gondola lying at my feet, for the little table holding my coffee stands
on a half-round balcony that juts quite over the water-wall, almost
touching the white _tenda_ of the boat. From this point of vantage I
look down upon his craft, tethered to a huge spile bearing the crown
and monogram of the owner of the hotel. One is nobody if not noble, in
Venice.
The gondolier does not see me. If he did it would not disturb him; his
boat is his home through these soft summer days and nights, and the
overhanging sky gives privacy enough. A slender, graceful Venetian
girl, her hair parted on one side, a shawl about her shoulders, has
just brought him a bundle containing a change of clothing. She sits
beside him as he dresses, and I move my chair so that I can catch the
expressions of pride and delight that flit across her face while she
watches the handsome, broadly-built young fellow. As he stands erect
in the gondola, the sunlight flashing from his wet arms, I note the
fine lines of his chest, the bronzed neck and throat, and the knotted
muscles along the wrist and forearm. When the white shirt with broad
yellow collar and sash are adjusted and the toilet is complete, even
to the straw hat worn rakishly over one ear, the girl gathers up the
discarded suit, glances furtively at me, slips her hand into his for a
moment, and then springs ashore, waving her handkerchief as he swings
out past the Dogana, the yellow ribbons of his hat flying in the wind.
Joseph, prince among porters, catches my eye and smiles meaningly.
Later, when he brings my mail, he explains that the pretty Venetian,
Teresa, is the sweetheart of Pietro the yellow-and-white gondolier who
serves the English lady at the _Palazzo da Mula_. Pietro, he tells me,
rows in the regatta to-day, and these preparations are in honor of that
most important event. He assures me that it will be quite the most
interesting of all the regattas of the year, and that I must go early
and secure a place near the stake-boat if I want to see anything of the
finish. It is part of Joseph’s duty and pleasure to keep you posted on
everything that happens in Venice. It would distress him greatly if he
thought you could obtain this information from any other source.
While we talk the Professor enters the garden from the side door
of the corridor, and takes the vacant seat beside me. He, too, has
come to tell me of the regatta. He is bubbling over with excitement,
and insists that I shall meet him at the water-steps of the little
Piazzetta near the _Caffè Veneta Marina_, at three o’clock, not
a moment later. To-day, he says, I shall see, not the annual
regatta,--that great spectacle with the Grand Canal crowded with
tourists and sight-seers solidly banked from the water’s edge to the
very balconies,--but an old-time contest between the two factions of
the gondoliers, the Nicoletti and Castellani; a contest really of and
for the Venetians themselves.
The course is to begin at the Lido, running thence to the great
flour-mill up the Giudecca, and down again to the stake-boat off the
Public Garden. Giuseppe is to row, and Pasquale, both famous oarsmen,
and Carlo, the brother of Gaspari, who won the great regatta; better
than all, young Pietro, of the Traghetto of Santa Salute.
“Not Pietro of this _traghetto_, right here below us?” I asked.
“Yes; he rows with his brother Marco. Look out for him when he comes
swinging down the canal. If you have any money to wager, put it on him.
Gustavo, my waiter at Florian’s, says he is bound to win. His colors
are yellow and white.”
This last one I knew, for had he not made his toilet, half an hour
before, within sight of my table? No wonder Teresa looked proud and
happy!
While the Professor is bowing himself backward out of the garden, hat
in hand, his white hair and curled mustache glistening in the sun, an
oleander blossom in his button-hole, Espero enters, also bareheaded,
and begs that the Signore will use Giorgio’s gondola until he can have
his own boat, now at the repair-yard next to San Trovaso, scraped and
pitched; the grass on her bottom was the width of his hand. By one
o’clock she would be launched again. San Trovaso, as the Signore knew,
was quite near the _Caffè Calcina_; would he be permitted to call for
him at the caffè after luncheon? As the regatta began at three o’clock
there would not be time to return again to the Signore’s lodging and
still secure a good place at the stake-boat off the Garden.
No; the illustrious Signore would do nothing of the kind. He would
take Giorgio and his gondola for the morning, and then, when the boat
was finished, Espero could pick up the Professor at the _Caffè Veneta
Marina_ in the afternoon and bring him aboard Giorgio’s boat on his way
down the canal.
