SUNSET FROM THE TOWER OF SAN GIORGIO
"It is not a good plan to leave the square from the steps in front of
the two great columns," Rafael explained, as he went toward the
landing-place opposite the Doge's palace, where he always moored his
boat.
"Why is it not a good plan?" asked Edith.
"Because it might later make us run into a mud-bank," he answered
merrily. "Whenever any one is executed in Venice, it has to be done
between those two columns, and that has made the spot most unlucky.
People used to gamble there before it was the place for executions,
but now, of course, no one thinks of such a thing."
"I should hope not," said Mrs. Sprague, "nor anywhere else."
"The only Doge that was ever beheaded, landed between those columns,"
continued Rafael, "and since then there are people who would not dare
to use the steps, for fear it might bring them ill-luck."
"I am going to get into your boat from those very steps," said Edith,
walking toward them.
Her mother, who was already seated in the boat, looked troubled. "He
may be right, Edith," she called to her daughter. "You know that I am
afraid of the water, and you promised not to take any chances if I
would bring you to Italy."
But Edith insisted that she should get into the boat from the steps,
or not at all. "There is no danger," she said. "These Italians are too
superstitious. See how they are always closing one hand and pointing
down two of its fingers to ward off the evil eye. I am going to show
Rafael how foolish all these notions are."
The boy looked at her in anger. He had sometimes closed his own hand
in the way Edith described, when he met old Beppo, the brown monk from
one of the islands in the lagoon; and had often gone out of his way to
meet the hunchback, Tonio, because it is well-known in Venice that the
sight of a hunchback brings good luck.
Now, when he heard Edith speak so contemptuously of his cherished
beliefs, he felt a flame of resentment. Standing quietly in his boat,
he said, "Signorina, we go not from those landing-steps in my boat."
Edith saw that he meant what he said. "I am sorry that I hurt your
feelings," she said, with a pretty air of penitence; "but if you will
kindly take me from these steps, I will make a gift to the patron
saint of the fishermen, if we find a shrine at the Lido."
Rafael melted at once. "It is not that I was afraid," he told her, as
she stepped into the boat from the unlucky steps, "but I cannot have
the ways of my country ridiculed."
Then he pushed off from the landing, and the two great columns rose
above their heads in stately fashion.
Edith looked from the winged lion on the top of one to the crocodile
and the figure of St. Theodore on the other. "There are many stone
lions in the city," she said, "but I have seen only one crocodile. Why
is that?"
"The lion is the symbol of St. Mark," replied Rafael, "and must guard
the city, because St. Mark is our patron saint. St. Theodore, who
stands on the crocodile, was our first patron saint, before the body
of St. Mark was brought to Venice and placed in the little church
which once stood where you now see the cathedral."
"Is it the St. Mark who wrote one of the books of the New Testament?"
asked Mrs. Sprague.
"Yes, Signora," replied Rafael.
"We have been into the cathedral many times," said Edith. "Mother
knows every picture and statue inside and out of it."
"It is one of the most beautiful cathedrals in the whole world," said
her mother. "Some one has called it a jewel-box, because it contains
so many magnificent gems, precious stones, and golden mosaics; and it
seems so to me. Now that I have seen it, I am ready to leave Venice."
"Oh, Mother," exclaimed the girl, "we haven't begun to see all that I
want to! I must buy some more Venetian glass, and a lantern, and some
flags and banners. I mean to make my room at home look like a bit of
Venice."
Rafael looked pleased. "Our people were making beautiful things in
glass two hundred years before Christopher Columbus found his way to
your country," he said. He had no wish to seem boastful to these
people of a younger nation, so he tried to say it courteously.
But Edith was impolite enough to say, "The men and women in your city
seem to do nothing now but make glass, and carve wood, and weave lace.
In so many hundred years they might have learned a good many new
things, it seems to me."
The boy flushed. "Venice is old, it is true," he answered, "but Italy
is still young." Then he threw back his head and laughed with the
happy laugh of boyhood. "Viva l'Italia!" he cried joyously. "She will
soon be the greatest country in the world."
