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diff --git a/7083-0.txt b/7083-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..423ba70 --- /dev/null +++ b/7083-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,10597 @@ +The Project Gutenberg eBook of Venetian Life, by William Dean Howells + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and +most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions +whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms +of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at +www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you +will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before +using this eBook. + +Title: Venetian Life + +Author: William Dean Howells + +Release Date: March 8, 2003 [eBook #7083] +[Most recently updated: August 8, 2021] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: UTF-8 + +Produced by: Eric Eldred, Charles Franks, David Widger and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team + +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK VENETIAN LIFE *** + + + + +VENETIAN LIFE + +By William Dean Howells + + + + +ADVERTISEMENT TO THE SECOND EDITION. + +In correcting this book for a second edition, I have sought to complete +it without altering its original plan: I have given a new chapter +sketching the history of Venetian Commerce and noticing the present +trade and industry of Venice; I have amplified somewhat the chapter on +the national holidays, and have affixed an index to the chief historical +persons, incidents, and places mentioned. + +Believing that such value as my book may have is in fidelity to what +I actually saw and knew of Venice, I have not attempted to follow +speculatively the grand and happy events of last summer in their effects +upon her life. Indeed, I fancy that in the traits at which I loved most +to look, the life of Venice is not so much changed as her fortunes; but +at any rate I am content to remain true to what was fact one year ago. + +W. D. H. + +Cambridge, January 1, 1867. + + + + +CONTENTS. + + CHAPTER I. Venice in Venice + CHAPTER II. Arrival and first Days in Venice + CHAPTER III. The Winter in Venice + CHAPTER IV. Comincia far Caldo + CHAPTER V. Opera and Theatres + CHAPTER VI. Venetian Dinners and Diners + CHAPTER VII. Housekeeping in Venice + CHAPTER VIII. The Balcony on the Grand Canal + CHAPTER IX. A Day-Break Ramble + CHAPTER X. The Mouse + CHAPTER XI. Churches and Pictures + CHAPTER XII. Some Islands of the Lagoons + CHAPTER XIII. The Armenians + CHAPTER XIV. The Ghetto and the Jews of Venice + CHAPTER XV. Some Memorable Places + CHAPTER XVI. Commerce + CHAPTER XVII. Venetian Holidays + CHAPTER XVIII. Christmas Holidays + CHAPTER XIX. Love-making and Marrying; Baptisms and Burials + CHAPTER XX. Venetian Traits and Characters + CHAPTER XXI. Society + CHAPTER XXII. Our Last Year in Venice + + + + +CHAPTER I. + +VENICE IN VENICE. + + +One night at the little theatre in Padua, the ticket-seller gave us the +stage-box (of which he made a great merit), and so we saw the play and +the byplay. The prompter, as noted from our point of view, bore a chief +part in the drama (as indeed the prompter always does in the Italian +theatre), and the scene-shifters appeared as prominent characters. +We could not help seeing the virtuous wife, when hotly pursued by the +villain of the piece, pause calmly in the wings, before rushing, all +tears and desperation, upon the stage; and we were dismayed to behold +the injured husband and his abandoned foe playfully scuffling behind the +scenes. All the shabbiness of the theatre was perfectly apparent to +us; we saw the grossness of the painting and the unreality of the +properties. And yet I cannot say that the play lost one whit of its +charm for me, or that the working of the machinery and its inevitable +clumsiness disturbed my enjoyment in the least. There was so much truth +and beauty in the playing, that I did not care for the sham of the ropes +and gilding, and presently ceased to take any note of them. The illusion +which I had thought an essential in the dramatic spectacle, turned out +to be a condition of small importance. + +It has sometimes seemed to me as if fortune had given me a stage-box +at another and grander spectacle, and I had been suffered to see this +VENICE, which is to other cities like the pleasant improbability of the +theatre to every-day, commonplace life, to much the same effect as that +melodrama in Padua. I could not, indeed, dwell three years in the place +without learning to know it differently from those writers who have +described it in romances, poems, and hurried books of travel, nor help +seeing from my point of observation the sham and cheapness with which +Venice is usually brought out, if I may so speak, in literature. At the +same time, it has never lost for me its claim upon constant surprise +and regard, nor the fascination of its excellent beauty, its peerless +picturesqueness, its sole and wondrous grandeur. It is true that the +streets in Venice are canals; and yet you can walk to any part of the +city, and need not take boat whenever you go out of doors, as I once +fondly thought you must. But after all, though I find dry land enough +in it, I do not find the place less unique, less a mystery, or less a +charm. By day, the canals are still the main thoroughfares; and if +these avenues are not so full of light and color as some would have us +believe, they, at least, do not smell so offensively as others pretend. +And by night, they are still as dark and silent as when the secret +vengeance of the Republic plunged its victims into the ungossiping +depths of the Canalazzo! + +Did the vengeance of the Republic ever do any such thing? + +Possibly. In Venice one learns not quite to question that reputation +for vindictive and gloomy cruelty alien historians have given to a +government which endured so many centuries in the willing obedience +of its subjects; but to think that the careful student of the old +Republican system will condemn it for faults far different from those +for which it is chiefly blamed. At all events, I find it hard to +understand why, if the Republic was an oligarchy utterly selfish and +despotic, it has left to all classes of Venetians so much regret and +sorrow for its fall. + +So, if the reader care to follow me to my stage-box, I imagine he will +hardly see the curtain rise upon just the Venice of his dreams--the +Venice of Byron, of Rogers, and Cooper; or upon the Venice of his +prejudices--the merciless Venice of Darù, and of the historians who +follow him. But I still hope that he will be pleased with the Venice he +sees; and will think with me that the place loses little in the illusion +removed; and--to take leave of our theatrical metaphor--I promise to +fatigue him with no affairs of my own, except as allusion to them may +go to illustrate Life in Venice; and positively he shall suffer no +annoyance from the fleas and bugs which, in Latin countries, so often +get from travelers’ beds into their books. + +Let us mention here at the beginning some of the sentimental errors +concerning the place, with which we need not trouble ourselves +hereafter, but which no doubt form a large part of every one’s +associations with the name of Venice. Let us take, for example, that +pathetic swindle, the Bridge of Sighs. There are few, I fancy, who will +hear it mentioned without connecting its mystery and secrecy with the +taciturn justice of the Three, or some other cruel machinery of the +Serenest Republic’s policy. When I entered it the first time I was at +the pains to call about me the sad company of those who had passed its +corridors from imprisonment to death; and, I doubt not, many excellent +tourists have done the same. I was somewhat ashamed to learn afterward +that I had, on this occasion, been in very low society, and that the +melancholy assemblage which I then conjured up was composed entirely +of honest rogues, who might indeed have given as graceful and ingenious +excuses for being in misfortune as the galley-slaves rescued by Don +Quixote,--who might even have been very picturesque,--but who were not +at all the material with which a well-regulated imagination would deal. +The Bridge of Sighs was not built till the end of the sixteenth century, +and no romantic episode of political imprisonment and punishment (except +that of Antonio Foscarini) occurs in Venetian history later than that +period. But the Bridge of Sighs could have nowise a savor of sentiment +from any such episode, being, as it was, merely a means of communication +between the Criminal Courts sitting in the Ducal Palace, and the +Criminal Prison across the little canal. Housebreakers, cut-purse +knaves, and murderers do not commonly impart a poetic interest to places +which have known them; and yet these are the only sufferers on whose +Bridge of Sighs the whole sentimental world has looked with pathetic +sensation ever since Byron drew attention to it. The name of the bridge +was given by the people from that opulence of compassion which enables +the Italians to pity even rascality in difficulties.[1] + + [1] The reader will remember that Mr. Ruskin has said in a few + words, much better than I have said in many, the same thing of + sentimental errors about Venice:-- + + “The Venice of modern fiction and drama is a thing of yesterday, a + mere efflorescence of decay, a stage-dream, which the first ray of + daylight must dissipate into dust. No prisoner whose name is worth + remembering, or whose sorrows deserved sympathy, ever crossed that + Bridge of Sighs, which is the centre of the Byronic ideal of + Venice; no great merchant of Venice ever saw that Rialto under + which the traveler now pauses with breathless interest; the statue + which Byron makes Faliero address at one of his great ancestors, + was erected to a soldier of fortune a hundred and fifty years after + Faliero’s death.”--_Stories of Venice_.] + +Political offenders were not confined in the “prison on each hand” of +the poet, but in the famous _pozzi_ (literally, wells) or dungeons under +the Ducal Palace. And what fables concerning these cells have not been +uttered and believed! For my part, I prepared my coldest chills for +their exploration, and I am not sure that before I entered their gloom +some foolish and lying literature was not shaping itself in my mind, to +be afterward written out as my Emotions on looking at them. I do not say +now that they are calculated to enamor the unimpounded spectator with +prison-life; but they are certainly far from being as bad as I hoped. +They are not joyously light nor particularly airy, but their occupants +could have suffered no extreme physical discomfort; and the thick wooden +casing of the interior walls evidences at least the intention of the +state to inflict no wanton hardships of cold and damp. + +But on whose account had I to be interested in the _pozzi_? It was +difficult to learn, unless I took the word of sentimental hearsay. +I began with Marin Falier, but history would not permit the doge to +languish in these dungeons for a moment. He was imprisoned in the +apartments of state, and during one night only. His fellow-conspirators +were hanged nearly as fast as taken. + +Failing so signally with Falier, I tried several other political +prisoners of sad and famous memory with scarcely better effect. To a +man, they struggled to shun the illustrious captivity designed them, and +escaped from the _pozzi_ by every artifice of fact and figure. + +The Carraras of Padua were put to death in the city of Venice, and their +story is the most pathetic and romantic in Venetian history. But it +was not the cells under the Ducal Palace which witnessed their cruel +taking-off: they were strangled in the prison formerly existing at +the top of the palace, called the Torresella. [Footnote: Galliciolli, +_Memorie Venete_.] It is possible, however, that Jacopo Foscari may have +been confined in the _pozzi_ at different times about the middle of the +fifteenth century. With his fate alone, then, can the horror of these +cells be satisfactorily associated by those who relish the dark romance +of Venetian annals; for it is not to be expected that the less tragic +fortunes of Carlo Zeno and Vittore Pisani, who may also have been +imprisoned in the _pozzi_, can move the true sentimentalizer. Certainly, +there has been anguish enough in the prisons of the Ducal Palace, but we +know little of it by name, and cannot confidently relate it to any great +historic presence. + +Touching the Giant’s Stairs in the court of the palace, the inexorable +dates would not permit me to rest in