Giorgio is my stand-by when Espero is away. I often send him to my
friends, those whom I love, that they may enjoy the luxury of spending
a day with a man who has a score and more of sunshiny summers packed
away in his heart, and not a cloud in any one of them. Tagliapietra
Giorgio, of the Traghetto of Santa Salute, is his full name and
address. Have Joseph call him for you some day, and your Venice will
be all the more delightful because of his buoyant strength, his
cheeriness, and his courtesy.
So Giorgio and I idle about the lagoon and the Giudecca, watching the
flags being hoisted, the big _barcos_ being laden, and various other
preparations for the great event of the afternoon.
After luncheon Giorgio stops at his house to change his _tenda_ for
the new one with the blue lining, and slips into the white suit just
laundered for him. He lives a few canals away from the Calcina, with
his mother, his widowed sister and her children, in a small house with
a garden all figs and oleanders. His bedroom is next to his mother’s,
on the second floor, overlooking the blossoms. There is a shrine
above the bureau, decorated with paper flowers, and on the walls a
scattering of photographs of brother gondoliers, and some trophies
of oars and flags. Hanging behind the door are his oilskins for wet
weather, and the Tam O’Shanter cap that some former padrone has left
him, as a souvenir of the good times they once had together, and which
Giorgio wears as a weather signal for a rainy afternoon, although the
morning sky may be cloudless. All gondoliers are good weather prophets.
The entire family help Giorgio with the _tenda_--the old mother
carrying the side-curtains, warm from her flat-iron, and chubby Beppo,
bareheaded and barefooted, bringing up the rear with the little blue
streamer that on gala days floats from the gondola’s lamp-socket
forward, which on other days is always filled with flowers.
Then we are off, picking our way down the narrow canal, waiting here
and there for the big _barcos_ to pass, laden with wine or fruit, until
we shoot out into the broad waters of the Giudecca.
You see at a glance that Venice is astir. All along the Zattere, on
every wood-boat, _barco_, and barge, on every bridge, balcony, and
house-top, abreast the wide _fondamenta_ fronting the great warehouses,
and away down the edge below the Redentore, the people are swarming
like flies. Out on the Giudecca, anchored to the channel spiles, is
a double line of boats of every conceivable description, from a toy
_sandolo_ to a steamer’s barge. These lie stretched out on the water
like two great sea-serpents, their heads facing the garden, their tails
curving toward the Redentore.
Between these two sea-monsters, with their flashing scales of a
thousand umbrellas, is an open roadway of glistening silver.
Giorgio swings across to the salt warehouses above the Dogana and on
down and over to the Riva. Then there is a shout ahead, a red and white
_tenda_ veers a point, comes close, backs water, and the Professor
springs in.
“Here, Professor, here beside me on the cushions,” I call out. “Draw
back the curtains, Giorgio. And, Espero, hurry ahead and secure a place
near the stake-boat. We will be there in ten minutes.”
The Professor was a sight to cheer the heart of an amateur yachtsman
out for a holiday. He had changed his suit of the morning for a small
straw hat trimmed with red, an enormous field-glass with a strap over
his shoulder, and a short velvet coat that had once done service as
a smoking-jacket. His mustachios were waxed into needle points. The
occasion had for him all the novelty of the first spring meeting at
Longchamps, or a race off Cowes, and he threw himself into its spirit
with the gusto of a boy.
“What colors are you flying, _mon Capitaine_? Blue? Never!” noticing
Giorgio’s streamer. “Pasquale’s color is blue, and he will be half a
mile astern when Pietro is round the stake-boat. _Vive le jaune! Vive
Pietro!_” and out came a yellow rag--Pietro’s color--bearing a strong
resemblance to the fragment of some old silk curtain. It settled at a
glance all doubt as to the Professor’s sympathies in the coming contest.
The day was made for a regatta; a cool, crisp, bracing October day;
a day of white clouds and turquoise skies, of flurries of soft winds
that came romping down the lagoon, turned for a moment in play, and
then went scampering out to sea; a day of dazzling sun, of brilliant
distances, of clear-cut outlines, black shadows, and flashing lights.
As we neared the Public Garden the crowd grew denser; the cries of the
gondoliers were incessant; even Giorgio’s skillful oar was taxed to the
utmost to avoid the polluting touch of an underbred _sandolo_, or the
still greater calamity of a collision--really an unpardonable sin with
a gondolier. Every now and then a chorus of yells, charging every crime
in the decalogue, would be hurled at some landsman whose oar “crabbed,”
or at some nondescript craft filled with “barbers and cooks,” to quote
Giorgio, who in forcing a passage had become hopelessly entangled.
