of "Venezia, gemma Triatica, sposa del mar,"
descending probably from ancient days, followed each other in quick
succession. Barcaroles, serenades, love-songs, and invitations to the
water were interwoven for relief. One of these romantic pieces had a
beautiful burden, "Dormi, o bella, o fingi di dormir," of which the
melody was fully worthy. But the most successful of all the tunes were
two with a sad motive. The one repeated incessantly "Ohime! mia madre
mori;" the other was a girl's love lament: "Perche tradirmi, perche
lasciarmi! prima d'amarmi non eri cosi!" Even the children joined in
these; and Catina, who took the solo part in the second, was inspired to
a great dramatic effort. All these were purely popular songs. The people
of Venice, however, are passionate for operas. Therefore we had duets
and solos from "Ernani," the "Ballo in Maschera," and the "Forza del
Destino," and one comic chorus from "Boccaccio," which seemed to make
them wild with pleasure. To my mind, the best of these more formal
pieces was a duet between Attila and Italia from some opera unknown to
me, which Antonio and Piero performed with incomparable spirit. It was
noticeable how, descending to the people, sung by them for love at sea,
or on excursions to the villages round Mestre, these operatic
reminiscences had lost something of their theatrical formality, and
assumed instead the serious gravity, the quaint movement, and marked
emphasis which belong to popular music in Northern and Central Italy. An
antique character was communicated even to the recitative of Verdi by
slight, almost indefinable, changes of rhythm and accent. There was no
end to the singing. "Siamo appassionati per il canto," frequently
repeated, was proved true by the profusion and variety of songs produced
from inexhaustible memories, lightly tried over, brilliantly performed,
rapidly succeeding each other. Nor were gestures wanting--lifted arms,
hands stretched to hands, flashing eyes, hair tossed from the
forehead--unconscious and appropriate action--which showed how the
spirit of the music and words alike possessed the men. One by one the
children fell asleep. Little Attilio and Teresa were tucked up beneath
my Scotch shawl at two ends of a great sofa; and not even his father's
clarion voice, in the character of Italia defying Attila to harm "le mie
superbe citta," could wake the little boy up. The night wore on. It was
past one. Eustace and I had promised to be in the church of the Gesuati
at six next morning. We, therefore, gave the guests a gentle hint, which
they as gently took. With exquisite, because perfectly unaffected,
breeding they sank for a few moments into common conversation, then
wrapped the children up, and took their leave. It was an uncomfortable,
warm, wet night of sullen _scirocco_.
The next day, which was Sunday, Francesco called me at five. There was
no visible sunrise that cheerless damp October morning. Grey dawn stole
somehow imperceptibly between the veil of clouds and leaden waters, as
my friend and I, well sheltered by our _felze_, passed into the
Giudecca, and took our station before the church of the Gesuati. A few
women from the neighbouring streets and courts crossed the bridges in
draggled petticoats on their way to first mass. A few men, shouldering
their jackets, lounged along the Zattere, opened the great green doors,
and entered. Then suddenly Antonio cried out that the bridal party was
on its way, not as we had expected, in boats, but on foot. We left our
gondola, and fell into the ranks, after shaking hands with Francesco,
who is the elder brother of the bride. There was nothing very noticeable
in her appearance, except her large dark eyes. Otherwise both face and
figure were of a common type; and her bridal dress of sprigged grey
silk, large veil and orange blossoms, reduced her to the level of a
_bourgeoise_. It was much the same with the bridegroom. His features,
indeed, proved him a true Venetian gondolier; for the skin was strained
over the cheekbones, and the muscles of the throat beneath the jaws
stood out like cords, and the bright blue eyes were deep-set beneath a
spare brown forehead. But he had provided a complete suit of black for
the occasion, and wore a shirt of worked cambric, which disguised what
is really splendid in the physique of these oarsmen, at once slender and
sinewy. Both bride and bridegroom looked uncomfortable in their clothes.
