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VENICE—11 P.M. TO MIDNIGHT · Around the Clock in Europe : A Travel Sequence

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Chapter eleven of Around the Clock in Europe, a travel sequence. This is
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a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more
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information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox dot org. Around the Clock in
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Europe a Travel Sequence by Charles fish Howell, Chapter eleven, Venice, eleven
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p m. To midnight, a July moon over a gondola under a tenor
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lilting a barricole. Thousands with you on the Grand Canal Venice Afesta. From
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a nearby belfry, a clock booms eleven eleven, and we are only to
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the Foscari Palace. An hour ago we started at the rialto a thousand gay
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gondolas with bunting lanterns and greens, everybody jostling, singing and shouting, and
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in the center like the queen jewel of a tiera, the brilliant barca,
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filled with orchestra and singers, and a blaze in a myriad of collared lights.
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This is a great occasion. The Serenata Uficiae, the Festa of the
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Redentare is near its close. Church portals hang with mulberry branches, begged by
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the monks of Saint Francis, and the people have feasted royally on the luscious
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black fruit bought at the little stands on the Giudeca Quays. Last Sunday,
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the priestly procession and full canonicals crossed the bridge of boats through the Giudecca on
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its annual pilgrimage to the Church of the Redentore. Venice thus sustains her reputation
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as a reverencer of traditions. They are burning lamps still in San Marco Cathedral
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for an innocent man who is put to death hundreds of years ago, and
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so the Church of the Redentore is packed to suffocation at least one day of
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the year. And after that, with the religious rites off her mind,
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Venice suddenly gives up trying to look solemn and bursts out into the joy and
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tumult of the official serenade. This year it is splendid. Every moment belated
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gondolas are arriving like a flock of black swans, with fresh quotas of enthusiasm
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and an increase of gayety and confusion. What laughter and fun. The canal
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is a hopeless jam. Dancing lanterns play light and shade on thousands of bright
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faces, and the gondoliers in fresh white blouses and blue sailor collars look like
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shadows as they lean silently on their long oars. In the intervals of the
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music. There's something weird and frantic to both their labor and their language,
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as they agonize to protect their beloved boats from scratches and smashes, and at
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the same time retain positions of vantage in this ice flow of a tangle,
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as the Barka struggles forward a few difficult yards to its next point of serenade.
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There are ten or a dozen of these serenade points, and at each
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the writhing flotilla pauses, and singers and orchestra provide the entertainment. It is
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finest to be afloat, But oh the land red and green fire throws into
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enormous relief ferry like towers and turrets that have figured in song and story for
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a thousand years, And at window terraces, balconies and tops their throngs of
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multitude that none of us may number. Every face is turned toward the Barka,
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every handkerchief waves our way. An occasional searchlight darts impartially over them.
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At us picks out a spot in sudden brilliance, and as suddenly drops it
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back into blacker obscurity. But in that brief flashing scattered friends have discovered.
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Friends and gondolas are started inching toward each other. At presently parties are joined
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in ice boxes uncovered. After covertly studying the apparently aimless movements of our own
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gondola, I finally unearthed a dark conspiracy in the Reunion line that interested only
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Paolo, our gondolier, and an occasional crony at a neighboring ore. Poulo's
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face and manners are innocents itself, but his guile is fathoms deep. We
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could not understand why he did not get us nearer to the barka the universal
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objective, until we saw the bottle pass between him and a raven haired,
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a flashing tooth athlete at the nearest ore, and surprised the quick greeting and
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low musical laugh of congratulations and content. But who mindes with Venice Apesta and
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Venice's pallos not ours alas night on the Grand Canal, What a realm of
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witchery, the horns of Elfland faintly blowing. What lullaby could soothe more sweetly
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than the dip of the oar or the soft plash of the dark water under
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the gondola's prow. The charm of unreality invests the shadowy, spiritualized palaces,
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rising like silver wraiths from the quivering stream. The summer moon touches each carbon
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arch and column, each stone lace balcony, each fretted in brasier, each
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delicate ojav window, and sculptured capital and lo a magician's wand has reared a
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dreamland of unearthly beauty in the soft and odorous darkness. The birds that love
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this venus are securely nesting. The gulls that in winter whirl up the canals
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with harsh clamors of the coming storms, are now at rest along the beaches
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of their blue Adriatic. The swallows and pigeons are sleeping among the red tiles
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of the crooked gables. The sparrow are aloft among the mulbery trees of the
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geodeca and the sycamores of the public gardens. The canaries are dim spots in
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fragrant magnolia trees or in spreading beds of purple oleander, and the ordolons,
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robins and blackbirds nestle among azaleas, and the heavy festoons of banksias. All
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their music now is hushed, and they are as mute and soundless tonight as
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were their awe struck sires long centuries since, when Gentle Saint Francis read them
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his offices. Under the cypresses of Del Deserto. The night is fragrant,
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with a breath of roses, carnations, and camellias from palace gardens, and
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with spicy honeysuckle from the neighboring zetti. Visions of stirring romance and adventure crowd
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in on the mind down the pebbly paths of yonder Garden. Surely some lover
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has just passed, brave in velvet doublet and silken hose, from laying his
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roses at the satin slippered feet of his lady. Presently he will drift this
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way in his cushioned gondola, and the soft night winds will bear her the
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mellow throb of his guitar, and many a plaintive sigh of love and venice.
