WE ARE WHIRLED AWAY BY THE 2.20 FROM CHARING CROSS AND MEET THE QUEEN
OF THE ADRIATIC
We went straight through, leaving Charing Cross by the 2.20 which has
carried so many happy travellers away from London through the smiling
valleys of Kent. Were I a poet, I would address an ode to that
romantic liberating train.
It was after midnight on the following day when we drew up at last at
Venice, tired and dusty and hungry and stained and not a little
wondering why we had left London. But the next few minutes set that
right, for all our weariness rolled away as we sat in the gondola
under a soft starry sky, and watched the lights in the water, and
heard the porters in fluent altercation, and at last got away and
began to thread the narrow canal to Danieli's, where we were staying
for that night.
The next morning we moved on, by Dollie's advice, to the large hotel
by the landing-stage at the Lido. I will not say that there are no
mosquitoes--zanzare--there, but I am prepared to admit that the
manager's theory is correct, and that we brought them with us from
Venice.
The secret of the peculiar buoyancy of the Lido waters I do not know;
but they are wonderful. "Like bathing in champagne," Alderley said;
and that, though a vile sophisticated simile, comes near the mark.
Other sands may be gayer; but for its gift of exuberant gladness the
Lido comes first.
Drusilla's face, as we met, on our way to the sea down the wooden
gangway, on the first afternoon, an Italian gentleman clad almost
entirely in his own hair, was worth its weight in kodak films.
"Why can't he wear a bath towel like Kent and father?" she asked
indignantly.
"Because he's an Italian," was Naomi's unanswerable reply, which,
however Drusilla may have resented its insufficiency then, she was
bound to agree with later; for the sea was full of such shameless
happy monsters and their ladies, gambolling in the waves with both
feet planted firmly and frankly on the bed of the ocean, and none of
the Briton's shame at being found out no swimmer or any of his
acrobatic efforts to convey to the shore an illusion of buoyancy.
Perhaps, when all is said, the profoundest difference between the
Anglo-Saxon and the Latin is the Latin's indifference to public
opinion. There is no true civilisation without it--if by
civilisation is meant the art of enjoying life.
As a general rule, after our bathing was done we lunched and then
crossed to Venice, where we spent the rest of the day very lazily and
very happily. Venice indeed imposes laziness. Even Americans doing
Europe approach restfulness there. There is no hurrying a gondolier.
My stepsister, who had not sketched for years, once more produced her
paint-box and block, and we used to establish her comfortably in a
corner and leave her for an hour or so; Drusilla and Alderley paired
off, and Naomi and I. Drusilla had of course to see all the
pictures, and we let her and her father find them for us and take us
only to those which they thought very good. Venice is not rich in
good pictures; the best work of the Venetian school is elsewhere.
Venice has the sprawling Tintorettos in abundance, some of which are
magnificent and all miracles of virility; but she has few portraits
from his hand to set, for example, against the old Admiral and the
warrior in armour at Vienna, and nothing quite like the "Origin of
the Milky Way," in our own National Gallery. Titian, again, after
the "Assumption," may now be better studied away from his old home
than in it, and there are more exquisite Guardis in London. In the
Museo Civico, however, we found a great collection of Guardi's pen
and pencil sketches, light as air. Giovanni Bellini, again, save for
the little glowing allegories in the Accademia, is not represented in
Venice by anything so beautiful as his best pictures in Trafalgar
Square; but for his brother Gentile (if you want him), as for
Carpaccio, a journey to Venice is indispensable. Nor does one any
longer see a Venetian maturing into a Robusti or Vecellio. The
Venetians that throng the piazza of San Marco when the band is
playing are not like that. Shrewd they seem to be, self-contained,
masters of their narrow lives: but no more. Perhaps they account for
the appalling deterioration of modern Venetian art.