The light that fell upon them in the church was dull and leaden. The
ceremony, which was very hurriedly performed by an unctuous priest, did
not appear to impress either of them. Nobody in the bridal party,
crowding together on both sides of the altar, looked as though the
service was of the slightest interest and moment. Indeed, this was
hardly to be wondered at; for the priest, so far as I could understand
his gabble, took the larger portion for read, after muttering the first
words of the rubric. A little carven image of an acolyte--a weird boy
who seemed to move by springs, whose hair had all the semblance of
painted wood, and whose complexion was white and red like a clown's--did
not make matters more intelligible by spasmodically clattering
responses.
After the ceremony we heard mass and contributed to three distinct
offertories. Considering how much account even two _soldi_ are to these
poor people, I was really angry when I heard the copper shower. Every
member of the party had his or her pennies ready, and dropped them into
the boxes. Whether it was the effect of the bad morning, or the ugliness
of a very ill-designed _barocco_ building, or the fault of the fat oily
priest, I know not. But the _sposalizio_ struck me as tame and
cheerless, the mass as irreverent and vulgarly conducted. At the same
time there is something too impressive in the mass for any perfunctory
performance to divest its symbolism of sublimity. A Protestant Communion
Service lends itself more easily to degradation by unworthiness in the
minister.
We walked down the church in double file, led by the bride and
bridegroom, who had knelt during the ceremony with the best
man--_compare_, as he is called--at a narrow _prie-dieu_ before the
altar. The _compare_ is a person of distinction at these weddings. He
has to present the bride with a great pyramid of artificial flowers,
which is placed before her at the marriage-feast, a packet of candles,
and a box of bonbons. The comfits, when the box is opened, are found to
include two magnificent sugar babies lying in their cradles. I was told
that a _compare_, who does the thing handsomely, must be prepared to
spend about a hundred francs upon these presents, in addition to the
wine and cigars with which he treats his friends. On this occasion the
women were agreed that he had done his duty well. He was a fat, wealthy
little man, who lived by letting market-boats for hire on the Rialto.
From the church to the bride's house was a walk of some three minutes.
On the way we were introduced to the father of the bride--a very
magnificent personage, with points of strong resemblance to Vittorio
Emmanuele. He wore an enormous broad-brimmed hat and emerald-green
earrings, and looked considerably younger than his eldest son,
Francesco. Throughout the _nozze_ he took the lead in a grand imperious
fashion of his own. Wherever he went, he seemed to fill the place, and
was fully aware of his own importance. In Florence I think he would have
got the nickname of _Tacchin_, or turkey-cock. Here at Venice the sons
and daughters call their parent briefly _Vecchio_. I heard him so
addressed with a certain amount of awe, expecting an explosion of
bubbly-jock displeasure. But he took it, as though it was natural,
without disturbance. The other _Vecchio_, father of the bridegroom,
struck me as more sympathetic. He was a gentle old man, proud of his
many prosperous, laborious sons. They, like the rest of the gentlemen,
were gondoliers. Both the _Vecchi_, indeed, continue to ply their trade,
day and night, at the _traghetto_.
_Traghetti_ are stations for gondolas at different points of the canals.
As their name implies, it is the first duty of the gondoliers upon them
to ferry people across. This they do for the fixed fee of five centimes.
The _traghetti_ are in fact Venetian cab-stands. And, of course, like
London cabs, the gondolas may be taken off them for trips. The
municipality, however, makes it a condition, under penalty of fine to
the _traghetto_, that each station should always be provided with two
boats for the service of the ferry. When vacancies occur on the
_traghetti_, a gondolier who owns or hires a boat makes application to
the municipality, receives a number, and is inscribed as plying at a
certain station. He has now entered a sort of guild, which is presided
over by a _Capo-traghetto_, elected by the rest for the protection of
their interests, the settlement of disputes, and the management of their
common funds. In the old acts of Venice this functionary is styled
_Gastaldo di traghetto_. The members have to contribute something yearly
to the guild. This payment varies upon different stations, according to
the greater or less amount of the tax levied by the municipality on the
_traghetto_. The highest subscription I have heard of is twenty-five
francs; the lowest, seven. There is one _traghetto_, known by the name
of Madonna del Giglio or Zobenigo, which possesses near its _pergola_ of
vines a nice old brown Venetian picture. Some stranger offered a
considerable sum for this. But the guild refused to part with it.
