(_From Contarini Fleming, a Psychological Autobiography_.)
An hour before sunset, I arrived at Fusina, and beheld, four or five miles
out at sea, the towers and cupolas of Venice suffused with a rich golden
light, and rising out of the bright blue waters. Not an exclamation
escaped me. I felt like a man, who has achieved a great object. I was full
of calm exultation, but the strange incident of the morning made me
serious and pensive.
As our gondolas glided over the great Lagune, the excitement of the
spectacle reanimated me. The buildings, that I had so fondly studied in
books and pictures, rose up before me. I knew them all; I required no
Cicerone. One by one, I caught the hooded Cupolas of St. Mark, the tall
Campanile red in the sun, the Moresco Palace of the Doges, the deadly
Bridge of Sighs, and the dark structure to which it leads. Here my gondola
quitted the Lagune, and, turning up a small canal, and passing under a
bridge which connected the quays, stopped at the steps of a palace.
I ascended a staircase of marble, I passed through a gallery crowded with
statues, I was ushered into spacious apartments, the floors of which were
marble, and the hangings satin. The ceilings were painted by Tintoretto
and his scholars, and were full of Turkish trophies and triumphs over the
Ottomite. The furniture was of the same rich material as the hangings, and
the gilding, although of two hundred years' duration, as bright and
burnished, as the costly equipment of a modern palace. From my balcony of
blinds, I looked upon the great Lagune. It was one of those glorious
sunsets which render Venice, in spite of her degradation, still famous.
The sky and sea vied in the brilliant multiplicity of their blended tints.
The tall shadows of her Palladian churches flung themselves over the
glowing and transparent wave out of which they sprang. The quays were
crowded with joyous groups, and the black gondolas flitted, like sea
serpents, over the red and rippling waters.
I hastened to the Place of St. Mark. It was crowded and illuminated. Three
gorgeous flags waved on the mighty staffs, which are opposite the church
in all the old drawings, and which once bore the standards of Candia and
Cyprus, and the Morea. The coffee-houses were full, and gay parties,
seated on chairs in the open air, listened to the music of military bands,
while they refreshed themselves with confectionary so rich and fanciful,
that it excites the admiration, and the wonder of all travellers, but
which I have since discovered in Turkey to be Oriental. The variety of
costume was also great. The dress of the lower orders in Venice is still
unchanged: many of the middle classes yet wear the cap and cloak. The
Hungarian and the German military, and the bearded Jew, with his black
velvet cap and flowing robes, are observed with curiosity. A few days also
before my arrival, the Austrian squadron had carried into Venice a Turkish
ship and two Greek vessels which had violated the neutrality. Their crews
now mingled with the crowd. I beheld, for the first time, the haughty and
turbaned Ottoman, sitting cross-legged on his carpet under a colonnade,
sipping his coffee and smoking a long chiboque, and the Greeks, with their
small red caps, their high foreheads, and arched eyebrows.
Can this be modern Venice, I thought? Can this be the silent, and gloomy,
and decaying city, over whose dishonourable misery I have so often wept?
Could it ever have been more enchanting? Are not these indeed still
subjects of a Doge, and still the bridegroom of the ocean? Alas! the
brilliant scene was as unusual as unexpected, and was accounted for by its
being the feast day of a favourite saint. Nevertheless, I rejoiced at the
unaccustomed appearance of the city at my entrance, and still I recall
with pleasure the delusive moments, when strolling about the place of St.
Mark the first evening that I was in Venice, I for a moment mingled in a
scene that reminded me of her lost light-heartedness, and of that
unrivalled gaiety that so long captivated polished Europe.
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