the delusion that the head of Marin +Falier had once bloodily stained them as it rolled to the ground--at the +end of Lord Byron’s tragedy. Nor could I keep unimpaired my vision of +the Chief of the Ten brandishing the sword of justice, as he proclaimed +the traitor’s death to the people from between the two red columns in +the southern gallery of the palace;--that façade was not built till +nearly a century later. + +I suppose,--always judging by my own average experience,--that besides +these gloomy associations, the name of Venice will conjure up scenes of +brilliant and wanton gayety, and that in the foreground of the brightest +picture will be the Carnival of Venice, full of antic delight, romantic +adventure, and lawless prank. But the carnival, with all the old +merry-making life of the city, is now utterly obsolete, and, in this +way, the conventional, masquerading, pleasure-loving Venice is become +as gross a fiction as if, like that other conventional Venice of which +I have but spoken, it had never existed. There is no greater social +dullness and sadness, on land or sea, than in contemporary Venice. + +The causes of this change lie partly in the altered character of the +whole world’s civilization, partly in the increasing poverty of the +city, doomed four hundred years ago to commercial decay, and chiefly +(the Venetians would be apt to tell you wholly) in the implacable anger, +the inconsolable discontent, with which the people regard their present +political condition. + +If there be more than one opinion among men elsewhere concerning the +means by which Austria acquired Venetia and the tenure by which she +holds the province, there would certainly seem to be no division on the +question in Venice. To the stranger first inquiring into public feeling, +there is something almost sublime in the unanimity with which the +Venetians appear to believe that these means were iniquitous, and that +this tenure is abominable; and though shrewder study and carefuler +observation will develop some interested attachment to the present +government, and some interested opposition of it; though after-knowledge +will discover, in the hatred of Austria, enough meanness, lukewarmness, +and selfish ignorance to take off its sublimity, the hatred is still +found marvelously unanimous and bitter. I speak advisedly, and with no +disposition to discuss the question or exaggerate the fact. Exercising +at Venice official functions by permission and trust of the Austrian +government, I cannot regard the cessation of those functions as release +from obligations both to that government and my own, which render it +improper for me, so long as the Austrians remain in Venice, to criticize +their rule, or contribute, by comment on existing things, to embitter +the feeling against them elsewhere. I may, nevertheless, speak +dispassionately of facts of the abnormal social and political state of +the place; and I can certainly do this, for the present situation is +so disagreeable in many ways to the stranger forced to live there,--the +inappeasable hatred of the Austrians by the Italians is so illiberal in +application to those in any wise consorting with them, and so stupid and +puerile in many respects, that I think the annoyance which it gives +the foreigner might well damp any passion with which he was disposed to +speak of its cause. + +This hatred of the Austrians dates in its intensity from the defeat of +patriotic hopes of union with Italy in 1859, when Napoleon found the +Adriatic at Peschiera, and the peace of Villafranca was concluded. But +it is not to be supposed that a feeling so general, and so thoroughly +interwoven with Venetian character, is altogether recent. Consigned to +the Austrians by Napoleon I., confirmed in the subjection into which she +fell a second time after Napoleon’s ruin, by the treaties of the Holy +Alliance, defeated in several attempts to throw off her yoke, and loaded +with heavier servitude after the fall of the short-lived Republic of +1849,--Venice has always hated her masters with an exasperation deepened +by each remove from the hope of independence, and she now detests them +with a rancor which no concession short of absolute relinquishment of +dominion would appease. + +Instead, therefore, of finding that public gayety and private +hospitality in Venice for which the city was once famous, the stranger +finds himself planted between two hostile camps, with merely the choice +of sides open to him. Neutrality is solitude and friendship with neither +party; society is exclusive association with the Austrians or with the +Italians. The latter do not spare one of their own number if he +consorts with their masters, and though a foreigner might expect greater +allowance, it is seldom shown to him. To be seen in the company of +officers is enmity to Venetian freedom, and in the case of Italians it +is treason to country and to race. Of course, in a city where there is +a large garrison and a great many officers who have nothing else to +do, there is inevitably some international love-making, although +the Austrian officers are rigidly excluded from association with the +citizens. But the Italian who marries an Austrian severs the dearest +ties that bind her to life, and remains an exile in the heart of her +country. Her friends mercilessly cast her off, as they cast off every +body who associates with the dominant race. In rare cases I have known +Italians to receive foreigners who had Austrian friends, but this with +the explicit understanding that there was to be no sign of recognition +if they met them in the company of these detested acquaintance. + +There are all degrees of intensity in Venetian hatred, and after hearing +certain persons pour out the gall of bitterness upon the Austrians, you +may chance to hear these persons spoken of as tepid in their patriotism +by yet more fiery haters. Yet it must not be supposed that the Italians +hate the Austrians as individuals. On the contrary, they have rather +a liking for them--rather a contemptuous liking, for they think them +somewhat slow and dull-witted--and individually the Austrians are +amiable people, and try not to give offence. The government is also very +strict in its control of the military. I have never seen the slightest +affront offered by a soldier to a citizen; and there is evidently no +personal ill-will engendered. The Austrians are simply hated as the +means by which an alien and despotic government is imposed upon a people +believing themselves born for freedom and independence. This hatred, +then, is a feeling purely political, and there is political machinery by +which it is kept in a state of perpetual tension. + +The Comitato Veneto is a body of Venetians residing within the province +and abroad, who have charge of the Italian interests, and who work in +every way to promote union with the dominions of Victor Emanuel. They +live for the most part in Venice, where they have a secret press for the +publication of their addresses and proclamations, and where they remain +unknown to the police, upon whose spies they maintain an espionage. On +every occasion of interest, the Committee is sure to make its presence +felt; and from time to time persons find themselves in the possession +of its printed circulars, stamped with the Committee’s seal; but no one +knows how or whence they came. Constant arrests of suspected persons are +made, but no member of the Committee has yet been identified; and it is +said that the mysterious body has its agents in every department of the +government, who keep it informed of inimical action. The functions of +the Committee are multiplied and various. It takes care that on all +patriotic anniversaries (such as that of the establishment of the +Republic in 1848, and that of the union of the Italian States under +Victor Emanuel in 1860) salutes shall be fired in Venice, and a +proper number of red, white, and green lights displayed. It inscribes +revolutionary sentiments on the walls; and all attempts on the part +of the Austrians to revive popular festivities are frustrated by the +Committee, which causes petards to be exploded in the Place of St. Mark, +and on the different promenades. Even the churches are not exempt from +these demonstrations: I was present at the Te Deum performed on the +Emperor’s birthday, in St. Mark’s, when the moment of elevating the +host was signalized by the bursting of a petard in the centre of the +cathedral. All this, which seems of questionable utility, and worse than +questionable taste, is approved by the fiercer of the Italianissimi, and +though possibly the strictness of the patriotic discipline in which the +members of the Committee keep their fellow-citizens may gall some of +them, yet any public demonstration of content, such as going to the +opera, or to the Piazza while the Austrian band plays, is promptly +discontinued at a warning from the Committee. It is, of course, the +Committee’s business to keep the world informed of public feeling +in Venice, and of each new act of Austrian severity. Its members are +inflexible men, whose ability has been as frequently manifested as their +patriotism. + +The Venetians are now, therefore, a nation in mourning, and have, as I +said, disused all their former pleasures and merry-makings. Every class, +except a small part of the resident _titled_ nobility (a great part +of the nobility is in either forced or voluntary exile), seems to be +comprehended by this feeling of despondency and suspense. The poor of +the city formerly found their respite and diversion in the numerous +holidays which fell in different parts of the year, and which, though +religious in their general character, were still inseparably bound up in +their origin with ideas of patriotism and national glory. Such of these +holidays as related to the victories and pride of the Republic naturally +ended with her fall. Many others, however, survived this event in all +their splendor, but there is not one celebrated now as in other days. It +is true that the churches still parade their pomps in the Piazza on the +day of Corpus Christi; it is true that the bridges of boats are still +built across the Canalazzo to the church of Our Lady of Salvation, and +across the Canal of the Giudecca to the temple of the Redeemer, on the +respective festivals of these churches; but the concourse is always +meagre, and the mirth is forced and ghastly. The Italianissimi have +so far imbued the people with their own ideas and feelings, that +the recurrence of the famous holidays now merely awakens them to +lamentations over the past and vague longings for the future. + +As for the carnival, which once lasted six months of the year, charming +hither all the idlers of the world by its peculiar splendor and variety +of pleasure, it does not, as I said, any longer exist. It is dead, and +its shabby, wretched ghost is a party of beggars, hideously dressed +out with masks and horns and women’s habits, who go from shop to shop +droning forth a stupid song, and levying tribute upon the shopkeepers. +The crowd through which these melancholy jesters pass, regards them with +a pensive scorn, and goes about its business untempted by the delights +of carnival. + +All other social amusements have shared in greater or less degree the +fate of the carnival. At some houses conversazioni are still held, +and it is impossible that balls and parties should not now and then +be given. But the greater number of the nobles and the richer of +the professional classes lead for the most part a life of listless +seclusion, and attempts to lighten the general gloom and heaviness +in any way are not looked upon with favor. By no sort of chance are +Austrians, or Austriacanti ever invited to participate in the pleasures +of Venetian society. + +As the social life of Italy, and especially of Venice, was in great +part to be once enjoyed at the theatres, at the caffè, and at the other +places of public resort, so is its absence now to be chiefly noted in +those places. No lady of perfect standing among her people goes to +the opera, and the men never go in the boxes, but if they frequent the +theatre at all, they take places in the pit, in order that the house may +wear as empty and dispirited a look as possible. Occasionally a bomb is +exploded in the theatre, as a note of reminder, and as means of keeping +away such of the nobles as are not enemies of the government. As it is +less easy for the Austrians to participate in the diversion of comedy, +it is a less offence to attend the comedy, though even this is not good +Italianissimism. In regard to the caffè there is a perfectly understood +system by which the Austrians go to one, and the Italians to another; +and Florian’s, in the Piazza, seems to be the only common ground in the +city on which the hostile forces consent to meet. This is because it is +thronged with foreigners of all nations, and to go there is not thought +a demonstration of any kind. But the other caffè in the Piazza do not +enjoy Florian’s cosmopolitan immunity, and nothing would create more +wonder in Venice than to see an Austrian officer at the Specchi, unless, +indeed, it were the presence of a good Italian at the Quadri. + +It is in the Piazza that the tacit demonstration of hatred and +discontent chiefly takes place. Here, thrice a week, in winter and +summer, the military band plays that exquisite music for which the +Austrians are famous. The selections are usually from Italian operas, +and the attraction is the hardest of all others for the music-loving +Italian to resist. But he does resist it. There are some noble ladies +who have not entered the Piazza while the band was playing there, +since the fall of the Republic of 1849; and none of good standing for +patriotism has attended the concerts since the treaty of Villafranca in +‘59. Until very lately, the promenaders in the Piazza were exclusively +foreigners, or else the families of such government officials as were +obliged to show themselves there. Last summer, however, before the +Franco-Italian convention for the evacuation of Rome revived the +drooping hopes of the Venetians, they had begun visibly to falter +in their long endurance. But this was, after all, only a slight and +transient weakness. As a general thing, now, they pass from the Piazza +when the music begins, and walk upon the long quay at the sea-side of +the Ducal Palace; or if they remain in the Piazza they pace up and +down under the arcades on either side; for Venetian patriotism makes +a delicate distinction between listening to the Austrian band in the +Piazza and hearing it under the Procuratie, forbidding the first +and permitting the last. As soon as the music ceases the Austrians +disappear, and the Italians return to the Piazza. + +But since the catalogue of demonstrations cannot be made full, it need +not be made any longer. The political feeling in Venice affects her +prosperity in a far greater degree than may appear to those who do not +understand how large an income the city formerly derived from making +merry. The poor have to lament not merely the loss of their holidays, +but also of the fat employments and bountiful largess which these +occasions threw into their hands. With the exile or the seclusion of the +richer families, and the reluctance of foreigners to make a residence +of the gloomy and dejected city, the trade of the shopkeepers has fallen +off; the larger commerce of the place has also languished and dwindled +year by year; while the cost of living has constantly increased, and +heavier burdens of taxation have been laid upon the impoverished and +despondent people. And in all this, Venice is but a type of the whole +province of Venetia. + +The alien life to be found in the city is scarcely worth noting. The +Austrians have a _casino_, and they give balls and parties, and now and +then make some public manifestation of gayety. But they detest Venice as +a place of residence, being naturally averse to living in the midst of a +people who shun them like a pestilence. Other foreigners, as I said, are +obliged to take sides for or against the Venetians, and it is amusing +enough to find the few English residents divided into Austriacanti and +Italianissimi. [Footnote: Austriacanti are people of Austrian politics, +though not of Austrian birth. Italianissimi are those who favor union +with Italy at any cost.] + +Even the consuls of the different nations, who are in every way bound to +neutrality and indifference, are popularly reputed to be of one party or +the other, and my predecessor, whose unhappy knowledge of German threw +him on his arrival among people of that race, was always regarded as the +enemy of Venetian freedom, though I believe his principles were of the +most vivid republican tint in the United States. + +The present situation has now endured five years, with only slight +modifications by time, and only faint murmurs from some of the more +impatient, that _bisogna, una volta o l’altra, romper il chiodo_, +(sooner or later the nail must be broken.) As the Venetians are a people +of indomitable perseverance, long schooled to obstinacy by oppression, +I suppose they will hold out till their union with the kingdom of Italy. +They can do nothing of themselves, but they seem content to wait forever +in their present gloom. How deeply their attitude affects their national +character I shall inquire hereafter, when I come to look somewhat more +closely at the spirit of their demonstration. + +For the present, it is certain that the discontent of the people has its +peculiar effect upon the city as the stranger sees its life, casting a +glamour over it all, making it more and more ghostly and sad, and giving +it a pathetic charm which I would fain transfer to my pages; but failing +that, would pray the reader to remember as a fact to which I must be +faithful in all my descriptions of Venice. + + + +CHAPTER II. + +ARRIVAL AND FIRST DAYS IN VENICE. + + +I think it does not matter just when I first came to Venice. Yesterday +and to-day are the same here. I arrived one winter morning about five +o’clock, and was not so full of Soul as I might have been in warmer +weather. Yet I was resolved not to go to my hotel in the omnibus (the +large, many-seated boat so called), but to have a gondola solely for +myself and my luggage. The porter who seized my valise in the station, +inferred from some very polyglottic Italian of mine the nature of +my wish, and ran out and threw that slender piece of luggage into a +gondola. I followed, lighted to my seat by a beggar in picturesque and +desultory costume. He was one of a class of mendicants whom I came, for +my sins, to know better in Venice, and whom I dare say every traveler +recollects,--the merciless tribe who hold your gondola to shore, and +affect to do you a service and not a displeasure, and pretend not to +be abandoned swindlers. The Venetians call them _gransieri_, or +crab-catchers; but as yet I did not know the name or the purpose of this +_poverino_ [Footnote: _Poverino_ is the compassionate generic for all +unhappy persons who work for a living in Venice, as well as many who +decline to do so.] at the station, but merely saw that he had the +Venetian eye for color: in the distribution and arrangement of his +fragments of dress he had produced some miraculous effects of red, and +he was altogether as infamous a figure as any friend of brigands would +like to meet in a lonely place. He did not offer to stab me and sink +my body in the Grand Canal, as, in all Venetian keeping, I felt that +he ought to have done; but he implored an alms, and I hardly know now +whether to exult or regret that I did not understand him, and left him +empty-handed. I suppose that he withdrew again the blessings which he +had advanced me, as we pushed out into the canal; but I heard nothing, +for the wonder of the city was already upon me. All my nether-spirit, so +to speak, was dulled and jaded by the long, cold, railway journey +from Vienna, while every surface-sense was taken and tangled in the +bewildering brilliancy and novelty of Venice. For I think there can be +nothing else in the world so full of glittering and exquisite surprise, +as that first glimpse of Venice which the traveler catches as he +issues from the railway station by night, and looks upon her peerless +strangeness. There is something in the blessed breath of Italy (how +quickly, coming south, you know it, and how bland it is, after the +harsh, transalpine air!) which prepares you for your nocturnal advent +into the place; and O you! whoever you are, that journey toward this +enchanted city for the first time, let me tell you how happy I count +you! There lies before you for your pleasure, the spectacle of +such singular beauty as no picture can ever show you nor book tell +you,--beauty which you shall feel perfectly but once, and regret +forever. + +For my own part, as the gondola slipped away from the blaze and bustle +of the station down the gloom and silence of the broad canal, I forgot +that I had been freezing two days and nights; that I was at that moment +very cold and a little homesick. I could at first feel nothing but that +beautiful silence, broken only by the star-silvered dip of the oars. +Then on either hand I saw stately palaces rise gray and lofty from the +dark waters, holding here and there a lamp against their faces, which +brought balconies, and columns, and carven arches into momentary relief, +and threw long streams of crimson into the canal. I could see by that +uncertain glimmer how fair was all, but not how sad and old; and so, +unhaunted by any pang for the decay that afterward saddened me amid the +forlorn beauty of Venice, I glided on. I have no doubt it was a proper +time to think all the fantastic things in the world, and I thought them; +but they passed vaguely through my mind, without at all interrupting the +sensations of sight and sound. Indeed, the past and present mixed there, +and the moral and material were blent in the sentiment of utter novelty +and surprise. The quick boat slid through old troubles of mine, and +unlooked-for events gave it the impulse that carried it beyond, and +safely around sharp corners of life. And all the while I knew that this +was a progress through narrow and crooked canals, and past marble angles +of palaces. But I did not know then that this fine confusion of sense +and spirit was the first faint impression of the charm of life in +Venice. + +Dark, funereal barges like my own had flitted by, and the gondoliers had +warned each other at every turning with hoarse, lugubrious cries; the +lines of balconied palaces had never ended;--here and there at +their doors larger craft were moored, with dim figures of men moving +uncertainly about on them. At last we had passed abruptly out of the +Grand Canal into one of the smaller channels, and from comparative light +into a darkness only remotely affected by some far-streaming corner +lamp. But always the pallid, stately palaces; always the dark heaven +with its trembling stars above, and the dark water with its trembling +stars below; but now innumerable bridges, and an utter lonesomeness, +and ceaseless sudden turns and windings. One could not resist a vague +feeling of anxiety, in these strait and solitary passages, which was +part of the strange enjoyment of the time, and which was referable to +the novelty, the hush, the darkness, and the piratical appearance and +unaccountable pauses of the gondoliers. Was not this Venice, and is not +Venice forever associated with bravoes and unexpected dagger-thrusts? +That valise of mine might represent fabulous wealth to the uncultivated +imagination. Who, if I made an outcry, could understand the Facts of the +Situation--(as we say in the journals)? To move on was relief; to pause +was regret for past transgressions mingled with good resolutions for the +future. But I felt the liveliest mixture of all these emotions, when, +slipping from the cover of a bridge, the gondola suddenly rested at the +foot of a stairway before a closely-barred door. The gondoliers rang and +rang again, while their passenger + + “Divided the swift mind,” + +in the wonder whether a door so grimly bolted and austerely barred could +possibly open into a hotel, with cheerful overcharges for candles +and service. But as soon as the door opened, and he beheld the honest +swindling countenance of a hotel _portier_, he felt secure against every +thing but imposture, and all wild absurdities of doubt and conjecture at +once faded from his thought, when the _portier_ suffered the gondoliers +to make him pay a florin too much. + +So, I had arrived in Venice, and I had felt the influence of that +complex spell which she lays upon the stranger. I had caught the most +alluring glimpses of the beauty which cannot wholly perish while any +fragment of her sculptured walls nods to its shadow in the canal; I had +been penetrated by a deep sense of the mystery of the place, and I had +been touched already by the anomaly of modern life amid scenes where its +presence offers, according to the humor in which it is studied, constant +occasion for annoyance or delight, enthusiasm or sadness. + +I fancy that the ignorant impressions of the earlier days after my +arrival need scarcely be set down even in this