As may be imagined, the _traghetti_ vary greatly in the amount and
quality of their custom. By far the best are those in the neighbourhood
of the hotels upon the Grand Canal. At any one of these a gondolier
during the season is sure of picking up some foreigner or other who will
pay him handsomely for comparatively light service. A _traghetto_ on the
Giudecca, on the contrary, depends upon Venetian traffic. The work is
more monotonous, and the pay is reduced to its tariffed minimum. So far
as I can gather, an industrious gondolier, with a good boat, belonging
to a good _traghetto_, may make as much as ten or fifteen francs in a
single day. But this cannot be relied on. They therefore prefer a fixed
appointment with a private family, for which they receive by tariff five
francs a day, or by arrangement for long periods perhaps four francs a
day, with certain perquisites and small advantages. It is great luck to
get such an engagement for the winter. The heaviest anxieties which
beset a gondolier are then disposed of. Having entered private service,
they are not allowed to ply their trade on the _traghetto_, except by
stipulation with their masters. Then they may take their place one night
out of every six in the rank and file. The gondoliers have two proverbs,
which show how desirable it is, while taking a fixed engagement, to keep
their hold on the _traghetto_. One is to this effect: _il traghetto e un
buon padrone_. The other satirises the meanness of the poverty-stricken
Venetian nobility: _pompa di servitu, misera insegna_. When they combine
the _traghetto_ with private service, the municipality insists on their
retaining the number painted on their gondola; and against this their
employers frequently object. It is, therefore, a great point for a
gondolier to make such an arrangement with his master as will leave him
free to show his number. The reason for this regulation is obvious.
Gondoliers are known more by their numbers and their _traghetti_ than
their names. They tell me that though there are upwards of a thousand
registered in Venice, each man of the trade knows the whole
confraternity by face and number. Taking all things into consideration,
I think four francs a day the whole year round are very good earnings
for a gondolier. On this he will marry and rear a family, and put a
little money by. A young unmarried man, working at two and a half or
three francs a day, is proportionately well-to-do. If he is economical,
he ought upon these wages to save enough in two or three years to buy
himself a gondola. A boy from fifteen to nineteen is called a
_mezz'uomo_, and gets about one franc a day. A new gondola with all its
fittings is worth about a thousand francs. It does not last in good
condition more than six or seven years. At the end of that time the hull
will fetch eighty francs. A new hull can be had for three hundred
francs. The old fittings--brass sea-horses or _cavalli_, steel prow or
_ferro_, covered cabin or _felze_, cushions and leather-covered
back-board or _stramazetto_, may be transferred to it. When a man wants
to start a gondola, he will begin by buying one already half past
service--a _gondola da traghetto_ or _di mezza eta_. This should cost
him something over two hundred francs. Little by little, he accumulates
the needful fittings; and when his first purchase is worn out, he hopes
to set up with a well-appointed equipage. He thus gradually works his
way from the rough trade which involves hard work and poor earnings to
that more profitable industry which cannot be carried on without a smart
boat. The gondola is a source of continual expense for repairs. Its oars
have to be replaced. It has to be washed with sponges, blacked, and
varnished. Its bottom needs frequent cleaning. Weeds adhere to it in the
warm brackish water, growing rapidly through the summer months, and
demanding to be scrubbed off once in every four weeks. The gondolier has
no place where he can do this for himself. He therefore takes his boat
to a wharf, or _squero_, as the place is called. At these _squeri_
gondolas are built as well as cleaned. The fee for a thorough setting to
rights of the boat is five francs. It must be done upon a fine day. Thus
in addition to the cost, the owner loses a good day's work.
These details will serve to give some notion of the sort of people with
whom Eustace and I spent our day. The bride's house is in an excellent
position on an open canal leading from the Canalozzo to the Giudecca.