The only clear water-space was the ribbon of silver beginning away up
near the Redentore, between the tails of the two sea-monsters, and
ending at the stake-boat. Elsewhere, on both sides, from the Riva to
San Giorgio, and as far as the wall of the Garden, was a dense floating
mass of human beings, cheering, singing, and laughing, waving colors,
and calling out the names of their favorites in rapid _crescendo_.
The spectacle on land was equally unique. The balustrade of the broad
walk of the Public Garden was a huge flower-bed of blossoming hats
and fans, spotted with myriads of parasols in full bloom. Bunches of
over-ripe boys hung in the trees, or dropped one by one into the arms
of gendarmes below. The palaces along the Riva were a broad ribbon of
color with a binding of black coats and hats. The wall of San Giorgio
fronting the barracks was fringed with the yellow legs and edged with
the white fatigue caps of two regiments. Even over the roofs and tower
of the church itself specks of sight-seers were spattered here and
there, as if the joyous wind in some mad frolic had caught them up in
very glee, and as suddenly showered them on cornice, sill, and dome.
Beyond all this, away out on the lagoon, toward the islands, the
red-sailed fishing-boats hurried in for the finish, their canvas aflame
against the deepening blue. Over all the sunlight danced and blazed and
shimmered, gilding and bronzing the roof-jewels of San Marco, flashing
from oar blade, brass, and _ferro_, silvering the pigeons whirling
deliriously in the intoxicating air, making glad and gay and happy
every soul who breathed the breath of this joyous Venetian day.
None of all this was lost upon the Professor. He stood in the bow
drinking in the scene, sweeping his glass round like a weather-vane,
straining his eyes up the Giudecca to catch the first glimpse of the
coming boats, picking out faces under flaunting parasols, and waving
aloft his yellow rag when some gondola swept by flying Pietro’s colors,
or some boat-load of friends saluted in passing.
Suddenly there came down on the shifting wind, from far up the
Giudecca, a sound like the distant baying of a pack of hounds, and as
suddenly died away. Then the roar of a thousand throats, caught up by
a thousand more about us, broke on the air, as a boatman, perched on a
masthead, waved his hat.
“Here they come! _Viva_ Pietro! _Viva_
Pasquale!--Castellani!--Nicoletti!--Pietro!”
The dense mass rose and fell in undulations, like a great carpet
being shaken, its colors tossing in the sunlight. Between the thicket
of _ferros_, away down the silver ribbon, my eye caught two little
specks of yellow capping two white figures. Behind these, almost in
line, were two similar dots of blue; farther away other dots, hardly
distinguishable, on the horizon line.
The gale became a tempest--the roar was deafening; women waved their
shawls in the air; men, swinging their hats, shouted themselves hoarse.
The yellow specks developed into handkerchiefs bound to the heads of
Pietro and his brother Marco; the blues were those of Pasquale and his
mate.
Then, as we strain our eyes, the two tails of the sea-monster twist and
clash together, closing in upon the string of rowers as they disappear
in the dip behind San Giorgio, only to reappear in full sight, Pietro
half a length ahead, straining every sinew, his superb arms swinging
like a flail, his lithe body swaying in splendid, springing curves, the
water rushing from his oar blade, his brother bending aft in perfect
rhythm.
“Pietro! _Pietro!_” came the cry, shrill and clear, drowning all other
sounds, and a great field of yellow burst into flower all over the
lagoon, from San Giorgio to the Garden. The people went wild. If before
there had been only a tempest, now there was a cyclone. The waves of
blue and yellow surged alternately above the heads of the throng as
Pasquale or Pietro gained or lost a foot. The Professor grew red and
pale by turns, his voice broken to a whisper with continued cheering,
the yellow rag streaming above his head, all the blood of his ancestors
blazing in his face.
The contesting boats surged closer. You could now see the rise and
fall of Pietro’s superb chest, the steel-like grip of his hands, and
could outline the curves of his thighs and back. The ends of the yellow
handkerchief, bound close about his head, were flying in the wind. His
stroke was long and sweeping, his full weight on the oar; Pasquale’s
stroke was short and quick, like the thrust of a spur.