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But hush from out that old black water gate and bravos cloak, and
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with muffled oar who bears the helpless lady away through the deep shadows under the
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garden wall. Hard with your oar, my gondolier, a purse of golden
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ducats. If you speed me to San Marco, I shall slip this scribbled
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note into the lion's mouth ho for the vengeance of the ten. If it
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were day, what a different scene we should have on this twisting sea serpent
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of a grand canal. Venice would then be a sparkling vision, resplendent with
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every sea charm, tinted with pinks and opals and pearls, and as changeful
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and full of capris as any other coquette. Instead of this spangle of stars
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above, we should have a vast expanse of pale blue skins, eye cloudless
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and glittering, and the misty reflections that now sink faintly deep down into these
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dark waters would vanish before a stream so azure and brilliant that it would seem
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as if a portion of the sky above had been cut and fitted between the
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palace fronts below. And how these mellow old churches and houses would glow,
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and their wavering shadows shake in the stream. The exquisite traceries on balcony arch
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and column would seem carven of ivory, and from under the red tiled eaves,
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grim heads of stone would stare down over the sculptured cornices and peep out
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through delicate quadrifoils and creamy foliations, and enter these wonder palaces. The eager
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sun would peer to see the lofty ceilings, all frescoed and gilded, the
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floors of colored marbles, the carbon furniture in faded rich hangings, and the
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deep and arched recesses that overlook the gardens in the rear, and what guards
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mellow brick walls festooned in pale blue wisteria and lined with hedges of white thorn,
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a solemn cypress in either corner, clumps of fig trees in mowbray and
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golden magnolia, airy grapevine pergolas of slender, osier bound willow, little paths
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snugly bordered with box trellises of gorgeous roses, and here and there some antique
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statue or rude stone urn, half hidden in color, masses of scarlet pomegranates
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and snowy lilies. The day life of this famed waterway is very gay and
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picturesque. Here is both energy and idleness, and jolly friendships and laughter with
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light heartedness. Deep laden market scows pass ponderously by, piled high with fruits
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and vegetables, the rowers singing at their oars or shouting voluble greetings. Fishermen
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step slowly along, balancing baskets on their heads. Swarthy, black eyed women
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in dark so skirts and gay neckerchiefs with mulve colored shawls falling gracefully from head
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to waist throng the riva shops and bargain over purchases with violent gestures and eager
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earnestness. Priests returning from mass in rusty black cossacks loiter among the noisy groups
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that are received with profound bows and reverent touches of the cap husky, barefooted
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girl. Water carriers known as the Bigolanti stride by with copper vessels hanging from
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the yoke across their shoulders and offer you a supply for a soldo. Up
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the intersecting canals, Endless processions are passing over the arching bridges at you pause,
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perhaps to observe the varied life from a place by the rail girl,
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bead stringers with wooden trays full of turquoise bits. Garrulous pleasure parties off for
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the lidough, laboring boatmen breaking out into song, old men and women shuffling
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along to gossip and quarrel around the carbon well heads of the little Campi.
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And now and then some withered old aristocrat on his way to have coffee and
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chess at Florians. And then a solemn smoke over the Gazetta di Venizia,
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before the Kaffir Orientale, and the warm morning sun of the Riva of the
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Skivone. How well the Foscari palace there looks by night, the Foscari Palace,
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poor old Foscari. It is a sad but glowing chapter. His name
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recalls. Here lived the great Doge, the last serene of all their serenities,
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grown old in power and worn with foreign wars. His heart broke over
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the treason of his worthless son, and the helpless, sobbing old man no
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longer of use, was deposed by the ten in his tottering age. The
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very next day he died. And there in that palace, just now,
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when the red fire glowed, a pale campanile stood out of the gloom to
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the right and beyond the palace. That is where they buried him in the
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Church of the Frari, with belated reverence and remorseful at having dishonored him a
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few hours since, they proceeded to make history in Venice with a splendor of
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his obsequies. They clothed him in cloth of gold, set his ducal cap
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upon his head, buckled on his golden spurs, and laid his great sword
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by his side. And thus, in solemn pomp, attended by nobles and
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lighted by countless tapers, the pageant passed out of San Marco, crossed the
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rialto and came at last to the Church of the Frari, And there what
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is left of Doge Foscari lies to this day. It is not a poor
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place to be in either. The bones of Titian and Canava are beside him.