She had arrived before us, and received her friends in the middle of the
room. Each of us in turn kissed her cheek and murmured our
congratulations. We found the large living-room of the house arranged
with chairs all round the walls, and the company were marshalled in some
order of precedence, my friend and I taking place near the bride. On
either hand airy bed-rooms opened out, and two large doors, wide open,
gave a view from where we sat of a good-sized kitchen. This arrangement
of the house was not only comfortable, but pretty; for the bright copper
pans and pipkins ranged on shelves along the kitchen walls had a very
cheerful effect. The walls were whitewashed, but literally covered with
all sorts of pictures. A great plaster cast from some antique, an Atys,
Adonis, or Paris, looked down from a bracket placed between the windows.
There was enough furniture, solid and well kept, in all the rooms. Among
the pictures were full-length portraits in oils of two celebrated
gondoliers--one in antique costume, the other painted a few years since.
The original of the latter soon came and stood before it. He had won
regatta prizes; and the flags of four discordant colours were painted
round him by the artist, who had evidently cared more to commemorate the
triumphs of his sitter and to strike a likeness than to secure the tone of
his own picture. This champion turned out a fine fellow--Corradini--with
one of the brightest little gondoliers of thirteen for his son.
After the company were seated, lemonade and cakes were handed round
amid a hubbub of chattering women. Then followed cups of black coffee
and more cakes. Then a glass of Cyprus and more cakes. Then a glass of
curacoa and more cakes. Finally, a glass of noyau and still more cakes.
It was only a little after seven in the morning. Yet politeness
compelled us to consume these delicacies. I tried to shirk my duty; but
this discretion was taken by my hosts for well-bred modesty; and instead
of being let off, I had the richest piece of pastry and the largest
macaroon available pressed so kindly on me, that, had they been
poisoned, I would not have refused to eat them. The conversation grew
more and more animated, the women gathering together in their dresses of
bright blue and scarlet, the men lighting cigars and puffing out a few
quiet words. It struck me as a drawback that these picturesque people
had put on Sunday-clothes to look as much like shop-keepers as possible.
But they did not all of them succeed. Two handsome women, who handed the
cups round--one a brunette, the other a blonde--wore skirts of brilliant
blue, with a sort of white jacket, and white kerchief folded heavily
about their shoulders. The brunette had a great string of coral, the
blonde of amber, round her throat. Gold earrings and the long gold
chains Venetian women wear, of all patterns and degrees of value,
abounded. Nobody appeared without them; but I could not see any of an
antique make. The men seemed to be contented with rings--huge, heavy
rings of solid gold, worked with a rough flower pattern. One young
fellow had three upon his fingers. This circumstance led me to speculate
whether a certain portion at least of this display of jewellery around
me had not been borrowed for the occasion.
Eustace and I were treated quite like friends. They called us _I
Signori_. But this was only, I think, because our English names are
quite unmanageable. The women fluttered about us and kept asking whether
we really liked it all? whether we should come to the _pranzo_? whether
it was true we danced? It seemed to give them unaffected pleasure to be
kind to us; and when we rose to go away, the whole company crowded
round, shaking hands and saying: "_Si divertira bene stasera_!" Nobody
resented our presence; what was better, no one put himself out for us.
"_Vogliono veder il nostro costume_," I heard one woman say.
We got home soon after eight, and, as our ancestors would have said,
settled our stomachs with a dish of tea. It makes me shudder now to
think of the mixed liquids and miscellaneous cakes we had consumed at
that unwonted hour.
At half-past three, Eustace and I again prepared ourselves for action.
His gondola was in attendance, covered with the _felze_, to take us to
the house of the _sposa_. We found the canal crowded with poor people of
the quarter--men, women, and children lining the walls along its side,
and clustering like bees upon the bridges. The water itself was almost
choked with gondolas. Evidently the folk of San Vio thought our wedding
procession would be a most exciting pageant. We entered the house, and
were again greeted by the bride and bridegroom, who consigned each of us
to the control of a fair tyrant. This is the most fitting way of
describing our introduction to our partners of the evening; for we were
no sooner presented, than the ladies swooped upon us like their prey,
placing their shawls upon our left arms, while they seized and clung to
what was left available of us for locomotion. There was considerable
giggling and tittering throughout the company when Signora Fenzo, the
young and comely wife of a gondolier, thus took possession of Eustace,
and Signora dell'Acqua, the widow of another gondolier, appropriated me.