"Viva Venice!" cried Edith, but Rafael was drawing his boat alongside
a flight of steps, and did not hear her.
"Where is that lame crab of a steamer?" he muttered, looking off into
the lagoon.
"What are we going to do?" questioned Mrs. Sprague anxiously.
"We must go to the Lido in the steamer," answered the boy. "It is too
far for me to row there and back before sunset; and it will cost but a
small sum to buy round-trip tickets for the three of us. That will
take us all to the casino by the tram-car, and pay for our bath in the
salt-water."
"Pay for our bath!" repeated Edith. "Surely we may go into the water
without paying for it."
"Not if you wish to go in from the bathing-house at the casino,"
Rafael replied; "and it is forbidden by law to take away even one
pailful of the water without paying a tax. There is a tax on salt in
our country, and it is feared that we may get the least bit of salt
from the water."
"I never heard of such a thing!" exclaimed Mrs. Sprague.
"It is very hard," said the boy; "but what can one do? A tax is a tax,
and must be paid."
"But it would not be so, if I could get hold of an oar of the
government," he added with a laugh, as he held the boat steady with
his own oar while his passengers landed.
The little steamer was just drawing up to the pier from its trip
across the lagoon. This lagoon is a wide stretch of water, deep only
in those places where the ship-channels are kept constantly dredged.
When the tide is low, the city shows that it is built upon mud-banks.
Twice daily the waters move away from the lagoon, leaving the flats
covered with floating seaweed. The returning tide, flowing from the
Adriatic through several openings in the long narrow sand-bars, called
lidi, covers the seaweed and mud-flats, and forms the lagoon.
The little steamer carried Rafael and his passengers to the Lido in a
quarter of an hour, giving them time for a bath in the salt water, and
a cup of tea at the casino; and also a moment at the little church
dedicated to the patron saint of the fishermen, where Edith left a
coin as she had promised to do.
Then they returned across the water to the church of San Giorgio for a
view of the sunset, the sight in Venice which artists love most. It
was the most wonderful sunset that Edith had ever seen. The low sun
gave out a glory of color, and waves of golden light flooded the city,
crowning every tower and dome with a great radiance.
"So much gold makes it seem like the Heavenly City," Edith said
softly.
To the north lay the white-crowned Alps, to the east the blue
Adriatic; and Edith never forgot the glory of that hour.
A fisher's boat swung slowly through the Lido port, and moved toward
its mooring-place at a group of rose-tinged piles. In just such a boat
Columbus must have sailed when he was a boy. The rounded prow was
decorated with a flying goddess blowing a trumpet; on the masthead
there was perched a weathercock and a little figure of a hump-backed
man, like the one hidden away in St. Mark's. A great sail, painted
deep red, caught the sea-breeze and carried the boat slowly over the
shimmering, rose-colored water.
Edith drew a long breath of the salt air, and clasped her hands with
delight at the picture.
Some workmen, driving piles to mark the ship channel, were chanting an
old song,--one that has been sung for centuries by the pile-drivers of
Venice,--and Rafael translated the words for her, as the men raised
the heavy wooden hammer:--
"Up with it well,
Up to the top;
Up with it well,
Up to the summit!"
Each line of the Italian words ended with a long "e-e-e," or an
"o-o-o," and the American girl laughed at the strange song.
"It is just the time and place to paint a picture, or write a poem
about the Venetian sunset," she said.
"It is so different here from what I had imagined it to be," she
added. "I used to wonder what kept the sea from dashing against the
walls of the houses, and beating down the doors."
"Then you knew nothing about the lidi which hold back the sea?"
questioned the boy.
"No," replied the girl. "People who have been here speak only about
the Grand Canal, and the Piazza of St. Mark, and the Bridge of Sighs."
She pointed out to her mother the long wharf which stretched along the
opposite bank of the lagoon, and their hotel, which was farther up the
canal. "There is plenty of space on the pavement near our hotel to
spread a sail," she said, "and I thought there was never a spot to set
foot in all the city, except in the squares."
The sight of the hotel reminded Mrs. Sprague of home. "We must go back
and see if there are any letters," she said suddenly, and turned to go
down the spiral staircase.