Now they are abreast. Pietro’s eyes are blazing--Pasquale’s teeth are
set. Both crews are doing their utmost. The yells are demoniac. Even
the women are beside themselves with excitement.
Suddenly, when within five hundred yards of the goal, Pasquale turns
his head to his mate; there is an answering cry, and then, as if
some unseen power had lent its strength, Pasquale’s boat shoots half
a length ahead, slackens, falls back, gains again, now an inch, now
a foot, now clear of Pietro’s bow, and on, on, lashing the water,
surging forward, springing with every gain, cheered by a thousand
throats, past the red tower of San Giorgio, past the channel of spiles
off the Garden, past the red buoy near the great warship,--one quick,
sustained, blistering stroke,--until the judge’s flag drops from his
hand, and the great race is won.
“A true knight, a gentleman every inch of him,” called out the
Professor, forgetting that he had staked all his _soldi_ on Pietro.
“Fairly won, Pasquale.”
In the whirl of the victory, I had forgotten Pietro, my gondolier of
the morning. The poor fellow was sitting in the bow of his boat, his
head in his hands, wiping his forehead and throat, the tears streaming
down his cheeks. His brother sat beside him. In the gladness and
disappointment of the hour, no one of the crowd around him seemed to
think of the hero of five minutes before. Not so Giorgio, who was
beside himself with grief over Pietro’s defeat, and who had not taken
his eyes from his face. In an instant more he sprang forward, calling
out, “No! no! _Brava Pietro!_” Espero joining in as if with a common
impulse, and both forcing their gondolas close to Pietro’s.
A moment more and Giorgio was over the rail of Pietro’s boat, patting
his back, stroking his head, comforting him as you would think only a
woman could--but then you do not know Giorgio. Pietro lifted up his
face and looked into Giorgio’s eyes with an expression so woe-begone,
and full of such intense suffering, that Giorgio instinctively flung
his arm around the great, splendid fellow’s neck. Then came a few
broken words, a tender caressing stroke of Giorgio’s hand, a drawing of
Pietro’s head down on his breast as if it had been a girl’s, and then,
still comforting him--telling him over and over again how superbly he
had rowed, how the next time he would win, how he had made a grand
second--
Giorgio bent his head--_and kissed him_.
When Pietro, a moment later, pulled himself together and stood erect
in his boat, with eyes still wet, the look on his face was as firm and
determined as ever.
Nobody laughed. It did not shock the crowd; nobody thought Giorgio
unmanly or foolish, or Pietro silly or effeminate. The infernal
Anglo-Saxon custom of always wearing a mask of reserve, if your heart
breaks, has never reached these people.
As for the Professor, who looked on quietly, I think--yes, I am quite
sure--that a little jewel of a tear squeezed itself up through his
punctilious, precise, ever exact and courteous body, and glistened long
enough on his eyelids to wet their lashes. Then the bright sun and
the joyous wind caught it away. Dear old relic of a by-gone time! How
gentle a heart beats under your well-brushed, threadbare coat!
SOME VENETIAN CAFFÈS
EVERY one in Venice has his own particular caffè, according to
his own particular needs, sympathies, or tastes. All the artists,
architects, and musicians meet at Florian’s; all the Venetians go to
the _Quadri_; the Germans and late Austrians, to the _Bauer-Grünwald_;
the stay-over-nights, to the Oriental on the Riva; the stevedores, to
the _Veneta Marina_ below the Arsenal; and my dear friend Luigi and his
fellow-tramps, to a little hole in the wall on the _Via Garibaldi_.
[Illustration: A LITTLE HOLE IN THE WALL ON THE VIA GARIBALDI]
These caffès are scattered everywhere, from the Public Garden to the
Mestre bridge; all kinds of caffès for all kinds of people--rich, not
so rich, poor, poorer, and the very poorest. Many of them serve only a
cup of coffee, two little flat lumps of sugar, a hard, brown roll, and
a glass of water--always a glass of water. Some add a few syrups and
cordials, with a siphon of seltzer. Others indulge in the cheaper wines
of the country, Brindisi, Chianti, and the like, and are then known as
wine-shops. Very few serve any spirits, except a spoonful of cognac
with the coffee. Water is the universal beverage, and in summer this
is cooled by ice and enriched by simple syrups of peach, orange, and
raspberry. Spirits are rarely taken and intemperance is practically
unknown. In an experience of many years, I have not seen ten drunken
men,--never one drunken woman,--and then only in September, when the
strong wine from Brindisi is brought in bulk and sold over the boat’s
rail, literally by the bucket, to whoever will buy.