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A Titian masterpiece glorifies the choir, and on the opposite wall are two
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altarpieces of bellins, so lovely as to mark the very zenith of Venian art.
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A pause in the music of the serenade brings us suddenly back to the
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Venice of tonight. A vast scramble is in progress. We jostle and scrape
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forward another few yards. That Barkis sends a light hose spray to right,
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left and in front, in a desperate attempt to clear a passage. Dilatory
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or helpless gondoliers are lightly sprinkled, and all those of us who a moment
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since had been envying their good positions, now basely give way to howls of
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joy. No use to struggle. All gondoliers are alike in such a crush.
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A champion Castellani is no better than Paulo if he is strong enough to
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bend copper sent the semi pieces between thumb and finger. Presently we stop the
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tumult rages, good naturedly and jolly as the jockeying goes on for improved positions,
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and then there falls a sudden silence. A tenor is singing the tiel
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e maar of la Jianconda. You lie at full length on the cushions,
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the gondola lifting slowly with an indolent sway, and under the spell of the
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dreamy, witching music, you watch the smoke of your cigars. It drifts
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up and over and out and away. Toward the little streets in the dark,
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ah, little streets of Venice. Under whatever name of Calais or Corto
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or Salizada, you are just the same, be draggled and delightful. What
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rare surprises are always reserved for each revisit and overlooked doorway, a balcony,
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some sculptured detail. If the house fronts are plastered and patched, still they
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are picturesquely discolored. If the fantastic windows are out of plum, the gay
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shutters, nevertheless are charmingly faded, and there are pretty faces behind the bars.
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The roofs lead in the brain, but how rookish and rickety they are.
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The battered doors are low, but they have knockers that are ponderous,
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and imposed name plates are surprisingly large, and keyholes deep in cavernous. The
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stirrup handled to bell wires run almost to the tiny iron balconies away up under
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the oval windows of the eaves, those little balconies that for ages have never
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refused sympathetic regard for the hum of slippered feet on the stone pavements below.
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And there are weathered storefronts with corrugated iron shutters and gilt signs on blackboards,
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and under your feet in the pavement are odd little slits for water to run
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off in that remind you of openings in letter drops at home. There too
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are the shops whose modest output are raised a Venetian pour to such advantage.
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And there are the stores and markets where they bargain for a fruetoli of white
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flower and oil, or polenta of ground corn, and personally pick out their
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sardines at ten for penny, or indulge in a fine brunrino as large as
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a trout. There one sees picturesque lanterns in gay little window boxes, full
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of flows away up among the chimneys and tin water pipes. The rooms perhaps
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seem dark and gloomy to us of modern houses, but you stop with a
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thrill of delight at the happiness in the voice that carols a gay air from
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traviata somewhere in their depths, and you look up with a smile at the
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bright bird that loves that dark cage. Some carping and fussy visitors may compare
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these root homes to the dungeons under the leads beyond the bridge of size,
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But how could they consistently be other than they are venerable and dirty, with
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splotches of paint and charcoal markings, and half a faced pencil drawings of cracked
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plaster full of holes, and all toned down by time and weather to a
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uniform mellow gray. Of course, such critics accept with all italy the proud
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ones with the marble tablets to tell that Marco Polo lived there, or Petrarch
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or Titian or Garibaldi. But the nameless and understand distinguished many are quite as
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worth preserving. This one appreciates the inspiration of the authorities and applauds their industry
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in profusely tacking up those little ovals of blue tin with the jealous warning and
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white letters deviata di efficione, that is, don't spoil these walls with placards.
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So peace, harping philistine, to whom nothing is ever hallowed. Though
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your emotions are thin and your enthusiasms a chill, respect these little byways,
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and not for themselves, then for what they bring you to fascinating curiosity shops
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of the antiquarians, up the back courts, to charming campy, where you
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stand by grave and wellheads wonder whist in the lengthening shadows of historic churches,
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to likeen grown bridges themselves, pictures arched over sunny canals, overhung by gabled
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windows and flanked by garden walls pale blue with wisteria. Or could you have
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forgotten did nothing less than the great Piazza itself and glittering San Marco, the
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supreme jewel casket of the world. But the wistful Chiele mar is ended,
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and we move along to opposite the Academia Treasure temple of Venetian art. You
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uncovered just then, my comrade of the night, and out of reverence to
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the Titian assumption, I dare say I uncovered too, But it was to
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the madonnas and SATs of Giovanni Billini. Do you know them well? No?