The affair had been arranged beforehand, and their friends had probably
chaffed them with the difficulty of managing two mad Englishmen.
However, they proved equal to the occasion, and the difficulties were
entirely on our side. Signora Fenzo was a handsome brunette, quiet in
her manners, who meant business. I envied Eustace his subjection to such
a reasonable being. Signora dell'Acqua, though a widow, was by no means
disconsolate; and I soon perceived that it would require all the address
and diplomacy I possessed, to make anything out of her society. She
laughed incessantly; darted in the most diverse directions, dragging me
along with her; exhibited me in triumph to her cronies; made eyes at me
over a fan; repeated my clumsiest remarks, as though they gave her
indescribable amusement; and all the while jabbered Venetian at express
rate, without the slightest regard for my incapacity to follow her
vagaries. The _Vecchio_ marshalled us in order. First went the _sposa_
and _comare_ with the mothers of bride and bridegroom. Then followed the
_sposo_ and the bridesmaid. After them I was made to lead my fair
tormentor. As we descended the staircase there arose a hubbub of
excitement from the crowd on the canals. The gondolas moved turbidly
upon the face of the waters. The bridegroom kept muttering to himself,
"How we shall be criticised! They will tell each other who was decently
dressed, and who stepped awkwardly into the boats, and what the price of
my boots was!" Such exclamations, murmured at intervals, and followed by
chest-drawn sighs, expressed a deep preoccupation. With regard to his
boots, he need have had no anxiety. They were of the shiniest patent
leather, much too tight, and without a speck of dust upon them. But his
nervousness infected me with a cruel dread. All those eyes were going to
watch how we comported ourselves in jumping from the landing-steps into
the boat! If this operation, upon a ceremonious occasion, has terrors
even for a gondolier, how formidable it ought to be to me! And here is
the Signora dell'Acqua's white cachemire shawl dangling on one arm, and
the Signora herself languishingly clinging to the other; and the
gondolas are fretting in a fury of excitement, like corks, upon the
churned green water! The moment was terrible. The _sposa_ and her three
companions had been safely stowed away beneath their _felze_. The
_sposo_ had successfully handed the bridesmaid into the second gondola.
I had to perform the same office for my partner. Off she went, like a
bird, from the bank. I seized a happy moment, followed, bowed, and found
myself to my contentment gracefully ensconced in a corner opposite the
widow. Seven more gondolas were packed. The procession moved. We glided
down the little channel, broke away into the Grand Canal, crossed it,
and dived into a labyrinth from which we finally emerged before our
destination, the Trattoria di San Gallo. The perils of the landing were
soon over; and, with the rest of the guests, my mercurial companion and
I slowly ascended a long flight of stairs leading to a vast upper
chamber. Here we were to dine.
It had been the gallery of some palazzo in old days, was above one
hundred feet in length, fairly broad, with a roof of wooden rafters and
large windows opening on a courtyard garden. I could see the tops of
three cypress-trees cutting the grey sky upon a level with us. A long
table occupied the centre of this room. It had been laid for upwards of
forty persons, and we filled it. There was plenty of light from great
glass lustres blazing with gas. When the ladies had arranged their
dresses, and the gentlemen had exchanged a few polite remarks, we all
sat down to dinner--I next my inexorable widow, Eustace beside his calm
and comely partner. The first impression was one of disappointment. It
looked so like a public dinner of middle-class people. There was no
local character in costume or customs. Men and women sat politely bored,
expectant, trifling with their napkins, yawning, muttering nothings
about the weather or their neighbours. The frozen commonplaceness of the
scene was made for me still more oppressive by Signora dell'Acqua. She
was evidently satirical, and could not be happy unless continually
laughing at or with somebody. "What a stick the woman will think me!" I
kept saying to myself. "How shall I ever invent jokes in this strange
land? I cannot even flirt with her in Venetian! And here I have
condemned myself--and her too, poor thing--to sit through at least three
hours of mortal dulness!" Yet the widow was by no means unattractive.