perishable record; but I +would not wholly forget how, though isolated from all acquaintance and +alien to the place, I yet felt curiously at home in Venice from the +first. I believe it was because I had, after my own fashion, loved the +beautiful that I here found the beautiful, where it is supreme, full +of society and friendship, speaking a language which, even in its +unfamiliar forms, I could partly understand, and at once making me +citizen of that Venice from which I shall never be exiled. It was not in +the presence of the great and famous monuments of art alone that I felt +at home--indeed, I could as yet understand their excellence and grandeur +only very imperfectly--but wherever I wandered through the quaint and +marvelous city, I found the good company of + + “The fair, the old;” + +and to tell the truth, I think it is the best society in Venice, and +I learned to turn to it later from other companionship with a kind of +relief. + +My first rambles, moreover, had a peculiar charm which knowledge of +locality has since taken away. They began commonly with some purpose or +destination, and ended by losing me in the intricacies of the narrowest, +crookedest, and most inconsequent little streets in the world, or left +me cast-away upon the unfamiliar waters of some canal as far as possible +from the point aimed at. Dark and secret little courts lay in wait for +my blundering steps, and I was incessantly surprised and brought to +surrender by paths that beguiled me up to dead walls, or the sudden +brinks of canals. The wide and open squares before the innumerable +churches of the city were equally victorious, and continually took me +prisoner. But all places had something rare and worthy to be seen: +if not loveliness of sculpture or architecture, at least interesting +squalor and picturesque wretchedness: and I believe I had less delight +in proper Objects of Interest than in the dirty neighborhoods that +reeked with unwholesome winter damps below, and peered curiously out +with frowzy heads and beautiful eyes from the high, heavy-shuttered +casements above. Every court had its carven well to show me, in the +noisy keeping of the water-carriers and the slatternly, statuesque +gossips of the place. The remote and noisome canals were pathetic +with empty old palaces peopled by herds of poor, that decorated the +sculptured balconies with the tatters of epicene linen, and patched the +lofty windows with obsolete hats. + +I found the night as full of beauty as the day, when caprice led me from +the brilliancy of St. Mark’s and the glittering streets of shops that +branch away from the Piazza, and lost me in the quaint recesses of the +courts, or the tangles of the distant alleys, where the dull little +oil-lamps vied with the tapers burning before the street-corner shrines +of the Virgin, [Footnote: In the early times these tapers were the sole +means of street illumination in Venice.] in making the way obscure, and +deepening the shadows about the doorways and under the frequent arches. +I remember distinctly among the beautiful nights of that time, the soft +night of late winter which first showed me the scene you may behold from +the Public Gardens at the end of the long concave line of the Riva degli +Schiavoni. Lounging there upon the southern parapet of the Gardens, I +turned from the dim bell-towers of the evanescent islands in the east (a +solitary gondola gliding across the calm of the water, and striking its +moonlight silver into multitudinous ripples), and glanced athwart the +vague shipping in the basin of St. Mark, and saw all the lights from the +Piazzetta to the Giudecca, making a crescent of flame in the air, and +casting deep into the water under them a crimson glory that sank also +down and down in my own heart, and illumined all its memories of beauty +and delight. Behind these lamps rose the shadowy masses of church and +palace; the moon stood bright and full in the heavens; the gondola +drifted away to the northward; the islands of the lagoons seemed to rise +and sink with the light palpitations of the waves like pictures on the +undulating fields of banners; the stark rigging of a ship showed black +against the sky, the Lido sank from sight upon the east, as if the shore +had composed itself to sleep by the side of its beloved sea to the music +of the surge that gently beat its sands; the yet leafless boughs of +the trees above me stirred themselves together, and out of one of those +trembling towers in the lagoons, one rich, full sob burst from the heart +of a bell, too deeply stricken with the glory of the scene, and suffused +the languid night with the murmur of luxurious, ineffable sadness. + +But there is a perfect democracy in the realm of the beautiful, and +whatsoever pleases is equal to any other thing there, no matter how +low its origin or humble its composition; and the magnificence of that +moonlight scene gave me no deeper joy than I won from the fine spectacle +of an old man whom I saw burning coffee one night in the little +court behind my lodgings, and whom I recollect now as one of the most +interesting people I saw in my first days at Venice. All day long the +air of that neighbourhood had reeked with the odors of the fragrant +berry, and all day long this patient old man--sage, let me call him--had +turned the sheet-iron cylinder in which it was roasting over an open +fire after the picturesque fashion of roasting coffee in Venice. Now +that the night had fallen, and the stars shone down upon him, and +the red of the flame luridly illumined him, he showed more grand and +venerable than ever. Simple, abstract humanity, has its own grandeur +in Italy; and it is not hard here for the artist to find the primitive +types with which genius loves best to deal. As for this old man, he had +the beard of a saint, and the dignity of a senator, harmonized with the +squalor of a beggar, superior to which shone his abstract, unconscious +grandeur of humanity. A vast and calm melancholy, which had nothing to +do with burning coffee, dwelt in his aspect and attitude; and if he had +been some dread supernatural agency, turning the wheel of fortune, and +doing men, instead of coffee, brown, he could not have looked more sadly +and weirdly impressive. When, presently, he rose from his seat, and +lifted the cylinder from its place, and the clinging flames leaped after +it, and he shook it, and a volume of luminous smoke enveloped him and +glorified him--then I felt with secret anguish that he was beyond +art, and turned sadly from the spectacle of that sublime and hopeless +magnificence. + +At other times (but this was in broad daylight) I was troubled by the +aesthetic perfection of a certain ruffian boy, who sold cakes of baked +Indian-meal to the soldiers in the military station near the Piazza, and +whom I often noted from the windows of the little caffè there, where you +get an excellent _caffè bianco_ (coffee with milk) for ten soldi and one +to the waiter. I have reason to fear that this boy dealt over shrewdly +with the Austrians, for a pitiless war raged between him and one of +the sergeants. His hair was dark, his cheek was of a bronze better than +olive; and he wore a brave cap of red flannel, drawn down to eyes of +lustrous black. For the rest, he gave unity and coherence to a jacket +and pantaloons of heterogeneous elements, and, such was the elasticity +of his spirit, a buoyant grace to feet encased in wooden shoes. +Habitually came a barrel-organist, and ground before the barracks, and + + “Took the soul + Of that waste place with joy;” + +and ever, when this organist came to a certain lively waltz, and threw +his whole soul, as it were, into the crank of his instrument, my beloved +ragamuffin failed not to seize another cake-boy in his arms, and thus +embraced, to whirl through a wild inspiration of figures, in which there +was something grotesquely rhythmic, something of indescribable barbaric +magnificence, spiritualized into a grace of movement superior to the +energy of the North and the extravagant fervor of the East. It was +coffee and not wine that I drank, but I fable all the same that I saw +reflected in this superb and artistic superation of the difficulties of +dancing in that unfriendly foot-gear, something of the same genius that +combated and vanquished the elements, to build its home upon sea-washed +sands in marble structures of airy and stately splendor, and gave to +architecture new glories full of eternal surprise. + +So, I say, I grew early into sympathy and friendship with Venice, and +being newly from a land where every thing, morally and materially, was +in good repair, I rioted sentimentally on the picturesque ruin, the +pleasant discomfort and hopelessness of every thing about me here. It +was not yet the season to behold all the delight of the lazy, out-door +life of the place; but nevertheless I could not help seeing that great +part of the people, both rich and poor, seemed to have nothing to do, +and that nobody seemed to be driven by any inward or outward impulse. +When, however, I ceased (as I must in time) to be merely a spectator of +this idleness, and learned that I too must assume my share of the common +indolence, I found it a grievous burden. Old habits of work, old habits +of hope, made my endless leisure irksome to me, and almost intolerable +when I ascertained fairly and finally that in my desire to fulfill +long-cherished, but, after all, merely general designs of literary +study, I had forsaken wholesome struggle in the currents where I felt +the motion of the age, only to drift into a lifeless eddy of the world, +remote from incentive and sensation. + +For such is Venice, and the will must be strong and the faith +indomitable in him who can long retain, amid the influences of her +stagnant quiet, a practical belief in God’s purpose of a great moving, +anxious, toiling, aspiring world outside. When you have yielded, as +after a while I yielded, to these influences, a gentle incredulity +possesses you, and if you consent that such a thing is as earnest and +useful life, you cannot help wondering why it need be. The charm of +the place sweetens your temper, but corrupts you; and I found it a sad +condition of my perception of the beauty of Venice and friendship with +it, that I came in some unconscious way to regard her fate as my own; +and when I began to write the sketches which go to form this book, it +was as hard to speak of any ugliness in her, or of the doom written +against her in the hieroglyphic seams and fissures of her crumbling +masonry, as if the fault and penalty were mine. I do not so greatly +blame, therefore, the writers who have committed so many sins of +omission concerning her, and made her all light, color, canals, +and palaces. One’s conscience, more or less uncomfortably vigilant +elsewhere, drowses here, and it is difficult to remember that fact is +more virtuous than fiction. In other years, when there was life in the +city, and this sad ebb of prosperity was full tide in her canals, there +might have been some incentive to keep one’s thoughts and words from +lapsing into habits of luxurious dishonesty, some reason for telling the +whole hard truth of things, some policy to serve, some end to gain. But +now, what matter? + + + +CHAPTER III. + +THE WINTER IN VENICE + + +It was winter, as I said, when I first came to Venice, and my +experiences of the city were not all purely aesthetic. There was, +indeed, an every-day roughness and discomfort in the weather, which +travelers passing their first winter in Italy find it hard to reconcile +with the habitual ideas of the season’s clemency in the South. But +winter is apt to be very severe in mild climates. People do not +acknowledge it, making a wretched pretense that it is summer only a +little out of humor. + +The Germans have introduced stoves at Venice, but they are not in much +favor with the Italians, who think their heat unwholesome, and endure +a degree of cold, in their wish to dispense with fire, which we of the +winter-lands know nothing of in our houses. They pay for their absurd +prejudice with terrible chilblains; and their hands, which suffer +equally with their feet, are, in the case of those most exposed to the +cold, objects pitiable and revolting to behold when the itching and the +effort to allay it has turned them into bloated masses of sores. It +is not a pleasant thing to speak of; and the constant sight of the +affliction among people who bring you bread, cut you cheese, and weigh +you out sugar, by no means reconciles the Northern stomach to its +prevalence. I have observed that priests, and those who have much to do +in the