In the _ristoranti_--caffès, in our sense--is served an array of
eatables that would puzzle the most expert of gourmands. There will be
macaroni, of course, in all forms, and _risotto_ in a dozen different
ways, and soups with weird, uncanny little devil-fish floating about in
them, and salads of every conceivable green thing that can be chopped
up in a bowl and drowned in olive oil; besides an assortment of cheeses
with individualities of perfume that beggar any similar collection
outside of Holland.
Some of these caffès are so much a part of Venice and Venetian life,
that you are led to believe that they were founded by the early Doges
and are coëval with the Campanile or the Library. Somebody, of course,
must know when they first began setting out tables on the piazza in
front of Florian’s, or at the _Quadri_ opposite, or yet again at the
_Caffè al Cavallo_, near _San Giovanni e Paulo_, and at scores of
others; but I confess I do not. If you ask the head waiter, who really
ought to know (for he must have been born in one of the upper rooms--he
certainly never leaves the lower ones), he shrugs his shoulders in a
hopeless way and sheds the inquiry with a despairing gesture, quite as
if you had asked who laid out San Marco, or who drove the piles under
Saint Theodore.
There is, I am convinced, no real, permanent, steady proprietor in any
of these caffès--none that one ever sees. There must be, of course,
somebody who assumes ownership, and who for a time really believes
that he has a proprietary interest in the chairs and tables about him.
After a while, however, he gets old and dies, and is buried over in
Campo Santo, and even his name is forgotten. When this happens, and it
is eminently proper that it should, another tenant takes possession,
quite as the pigeons do of an empty carving over the door of the king’s
palace.
But the caffè keeps on: the same old marble-top tables; the same old
glass-covered pictures, with the impossible Turkish houris listening to
the improbable gentleman in baggy trousers; the same serving-counter,
with the row of cordials in glass bottles with silver stoppers. The
same waiters, too, hurry about--they live on for centuries--wearing
the same coats and neckties, and carrying the same napkins. I myself
have never seen a dead waiter, and, now I happen to think of it, I have
never heard of one.
The head waiter is, of course, supreme. He it is who adds up on his
fingers the sum of your extravagances, who takes your money and dives
down into his own pocket for the change. He and his assistants are
constantly running in and out, vanishing down subterranean stairs, or
disappearing through swinging doors, with the agility of Harlequin; you
never know where or why, until they pop out again, whirling trays held
high over their heads, or bearing in both hands huge waiters loaded
with dishes.
The _habitués_ of these caffès are as interesting as the caffès
themselves. The Professor comes, of course; you always know where
to find _him_. And the youthful Contessa! She of the uncertain age,
with hair bleached to a light law-calf, and a rose-colored veil! And
here comes, too, every distinguished or notorious person of high or
low degree at the moment in Venice; you have only to take a chair at
Florian’s and be patient--they are sure to appear before the music is
over. There is the sister of the Archduke, with the straight-backed,
pipe-stem-legged officer acting as gentleman-in-waiting; and he
does _wait_, standing bolt upright like a sergeant on dress parade,
sometimes an hour, for her to sit down. There is the Spanish Grandee,
with a palace for the season (an upper floor with an entrance on a side
canal), whose gondoliers wear flaming scarlet, with a crest embossed on
brass dinner-plates for arm ornaments; one of these liveried attendants
always dogs the Grandee to the caffè, so as to be ready to pull his
chair out when his Excellency sits down. Then there are the Royal
Academician, in gray tweed knickerbockers, traveling _incognito_ with
two friends; the fragments of an American linen-duster brigade, with
red guide-books and faces, in charge of a special agent; besides scores
of others of every nationality and rank. They are all at Florian’s some
time during the day.
You will see there, too, if you are familiar with the inside workings
of a favorite caffè, an underground life of intrigue or mystery,
in which Gustavo or Florio has a hand--often upon a _billet-doux_
concealed within the folds of a napkin; not to mention the harmless
distribution, once in a while, of smuggled cigarettes fresh from Cairo.