That last day in Venice we went, I remember, to the Lido. Nothing
happened, but I don't like leaving it out, because it was the last day,
and the next best thing to lingering in Venice is lingering on it. We
went in a steamboat, under protest from poppa, who said it might as well
be Coney Island until we got there, when he admitted points of
difference, and agreed that if people had to come all the way out in
gondolas, certain existing enterprises might as well go out of business.
The steamer was full of Venetians, and we saw that they were charming,
though momma wishes it to be understood that the modern Portia wears her
bodice cut rather too low in the neck and gazes much too softly at the
modern Bassanio. Poppa and I thought it mere amiability that scorned to
conceal itself, but momma referred to it otherwise, admitting, however,
that she found it fascinating to watch.
We seemed to disembark at a restaurant permanent among flowing waters,
so prominent was this feature of the island, but it had only a roof, and
presently we noticed a little grass and some bushes as well. The verdure
had quite a novel look, and we decided to discourage the casual person
who wished to sell us strange and uncertified shell fish from a basket
for immediate consumption, and follow it up.
Dicky was of opinion that we might arrive at the vegetable gardens of
Venice, but in this we were disappointed. We came instead to a
street-car, and half a mile of arbour, and all the Venetians pleasurably
preparing to take carriage exercise. The horses seemed to like the idea
of giving it to them, they were quite light-hearted, one of them
actually pawed. They were the only horses in Venice, they felt their
dignity and their responsibility in a way foreign to animals in the
public service, anywhere else in the world. Personally we would have
preferred to walk to the other end of the arbour, but it would have
seemed a slight, and, as the Senator said, we weren't in Venice to hurt
anybody's feelings that belonged there. It would have been extravagant
too, since the steamboat ticket included the drive at the end. So we
struggled anxiously for good places, and proceeded to the other side
with much circumstance, enjoying ourselves as hard as possible. Dicky
said he never had such a good time; but that was because he had
exhausted Venice and his patience, and was going on to Verona next day.
The arbour and the grass and the street-car track ended sharply and all
together at a raised wooden walk that led across the sand to a pavilion
hanging over the Adriatic, and here we sat and watched other Venetians
disporting themselves in the water below. They were glorious creatures,
and they disported themselves nobly, keeping so well in view of the
pavilion and such a steady eye upon the spectators that poppa had an
impulsive desire to feed them with macaroons. He decided not to; you
never could tell, he said, what might be considered a liberty by
foreigners; but he had a hard struggle with the temptation, the aquatic
accomplishments we saw were so deserving of reward. I had the misfortune
to lose a little pink rose overboard, as it were, and Dicky looked
seriously annoyed when an amphibious young Venetian caught it between
his lips. I don't know why; he was one of the most attractive on view,
but I have often noticed Turkish tendencies in Dicky where his
country-women are concerned. We came away almost immediately after, so
that rose will bloom in my memory, until I forget about it, among
romances that might have been.
Strolling back, we bought a Venetian secret for a sou or two, a
beautiful little secret, I wonder who first found it out. A picturesque
and fishy smelling person in a soft felt hat sold it to us--a pair of
tiny dainty dried sea-horses, "_mère_" and "_père_" he called them. And
there, all in the curving poise of their little heads and the twist of
their little tails, was revealed half the art of Venice, and we saw how
the first glass worker came to be told to make a sea green dragon
climbing over an amber yellow bowl, and where the gondola borrowed its
grace. They moved us to unanimous enthusiasm, and we utterly refused to
let Dicky put one in his button-hole.
It is looking back upon Venice, too, that I see the paternal figure of
the Senator nourishing the people with octopuses. This may seem
improbable, but it is strictly true. They were small octopuses, not
nearly large enough to kill anybody while they were alive, though boiled
and pickled they looked very deadly. Pink in colour, they stood in a
barrel near the entrance, I remember, of Jesurum's, and attracted the
Senator's inquiring eye. When the guide said they were for human
consumption poppa looked at him suspiciously and offered him one. He ate
it with a promptness and artistic despatch that fascinated us all,
gathering it up by its limp long legs and taking bites out of it, as if
it were an apple. A one-eyed man who hooked pausing gondolas up to the
slippery steps offered to show how it should be done, and other
performers, all skilled, seemed to rise from the stones of the pavement.
Poppa invited them all, by pantomime, to walk up and have an octopus,
and when the crowd began to gather from the side alleys, and the
enthusiasm grew too promiscuous, he bought the barrel outright and
watched the carnival from the middle of the canal. He often speaks of
his enjoyment of the Venetian octopus, eaten in cold blood, without
pepper, salt, or vinegar; and the effect, when I am not there, is
awe-stricken.
Next morning we took a gondola for the station, and slipped through the
gold and opal silence of the dawn on the canals away from Venice. No
one was up but the sun, who did as he liked with the façades and the
bridges in the water, and made strange lovelinesses in narrow darkling
places, and showed us things in the _calli_ that we did not know were in
the world. The Senator was really depressing until he gradually
lightened his spirits by working out a scheme for a direct line of
steamships between Venice and New York, to be based on an agreement with
the Venetian municipality as to garments of legitimate gaiety for the
gondoliers, the re-nomination of an annual Doge, who should be compelled
to wear his robes whenever he went out of doors, and the yearly
resurrection of the ancient ceremony of marrying Venice to the Adriatic,
during the months of July and August, when the tide of tourist traffic
sets across the Atlantic. "We should get every school ma'am in the
Union, to begin with," said poppa confidently, and by the time we
reached Verona he had floated the company, launched the first ship,
arrived in Venice with full orchestral accompaniment, and dined the
imitation Doge--if he couldn't get Umberto and Crispi--upon clam chowder
and canvas-backs to the solemn strains of Hail Columbia played up and
down the Grand Canal. "If it _could_ be worked," said poppa as we
descended upon the platform, "I'd like to have the Pope telephone us a
blessing on the banquet."