frigid churches, are the worst sufferers in this way; and I +think no one can help noting in the harsh, raw winter-complexion (for +in summer the tone is quite different) of the women of all classes, the +protest of systems cruelly starved of the warmth which health demands. + +The houses are, naturally enough in this climate, where there are eight +months of summer in the year, all built with a view to coolness in +summer, and the rooms which are not upon the ground-floor are very +large, lofty, and cold. In the palaces, indeed, there are two suites of +apartments--the smaller and cozier suite upon the first floor for the +winter, and the grander and airier chambers and saloons above, for +defence against the insidious heats of the sirocco. But, for the most +part, people must occupy the same room summer and winter, the sole +change being in the strip of carpet laid meagrely before the sofa during +the latter season. In the comparatively few houses where carpets are +the rule and not the exception, they are always removed during the +summer--for the triple purpose of sparing them some months’ wear, +banishing fleas and other domestic insects, and showing off the beauty +of the oiled and shining pavement, which in the meanest houses is +tasteful, and in many of the better sort is often in-wrought with +figures and designs of mosaic work. + +All the floors in Venice are of stone, and whether of marble flags, or +of that species of composition formed of dark cement, with fragments of +colored marble imbedded and smoothed and polished to the most glassy +and even surface, and the general effect and complexion of petrified +plum-pudding, all the floors are death-cold in winter. People sit with +their feet upon cushions, and their bodies muffled in furs and wadded +gowns. When one goes out into the sun, one often finds an overcoat too +heavy, but it never gives warmth enough in the house, where the Venetian +sometimes wears it. Indeed, the sun is recognized by Venetians as the +only legitimate source of heat, and they sell his favor at fabulous +prices to such foreigners as take the lodgings into which he shines. + +It is those who remain in-doors, therefore, who are exposed to the +utmost rigor of the winter, and people spend as much of their time as +possible in the open air. The Riva degli Schiavoni catches the warm +afternoon sun in its whole extent, and is then thronged with promenaders +of every class, condition, age, and sex; and whenever the sun shines +in the Piazza, shivering fashion eagerly courts its favor. At night men +crowd the close little caffè, where they reciprocate smoke, respiration, +and animal heat, and thus temper the inclemency of the weather, and +beguile the time with solemn loafing, [Footnote: I permit myself, +throughout this book, the use of the expressive American words +_loaf_ and _loafer_, as the only terms adequate to the description of +professional idling in Venice] and the perusal of dingy little +journals, drinking small cups of black coffee, and playing long games of +chess,--an evening that seemed to me as torpid and lifeless as a Lap’s, +and intolerable when I remembered the bright, social winter evenings of +another and happier land and civilization. + +Sometimes you find a heated stove--that is to say, one in which there +has been a fire during the day--in a Venetian house; but the stove seems +usually to be placed in the room for ornament, or else to be engaged +only in diffusing a very acrid smoke,--as if the Venetian preferred to +take warmth, as other people do snuff, by inhalation. The stove +itself is a curious structure, and built commonly of bricks and +plastering,--whitewashed and painted outside. It is a great consumer +of fuel, and radiates but little heat. By dint of constant wooding +I contrived to warm mine; but my Italian friends always avoided its +vicinity when they came to see me, and most amusingly regarded my +determination to be comfortable as part of the eccentricity inseparable +from the Anglo-Saxon character. + +I daresay they would not trifle with winter, thus, if they knew him in +his northern moods. But the only voluntary concession they make to his +severity is the _scaldino_, and this is made chiefly by the yielding +sex, who are denied the warmth of the caffè. The use of the scaldino +is known to all ranks, but it is the women of the poorer orders who are +most addicted to it. The scaldino is a small pot of glazed earthen-ware, +having an earthen bale: and with this handle passed over the arm, and +the pot full of bristling charcoal, the Veneziana’s defense against cold +is complete. She carries her scaldino with her in the house from room +to room, and takes it with her into the street; and it has often been +my fortune in the churches to divide my admiration between the painting +over the altar and the poor old crone kneeling before it, who, while +she sniffed and whispered a gelid prayer, and warmed her heart with +religion, baked her dirty palms in the carbonic fumes of the scaldino. +In one of the public bathhouses in Venice there are four prints upon the +walls, intended to convey to the minds of the bathers a poetical idea +of the four seasons. There is nothing remarkable in the symbolization +of Spring, Summer, and Autumn; but Winter is nationally represented by +a fine lady dressed in furred robes, with her feet upon a cushioned +foot-stool, and a scaldino in her lap! When we talk of being invaded in +the north, we poetize the idea of defense by the figure of defending our +hearthstones. Alas! _could_ we fight for our sacred _scaldini_? + +Happy are the men who bake chestnuts, and sell hot pumpkins and pears, +for they can unite pleasure and profit. There are some degrees of +poverty below the standard of the scaldino, and the beggars and the +wretcheder poor keep themselves warm, I think, by sultry recollections +of summer, as Don Quixote proposed to subsist upon savory remembrances, +during one of his periods of fast. One mendicant whom I know, and who +always sits upon the steps of a certain bridge, succeeds, I believe, +as the season advances, in heating the marble beneath him by firm and +unswerving adhesion, and establishes a reciprocity of warmth with it. +I have no reason to suppose that he ever deserts his seat for a moment +during the whole winter; and indeed, it would be a vicious waste of +comfort to do so. + +In the winter, the whole city _sniffs_, and if the Pipchin theory of the +effect of sniffing upon the eternal interests of the soul be true, +few people go to heaven from Venice. I sometimes wildly wondered if +Desdemona, in _her_ time, sniffed, and found little comfort in the +reflection that Shylock must have had a cold in his head. There is +comparative warmth in the broad squares before the churches, but the +narrow streets are bitter thorough-draughts, and fell influenza lies in +wait for its prey in all those picturesque, seducing little courts of +which I have spoken. + +It is, however, in the churches, whose cool twilight and airy height one +finds so grateful in summer, that the sharpest malice of the winter +is felt; and having visited a score of them soon after my arrival, I +deferred the remaining seventy-five or eighty, together with the gallery +of the Academy, until advancing spring should, in some degree, have +mitigated the severity of their temperature. As far as my imagination +affected me, I thought the Gothic churches much more tolerable than the +temples of Renaissance art. The empty bareness of these, with their huge +marbles, and their soulless splendors of theatrical sculpture, their +frescoed roofs and broken arches, was insufferable. The arid grace of +Palladio’s architecture was especially grievous to the sense in cold +weather; and I warn the traveler who goes to see the lovely Madonnas of +Bellini to beware how he trusts himself in winter to the gusty, arctic +magnificence of the church of the Redentore. But by all means the +coldest church in the city is that of the Jesuits, which those who +have seen it will remember for its famous marble drapery. This base, +mechanical surprise (for it is a trick and not art) is effected by +inlaying the white marble of columns and pulpits and altars with +a certain pattern of verd-antique. The workmanship is marvelously +skillful, and the material costly, but it only gives the church the +effect of being draped in damask linen; and even where the marble is +carven in vast and heavy folds over a pulpit to simulate a curtain, or +wrought in figures on the steps of the high-altar to represent a carpet, +it has no richness of effect, but a poverty, a coldness, a harshness +indescribably table-clothy. I think all this has tended to chill the +soul of the sacristan, who is the feeblest and thinnest sacristan +conceivable, with a frost of white hair on his temples quite incapable +of thawing. In this dreary sanctuary is one of Titian’s great paintings, +The Martyrdom of St. Lawrence, to which (though it is so cunningly +disposed as to light that no one ever yet saw the whole picture at once) +you turn involuntarily, envious of the Saint toasting so comfortably on +his gridiron amid all that frigidity. + +The Venetians pretend that many of the late winters have been much +severer than those of former years, but I think this pretense has less +support in fact than in the custom of mankind everywhere, to claim that +such weather as the present, whatever it happens to be, was never seen +before. In fine, the winter climate of north Italy is really very harsh, +and though the season is not so severe in Venice as in Milan, or even +Florence, it is still so sharp as to make foreigners regret the generous +fires and warmly-built houses of the north. There was snow but once +during my first Venetian winter, 1861-62; the second there was none +at all; but the third, which was last winter, it fell repeatedly to +considerable depth, and lay unmelted for many weeks in the shade. The +lagoons were frozen for miles in every direction; and under our windows +on the Grand Canal, great sheets of ice went up and down with the +rising and the falling tide for nearly a whole month. The visible misery +throughout the fireless city was great; and it was a problem I never +could solve, whether people in-doors were greater sufferers from the +cold than those who weathered the cruel winds sweeping the squares and +the canals, and whistling through the streets of stone and brine. The +boys had an unwonted season of sliding on the frozen lagoons, though +a good deal persecuted by the police, who must have looked upon such a +tremendous innovation as little better than revolution; and it was said +that there were card-parties on the ice; but the only creatures which +seemed really to enjoy the weather were the seagulls. These birds, which +flock into the city in vast numbers at the first approach of cold, +and, sailing up and down the canals between the palaces, bring to +the dwellers in the city a full sense of mid-ocean forlornness and +desolation, now rioted on the savage winds, with harsh cries, and +danced upon the waves of the bitter brine, with a clamorous joy that had +something eldritch and unearthly in it. + +A place so much given to gossip as Venice did not fail to produce many +memorable incidents of the cold; but the most singular adventure was +that of the old man employed at the Armenian Convent to bring milk from +the island of San Lazzaro to the city. One night, shortly after the +coldest weather set in, he lost his oar as he was returning to the +island. The wind, which is particularly furious in that part of the +lagoon, blew his boat away into the night, and the good brothers at the +convent naturally gave up their milkman for lost. The winds and waters +drifted him eight miles from the city into the northern lagoon, and +there lodged his boat in the marshes, where it froze fast in the +stiffening mud. The luckless occupant had nothing to eat or drink in his +boat, where he remained five days and nights, exposed to the inclemency +of cold many degrees below friendship in severity. He made continual +signs of distress, but no boat came near enough to discover him. At +last, when the whole marsh was frozen solid, he was taken off by some +fishermen, and carried to the convent, where he remains in perfectly +recovered health, and where no doubt he will be preserved alive many +years in an atmosphere which renders dying at San Lazzaro a matter of +no small difficulty. During the whole time of his imprisonment, he +sustained life against hunger and cold by smoking. I suppose no one will +be surprised to learn that he was rescued by the fishermen through the +miraculous