stretching up the broad waterway, is behind the Salute and the salt
warehouses: great, heavy, Dutch-bowed boats, with anchor chains hanging
from the open mouths of dolphins carved on the planking; long, sharp
bowsprits, painted red, and great overhanging green rudder-sweeps
swaying a rudder half as large as a barn door. Aft there is always
an awning stretched to the mainmast, under which lies the captain,
generally sound asleep.
When you board one of these floating wood-yards, and, rousing the
Signor Capitano, beg permission to spread your sketch-awning on the
forward deck out of everybody’s way, you will not only get the best
point of view from which to paint the exquisite domes and towers of the
beautiful _Santa Maria della Salute_, but, if you sit all day at work,
with the deck wet and cool beneath your feet, and listen to the barter
and sale going on around, you will become familiar with the workings
of the market itself. You will find all these boats loaded under and
above deck with sticks of wood cut about the size of an axe-handle,
tied in bundles that can be tucked under one’s arm. These are sold
over the ship’s side to the peddlers, who boat them off to their shops
ashore. All day long these hucksters come and go, some for a boat-load,
some for a hundred bundles, some for only one. When the purchase is
important, and the count reaches, say, an even hundred, there is always
a squabble over the tally. The captain, of course, counts, and so does
the mate, and so does the buyer. As soon as the controversy reaches the
point where there is nothing left but to brain the captain with one
of his own fagots, he gives in, and throws an extra bundle into the
boat, however honest may have been the count before. The instantaneous
good-humor developed all around at the concession is only possible
among a people who quarrel as easily as they sing.
Wood is really almost the only fuel in Venice. Coal is too costly, and
the means of utilizing it too complicated. What is wanted is a handful
of embers over which to boil a pot of coffee or warm a soup, a little
fire at a time, and as little as possible, for, unlike many another
commodity, fuel is a bugbear of economy to the Venetian. He rarely
worries over his rent; it is his wood-bill that keeps him awake nights.
Above the fruit market near the Rialto is the new fish market, a modern
horror of cast iron and ribbed glass. (Oh, if the polluting touch of
so-called modern progress could only be kept away from this rarest of
cities!) Here are piled and hung and spread out the endless varieties
of fish and sea foods from the lagoons and the deep waters beyond;
great halibut, with bellies of Japanese porcelain, millions of minnows,
like heaps of wet opals with shavings of pearl, crabs, _fulpe_,
mussels, and the spoils of the marshes. Outside, along the canal, are
ranged the market boats, with their noses flattened against the stone
quay, their sails clewed up, freeing the decks, the crews bending under
huge baskets.
Fish is the natural flesh-food of the Venetian, fresh every morning,
and at a price for even the poorest. If there is not money enough for
a clean slice cut through the girth of a sea-monster, for a broil,
less than a _soldo_ will buy a handful of little nondescripts like fat
spiders, for soup, or a pint of pebble-like mussels with which to savor
a stew.
ON RAINY DAYS
THE wind blows east! All night long the thunder of the surf, breaking
along the Lido, has reverberated through the deserted streets and
abandoned canals of Venice.
From your window you see the fair goddess of the Dogana, tired out with
the whirling winds, clinging in despair to the golden ball--her sail
flying westward, her eyes strained in search of the lost sun. You see,
too, the shallow lagoons, all ashy pale, crawling and shivering in the
keen air, their little waves flying shoreward as if for shelter.
Out beyond San Giorgio, the fishing-boats are tethered to the spiles,
their decks swept by fierce dashes of rain, their masts rocking
wearily. Nearer in, this side the island, two gondolas with drenched
_felsi_, manned by figures muffled in oilskins, fight every inch of
the way to the Molo; they hug in mid-stream the big P. and O. steamer
lying sullen and deserted, her landing-ladder hanging useless, the
puffs of white steam beaten flat against her red smoke-stacks. Across
the deserted canal the domes of the Salute glisten like burnished
silver in the white light of the gale, and beyond these, tatters of
gray cloud-rack scud in from the sea. Along the quays of the Dogana the
stevedores huddle in groups beneath the sheltering arches, watching the
half-loaded boats surge and jar in the ground-swell of the incoming
sea. In the garden at your very feet lie the bruised blossoms of the
oleanders, their storm-beaten branches hanging over the wall, fagged
out with the battle of the night. Even the drenched tables under the
dripping arbors are strewn with wind-swept leaves, and the overturned
chairs are splashed with sand.