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Not the Santa confers Azzione. Ah. Then life still holds a delight
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in reserve for you. A sudden, great and universal hush has fallen on
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canal and shore. Another tenor, sweet and vibrant as a bell, breathed
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that tenderest of all serenades, the one from dn Pasquale, at all times
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irresistible, it seems doubly so. Now faces that you see are grave and
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eager and transported. The silence and rapt attention is a tribute beyond words to
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composer and singer. And where else but in Italy would a multitude hush to
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a whisper when music sounds, and break into wild tumult when it ceases.
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A few weeks here and one comes to understand that music is the very breath
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and life of these people. The vagabond Venetian, penniless but happy, comes
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out of his doze in a corner of a sunny riva, and before his
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mouth has settled from its yawn, it is rounded into a song. A
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bottle of cheap wine, a loaf of bread, and a guitar provide joy
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enough for an army in the family, parties of the poor that float out
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onto the lagoon in rough market, gondolas at sunset. Verity and Rossini make
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work light for women, walk to business with the men, and hum comfort
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and courage all day. And so one needs to be discreet and silent when
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a solo begins, or be prepared for an instant and tepestuous rebuke. But
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there seems to be little need for a warning tonight with the hand of Venice,
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so strong upon us. Between serenades, one takes his ease on the
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cushions and looks about on the people around him. Someone begins to whistle the
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jolly old Carnival of Venice, and it is promptly taken up on all sides
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bolder spirits, even venturing upon the variations. A German gives us the Fatherland
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version about the hat that had three corners. An enormous Spaniard near at hand
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bellows a fragment of Ipagliacchi and is thunderously applauded. His friends, embarrassed but
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elated, urge him on to a second effort, which is received with indifference.
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On his third attempt, he has hissed, such as the caprice of
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an open air audience in Italy, Raleigh's stag party, and the gondola to
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the right presses upon us the hospitality of the capacious hamper, which we decline
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with a thousand thanks and in gestures more intelligible than our pigeon Italian. At
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our elbow, two slender American women in black provide excellent eavesdropping entertainment. Here
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is talk to our liking, thrilling with the names of men of fame,
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who knew and loved this Venice. Just over there Helen is the palace where
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Browning lived and died. What an elaborate place for a poet. Howells lived
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next door, you know, when he wrote his Venetian life. These places
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are ever so much finer than the one farther down where Goldoni wrote his comedies.
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Oh don't you know the Goldoni House. It is this side the Rialto,
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just opposite the Byron Palace with the blue striped gondola posts. I think
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says the other that the memories are quite as rich. Farther on, at
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the Hotel Europa, you remember chtabriand once lived and sort of George Eliot.
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And from there you can see the Danielli where George sand and Alfred de Mussey
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sought happiness but only found misery. At the mention of the Europa, the
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face of her friend is transfigured at her own. Hearts beat high in sympathy
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with the reverence of the lowered voice. Wagner wrote, Tristan un isolda at
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the Europa. He died in the palace where the three trees stand away down
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beyond the Rialto, Oh deathless Venice, Oh universal love. They marvel at
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this elfin world. The English father, mother and son in the gondola head.
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It is a mode of mind, or a form of hypnosis, a
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psychological phase. The boy turns from the distant fairy candles of San Marco and
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regards them with amaze and disapproval. His enthusiasms are keen at a quiver,
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and the freshness of life's morning is on his face. Don't analyze, he
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says, just breathe it, feel it. The parents exchange amused glances and
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smile indulgently out of the mouth of babes and sucklings, quotes the father under
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his breath. But we know, and they know that they have been answered.