interposition of the Madonna--as any one might have seen by +the votive picture hung up at her shrine on a bridge of the Riva degli +Schiavoni, wherein the Virgin was represented breaking through the +clouds in one corner of the sky, and unmistakably directing the +operations of the fishermen. + +It is said that no such winter as that of 1863-4 has been known in +Venice since the famous _Anno del Ghiaccio_ (Year of the Ice), which +fell about the beginning of the last century. This year is celebrated in +the local literature; the play which commemorates it always draws full +houses at the people’s theatre, Malibran; and the often-copied picture, +by a painter of the time, representing Lustrissime and Lustrissimi in +hoops and bag-wigs on the ice, never fails to block up the street before +the shop-window in which it is exposed. The King of Denmark was then the +guest of the Republic, and as the unprecedented cold defeated all the +plans arranged for his diversion, the pleasure-loving government +turned the cold itself to account, and made the ice occasion of novel +brilliancy in its festivities. The duties on commerce between the city +and the mainland were suspended for as long time as the lagoon should +remain frozen, and the ice became a scene of the liveliest traffic, and +was everywhere covered with sledges, bringing the produce of the country +to the capital, and carrying away its stuffs in return. The Venetians +of every class amused themselves in visiting this free mart, and the +gentler and more delicate sex pressed eagerly forward to traverse +with their feet a space hitherto passable only in gondolas. [Footnote: +_Origine delle Feste Veneziane_, di Giustina Renier-Michiel] The lagoon +remained frozen, and these pleasures lasted eighteen days, a period of +cold unequaled till last winter. A popular song now declares that the +present generation has known a winter quite as marvelous as that of the +Year of the Ice, and celebrates the wonder of walking on the water:-- + + Che bell’ affar! + Che patetico affar! + Che immenso affar! + Sora l’acqua camminar! + +But after all the disagreeable winter, which hardly commences before +Christmas, and which ends about the middle of March, is but a small part +of the glorious Venetian year; and even this ungracious season has a +loveliness, at times, which it can have nowhere but in Venice. What +summer-delight of other lands could match the beauty of the first +Venetian snow-fall which I saw? It had snowed overnight, and in the +morning when I woke it was still snowing. The flakes fell softly and +vertically through the motionless air, and all the senses were full +of languor and repose. It was rapture to lie still, and after a faint +glimpse of the golden-winged angel on the bell-tower of St. Mark’s, +to give indolent eye solely to the contemplation of the roof opposite, +where the snow lay half an inch deep upon the brown tiles. The +little scene--a few square yards of roof, a chimney-pot, and a +dormer-window--was all that the most covetous spirit could demand; and I +lazily lorded it over that domain of pleasure, while the lingering mists +of a dream of new-world events blent themselves with the luxurious humor +of the moment and the calm of the snow-fall, and made my reverie one of +the perfectest things in the world. When I was lost the deepest in it, I +was inexpressibly touched and gratified by the appearance of a black +cat at the dormer-window. In Venice, roofs commanding pleasant exposures +seem to be chiefly devoted to the cultivation of this animal, and there +are many cats in Venice. My black cat looked wonderingly upon the snow +for a moment, and then ran across the roof. Nothing could have been +better. Any creature less silent, or in point of movement less soothing +to the eye than a cat, would have been torture of the spirit. As it +was, this little piece of action contented me so well, that I left every +thing else out of my reverie, and could only think how deliciously the +cat harmonized with the snow-covered tiles, the chimney-pot, and the +dormer-window. I began to long for her reappearance, but when she did +come forth and repeat her maneuver, I ceased to have the slightest +interest in the matter, and experienced only the disgust of satiety. I +had felt _ennui_--nothing remained but to get up and change my relations +with the world. + +In Venetian streets they give the fallen snow no rest. It is at +once shoveled into the canals by hundreds of half-naked _facchini_; +[Footnote: The term for those idle people in Italian cities who relieve +long seasons of repose by occasionally acting as messengers, porters +and day-laborers.] and now in St. Mark’s Place the music of innumerable +shovels smote upon my ear; and I saw the shivering legion of poverty as +it engaged the elements in a struggle for the possession of the +Piazza. But the snow continued to fall, and through the twilight of the +descending flakes all this toil and encounter looked like that weary +kind of effort in dreams, when the most determined industry seems only +to renew the task. The lofty crest of the bell-tower was hidden in the +folds of falling snow, and I could no longer see the golden angel upon +its summit. But looked at across the Piazza, the beautiful outline of +St. Mark’s Church was perfectly penciled in the air, and the shifting +threads of the snow-fall were woven into a spell of novel enchantment +around a structure that always seemed to me too exquisite in its +fantastic loveliness to be any thing but the creation of magic. The +tender snow had compassionated the beautiful edifice for all the wrongs +of time, and so hid the stains and ugliness of decay that it looked as +if just from the hand of the builder--or, better said, just from the +brain of the architect. There was marvelous freshness in the colors of +the mosaics in the great arches of the façade, and all that gracious +harmony into which the temple rises, of marble scrolls and leafy +exuberance airily supporting the statues of the saints, was a hundred +times etherealized by the purity and whiteness of the drifting +flakes. The snow lay lightly on the golden globes that tremble like +peacock-crests above the vast domes, and plumed them with softest white; +it robed the saints in ermine; and it danced over all its work, as if +exulting in its beauty--beauty which filled me with subtle, selfish +yearning to keep such evanescent loveliness for the little-while-longer +of my whole life, and with despair to think that even the poor lifeless +shadow of it could never be fairly reflected in picture or poem. + +Through the wavering snow-fall, the Saint Theodore upon one of the +granite pillars of the Piazzetta did not show so grim as his wont is, +and the winged lion on the other might have been a winged lamb, so mild +and gentle he looked by the tender light of the storm. [Footnote: St. +Theodore was the first patron of Venice, but he was deposed and St. Mark +adopted, when the bones of the latter were brought from Alexandria. The +Venetians seem to have felt some compunctions for this desertion of an +early friend, and they have given St. Theodore a place on one of the +granite pillars, while the other is surmounted by the Lion, representing +St. Mark. _Fra Marco e Todaro_, is a Venetian proverb expressing the +state of perplexity which we indicate by the figure of an ass between +two bundles of hay.] The towers of the island churches loomed faint and +far away in the dimness; the sailors in the rigging of the ships that +lay in the Basin wrought like phantoms among the shrouds; the gondolas +stole in and out of the opaque distance more noiselessly and dreamily +than ever; and a silence, almost palpable, lay upon the mutest city in +the world. + + + +CHAPTER IV. + +COMINCIA FAR CALDO. + + +The Place of St. Mark is the heart of Venice, and from this beats her +life in every direction through an intricate system of streets and +canals that bring it back again to the same centre. So, if the slightest +uneasiness had attended the frequency with which I lost my way in the +city at first, there would always have been this comfort: that the place +was very small in actual extent, and that if I continued walking I must +reach the Piazza sooner or later. There is a crowd constantly tending to +and from it, and you have but to take this tide, and be drifted to St. +Mark’s--or to the Rialto Bridge, whence it is directly accessible. + +Of all the open spaces in the city, that before the Church of St. Mark +alone bears the name of Piazza, and the rest are called merely _campi_, +or fields. But if the company of the noblest architecture can give +honor, the Piazza San Marco merits its distinction, not in Venice only, +but in the whole world; for I fancy that no other place in the world +is set in such goodly bounds. Its westward length is terminated by +the Imperial Palace; its lateral borders are formed by lines of palace +called the New Procuratie on the right, and the Old Procuratie on the +left; [Footnote: In Republican days the palaces of the _Procuratori di +San Marco_.] and the Church of St. Mark fills up almost its whole width +upon the east, leaving space enough, however, for a glimpse of the +Gothic perfection of the Ducal Palace. The place then opens southward +with the name of Piazzetta, between the eastern façade of the Ducal +Palace and the classic front of the Libreria Vecchia, and expands and +ends at last on the mole, where stand the pillars of St. Mark and St. +Theodore; and then this mole, passing the southern façade of the Doge’s +Palace, stretches away to the Public Gardens at the eastern extremity +of the city, over half a score of bridges, between lines of houses and +shipping--stone and wooden walls--in the long, crescent-shaped quay +called Riva degli Schiavoni. Looking northward up the Piazzetta from the +Molo, the vision traverses the eastern breadth of the Piazza, and rests +upon the Clock Tower, gleaming with blue and gold, on which the bronze +Giants beat the hours; or it climbs the great mass of the Campanile +San Marco, standing apart from the church at the corner of the New +Procuratie, and rising four hundred feet toward the sky--the sky where +the Venetian might well place his heaven, as the Moors bounded Paradise +in the celestial expanse that roofed Granada. + +My first lodging was but a step out of the Piazza, and this vicinity +brought me early into familiar acquaintance with its beauty. But I +never, during three years, passed through it in my daily walks, without +feeling as freshly as at first the greatness of this beauty. The church, +which the mighty bell-tower and the lofty height of the palace-lines +make to look low, is in nowise humbled by the contrast, but is like +a queen enthroned amid upright reverence. The religious sentiment is +deeply appealed to, I think, in the interior of St. Mark’s; but if its +interior is heaven’s, its exterior, like a good man’s daily life, is +earth’s; and it is this winning loveliness of earth that first attracts +you to it, and when you emerge from its portals, you enter upon +spaces of such sunny length and breadth, set round with such exquisite +architecture, that it makes you glad to be living in this world. Before +you expands the great Piazza, peopled with its various life; on your +left, between the Pillars of the Piazzetta, swims the blue lagoon, and +overhead climb the arches, one above another, in excesses of fantastic +grace. + +Whatever could please, the Venetian seems to have brought hither and +made part of his Piazza, that it might remain forever the city’s supreme +grace; and so, though there are public gardens and several pleasant +walks in the city, the great resort in summer and winter, by day and by +night, is the Piazza San Marco. Its ground-level, under the Procuratie, +is belted with a glittering line of shops and caffè, the most tasteful +and brilliant in the world, and the arcades that pass round three of its +sides are filled with loungers and shoppers, even when there is music +by the Austrian bands; for, as we have seen, the purest patriot may then +walk under the Procuratie, without stain to the principles which would +be hopelessly blackened if he set foot in the Piazza. The absence of +dust and noisy hoofs and wheels tempts social life out of doors in +Venice more than in any other Italian city, though the tendency to this +sort of expansion is common throughout Italy. Beginning with the warm +days of early May, and continuing till the _villeggiatura_ (the period +spent at the country seat) interrupts it late in September, all Venice +goes by a single impulse of _dolce far niente_, and sits gossiping at +the doors of the innumerable caffè on the Riva degli Schiavoni, in the +Piazza San Marco, and in the different squares in every part of the +city. But, of course, the most brilliant scene of this kind is in St. +Mark’s Place, which has a night-time glory indescribable, won from +the light of uncounted lamps upon its architectural groups. The superb +Imperial Palace--the sculptured, arcaded, and pillared Procuratie--the +Byzantine magic and splendor of the church--will it all be there when +you come again to-morrow night? The unfathomable heaven above seems part +of the place, for I think it is never so tenderly blue over any other +spot of earth. And when the sky is blurred with clouds, shall not the +Piazza vanish with the azure?