the captain of our steamer found a _valet de place_ for us, and told him
to take care of us, and bring us back at a given moment. Nor how our
payment of ten francs for three persons, instead of Heaven knows what
exorbitation, was owing to this circumstance. For it may not be known to
the inexperienced that the boatmen of Corfu are wont to make a very
moderate charge for setting people ashore on the island. This is done in
order to disarm suspicion: _facile descensus Averni--sed revocare
gradum_! But when you wish to return to your vessel, the need being
pressing, and the time admitting of no delay, the same boatmen are wont
to demand fifteen or twenty francs _per capita_, and the more you swear
the more they laugh. Among the arrearages of justice adjourned to that
supreme chancery term, the Day of Judgment, I fear there must be many of
English et al. _vs._ boatmen. But under the captain's happy
administration, I made bold, when the boatman insisted on being paid for
the return trip in mid-sea, to refuse a single copper. Now, the gift of
unknown tongues sometimes resides in the person who hears them. And I
received it as a decided advantage that I understood no phrase of the
boatmen's low muttering and grumbling. So they were forced to carry us
to the gangway of the steamer, where the captain stood to receive us.
And I paid the men and the valet under the captain's supervision, and
when the former demanded a _bottiglia_, the captain cried out, in
energetic tones, "Get off of my ship at once, you scoundrels; you have
been well paid already;" the which indeed befell.
Neither does the diary recount how the drivers of public carriages
followed us up and down the streets, insisting upon our engaging them,
first at their price, and then at ours, for a trip which we had neither
time nor mind to make, desisting after half an hour's annoyance; nor how
a money changer, given a napoleon, contrived to make up one of its
francs by slipping in two miserable Turkish _paras_, not worth half a
franc; nor how the whistle of the steamer made our return very anxious
and hurried, the passengers accusing us of having delayed the departure,
while the captain confided to us that he had assumed this air of extreme
hurry, in order to stimulate the disembarkation of the Turks, whose
theory of taking one's own time was somewhat loosely applied in the
present instance. Well, this is all I know of Corfu. It is little
enough, and yet, perhaps, too much.
FARTHER.
Corfu was the last of Greece to us. A tightening at our heartstrings
told us so. We consented to depart, but conquered the agony of making
farewell verses, dear at any price, in the then state of the
thermometer. Our feelings, such as they were, were mutely exchanged with
the bronze statue of that late governor, who brought the water into the
town. Unless he should prove as frisky as the Commendatore in Don
Giovanni, they will never be divulged.
We now set our faces, in conjunction with the tide of conquest,
westward. We all suffered heat, ennui, and baby-yell. The Italian
invalid languished in his hot state-room, or in our cabin, his weak
condition increasing the dangerous discomfort of perspiration--a grave
matter when a chill would be death. Worsted work progressed, the hungry
sketch-book got a nibble or two, and the mild good-wills of the voyage
ripened, never, we fear, to bear future harvests of profit and
intercourse. Not the less were we beholden to them for the time. And we
will even praise thee here, Armenian Anna, with thy young graces, thy
Eastern beauty, thy charming English, and thoroughly genial behavior.
Mother and daughter had _distinction_, in the French sense of the word.
From the former I had many _apercus_ of Eastern life. She was married at
the early age of fourteen, and wore on that occasion the traditional
veiling of threads of gold, bound on her brow and falling to her feet.
"How glad I was to remove it," she said, "it was so heavy!" "What did
you do with it?" I asked. "I divided it into several portions, and
endowed with them the marriage of poorer girls, who could not afford it
for themselves." But madame informed me that this cumbrous ornament has
now passed out of fashion, the tulle veil and orange flowers of French
usage having generally taken its place. This lady was supposed by most
people to be the elder sister of her pretty daughter. In her soberer
beauty one seemed to see the dancing eyes and pouting cheeks of the
other carried only a little farther on. And both were among the chief
comforts of the voyage.
Of the two Armenian priests, the younger held himself aloof, as if he
understood full well the inconveniences of sympathy--a dry, steely,
well-balanced man, without enthusiasm, but fine in temperament, well
bred, and with at least the culture of a man of the present world. But
Pere Michel, the elder, was more willing to impart his mental gifts and
experiences to such as would hear them. And he was a man of another age,
with obsolete opinions, which he produced like the unconscious bearer of
uncurrent coin.