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Gorgeous silks and priceless tapestries and rare oriental stuffs have doubtless often hung from
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the balconies of the palace on the right in the great Gala days of the
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wonderful past, when the carnival lasted half a year, the law had not
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yet ruled that all gondolas must be a uniform solemn black, and the cradle
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like boat of today, for all its brass, dolphins and carven scenes from
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the Jerusalem E Liberata, would have cut a sorry figure beside the sumptuous ones
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of an earlier time, with their mountings of silver and gold, profusion of
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rich colors, upholstery of enormous value, and bearing owners of fabulous wealth whose
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names were written in the city's Book of gold. Ah. Those were the
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triumphant days, when foreign princes waited half a hundred at a time to have
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the judgment of the Venetian Senate on the affairs of their state, When royalty
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was no unusual spectacle on the Piazza of San Marco, when the argacies of
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the world with portly sale came to anchor in these waters, when Dante and
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Petrarch were received as ambassadors, when the admirable Crichton would be tossed one hundred
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ducats for amusing the Senate with an extemporized Latin oration, and when his Serenity,
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the Doge on ascension day, fared forth in dazzling splendor to espouse the
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sea from the throne of his sumptuous Beautian Torol. The glory of that old
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and powerful Venice can never pass from the memory of men. Whole libraries preserve
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it in imperishable record. It is interesting, too to note how it affected
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bygone visitors, just as it does us today, as when one turns the
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pages so of John Eland's diary and smiles to see how soon it was after
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his portmanteau had been visited at the dug in a customs offices, that he
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pronounced the Mercaria to be one of the most delicious streets in the world,
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for the sweetness of it, and learned with a maze of the skill and
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rapidity of Venetian artisans, who, while King Henry the Third of England was
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one day visiting the Arsenal, built a galley rigged and finished it for launching,
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and cast a cannon of sixteen thousand pounds and put it on board,
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and all while his Majesty was having luncheon. There was indeed a great deal
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of the marvelous about men who could contrive a glass goblets so sensitive as to
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betray the presence of poison, or who could, at so early an age,
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make such exquisite books as the Aldine Classics, to the despair of publishers
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for hundreds of years to follow. Just now, in the fitful glare of
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red lights, hundreds of eager Venetian faces, transported as always by the spirit
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of carnival were seen in excited groupings in every nook and corner of the neighboring
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fondamenti. One thinks, how different is the present scene from those these people
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are accustomed to look upon on other nights. You would find them then,
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in the little family squares, whose corners are shrines of the Virgin, set
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with flowers and illumined with candles. Husband and wife will perhaps have spent the
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early evening in gallery seats at the Theatro Goldoni, and Giovanni, weary with
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a long day at the Tregeto, would have finished thumbing the headlines of the
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day Latriatico, and would now have his friends about him, and Maria would
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let the bambino stay up a little longer, and all would feast with prodigious
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merriment and satisfaction on the ever popular soup o pidocci, which is mussel broth
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flavored with spices, to be followed up by gioggia eels and white lines of
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poliicella. Neighboring women would of course drop in for their dearly loved gossip,
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hatless with silver pins fastening their blue black hair coral beads around their necks.
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And draping shawls thrown over their bright waists, and presently, some withered old
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coffee roaster would drag himself in with his fragrant ovens glowing, the bright flames
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leaping, and toffee vendors would plead for sales with the ease of sleight of
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hand. A guitar suddenly makes its appearance out of nowhere, and everybody enthusiastically
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joins in some haunting, languorous dreamy velotte, dear to the hearts of Venetians.
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Just around the corner, lounging groups would be scattered before cafe doors,
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and voices would be humming in low, eager talk. The usual wrangling and
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bargaining would be in progress at the cooking stalls, piled high with fish and
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garlic, polenta, cabbages, and apples. In nearby Trettori with sanded F's
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artistic bohemia, with ambition numbed by the latest African Sirocco, battens on bowls
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of macaroni in a turmoil of smoke and confusion. In the dark interior of
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a neighboring wine shop, one would find the wonderful golden browns that Rembrandt loved
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as a single oil lamp glows on the weathered faces of a circle of old
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cronies. And somewhere, just at hand, a gondolier's weird and fascinating cry
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of Astali would be heard, and all about them Venice would be crooning her
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ancient lullaby in the ceaseless low lapping of water on stone steps. All together,
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and forward once more to opposite the church of the Salute. We have
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lost our recent neighbors and have an entirely new set. The changes in the
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grouping are like the shuffling units of a kaleidoscope. A brilliant company is gathered
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on the balconies of Desdemona's palace, but Othello is not among them, another
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piece of calculated devilty, no doubt on the part of the crafty Iago.
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Still Portia is there from flowery Belmont, and with her are Jessica and Lorenzo.
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The music is now from melodious old Dinora, charmingly rendered and just as
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soothing as the first time one ever heard it. The salute stands out impressively
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in her great domes and elaborate spirals. It is beautiful, of course by
29:22
night, But then if it were day, we might run inside in revolentiis
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in Tintoretos, the fantastic columns fade and flash, as the red and green
29:33
fires smolder or flame, and the gilded fortuna on the dome of the adjoining
29:37
Dogana catches some of the glitter and generously sends it onto the seminario. In
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the rear, someone calls my name from among the oleanders of the Britannia Terrace
29:48
just opposite. What a delight to be known by name in this charmed city.