All the light, all the color, all the rest and charm and loveliness of
Venice, are dead. All the tea-rose, sun-warmed marble, all the soft
purples of shifting shadows, all the pearly light of summer cloud and
the silver shimmer of the ever-changing, million-tinted sea, are gone.
Only cold, gray stone and dull, yellow water, reflecting leaden skies,
and black-stained columns and water-soaked steps! Only brown sails,
wet, colorless gondolas and disheartened, baffled pigeons! To-day the
wind blows east!
When the tide turns flood, the waters of the lagoon, driven by the high
wind, begin to rise. Up along the Molo, where the gondolas land their
passengers, the gondoliers have taken away their wooden steps. Now the
sea is level with the top stone of the pavement, and there are yet two
hours to high water. All about the caffès under the Library, the men
stand in groups, sheltered from the driving rain by the heavy canvas
awnings laid flat against the door columns. Every few minutes some one
consults his watch, peering anxiously out to sea. A waiter serving
coffee says, in an undertone, that it is twelve years since the women
went to San Marco in boats; then the water rose to the sacristy floor.
Under the arcades and between the columns of the Doges’ Palace is
packed a dense mass of people, watching the angry, lawless sea. Wagers
are freely laid that unless the wind shifts the church itself will be
flooded at high water. The gondoliers are making fast their unused
_felsi_, lashing them to the iron lamp-posts. Along the Molo the boats
themselves, lashed fore and aft to the slender poles, are rocking
restlessly to and fro.
Suddenly a loud cheer breaks from the throng nearest the water’s edge,
and a great, surging wave dashes across the flat stone and spreads
quickly in widening circles of yellow foam over the marble flagging
of the Piazzetta. Then another and another, bubbling between the iron
tables and chairs of the caffès, swashing around the bases of the
columns, and so on like a mill-race, up and around the _Loggietta_
of the Campanile, and on into the Piazza with a rush. A wild shout
goes up from the caffès and arcades. The waiters run quickly hither
and thither, heaping up the chairs and tables. The shop-men are
closing their shutters and catching up their goods. The windows of the
_Procuratie_ are filled with faces overjoyed at the sight. Troops of
boys, breechless almost to their suspender buttons, are splashing about
in glee. The sea is on the rampage. The bridegroom is in search of the
bride. This time the Adriatic has come to wed the city. Another hour
with the wind east, and only the altar steps of San Marco will suffice
for the ceremony!
Another shout comes from the Piazzetta. There is a great waving of
hands and hats. Windows are thrown open everywhere. The pigeons sweep
in circles; never in the memory of their oldest inhabitant has there
been such a sight. In the excitement of the hour a crippled beggar
slips from a bench and is half-drowned on the sidewalk.
Another and a louder roar, and a gondola rowed by a man in tarpaulins
floats past the Campanile, moves majestically up the flood, and grounds
on the lower steps of San Marco. The boys plunge in and push, the women
laugh and clap their hands.
From the steps of the arcade of the Library, men with bared thighs
are carrying the shop-girls to the entrance of the Merceria under the
clock tower. Some of the women are venturing alone, their shoes and
stockings held above their heads. Farther down, near the corner column
of the Doges’ Palace, a big woman, her feet and ankles straight out,
is breaking the back of a little man who struggles along hip-deep,
followed by the laughter of the whole Piazzetta.
In the _campo_ fronting the church of San Moisè, a little square hemmed
around by high buildings, the sea, having overflowed the sewers, is
spurting small geysers through the cracks in the pavement; thumping and
pounding a nest of gondolas moored under the bridge.