Here is a little specimen of his talk, the subject being that of dreams
and revelations: "What is to happen, that God alone can know. But that
which is already happening, or which has happened at a distance, this
the _demonio_ may know and reveal. And he will reveal it to you in a
dream, or in a vision, or by a presentiment."
"But what does the _demonio_ get, Pere Michel, for the trouble of
revealing it to us?"
"The satisfaction of making men superstitious?"
_Non c'e male, Pere Michel._ And what, thought I, is the chief advantage
of being pope, cardinal, arch-priest, confessor? The satisfaction of
making men superstitious. At another time I remarked upon the fact that
the monasteries in Greece are usually situated at some height on a
mountain side. "They are of the order of St. Basil," said the old man;
"he always loved the retirement of the mountains, and his followers
imitate him in this." Pere Michel had a pleasant smile, with just enough
of second childhood to be guileless, not foolish. And I may here say
that the Armenian priesthood appear to me to have quite an individuality
of their own, corresponding to no order of the Romish priesthood with
which I am acquainted.
The excessive heat of the cabins and after deck one day induced me to
head a valorous invasion of the forward deck, followed by as many of the
sisterhood as I was able to recruit. The steamer being a very long one,
we had to make quite a journey before we entered that almost interdicted
region, crossing a long bridge, and passing the captain's sacred office.
We carried books and work; our _fauteuils_ followed us. And here we
found cool breezes and delicious shade. The sailors and deck passengers
lay in heaps about the boards, taking their noonday nap in a very
primitive manner. We profited by this discovery so far as to repeat the
invasion daily while the voyage lasted.
But it came to end sooner than one might suppose from this long
description. We had left Syra on Sunday night; on Thursday afternoon we
landed in Trieste. Farewell, Turco-Italians, Austro-Italians, Sieben
Gebirgers, Transylvanians, Dalmatians, ladies, babies, priests, and all.
When shall we meet again? Scarcely before that great and final analysis
which promises to distinguish, once for all, the sheep from the goats.
And even for that supreme consummation and its results, all of you may
command my best wishes.
FRAGMENTS.
Up to the point last reached, my jottings down had been made with
tolerable regularity. Living is so much more rapid than writing, that an
impossible babe, who should begin his diary at his birth, would be sure
to have large arrears between that period and the day of his death,
however indefatigable he might be in his recording. A man cannot live
his life and write it too; hence the work that men who live much leave
to their biographers. So, of the space that here intervened between
Trieste and Paris, I lived the maximum and wrote the minimum; that is,
the little death's-head and cross-bone mementos with which the diary is
forced to record the spot at which each day fell and lay, together with
the current expenses of its interment. In some places even these are
wanting, and the stricken soul, looking over the diary, cries out, "O,
my leanness!" or words to that effect. Yet the poor document referred to
shall help us what it can, beginning with the return from cheap, cosy
Trieste to that polished jewel of the Adriatic, which now shines doubly
in its new setting of liberty.
We went, as we came, in the Lloyd steamer, declining, however, to engage
a state-room, mindful of the exceeding closeness of that in which we
suffered on our outward voyage. The embarkation was made, like that from
Venice, at the mysterious hour of midnight; and we, coming on board at
half past ten, secured such sofa and easy-chair privileges as moved the
wrath of a high-talking German party who came at the last moment, and
shouted for a quarter of an hour the assertion that his Damen were fully
equal, if not superior, to any other Damen on board the steamer, and
that if the other Damen had places, his surely ought much more to have
them. The cameriere merely shrugged his shoulders, and we failed to be
convinced that our first duty would be to vacate our limited
accommodations, and stand at large for the benefit of these or any other
virgins of the tardy and oily description. The blatant champion thereon
took himself and his Damen up stairs. We reserved to ourselves the good
intention of sharing our advantages with them at a later period, when
the passage of the present acerbity should make intercourse possible.
The cabin soon became insufferably hot and close. After various
ineffectual attempts at repose, in a cramped position on the sofa, with
a shawl bundle for a pillow, I went on deck, where I at least found
fresh air and darkness, the blazing lamp in the cabin being enough, of
itself, to banish sleep. Every available spot here was occupied by
groups or single figures, whose _tout ensemble_, what with the darkness
and their draping, constituted a very respectable gallery of figures,
much resembling the conspirators in Ernani, or Mme. Tussaud's Chamber of
Horrors, in the absence of the illuminating medium. I unconsciously
seated myself on one sleeping figure, which kicked and cried, O! With
difficulty I found a narrow vacancy on one of the side benches, after
occupation of which I wrapped my shawl about me, and gave up to the
situation.