29:53
I look up at the adjoining hotel, and there are the windows of
29:56
my room, and I know that with an in the dark, my clothing
30:02
and articles of travel lie about. With secret wonder, I whispered to myself
30:07
that I, after all the years of waiting and hoping, I am actually
30:11
part of Venice. One might think there could not possibly be any more gondolas
30:17
in all the city outside of tonight's tremendous gathering. But even now you could
30:21
find them floating lazily about the lagoons, or a way out toward the Liedo,
30:26
where the moist winds are ruffling the water and the distant bride of the
30:30
sea. Seems only some sort of bright exhalation. Theirs is a languorous and
30:36
listless drifting, and their dim lamps waver slowly like glow worms. Little need
30:41
there for the music whales of a premie Astali. Little of such complaint as
30:48
Byron made that the gondoliers are songless, For one could not ask for a
30:52
more plaintive and soothing melody than the low, passionate crooning of the barefooted boy
30:57
at the oar. And perhaps, as in the murky dark of silent canals,
31:03
more gondolas than one are even now stealing lightly and with love's devious purposes,
31:08
under the fretted balconies of the star eyed daughters of Venice, while Beppo
31:15
muffles his oar to the warning of Tom Moore, Row gently here, my
31:19
gondolier, so softly waked the tide, that not an ear on earth may
31:26
here save hers to whom we glide. It seems weak, since, in
31:30
the cool of this very morning, out at the little island of Barano I,
31:33
lunched under shady locusts and the quiet garden of the crowned Lion, it
31:40
was a pleasant stop on the way to deserted Old Torcello torcello that mothered venice,
31:47
but now sleeps a clutter of grass grown ruins in the appalling stillness of
31:52
her weedy canals and thickets of BlackBerry hedges, with then a cable length of
31:56
where our gondola is now resting a black charry fishing bark tugs at anchor.
32:04
If it were day and her sails were set, one could not help being
32:07
delighted over the oranges and reds and blues of her patched and weathered canvas,
32:14
the curve of the elaborately painted bow, and the spirited air of the curious
32:19
figurehead. Unchanged. Survivors of the fading past are those sterio Bragotzi of Tchioja,
32:25
and one could not ask for a braver show than they present when they
32:29
hoist their painted sails to dry in one long line from the public gardens to
32:34
the Doge's palace. It was at t Gioja that we loitered a few days
32:38
back, and fed on picturesqueness to sayety, we have to but close our
32:44
eyes. And there are the grizzled old fellows in red bearethas trousers rolled to
32:50
their wiry brown knees, and great hoops of yellow gold in their ears.
32:54
When the midday sun was hottest, we found them sitting in the shade of
32:59
the fishing boat's sails, mending their nets with wooden bodkins and brown twine.
33:05
In the old days, when the hand of Venice was all powerful in this
33:08
part of the world, the Cheojians were the gayest and most picturesque people of
33:14
these islands. Artists still consider them the purest types of Phoenetians, but they
33:20
are a sad and melancholy lot now, as if burdened with a heritage of
33:23
glorious memories. It seemed to me that the old men were the happiest living
33:30
things in Chiogia. Then perhaps came the boys and the girls, and last
33:34
of all the women, and the older the woman, the gloomier, the
33:38
flirt of a sober mantilla is the nearest they ever come. Nowadays to gaiety,
33:44
we shall never forget, nor ever want to. At wonderful sail back
33:47
from Chioja to Venice. Listening to the music on the canal tonight, the
33:52
memory of it seems compact of dreams, or as the florid cloister fancy of
33:58
a Middle Ages monk that we had read in some illuminated old volume, bound
34:02
in bellum and clasped with gold. There was all the vitalizing pageantry of sunset
34:07
about us, all the immensity of sky and sea, and many a bright
34:13
little island rising out of the rippling lagoon. This side the marshy wastes,
34:19
the yellow strips of Palestrina and Malamocho topped the waves in two long lines,
34:24
like half submerged wreaths of gold. Above was a vast dome of turquoise,
34:30
glinted with pinks and grays, and with here and there a little heap of
34:35
snowy clouds. Every phase of the wonderful sky was reproduced in the water.
34:40
The sun reflected a second sun of no less ruddy fire, which burned across
34:45
the sea in a broad highway of shaking light that rolled to our feet.