Dressed in black, she had contrived by an artful arrangement of lace and
jewellery to give an air of lightness to her costume. She had a pretty
little pale face, a _minois chiffonne_, with slightly turned-up nose,
large laughing brown eyes, a dazzling set of teeth, and a tempestuously
frizzled mop of powdered hair. When I managed to get a side-look at her
quietly, without being giggled at or driven half mad by unintelligible
incitements to a jocularity I could not feel, it struck me that, if we
once found a common term of communication we should become good friends.
But for the moment that _modus vivendi_ seemed unattainable. She had not
recovered from the first excitement of her capture of me. She was still
showing me off and trying to stir me up. The arrival of the soup gave me
a momentary relief; and soon the serious business of the afternoon
began. I may add that before dinner was over, the Signora dell'Acqua and
I were fast friends. I had discovered the way of making jokes, and she
had become intelligible. I found her a very nice, though flighty, little
woman; and I believe she thought me gifted with the faculty of uttering
eccentric epigrams in a grotesque tongue. Some of my remarks were flung
about the table, and had the same success as uncouth Lombard carvings
have with connoisseurs in _naivetes_ of art. By that time we had come to
be _compare_ and _comare_ to each other--the sequel of some clumsy piece
of jocularity.
It was a heavy entertainment, copious in quantity, excellent in quality,
plainly but well cooked. I remarked there was no fish. The widow replied
that everybody present ate fish to satiety at home. They did not join a
marriage feast at the San Gallo, and pay their nine francs, for that! It
should be observed that each guest paid for his own entertainment. This
appears to be the custom. Therefore attendance is complimentary, and
the married couple are not at ruinous charges for the banquet. A curious
feature in the whole proceeding had its origin in this custom. I noticed
that before each cover lay an empty plate, and that my partner began
with the first course to heap upon it what she had not eaten. She also
took large helpings, and kept advising me to do the same. I said: "No; I
only take what I want to eat; if I fill that plate in front of me as you
are doing, it will be great waste." This remark elicited shrieks of
laughter from all who heard it; and when the hubbub had subsided, I
perceived an apparently official personage bearing down upon Eustace,
who was in the same perplexity. It was then circumstantially explained
to us that the empty plates were put there in order that we might lay
aside what we could not conveniently eat, and take it home with us. At
the end of the dinner the widow (whom I must now call my _comare_) had
accumulated two whole chickens, half a turkey, and a large assortment of
mixed eatables. I performed my duty and won her regard by placing
delicacies at her disposition.
Crudely stated, this proceeding moves disgust. But that is only because
one has not thought the matter out. In the performance there was nothing
coarse or nasty. These good folk had made a contract at so much a
head--so many fowls, so many pounds of beef, &c., to be supplied; and
what they had fairly bought, they clearly had a right to. No one, so far
as I could notice, tried to take more than his proper share; except,
indeed, Eustace and myself. In our first eagerness to conform to custom,
we both overshot the mark, and grabbed at disproportionate helpings.
The waiters politely observed that we were taking what was meant for
two; and as the courses followed in interminable sequence, we soon
acquired the tact of what was due to us.
Meanwhile the room grew warm. The gentlemen threw off their coats--a
pleasant liberty of which I availed myself, and was immediately more at
ease. The ladies divested themselves of their shoes (strange to relate!)
and sat in comfort with their stockinged feet upon the _scagliola_
pavement. I observed that some cavaliers by special permission were
allowed to remove their partners' slippers. This was not my lucky fate.
My _comare_ had not advanced to that point of intimacy. Healths began to
be drunk. The conversation took a lively turn; and women went fluttering
round the table, visiting their friends, to sip out of their glass, and
ask each other how they were getting on. It was not long before the
stiff veneer of _bourgeoisie_ which bored me had worn off. The people
emerged in their true selves: natural, gentle, sparkling with enjoyment,
playful. Playful is, I think, the best word to describe them. They
played with infinite grace and innocence, like kittens, from the old men
of sixty to the little boys of thirteen. Very little wine was drunk.