As for Naomi and me, we preferred the real life of Venice to its show
life, and we spent most of the time, after reaching the city, on
foot. For one may walk about Venice all day, and by following the
little narrow paths and bridges at random not only get lost but come
upon fascinating little squares and churches, family groups at the
doorsteps, and richly coloured fruit baskets. Being lost is,
however, no inconvenience, for the Grand Canal is never far away,
with some adjacent pier where one can board a steamer that will in
time come to the Molo again.
We did not even see all the show places. The Doges' Palace spread
its nets for Naomi and me in vain; but I cannot say how many times we
found our way to the statue of Bartolommeo Colleoni on horseback in
the Campo SS. Giovanni e Paolo, and more than twice did we cross to
San Giorgio Maggiore to be taken round the choir stalls by a courtly
priest and hear him explain in fascinating broken English the carved
scenes in the crowded life of St. Bernard; and more than twice did we
glide on from San Giorgio to the Redentore, where a tall monk with a
long grey beard unveiled one after the other the treasured paintings
of the sacristy, and set us, with all the solicitude of an
enthusiast, in the best light for each, enlarging earnestly, in easy,
companionable Latin, on their beauties. A simple, kindly creature,
who surely will be seated high in heaven after a life thus spent.
Meeting some English friends one day, we heard that the angel with a
flaming sword no longer stood at the gate of the Edens' garden, but
instead, the family being away, their compatriots were admitted on
the presentation of a visiting card, and off we voyaged thither,
across the canal della Giudecca into the narrow rio whence this
paradise is gained: a tangled tropical place, lacking no charm but
undulation. One walks on the flat between flowers and fruit along
paths that seem never-ending, beneath a sun whose beams carry a
fragrance of their own to add to that of the vegetation. The
south-west boundary is the still and magical lagoon.
Here we loitered careless as man in his first state, while the
lizards darted between our feet, flashing in and out of the beds and
the stone-work by thousands. That is the ultimate impression
conveyed by this Venetian garden--lizards. Large lizards and small,
green and yellow, swift as arrows on the wing, and stopping as
suddenly as arrows in the target, bright-eyed, wary, daring, silent
as shadows, clear and radiant as jewels. Lizards. Oranges and
peaches, figs and nectarines may grow here like weeds; but it remains
in the mind a garden of lizards.
Oft the days when we did not cross to Venice we would have tea either
at the casino or in our hotel, watching the steamers empty and fill,
and the arrival or departure of that prince in exile, Don Carlos,
Duke of Madrid, whose habit it was every afternoon to visit the Lido
in his motor launch with the ensign of Spain, accompanied, like a
figure in the _Arabian Nights_, by a lady, a huge dog, and a black
page. Tall and massive and bearded, I see him still, as he returned
to his boat, pausing to open his purse and distribute alms, as a
prince should, to all the beggars of the quay.
Usually in the evening we returned to Venice again to hear the music
and eat an ice and recognise our countrymen. For Venice between
eight and ten is concentrated into so small a space that it becomes a
mere annexe of Piccadilly and Broadway.
When we had pored over Baedeker in Queen Anne's Gate, we had planned
a score of excursions to neighbouring places--to Verona and Treviso,
even to Bergamo; but Venice was too much for us. We had no such
energy. Life was too sweet for sight-seeing, and we said, "If we
make an expedition, let it be to-morrow and not to-day," and loafed
and loafed.
One afternoon we had a very unexpected meeting. Naomi and I were in
the last room in the Accademia, where Bellini's Madonna of the Two
Trees hangs; and who should be already there studying the little gay
series of allegories but Mr. Dabney of _The Balance_? He looked up
with a face radiant with pleasure--not a trace for the moment of his
usual critical discontent.
"At last!" he said.
"Then you have been expecting to find us?" I asked.
"I have been to all the hotels," he replied, "and no one had ever
heard of you. I found I could snatch a fortnight, and I came right
out at once."
From that time Mr. Dabney was constantly near us or with us, and was
good company in the mass, but I found him no particular addition on
such rambles as Naomi and I had been accustomed to take together. He
had, however, not been in Venice before, and we, with our brief
familiarity with it, being in the very agreeable position of
comparatively oldest inhabitants, found a certain pleasure in showing
him the sights.