34:51
The piled and fleecy clouds were steeped in gold, and bands of purple mists
34:55
across Shelley's Eugenian hills were pierced by it. Through and through Venice, a
35:01
mirage of the azure sea rose slowly as we drew nearer, a witchery of
35:07
towers, campanines, palaces, painted sails, and drifting gondolas. As the
35:14
dimming beauty faded with a brief eastern twilight, and we were gazing in awe
35:19
on the enchanting panorama, there suddenly loomed a fresh and added glory. For
35:24
just above the topmost pinnacle of stately San Giorgio floated a young summer moon.
35:31
Beauty has here an abiding place. Venice is doubtless a fairer vision now,
35:37
with its myriad lights than when the only illumination was from flickering tapers before the
35:43
corner shrines of the Virgin. More comfortable, it surely is, than when
35:49
Saint Roach himself was baffled by more than seventy plagues. The jaunty boatman and
35:54
his paeriless gondola still charm us and dustless and noiseles, as the city continues
36:00
musical with a cheery hum of voices and the soft shuffle of feet in the
36:07
cool twilight of the churches. Marvels of sculpture and immortal canvases still inspire and
36:13
Enthrall time has added new charms to the marvels of the bell Tower, church
36:17
and palace, and nature still employs a witchery scarce equaled elsewhere indecking the sea
36:24
city with flowers from the water lilies of the Brenta, the flaming begonia trumpets
36:30
of the Giudecca, the pale sea lavender of the Dead Lagoon, the rose
36:34
pergolas and oleander cloisters of San Lazaro, the primroses and sea holly of the
36:39
Liedo, wooded with odorous acacias and white flowered catapas, and carpeted with crimson
36:45
poppies, and the snowy star of Bethlehem. Away out to the sand dunes
36:51
and lush grasses of Triporti, there continually rises an inexhaustible incense of fragrance and
36:58
beauty is nearly ended. Anticipating the coming rush at the San Marco Piazza,
37:06
a word to Paolo starts us laboriously toward the outskirts of the flotilla. From
37:10
the royal gardens to the Molo is a matter of only a dozen plunges or
37:15
so of the stout ore. Spurred by an offer of extra leer for extra
37:19
speed, off flies our gondola. Frowning as superbly as ever did swan in
37:24
the eye of keats, we dart alongside the wet quay beyond the bridge of
37:29
size, and one of those old, superannuated old gondoliers called Rampini earns our
37:36
poor Bois by steadying the prow as we jump ashore. At the base of
37:39
the column of San Marco's winged lion, Saint Theodore looks down placidly from the
37:45
vantage point above his crocodile. As we pass between these storied pillars, Fra
37:51
maco a toldaro. As the Venetians say when they mean between pillar and post,
37:57
the piazzetta is already crowded. In our hope of a table, Florians
38:00
is dwindling. Never did the stately sen Sulvino library, or the airy colonnades
38:06
and warm Moorish marbles of the Palace of the Doges look finer. But past
38:10
them we speed, with no time for the scantiness of glances at the famous
38:15
quaterfoils and the thirty six pillars with the renowned capitals, and in we hurry
38:22
to the broad and glorious piazza and its flooding of light and life. Florians
38:28
is in a state of siege. Every table seems taken a hungry people by
38:31
hundreds or clamoring for places. The quadriye across the square would probably have had
38:38
to content us, had not the efficacy of frequent pass trips save the day,
38:45
and my nightly waiter welcomes us with his dry and mirthless smile and slips
38:52
us into a snug harbor under the very guns of the enemy. My companions
38:55
are officers of the American squadron now lying at Trieste, and they passed their
39:01
professional opinion that the strategy was capital. But though officers, they are,
39:06
young officers, and venices captured them hand and foot. Scarcely have we completed
39:10
our supper order. When the flowing strains of the coronation march from the prophet,
39:15
roll in from the molo in the barkus good night. And as if
39:20
we were riding in on that splendid musical tide, the noisy, jubilant host
39:24
of the festa comes pouring upon us. And what a fascinating spectacle does this
39:30
grand, unrivaled old square then present? Were Byron here tonight, he would
39:36
still have to call it the pleasant place of all festivity. No chance now
39:40
to study the designs in this vast flooring of marble, or to coax a
39:45
half persuaded pigeon onto your shoulder in every part of its two hundred yards of
39:52
arcaded length, said with storied architectures so inspiring by beauty and association, that
39:59
it moved Ea even the South contained mister Howells to exclaim, it makes you
40:04
glad to be living in this world, and under the blaze of its rimming
40:07
of clustered lights and shops and thronged cafes, their storms and chatters, a
40:15
vigorous, cheery, light hearted multitude, fresh from the stimulus of the glittering
40:20
water pageant. It comes in through the piazzeta with such a rush that one
40:24
looks for the band and bandstand two to be swept the full length of the
40:30
square, and out under the arches of the Royal Palace. Such laughing and
40:35
uproar, such a shiraco of gestures and hailstorm of crackling exclamations. This human
40:42
tidal wave of the Adriatic pours down the middle sees, along the edges,
40:46
and swirls and eddies in the remotest corners. One season in happy voluntary exiles
40:53
from almost every part of the world. But tonight the festa loving Venetians predomin
41:00
every local type is here from the languid patrician come in from her country estate
41:07
and now sipping anise water here at Florian's. And the vapid and scented fashionable
41:12
ewes with carnations in their button holes, to the flashing black eyed shop girls
41:17
with red roses in their crisp black hair and graceful mantillas shawls dropping back from
41:24
their tossing heads. And the vigorous, smiling artisans, easy and jaunty of
41:30
gait, with soft hats pushed back at every rakish angle on their curly heads.