Each guest had a litre placed before him. Many did not finish theirs;
and for very few was it replenished. When at last the desert arrived,
and the bride's comfits had been handed round, they began to sing. It
was very pretty to see a party of three or four friends gathering round
some popular beauty, and paying her compliments in verse--they grouped
behind her chair, she sitting back in it and laughing up to them, and
joining in the chorus. The words, "Brunetta mia simpatica, ti amo sempre
piu," sung after this fashion to Eustace's handsome partner, who puffed
delicate whiffs from a Russian cigarette, and smiled her thanks, had a
peculiar appropriateness. All the ladies, it may be observed in passing,
had by this time lit their cigarettes. The men were smoking Toscani,
Sellas, or Cavours, and the little boys were dancing round the table
breathing smoke from their pert nostrils.
The dinner, in fact, was over. Other relatives of the guests arrived,
and then we saw how some of the reserved dishes were to be bestowed. A
side-table was spread at the end of the gallery, and these late-comers
were regaled with plenty by their friends. Meanwhile, the big table at
which we had dined was taken to pieces and removed. The _scagliola_
floor was swept by the waiters. Musicians came streaming in and took
their places. The ladies resumed their shoes. Every one prepared to
dance.
My friend and I were now at liberty to chat with the men. He knew some
of them by sight, and claimed acquaintance with others. There was plenty
of talk about different boats, gondolas, and sandolos and topos, remarks
upon the past season, and inquiries as to chances of engagements in the
future. One young fellow told us how he had been drawn for the army, and
should be obliged to give up his trade just when he had begun to make it
answer. He had got a new gondola, and this would have to be hung up
during the years of his service. The warehousing of a boat in these
circumstances costs nearly one hundred francs a year, which is a serious
tax upon the pockets of a private in the line. Many questions were put
in turn to us, but all of the same tenor. "Had we really enjoyed the
_pranzo_? Now, really, were we amusing ourselves? And did we think the
custom of the wedding _un bel costume_?" We could give an unequivocally
hearty response to all these interrogations. The men seemed pleased.
Their interest in our enjoyment was unaffected. It is noticeable how
often the word _divertimento_ is heard upon the lips of the Italians.
They have a notion that it is the function in life of the _Signori_ to
amuse themselves.
The ball opened, and now we were much besought by the ladies. I had to
deny myself with a whole series of comical excuses. Eustace performed
his duty after a stiff English fashion--once with his pretty partner of
the _pranzo_, and once again with a fat gondolier. The band played
waltzes and polkas, chiefly upon patriotic airs--the Marcia Reale,
Garibaldi's Hymn, &c. Men danced with men, women with women, little boys
and girls together. The gallery whirled with a laughing crowd. There was
plenty of excitement and enjoyment--not an unseemly or extravagant word
or gesture. My _comare_ careered about with a light maenadic impetuosity,
which made me regret my inability to accept her pressing invitations.
She pursued me into every corner of the room, but when at last I dropped
excuses and told her that my real reason for not dancing was that it
would hurt my health, she waived her claims at once with an _Ah,
poverino_!
Some time after midnight we felt that we had had enough of
_divertimento_. Francesco helped us to slip out unobserved. With many
silent good wishes we left the innocent, playful people who had been so
kind to us. The stars were shining from a watery sky as we passed into
the piazza beneath the Campanile and the pinnacles of S. Mark. The Riva
was almost empty, and the little waves fretted the boats moored to the
piazzetta, as a warm moist breeze went fluttering by. We smoked a last
cigar, crossed our _traghetto_, and were soon sound asleep at the end of
a long, pleasant day. The ball, we heard next morning, finished about
four.
Since that evening I have had plenty of opportunities for seeing my
friends the gondoliers, both in their own homes and in my apartment.