--People, I say, come to drink coffee, and +eat ices here in the summer evenings, and then, what with the promenades +in the arcades and in the Piazza, the music, the sound of feet, and the +hum of voices, unbroken by the ruder uproar of cities where there are +horses and wheels--the effect is that of a large evening party, and in +this aspect the Piazza, is like a vast drawing-room. + +I liked well to see that strange life, which even the stout, +dead-in-earnest little Bohemian musicians, piping in the centre of the +Piazza, could not altogether substantialize, and which constantly took +immateriality from the loveliness of its environment. In the winter the +scene was the most purely Venetian, and in my first winter, when I had +abandoned all thought of churches till spring, I settled down to steady +habits of idleness and coffee, and contemplated the life of the Piazza. + +By all odds, the loungers at Florian’s were the most interesting, +because they were the most various. People of all shades of politics met +in the dainty little saloons, though there were shades of division +even there, and they did not mingle. The Italians carefully assorted +themselves in a room furnished with green velvet, and the Austrians and +the Austriacanti frequented a red-velvet room. They were curious to look +at, those tranquil, indolent, Italian loafers, and I had an uncommon +relish for them. They seldom spoke together, and when they did speak, +they burst from silence into tumultuous controversy, and then lapsed +again into perfect silence. The elder among them sat with their hands +carefully folded on the heads of their sticks, gazing upon the ground, +or else buried themselves in the perusal of the French journals. The +younger stood a good deal about the doorways, and now and then passed +a gentle, gentle jest with the elegant waiters in black coats and white +cravats, who hurried to and fro with the orders, and called them out in +strident tones to the accountant at his little table; or sometimes these +young idlers make a journey to the room devoted to ladies and forbidden +to smokers, looked long and deliberately in upon its loveliness, and +then returned to the bosom of their taciturn companions. By chance I +found them playing chess, but very rarely. They were all well-dressed, +handsome men, with beards carefully cut, brilliant hats and boots, and +conspicuously clean linen. I used to wonder who they were, to what order +of society they belonged, and whether they, like my worthless self, had +never any thing else but lounging at Florian’s to do; but I really know +none of these things to this day. Some men in Venice spend their noble, +useful lives in this way, and it was the proud reply of a Venetian +father, when asked of what profession his son was, “_È in Piazza!_” + That was, he bore a cane, wore light gloves, and stared from Florian’s +windows at the ladies who went by. + +At the Caffè Quadri, immediately across the Piazza, there was a scene +of equal hopefulness. But there, all was a glitter of uniforms, and +the idling was carried on with a great noise of conversation in +Austrian-German. Heaven knows what it was all about, but I presume the +talk was upon topics of mutual improvement, calculated to advance the +interests of self-government and mankind. These officers were very +comely, intelligent-looking people with the most good-natured faces. +They came and went restlessly, sitting down and knocking their steel +scabbards against the tables, or rising and straddling off with their +long swords kicking against their legs. They are the most stylish +soldiers in the world, and one has no notion how ill they can dress when +left to themselves, till one sees them in civil clothes. + +Further up toward the Fabbrica Nuova (as the Imperial Palace is called), +under the Procuratie Vecchie, is the Caffè Specchi, frequented only by +young Italians, of an order less wealthy than those who go to Florian’s. +Across from this caffè is that of the Emperor of Austria, resorted to +chiefly by non-commissioned officers, and civilian officials of lower +grade. You know the latter, at a glance, by their beard, which in Venice +is an index to every man’s politics: no Austriacante wears the imperial, +no Italianissimo shaves it. Next is the Caffè Suttil, rather Austrian, +and frequented by Italian _codini_, or old fogies, in politics: gray old +fellows, who caress their sticks with more constant zeal than even the +elders at Florian’s. Quite at the other end of the Procuratie Nuove is +the Caffè of the Greeks, a nation which I have commonly seen represented +there by two or three Albanians with an Albanian boy, who, being dressed +exactly like his father, curiously impressed me, as if he were the young +of some Oriental animal--say a boy-elephant or infant camel. + +I hope that the reader adds to this sketch, even in the winter time, +occasional tourists under the Procuratie, at the caffè, and in the +shops, where the shop-keepers are devouring them with the keenness of +an appetite unsated by the hordes of summer visitors. I hope that the +reader also groups me fishermen, gondoliers, beggars, and loutish boys +about the base of St. Mark’s, and at the feet of the three flag-staffs +before the church; that he passes me a slatternly woman and a frowzy +girl or two through the Piazza occasionally; and that he calls down the +flocks of pigeons hovering near. I fancy the latter half ashamed to +show themselves, as being aware that they are a great humbug, and +unrightfully in the guide-books. + +Meantime, while I sit at Florian’s, sharing and studying the universal +worthlessness about me, the brief winter passes, and the spring of the +south--so unlike the ardent season of the north, where it burns full +summer before the snows are dried upon the fields--descends upon the +city and the sea. But except in the little gardens of the palaces, and +where here and there a fig-tree lifts its head to peer over a lofty +stone wall, the spring finds no response of swelling bud and unfolding +leaf, and it is human nature alone which welcomes it. Perhaps it is for +this reason that the welcome is more visible in Venice than elsewhere, +and that here, where the effect of the season is narrowed and limited +to men’s hearts, the joy it brings is all the keener and deeper. It is +certain at least that the rapture is more demonstrative. The city at all +times voiceful, seems to burst into song with the advent of these +golden days and silver nights. Bands of young men go singing through the +moonlit streets, and the Grand Canal reëchoes the music of the parties +of young girls as they drift along in the scarcely moving boats, +and sing the glories of the lagoons and the loves of fishermen and +gondoliers. In the Public Gardens they walk and sing; and wandering +minstrels come forth before the caffè, and it is hard to get beyond the +tinkling of guitars and the scraping of fiddles. It is as if the city +had put off its winter humor with its winter dress; and as Venice in +winter is the dreariest and gloomiest place in the world, so in spring +it is the fullest of joy and light. There is a pleasant bustle in the +streets, a ceaseless clatter of feet over the stones of the squares, and +a constant movement of boats upon the canals. + +We say, in a cheap and careless way, that the southern peoples have no +_homes_. But this is true only in a restricted sense, for the Italian, +and the Venetian especially, makes the whole city his home in pleasant +weather. No one remains under a roof who can help it; and now, as I said +before, the fascinating out-door life begins. All day long the people +sit and drink coffee and eat ices and gossip together before the caffè, +and the soft midnight sees the same diligent idlers in their places. The +promenade is at all seasons the favorite Italian amusement; it has its +rigidly fixed hours, and its limits are also fixed: but now, in spring, +even the promenade is a little lawless, and the crowds upon the Riva +sometimes walk as far as the Public Gardens, and throng all the wider +avenues and the Piazza; while young Venice comes to take the sun at St. +Mark’s in the arms of its high-breasted nurses,--mighty country-women, +who, in their bright costumes, their dangling chains, and head-dresses +of gold and silver baubles, stride through the Piazza with the high, +free-stepping movement of blood-horses, and look like the women of some +elder race of barbaric vigor and splendor, which, but for them, had +passed away from our puny, dull-clad times. + + “_È la stagion che ognuno s’innamora;_” + +and now young girls steal to their balconies, and linger there for +hours, subtly conscious of the young men sauntering to and fro, and +looking up at them from beneath. Now, in the shady little courts, the +Venetian housewives, who must perforce remain indoors, put out their +heads and gossip from window to window; while the pretty water-carriers, +filling their buckets from the wells below, chatter and laugh at their +work. Every street down which you look is likewise vocal with gossip; +and if the picturesque projection of balconies, shutters, and chimneys, +of which the vista is full, hide the heads of the gossipers, be sure +there is a face looking out of every window for all that, and the +social, expansive presence of the season is felt there. + +The poor, whose sole luxury the summer is, lavish the spring upon +themselves unsparingly. They come forth from their dark dens in +crumbling palaces and damp basements, and live in the sunlight and the +welcome air. They work, they eat, they sleep out of doors. Mothers of +families sit about their doors and spin, or walk volubly up and down +with other slatternly matrons, armed with spindle and distaff while +their raven-haired daughters, lounging near the threshold, chase the +covert insects that haunt the tangles of the children’s locks. Within +doors shines the bare bald head of the grandmother, who never ceases +talking for an instant. + +Before the winter passed, I had changed my habitation from rooms near +the Piazza, to quarters on the Campo San Bartolomeo, through which the +busiest street in Venice passes, from St. Mark’s to the Rialto Bridge. +It is one of the smallest squares of the city, and the very noisiest, +and here the spring came with intolerable uproar. I had taken my rooms +early in March, when the tumult under my windows amounted only to a +cheerful stir, and made company for me; but when the winter broke, and +the windows were opened, I found that I had too much society. + +Each campo in Venice is a little city, self-contained and independent. +Each has its church, of which it was in the earliest times the +burial-ground; and each within its limits compasses an apothecary’s +shop, a mercer’s and draper’s shop, a blacksmith’s and shoemaker’s shop, +a caffè more or less brilliant, a green-grocer’s and fruiterer’s, a +family grocery--nay, there is also a second-hand merchant’s shop where +you buy and sell every kind of worn-out thing at the lowest rates. Of +course there is a coppersmith’s and a watchmaker’s, and pretty certainly +a wood-carver’s and gilder’s, while without a barber’s shop no campo +could preserve its integrity or inform itself of the social and +political news of the day. In addition to all these elements of bustle +and disturbance, San Bartolomeo swarmed with the traffic and rang with +the bargains of the Rialto market. + +Here the small dealer makes up in boastful clamor for the absence of +quantity and assortment in his wares; and it often happens that an +almost imperceptible boy, with a card of shirt-buttons and a paper +of hair-pins, is much worse than the Anvil Chorus with real anvils. +Fishermen, with baskets of fish upon their heads; peddlers, with trays +of housewife wares; louts who dragged baskets of lemons and oranges back +and forth by long cords; men who sold water by the glass; charlatans