In France he would have been, I think, a sad bore, for there he would
have discovered so many points of superiority to the English: but not
even so keen a censor of his own country and countrymen as Mr. Dabney
could find aught in Venice, except such forgivable and inimitable
advantages as crumbling and picturesque architecture and clear skies,
to hold up as a model for home adoption.
And so, although a few walks with Naomi were ruined, I did not think
hardly of Mr. Dabney or suspect danger, until one evening, after he
had returned to the city in the last steamer, Drusilla remarked that
he was evidently hard hit.
"What do you mean?" I asked.
"By Naomi," she answered; and straightway the soft languorous moon
left the sky and the delicate stars were blotted out....
Of course....
Why had I been so blind?
Returning to the hotel, I said good-night to the others, and again
walked out. I sat on the quay and looked over towards the mainland,
and realised, as one can realise only on very beautiful nights, how
empty life is if it holds not one's desire.
What was my desire?
Did I want Naomi?
I had never put the question to myself in so many words; I hardly put
it now. But I knew, as I had known when Miss Gold made that remark
about Trist and Naomi just before we came away, that I did not want
any one else to want her.
Eternal dog in the eternal manger, that will not claim for itself,
and equally dislikes others to claim!
I was not a philanderer: I had hated philandering almost more than
any of the selfish vices; I was not a coward, or at any rate I was
sufficiently a fatalist to have no fear of the future. These things
I knew. What, then, was it that I suddenly recognised was making me
loathe myself and my kind?
Could I really be one of those hesitants in love who had so puzzled
me, and against whom I had in my perplexity, my imperfect knowledge,
directed so many a hard adjective?
Strange how gradually one has to come to the understanding not only
of other men but of oneself! In a flash now I realised their tragedy
and felt for them a great sorrow, none the less intense for its
inclusion of myself.
They truly are food rather for our sympathy than contempt, who have
not loved enough to demand, but have loved too much or have too much
hated the thought of others loving, to be able to renounce. How that
worm must gnaw!
There is no end to the subtle tortures which civilisation has devised
and is devising, but surely not the least is this modern hesitancy,
which increases and will increase as we become more complex and
believe less in another world and therefore more in enjoying this:
this terror lest the step we are taking should produce anything less
than the maximum of happiness. In one life, so short, to make a
false move, how can one bear to contemplate it?--and thus terrified,
we make none at all.
Was I like that? I asked myself, and repudiated the charge. No: I
was not like that; nor must I be.
I grew calmer as I decided thus, and calmer still as I realised that
such fears, such panics, were common to those on the brink of a
passion.
As I was?
Was I? Is it possible to reach one's first passion at the age of
fifty-five? I laughed aloud at the use of such a novelist's word.
But one thing was certain, and that was that Naomi was the dearest
companion I could ever know, I who had never much wanted a companion
at all--Naomi's quiet presence and alert interest, Naomi's serene
face, Naomi's atmosphere. I could not indeed think calmly of life
without Naomi at all.
And she? Had she any such thoughts of me as a companion? I knew
nothing, less than nothing. How should I know? I had never studied
women. I had got on with them very well; had had a few friends among
them in the Argentine: but always, I realised now, with the gloves
on. Naomi was my first frank companion--since Agnes Gold those many
years ago. Agnes Gold. What was she thinking, as she lay there on
her poor back, about Naomi and me? She had mentioned Trist as the
ideal husband, but it was Naomi and me whom she had invited to
control her affairs.
That thought gave me comfort, and I braced myself under it. I drew a
long breath and turned my back on the soft stars and the lights of
Venice and the pitiless, lovely, still lagoon, and went to bed
convinced of two things: one being that it was fortunate our visit to
this accursed beauty-spot was nearly done, and the other that I would
do all I could to keep out of the black pit of melancholia, for I saw
swiftly down a vista of very dark possibilities.