41:36
How happy and transported Maria is tonight in her new black skirt and crimson
41:40
bodice, And how the sultry red smolders drew the olive of her cheeks,
41:46
as her little hands whirl in a tempest of gestures, and the lightnings of
41:51
excitement play in her midnight eyes. And no less carried away as Giovanni beside
41:55
her, proud as Coleoni on the big bronze horse, though he lets her
42:00
do most of the talking and contents himself with approving and quick expressive shrugs.
42:06
All classes of society are with us, rich man, poor man, beggar
42:10
man, thief, and old Shylock himself, who was most of these dreaming
42:16
of money bags. Scraps of gay, slurring song are continually bubbling over,
42:22
and flashes of wit and snappy repartee go flying to and fro. Flower girls
42:30
thread the press and insist upon pinning butaneers on. The men and street merchants
42:35
move about, offering everything from curios to camel on a stick. A crowd
42:39
gathers about a blind old troubadour thrumbing a dirty guitar and struggling to force his
42:45
rusty voice along the melodious course of some popular vilotte. And presently he will
42:52
be led among the tables before the cafes, and Sentasiemi in silver Lira will
42:58
jingle into his ragged hat. It is little enough to say that no scene
43:02
ever had a more romantic setting. The quaint old Venetian quatrain does this famed
43:07
spot, scant justice in Saint Mark's place. Three standards you descry, and
43:15
chargers four that seem about to fly. There is a time piece which appears
43:21
a tower, and there are twelve black men who strike the hour. In
43:24
the moonlight. The sculptured and arcaded old buildings glow like mellow ivory around three
43:31
sides of it, and it is warmed and vitalized by bustling cafes and brilliant
43:37
shop windows, set with tempting snares of artful jewelry and cunningly wrought glass.
43:43
Strong and proud, the great campanial towers upward into the clear night, away
43:47
above the tops of the three tall flagstaffs. The sumptuous cathedral, in its
43:53
wealth of glowing color and lavish adornment, makes one think of a vast heap
43:59
of glittering treasure piled up by returning Venetian pirates, and answered to the accustomed
44:05
question what have you brought back for Marco? One can scarcely take his eyes
44:08
off its lofty, yawning portals, its gates of bronze, its forest of
44:15
columns, its sweeping arches glowing in every color of brilliant mosaics, its profusion
44:22
of creamy sculptures, its canopied saints and statued pinnacles, and its great Byzantine
44:28
domes billowing into the purple sky. On the ancient clock tower of the Macaria,
44:32
the fierce winged lion of Saint Mark's holds a resolute paw on the open
44:37
Gospels, and the bronze bell ringers swing twelve ponderous blows and hang up the
44:44
hour of midnight on a dial of blue and gold. As they pause at
44:47
the completion of their labors and look down on the sea of faces turned toward
44:52
them from the piazza, they seem so nearly galvanized into life that it would
44:58
scarcely surprise one of the ar hear them shout, what news of the argacies
45:01
of Antonio? With the sparkling beauty of Venice so irresistible. Yet is a
45:07
terrible temptation to my companions to hurry straight back to Trieste and come over with
45:13
their battleship, and like dashing naval lochanvars, force an espousal of this incomparable
45:20
bride of the sea. Vain thought, it is Venice herself who has always
45:25
done the espousing fully to possess her. It must be on her own conditions
45:30
of complete surrender. How inevitable it seems at night that you must take the
45:36
step, must cry out once and for all to fellow voyagers on the dead
45:40
lagoons of life, Oh brothers, no more of the drab and wretched waste
45:46
for me Iron, for beauty and romance in Venice, all golden to dream.
45:52
I shall dwell in this enchanted realm of Dulci Fanienti, and float with
45:57
my gondola into the final sunset. Companions on lice waters, Astali, end
46:06
of chapter eleven.