"For we were tired, my back and I."
Seasick women sobbed and gasped around me, not having, as we, graduated
in the great college of ocean passage. The night was very black.
Presently a form nestled at my right. It was the elder neophyte,
disgusted with the cabin, and willing to be anywhere else. The moon rose
late, a de-crescent. The whole time was amphibious, neither sleeping nor
waking, neither day nor night. Suddenly, a perceptible chill seized upon
us; a little later the black sky grew gray, and the series of groups
that filled the deck were all revealed, like hidden motives in the light
of some new doctrine. The sunrise was showery, and attended by a
rainbow. The people bestirred themselves, stretched their benumbed
limbs, and shook their tumbled garments into shape. Black coffee could
now be had for ten sous a cup, and _cafe au lait_ for twenty, with a
crust of bread which defied gnawing. The diary says, "L. and I grew
quite tearful as we saw beautiful Venice come out of the water, just as
we had seen her disappear. At the health station we were fumigated with
chloride of lime--an unpleasant and useless process. We arrived opposite
the Piazzetta at half past seven A. M. The captain was kind in helping
us to find our effects and to get off. The gondoliers asked five francs
for bringing us to our lodgings, and got them. The Barbiers could not
receive us at our former snug abode, but monsieur went round to show us
some rooms in Palazzo Gambaro, which he offered for seven francs _per
diem_. We were glad to take them. Went to Florian's cafe for breakfast,
visited San Marco, and then proceeded to install ourselves in our new
lodging. Ordered a dinner for six francs, which proved abundant. Took a
long sleep,--from one to four P. M.,--having only dozed a little during
the night. Our lodgings are very roomy and pleasant--two large rooms
well furnished, and two smaller ones. We expect to enjoy many things
here, and all the more because we now know something of what is to be
seen."
This expectation was fully realized during the week that followed,
although the meagre entries of the diary give little assistance in
recalling the strict outlines of the brilliant picture. It was now
height of season in Venice. The grand canal was brilliant, every
evening, with gondolas, and gondoliers in costumes. Now we admired full
suits of white, with scarlet sashes, trimmed with gold fringe, now gray
and blue, edged with silver. Now an ugly jockey costume, got up by some
Anglo-maniac, insulted the Italian _beau-ideal_, and, indeed, every
other. For the short coat and heavy clothes, suited at once to the
saddle and the English climate, were utterly unsuited to the action of
rowing, as well as to the full bloom of an Italian summer. I cannot help
remarking upon this unsightly livery, because it was an eyesore, and
because it was obviously considered by its proprietor as a brilliant
success. In stylish gondolas, the rowers are two in number, and always
dressed in livery. The fashionables, in height of millinery bliss, float
up and down the grand canal, until it is time for the rendezvous on the
Piazza. As you pass the palaces, you often see the gondola in waiting
below, while in a balcony or arched window above, the fresh, smiling
faces make their bright picture; and the domestic stands draped in the
white opera-cloaks or bournooses. And I remember a hundred little
nonsensical songs about this very passage in Venetian life.
"Prent'e la gondoletta,
Tutt'e serena il mar,
Ninetta, mia diletta,
Vieni solcar il mar
Il marinar, che gioja--che gioja il marinar!"
Which I translate into English equivalency as follows:--
The two-in-hand is waiting,
The groom is in his boots;
The lover's fondly prating,
The lady's humor suits:
Susanna! Susanna!
What joy to flog the brutes!
What joy, what joy in driving!
What joy, what joy to drive!
Like all other poetical visions, these, once seen, speedily become
matters of course. Still, we found always a fairy element in the "_Gita
in gondoletta_." Our gondolier had always a weird charm in our eyes. He
seemed almost a feudal retainer, a servant for life or death. His shrewd
glance showed that he was not easily to be astonished. He could tip over
an obnoxious person in the dark, stab at a street corner, carry the most
audacious of letters, and deliver the contraband answer under the very
nose of high-snuffing authority. Nought of all this did we desire of
him: in fact, nothing but safe conduct and moderate charges. Yet we
admired his mysterious talents, and wondered in what unwritten novels he
might have figured. For, indeed, the watery streets of Venice, no less
than her gondoliers, suggest the idea of romantic and desperate
adventure. What balconies from which to throw a rival, dead or alive!