Out on the Piazzetta a group of men, barelegged and bareheaded, are
constructing a wooden bridge from the higher steps of the arcade of
the Library to the equally high steps surrounding the base of the
column of Saint Theodore, and so on to the corner column of the
Doges’ Palace. They are led by a young fellow wearing a discarded
fatigue-cap, his trousers tied around his ankles. The only dry spot
about him is the lighted end of a cigarette. This is Vittorio--up from
the _Via Garibaldi_--out on a lark. He and his fellows--Luigi and the
rest--have splashed along the Riva with all the gusto of a pack of boys
reveling in an October snow. They have been soaking wet since daylight,
and propose to remain so until it stops raining. The building of the
bridge was an inspiration of Vittorio, and in five minutes every loose
plank about the _traghetto_ is caught up and thrown together, until
a perilous staging is erected. Upon this Luigi dances and pirouettes
to prove its absolute stability. When it topples over with the second
passenger, carrying with it a fat priest in purple robe and shovel hat,
who is late for the service and must reach the Riva, Luigi roars with
laughter, stands his Reverence on his feet, and, before he can protest,
has hoisted him aback and plunged knee-deep into the flood.
The crowd yell and cheer, Vittorio holding his sides with laughter,
until the dry flagging of the palace opposite is reached, and the
reverend gentleman, all smiles and benedictions, glides like a turtle
down Luigi’s back.
But the tramps from the _Via Garibaldi_ are not satisfied. Luigi and
Vittorio and little stumpy Appo, who can carry a sack of salt as easily
as a pail of water, now fall into line, offering their broad backs
for other passengers, Vittorio taking up a collection in his hat,
the others wading about, pouncing down upon derelict oars, barrels,
bits of plank, and the débris of the wrecked bridge. When no more
_soldi_ for ferry-tolls are forthcoming, and no more Venetians, male
or female, can be found reckless or hurried enough to intrust their
precious bodies to Luigi’s shoulders, the gang falls to work on a fresh
bridge. This Vittorio has discovered hidden away in the recesses of
the Library cellars, where it has lain since the last time the Old Man
of the Sea came bounding over the Molo wall. There are saw-horses for
support, and long planks with rusty irons fastened to each end, and
braces, and cross-pieces. All these are put up, and the bridge made
entirely practicable, within half an hour. Then the people cross and
recross, while the silent gendarmes look on with good-natured and lazy
indifference. One very grateful passenger drops a few _soldi_ into
Vittorio’s water-soaked fatigue-cap. Another, less generous, pushes
him to one side, crowding some luckless fellow, who jumps overboard up
to his knees to save himself from total immersion, the girls screaming
with assumed fright, Vittorio coaxing and pleading, and Luigi laughing
louder than ever.
At this moment a steamboat from the Lido attempts to make fast to her
wharf, some hundreds of feet down the Molo. As the landing-planks are
afloat and the whole dock awash, the women and children under the
awnings of the after-deck, although within ten feet of the solid stone
wall, are as much at sea as if they were off the Lido. Vittorio and
his mates take in the situation at a glance, and are alongside in an
instant. Within five minutes a plank is lashed to a wharf-pile, a rope
bridge is constructed, and Vittorio begins passing the children along,
one by one, dropping them over Luigi’s shoulders, who stands knee-deep
on the dock. Then the women are picked up bodily, the men follow
astride the shoulders of the others, and the impatient boat moves off
to her next landing-place up the Giudecca.
By this time hundreds of people from all over the city are pouring into
the Piazza, despite the driving rain and gusts of wind. They move in a
solid mass along the higher arcades of the Library and the Palace. They
crawl upon the steps of the columns and the sockets of the flag-staffs;
they cling to the rail and pavement of the _Loggietta_--wherever a
footing can be gained above the water-line. To a Venetian nothing is
so fascinating as a spectacle of any kind, but it has been many a day
since the Old Man of the Sea played the principal rôle himself!
There is no weeping or wailing about wet cellars and damp basements, no
anxiety over damaged furniture and water-soaked carpets. All Venetian
basements are damp; it is their normal condition. If the water runs in,
it will run out again. They have known this Old Sea King for centuries,
and they know every whim in his head. As long as the _Murazzi_
hold--the great stone dykes breasting the Adriatic outside the
lagoons--Venice is safe. To-morrow the blessed sun will shine again,
and the warm air will dry up the last vestige of the night’s frolic.
Suddenly the wind changes. The rain ceases. Light is breaking in the
west. The weather-vane on the Campanile glows and flashes. Now a flood
of sunshine bursts forth from a halo of lemon-colored sky. The joyous
pigeons glint like flakes of gold. Then a shout comes from the Molo.