Several have entertained me at their mid-day meal of fried fish and
amber-coloured polenta. These repasts were always cooked with scrupulous
cleanliness, and served upon a table covered with coarse linen. The
polenta is turned out upon a wooden platter, and cut with a string
called _lassa_. You take a large slice of it on the palm of the left
hand, and break it with the fingers of the right. Wholesome red wine of
the Paduan district and good white bread were never wanting. The rooms
in which we met to eat looked out on narrow lanes or over pergolas of
yellowing vines. Their whitewashed walls were hung with photographs of
friends and foreigners, many of them souvenirs from English or American
employers. The men, in broad black hats and lilac skirts, sat round the
table, girt with the red waist-wrapper, or _fascia_, which marks the
ancient faction of the Castellani. The other faction, called Nicolotti,
are distinguished by a black _assisa_. The quarters of the town are
divided unequally and irregularly into these two parties. What was once
a formidable rivalry between two sections of the Venetian populace,
still survives in challenges to trials of strength and skill upon the
water. The women, in their many-coloured kerchiefs, stirred polenta at
the smoke-blackened chimney, whose huge pent-house roof projects two
feet or more across the hearth. When they had served the table they took
their seat on low stools, knitted stockings, or drank out of glasses
handed across the shoulder to them by their lords. Some of these women
were clearly notable housewives, and I have no reason to suppose that
they do not take their full share of the housework. Boys and girls came
in and out, and got a portion of the dinner to consume where they
thought best. Children went tottering about upon the red-brick floor,
the playthings of those hulking fellows, who handled them very gently
and spoke kindly in a sort of confidential whisper to their ears. These
little ears were mostly pierced for earrings, and the light blue eyes of
the urchins peeped maliciously beneath shocks of yellow hair. A dog was
often of the party. He ate fish like his masters, and was made to beg
for it by sitting up and rowing with his paws. _Voga, Azzo, voga!_ The
Anzolo who talked thus to his little brown Spitz-dog has the hoarse
voice of a Triton and the movement of an animated sea-wave. Azzo
performed his trick, swallowed his fish-bones, and the fiery Anzolo
looked round approvingly.
On all these occasions I have found these gondoliers the same
sympathetic, industrious, cheery affectionate folk. They live in many
respects a hard and precarious life. The winter in particular is a time
of anxiety, and sometimes of privation, even to the well-to-do among
them. Work then is scarce, and what there is, is rendered disagreeable
to them by the cold. Yet they take their chance with facile temper, and
are not soured by hardships. The amenities of the Venetian sea and air,
the healthiness of the lagoons, the cheerful bustle of the poorer
quarters, the brilliancy of this Southern sunlight, and the beauty which
is everywhere apparent, must be reckoned as important factors in the
formation of their character. And of that character, as I have said, the
final note is playfulness. In spite of difficulties, their life has
never been stern enough to sadden them. Bare necessities are
marvellously cheap, and the pinch of real bad weather--such frost as
locked the lagoons in ice two years ago, or such south-western gales as
flooded the basement floors of all the houses on the Zattere--is rare
and does not last long. On the other hand, their life has never been so
lazy as to reduce them to the savagery of the traditional Neapolitan
lazzaroni. They have had to work daily for small earnings, but under
favourable conditions, and their labour has been lightened by much
good-fellowship among themselves, by the amusements of their _feste_ and
their singing clubs.
Of course it is not easy for a stranger in a very different social
position to feel that he has been admitted to their confidence. Italians
have an ineradicable habit of making themselves externally agreeable, of
bending in all indifferent matters to the whims and wishes of superiors,
and of saying what they think _Signori_ like. This habit, while it
smoothes the surface of existence, raises up a barrier of compliment and
partial insincerity, against which the more downright natures of us
Northern folk break in vain efforts. Our advances are met with an
imperceptible but impermeable resistance by the very people who are bent
on making the world pleasant to us. It is the very reverse of that dour
opposition which a Lowland Scot or a North English peasant offers to
familiarity; but it is hardly less insurmountable. The treatment, again,
which Venetians of the lower class have received through centuries from
their own nobility, makes attempts at fraternisation on the part of
gentlemen unintelligible to them. The best way, here and elsewhere, of
overcoming these obstacles is to have some bond of work or interest in
common--of service on the one side rendered, and good-will on the other
honestly displayed. The men of whom I have been speaking will, I am
convinced, not shirk their share of duty or make unreasonable claims
upon the generosity of their employers.