What silent, know-nothing waters to receive him! What clever assistants
to aid and abet!
But enough of the evening row, which ends at the Piazzetta. Here you
dismiss your man-at-oars, naming the hour at which you shall require his
presence, he being meanwhile at liberty to sleep in his gondola, or lo
leave it in charge with a friend, and to follow you to the Piazza, where
you will amuse yourself after your fashion, he after his. Here the
banners are floating, the lights glancing, the band stormily performing.
Florian's cafe is represented by a crowd of well-dressed people sitting
in the open air, with the appliances of chair and table covered by their
voluminous draperies. If you arrive late, you may wait some time before
a table, fourteen inches by ten, is vouchsafed to you. Ices are very
good, very cheap, and very small. Tea and bread and butter are
excellent. While you wait and while you feast, a succession of venders
endeavor to impose upon you every small article which the streets of
Venice show for sale. Shoes, slippers, alabaster work, shell work, tin
gondolas concealing inkstands, nets, bracelets, necklaces,--all these
things are offered to you in succession, together with allumettes,
cigars, journals, and caramels, or candied fruits strung upon straws.
If you are mild in your discouragement of these venders, they will
fasten upon you like other vermin, and refuse to depart until they shall
have drawn the last drop of your change. I found a brisk charge
necessary, with appeals to Florian's _garcon_, after whose interference,
life on the Piazza became practicable.
To the mere enjoyment of good victuals, with squabbles intervening, may
be superadded the perception of fashionable life, as it goes on in these
regions. When your eyes have taken the standard of light of the Piazza,
you recognize in some of the groups about you persons whom you have
seen, either in the balcony or in the gondola. Here are two young women
whom I saw emerge from a narrow passage, this evening, rowed by a
fine-looking servant, who stood bareheaded, and one other. They have
diamond earrings, fashionable bonnets, and dresses dripping from a
baptism of beads. One by one a group of young men, probably of the first
water, forms about them. One of the ladies is handsome and quiet, the
other plain and voluble. The latter becomes perforce the prominent
figure in what goes on, which indeed amounts to nothing worth repeating.
These were on my right. On my left soon appeared a lady of a certain
age, with "world" written in large letters all over her countenance. She
chaperons a daughter, got up with hair _a l'Anglaise_, whose pantomimic
countenance suggests that she has been drilled by an English governess
with _papa_, _prunes_, _prism_, or some equivalent gymnastic. When
addressed, she looks down into her fan, and rolls her eyes as if she
saw her face in it. And lady friends come up: "Ah, marchesa! ah, signora
contessa!" and the young bloods, hat in hand. So here we are, really, on
the borders of high life, without intending it. And the baroness
introduces a female relative--_una sorella maritata_--who has been
handsome, and whose smile seems accustomed to fold the cloak of her
beauty around the poverty of her character. And there is coffee, and
there come ices. The ladies sip and gossip, the beaux come and go,
talking of intended _villeggiaturas_; for the greatest social
illustration for an Italian is that of travel. A third group immediately
in front of us shows a young lady in an advanced stage of ambition,
attired in a conspicuous tone, accompanied by quieter female relatives
and a young boy. She regards with envious eyes the two popular
associations on my right and left. She is dying to be noticed, and does
not know how to manage it. And while I take note of these and other
vanities, beggars whine for pence, or insist upon carrying off our
superfluous bread or cake, for which, indeed, we must pay; but they eat
the bread before your eyes with such evident relish that you are
satisfied.
By and by this palls upon you. You have seen and heard enough. The
society to which you belong is over the water. Here your heart finds no
place; and from the crowd of strangers even your lodging and quiet bed
seem a refuge. So you settle with Florian's _garcon_, close your account
with all beggars for the night, wander to the Piazzetta, and cry,
"Bastiano!" and he of the mysterious intelligence sooner or later
responds. You give a penny to the crab,--the man who superfluously holds
the boat while you get in,--and are at home after a brief dream of
smooth motion under a starry sky. And in this way end all midsummer days
in Venice. Not so smooth, however, is your climbing of three flights of
stone stairs in the dark, with thumping and bumping. But you are up at
last, and Gianetta--the shrewd maid--receives you with a candle-end.