The sea is falling! The gondolier who has dared the centre of the
Piazza springs to his oar, strips off his oilskins, throws them into
his boat, and plunges overboard waist-deep, seizing his gondola by
the bow. The boys dash in on either side. Now for the Molo! The crowd
breaks into cheers. On it goes, grounding near the _Porta della Carta_,
bumping over the stone flagging; afloat again, the boatmen from the
Molo leaping in to meet it; then a rush, a cheer, and the endangered
gondola clears the coping of the wall and is safe at her moorings.
Half an hour later the little children in their white summer dresses,
the warm sunshine in their faces, are playing in the seaweed that
strews the pavements of the Piazzetta.
LEGACIES OF THE PAST
“WILL you have the kindness to present Professor Croisac’s profound
adoration to the Contessa Albrizzi, and say that he humbly begs
permission to conduct his friend, a most distinguished painter, through
the noble salons of her _palazzo_?”
It was the Professor, standing bareheaded on the landing-steps of the
entrance to the Palazzo Albrizzi, the one lonely glove breaking the
rounded outline of his well-brushed hat. He was talking to a portly
Italian who did duty as Cerberus. As for myself, I was tucked back
under the _tenda_, awaiting the result of the conference, Espero
smiling at the old fellow’s elaborate address and manners.
The porter bowed low, and explained, with much earnestness, that
the _Illustrissima_ was then sojourning at her country-seat in the
Tyrol; adding that, despite this fact, the whole palace, including the
garden and its connecting bridge, from the courtyard to the roof, was
completely at the service of the _Signor Professore_.
“And all for two _lire_,” whispered Espero, to whom the old gentleman
was a constant source of amusement, and who could never quite
understand why most of his talking was done with his back bent at right
angles to his slender legs. So we followed the porter up the stone
staircase, around its many turns, to the grand hall above, with its
rich pictures panelled on the walls, and so on through the various
rooms of white stucco and old gold brocades, to the grand salon, the
one with the famous ceiling.
The night before, over a glass of Torino vermouth at Florian’s, the
Professor had insisted that I should not live another day until he had
piloted me through all those relics of the past, illustrative of an age
in Venice as sumptuous as it was artistic.
First of all I must see the gorgeous ceilings of the Albrizzi; then
the curious vine-covered bridge leading out of the Contessa’s boudoir
to a garden across the narrow canal, as secluded as the groves of
Eden before Adam stepped into them. Then I must examine the grand
Palazzo Rezzonico, begun by Longhena in 1680, and completed sixty years
later by Massari; once the home of Pope Clement XIII., and again made
immortal as sheltering the room in which Browning had breathed his
last. There, too, was the Barbaro, with its great flight of stone
steps sweeping up and around two sides of a court to the picturesque
entrance on the second floor,--the Barbaro, with its exquisite salon,
by far the most beautiful in Europe. There was the Palazzo Pisani,
built in the fifteenth century, its galleries still hung with Venetian
mirrors; and the Palazzo Pesaro, designed by this same Longhena in
1679, the home of an illustrious line of Venetian nobles from Leonardo
Pesaro down to the Doge Giovanni, with its uncanny row of grotesque
heads of boars, bulls, and curious beasts studded along the water-table
of the first story, a hand’s touch from your gondola, so grotesque and
quaint that each one looked like a nightmare solidified into stone.
There were also the Dandolo, where lived the great Doge Enrico Dandolo,
the conqueror of Constantinople,--conqueror at ninety-seven years of
age; the Farsetti, where Canova studied, in his time an academy; the
Barbarigo, where Titian once held court; the Mocenigo, where Byron
lived; not to mention the veritable home of the veritable Desdemona,
including the identical balcony where Othello breathed his love.
All these I must see, and more. More in out-of-the-way churches like
_San Giorgio della Schiavoni_, with the Carpaccios that are still as
brilliant as when the great painter laid down his brush. More in the
Gesuati up the Zattere, with its exquisite Tiepolos. Infinitely more
in the school of San Rocco, especially behind the altars and under the
choir-loft; in the Frari next door, and in a dozen other picturesque
churches; and away out to Torcello, the mother of Venice, with its one
temple,--the earliest of Venetian cathedrals,--its theatre-like rows of
seats, and the ancient slate shutters swinging on huge hinges of stone.