Frugal orders for breakfast, and to rest, with the cherubs of the
mantel-piece watching over you.
For over the said mantel-piece, two fair, fat babes, modelled in
flat-relief, playfully contended for the mastery, their laughing faces
near together, their swinging heels wide apart, as the festoon required.
Elsewhere in the same relief were arabesques with birds and flowers.
This bedroom of ours has been a room of state in its day. A passage-way
and dressing-room have been taken from its stately proportions, and
still it remains very spacious for our pretensions. Our _salon_ is
larger still, and largely mirrored. Two of its windows give upon a leafy
garden, whose tree-tops lie nearer to us than to their owners. Its
furniture has been hastily thrown together, and is mostly composed of
odds and ends. But one of its pieces moves our admiration. It is a
toilet table, enclosing a complete set of utensils in the finest
Venetian glass--basins, ewers, toilet bottles and glasses, and the
little boxes for soap and powder, all cut after the finest pattern. This
toilet was made for a royal personage, a queen of something, whose
effects somehow seem to have been sold at auction in these parts.
Another relic of her we discover in a bureau entirely incrusted with
mother-of-pearl, an article that makes one's mouth water, if one has any
mouth, which all men, like all horses, have not. The doors which divide
our sitting from our sleeping room are at once objects of wonder and of
fear to us. Their size is monstrous, and each of them hangs, or rather
clings, by the upper hinge, the lower being dismounted. These doors are
left all day at a conciliatory angle between closing and opening. We
fear their falling on our heads whenever we approach them. We hear
vaguely of some one who shall come to put them in order; but he never
appears. Our own veteran, arriving at last, sets this right in as
summary a manner as he has dealt with other nuisances. For the veteran,
worn with travel, does arrive from Greece one morning, rowing up to our
palace just as we have stepped from it to meet our gondola. He has a
tale to tell like the wanderings of Ulysses. But between this event and
those that precede it, the diary shows the following important entry:--
Thursday, Aug. 1.--To Malamocco this A. M., with three rowers--our own,
and two others, who received one florin between them. The row, both in
going and returning, was delightful. Arrived at Malamocco, the men
demanded one franc for breakfast, and disappeared within the shades of
the Osteria. This is a small settlement at the very entrance of the
lagoons. It was strongly fortified by the Austrians. The heat, however,
did not permit us to inspect the fortifications. We saw little of
interest, but visited the church and a peasant's house. One of the
daughters was engaged in stringing beads for sale. The beads were in a
tray, and she plunged into them a bunch of wire needles some six inches
in length, each carrying its slender thread. The merchant, she said,
came weekly to bring the beads, and to take away those ready strung for
the market. "To earn a penny, signora," said the mother, a
substantial-looking person, wearing large gold earrings. The houses here
looked very comfortable for people of the plain sort. The men seemed to
be mostly away, whether engaged in fishing, or following the sea to
foreign parts. On our way back we stopped at San Clementi, an ancient
church upon a little island, now undergoing repairs. Within the church
we found a marble tabernacle with solid walls, built behind the high
altar. It may have been forty feet in length by twenty in breadth, and
twelve or more feet in height. A massive door of bronze gave entrance to
this huge strong-box, which was formerly used as a prison for refractory
priests. We found the interior divided into two compartments. The larger
of these was fitted up as a chapel; the smaller had served as the cell
of confinement. The altar was erected at the partition which separated
the two, and a grating inserted behind the altar figure allowed the
prisoner the benefit of the religious services carried on in the chapel.
The dreariness of this little prison can scarcely be described. No light
had it, unless that of a lamp was allowed. A church within a church,
and within the inner church a place of torment! This arrangement seemed
to violate even the Catholic immunity of sanctuary. Think of the
unfortunate shut up within on a feast day, when faint sounds of outward
jubilee might penetrate the marble walls, and heighten his pain by its
contrast with the general joyous thrill of life. Think of the cheerless
mass or vespers vouchsafed to him,--no friendly face, no brother voice,
to sweeten worship. And if he continued recalcitrant, how convenient was
this isolation for the final disposition to be made of him! _De
profundis clamavit_, doubtless, and the church did not know that God
could hear him.