But to return to the Professor, who is still gazing up into the
exquisite ceiling of the salon of the Contessa, pointing out to me the
boldness and beauty of the design, a white sheet drawn taut at the
four corners by four heroic nude figures, its drooping folds patted up
against the ceiling proper by a flutter of life-sized, winged cupids
flying in the air, in high relief, or half smothered in its folds.
“Nothing gives you so clear an idea of the lives these great nobles
lived,” said the Professor, “as your touching something they touched,
walking through their homes--the homes they lived in--and examining
inch by inch the things they lived with. Now this Palazzo Albrizzi is,
perhaps, less spacious and less costly than many others of the period;
but, for all that, look at the grand hall, with its sides a continuous
line of pictures! Its ceiling a marvel of stucco and rich-colored
canvases! Do you find anything like this outside of Venice? And now
come through the salon, all white and gold, to the bridge spanning the
canal. Here, you see, is where my lady steps across and so down into
her garden when she would be alone. You must admit that this is quite
unique.”
The Professor was right. A bridge from a boudoir to a garden wall,
sixty or more feet above the water-line, is unusual, even in Venice.
And such a bridge! All smothered in vines, threading their way in
and out the iron lattice-work of the construction, and sending their
tendrils swinging, heads down, like acrobats, to the water below. And
such a garden! Framed in by high prison walls, their tops patrolled
by sentinels of stealthy creepers and wide-eyed morning-glories! A
garden with a little glass-covered arbor in the centre plot, holding
a tiny figure of the Virgin; circular stone benches for two, _and no
more_; tree-trunks twisted into seats, with encircling branches for
shoulders and back, and all, too, a thousand miles in the wilderness
for anything you could hear or see of the life of the great city about
you. A garden for lovers and intrigues and secret plots, and muffled
figures smuggled through mysterious water-gates, and stolen whisperings
in the soft summer night. A garden so utterly shut in, and so entirely
shut out, that the daughter of a Doge could take her morning bath in
the fountain with all the privacy of a boudoir.
“Yes,” said the Professor, with a slight twinkle in his eye, “these old
Venetians knew; and perhaps some of the modern ones.”
[Illustration: WIDE PALATIAL STAIRCASES]
And so we spent the day, rambling in and out of a dozen or more of
these legacies of the past, climbing up wide palatial staircases;
some still inhabited by the descendants of the noble families; others
encumbered with new and old furniture, packing-boxes and loose straw,
now magazines for goods; gazing up at the matchless equestrian statue
of Colleoni, the most beautiful the world over; rambling through the
_San Giovanni e Paolo_; stopping here and there to sketch, perhaps
the Madonna over the gate next the Rezzonico, or some sculptured lion
surmounting the newel-post of a still more ancient staircase; prying
into back courts or up crumbling staircases, or opening dust-begrimed
windows only to step out upon unkept balconies overhanging abandoned
gardens; every carving, pillar, and rafter but so much testimony to the
wealth, power, and magnificence of these rulers of the earth.
“And now to the Caffè Calcina for luncheon, Espero.”
When we had dodged into its open door out of the heat, and were seated
at one of its little square tables under the grapevines, the Professor
fished up two books from that capacious inside pocket of his, and
with much explanatory preface of how he had searched through all the
book-stalls of the Rialto, finding them at last in the great library of
the Doge’s Palace itself, wiped their faded covers with a napkin, and
turned the leaves tenderly with his withered fingers.
“And just see what festivities went on in these great palaces! Here is
a little book written by Giustina Renier Michiel, and published early
in the century. It is especially interesting as throwing some light on
the wonderful festivities of the olden time. You remember the Palazzo
Nani, the palace we saw after leaving the Dandolo? Well, listen to
this account of a wonderful _fête_ given in the beginning of the last
century at this very palace”--the Professor had closed the book over
his finger--he knew the description by heart.
“Michiel says that owing to the intense cold the lagoon was frozen
over as far as Mestre, so the hospitable host warmed every part of
the palace with huge stoves made of solid silver, elaborately wrought
in exquisite designs; and not content with the sum of that outlay, he
completed the appointments and decorations in the same precious metal,
even to the great candelabra lighting the entrance hall. And then, as
a mere freak of hospitality,--he had a large visiting list, you may be
sure,--he added ten rooms to his varied suites, in each one of which he
placed musicians of different nationalities, just to prevent crowding,
you see.