who +advertised cement for mending broken dishes, and drops for the cure of +toothache; jugglers who spread their carpets and arranged their temples +of magic upon the ground; organists who ground their organs; and poets +of the people who brought out new songs, and sang and sold them to the +crowd;--these were the children of confusion, whom the pleasant sun and +friendly air woke to frantic and interminable uproar in San Bartolomeo. + +Yet there was a charm about all this at first, and I spent much time in +the study of the vociferous life under my windows, trying to make out +the meaning of the different cries, and to trace them back to their +sources. There was one which puzzled me for a long time--a sharp, +pealing cry that ended in a wail of angry despair, and, rising high +above all other sounds, impressed the spirit like the cry of that bird +in the tropic forests which the terrified Spaniards called the _alma +perdida_. After many days of listening and trembling, I found that it +proceeded from a wretched, sun-burnt girl, who carried about some +dozens of knotty pears, and whose hair hung disheveled round her eyes, +bloodshot with the strain of her incessant shrieks. + +In San Bartolomeo, as in other squares, the buildings are palaces above +and shops below. The ground-floor is devoted to the small commerce of +various kinds already mentioned; the first story above is occupied +by tradesmen’s families; and on the third or fourth floor is the +_appartamento signorile_. From the balconies of these stories hung the +cages of innumerable finches, canaries, blackbirds, and savage parrots, +which sang and screamed with delight in the noise that rose from the +crowd. All the human life, therefore, which the spring drew to the +casements was perceptible only in dumb show. One of the palaces opposite +was used as a hotel, and faces continually appeared at the windows. By +all odds the most interesting figure there was that of a stout peasant +serving-girl, dressed in a white knitted jacket, a crimson neckerchief, +and a bright-colored gown, and wearing long dangling ear-rings of +yellowest gold. For hours this idle maiden balanced herself half over +the balcony-rail in perusal of the people under her, and I suspect made +love at that distance, and in that constrained position, to some one in +the crowd. On another balcony, a lady sat and knitted with crimson yarn; +and at the window of still another house, a damsel now looked out +upon the square, and now gave a glance into the room, in the evident +direction of a mirror. Venetian neighbors have the amiable custom of +studying one another’s features through opera-glasses; but I could not +persuade myself to use this means of learning the mirror’s response to +the damsel’s constant “Fair or not?” being a believer in every woman’s +right to look well a little way off. I shunned whatever trifling +temptation there was in the case, and turned again to the campo +beneath--to the placid dandies about the door of the caffè; to the tide +of passers from the Merceria; the smooth-shaven Venetians of other days, +and the bearded Venetians of these; the dark-eyed, white-faced Venetian +girls, hooped in cruel disproportion to the narrow streets, but richly +clad, and moving with southern grace; the files of heavily burdened +soldiers; the little policemen loitering lazily about with their swords +at their sides, and in their spotless Austrian uniforms. + +As the spring advances in Venice, and the heat increases, the expansive +delight with which the city hails its coming passes into a tranquiler +humor, as if the joy of the beautiful season had sunk too deeply into +the city’s heart for utterance. I, too, felt this longing for quiet, +and as San Bartolomeo continued untouched by it, and all day roared +and thundered under my windows, and all night long gave itself up to +sleepless youths who there melodiously bayed the moon in chorus, I was +obliged to abandon San Bartolomeo, and seek calmer quarters where I +might enjoy the last luxurious sensations of the spring-time in peace. + +Now, with the city’s lapse into this tranquiler humor, the promenades +cease. The facchino gives all his leisure to sleeping in the sun; and +in the mellow afternoons there is scarcely a space of six feet square on +the Riva degli Schiavoni which does not bear its brown-cloaked peasant, +basking face-downward in the warmth. The broad steps of the bridges are +by right the berths of the beggars; the sailors and fishermen slumber in +their boats; and the gondoliers, if they do not sleep, are yet placated +by the season, and forbear to quarrel, and only break into brief clamors +at the sight of inaccessible Inglesi passing near them under the guard +of _valets de place_. Even the play of the children ceases, except in +the Public Gardens, where the children of the poor have indolent games, +and sport as noiselessly as the lizards that slide from shadow to shadow +and glitter in the sun asleep. This vernal silence of the city possesses +you,--the stranger in it,--not with sadness, not with melancholy, but +with a deep sense of the sweetness of doing nothing, and an indifference +to all purposes and chances. If ever you cared to have your name on +men’s tongues, behold! that old yearning for applause is dead. Praise +would strike like pain through this delicious calm. And blame? It is a +wild and frantic thing to dare it by any effort. Repose takes you to her +inmost heart, and you learn her secrets--arcana unintelligible to you in +the new-world life of bustle and struggle. Old lines of lazy rhyme win +new color and meaning. The mystical, indolent poems whose music once +charmed away all will to understand them, are revealed now without your +motion. Now, at last, you know _why_ + + “It was an Abyssinian maid” + +who played upon the dulcimer. And Xanadu? It is the land in which you +were born! + +The slumbrous bells murmur to each other in the lagoons; the white sail +faints into the white distance; the gondola slides athwart the sheeted +silver of the bay; the blind beggar, who seemed sleepless as fate, dozes +at his post. + + + +CHAPTER V. + +OPERA AND THEATRES. + + +With the winter came to an end the amusement which, in spite of the +existing political demonstration, I had drawn from the theatres. The +Fenice, the great theatre of the city, being the property of private +persons, has not been opened since the discontents of the Venetians were +intensified in 1859; and it will not be opened, they say, till Victor +Emanuel comes to honor the ceremony. Though not large, and certainly +not so magnificent as the Venetians think, the Fenice is a superb and +tasteful theatre. The best opera was formerly given in it, and now that +it is closed, the musical drama, of course, suffers. The Italians seldom +go to it, and as there is not a sufficient number of foreign residents +to support it in good style, the opera commonly conforms to the +character of the theatre San Benedetto, in which it is given, and is +second-rate. It is nearly always subsidized by the city to the amount of +several thousand florins; but nobody need fall into the error, on this +account, of supposing that it is cheap to the opera-goer, as it is in +the little German cities. A box does not cost a great deal; but as the +theatre is carried on in Italy by two different managements,--one of +which receives the money for the boxes and seats, and the other the fee +of admission to the theatre,--there is always the demand of the latter +to be satisfied with nearly the same outlay as that for the box, before +you can reach your place. The pit is fitted up with seats, of course, +but you do not sit down there without paying. So, most Italians (who +if they go at all go without ladies) and the poorer sort of government +officials stand; the orchestra seats are reserved for the officers of +the garrison. The first row of boxes, which is on a level with the +heads of people in the pit, is well enough, but rank and fashion take a +loftier flight, and sit in the second tier. + +You look about in vain, however, for that old life of the theatre which +once formed so great a part of Venetian gayety,--the visits from box to +box, the gossiping between the acts, and the half-occult flirtations. +The people in the boxes are few, the dressing not splendid, and the +beauty is the blond, unfrequent beauty of the German aliens. Last winter +being the fourth season the Italians had defied the temptation of the +opera, some of the Venetian ladies yielded to it, but went plainly +dressed, and sat far back in boxes of the third tier, and when they +issued forth after the opera were veiled beyond recognition. The +audience usually takes its enjoyment quietly; hissing now and then for +silence in the house, and clapping hands for applause, without calling +_bravo_,--an Italian custom which I have noted to be chiefly habitual +with foreigners: with Germans, for instance; who spell it with a _p_ and +_f_. + +I fancy that to find good Italian opera you must seek it somewhere out +of Italy,--at London, or Paris, or New York,--though possibly it might +be chanced upon at La Scala in Milan, or San Carlo in Naples. The cause +of the decay of the musical art in Venice must be looked for among the +events which seem to have doomed her to decay in every thing; certainly +it cannot be discerned in any indifference of the people to music. The +_dimostrazione_ keeps the better class of citizens from the opera, +but the passion for it still exists in every order; and God’s gift of +beautiful voice cannot be smothered in the race by any Situation. You +hear the airs of opera sung as commonly upon the streets in Venice as +our own colored melodies at home; and the street-boy when he sings has +an inborn sense of music and a power of execution which put to shame the +cultivated tenuity of sound that issues from the northern mouth-- + + “That frozen, passive, palsied breathing-hole.” + +In the days of the Fenice there was a school for the ballet at that +theatre, but this last and least worthy part of dramatic art is now +an imported element of the opera in Venice. No novices appear on her +stages, and the musical conservatories of the place, which were once so +famous, have long ceased to exist. The musical theatre was very popular +in Venice as early as the middle of the seventeenth century; and the +care of the state for the drama existed from the first. The government, +which always piously forbade the representation of Mysteries, and, as +the theatre advanced, even prohibited plays containing characters of the +Old or New Testament, began about the close of the century to protect +and encourage the instruction of music in the different foundling +hospitals and public refuges in the city. The young girls in these +institutions were taught to play on instruments, and to sing,--at first +for the alleviation of their own dull and solitary life, and afterward +for the delight of the public. In the merry days that passed just before +the fall of the Republic, the Latin oratorios which they performed in +the churches attached to the hospitals were among the most fashionable +diversions in Venice. The singers were instructed by the best masters +of the time; and at the close of the last century, the conservatories +of the Incurables, the Foundlings, and the Mendicants were famous +throughout Europe for their dramatic concerts, and for those pupils who +found the transition from sacred to profane opera natural and easy. + +With increasing knowledge of the language, I learned to enjoy best the +unmusical theatre, and went oftener to the comedy than the opera. It +is hardly by any chance that the Italians play ill, and I have seen +excellent acting at the Venetian theatres, both in the modern Italian +comedy, which is very rich and good, and in the elder plays of +Goldoni--compositions deliciously racy when seen in Venice, where +alone their admirable fidelity of drawing and coloring can be perfectly +appreciated. The best comedy is usually given to the educated classes at +the pretty Teatro Apollo, while a bloodier and louder drama is offered +to the populace at Teatro Malibran, where on a Sunday night you may +see the plebeian life of the city in one of its most entertaining and +characteristic phases. The sparings of the whole week which have not +been laid out for chances in the lottery, are spent for this evening’s +amusement; and in the vast pit you see, besides the families of +comfortable artisans who can evidently afford it, a multitude of the +ragged poor, whose presence, even at the low rate of eight or ten soldi +[Footnote: The soldo is the hundredth part of the Austrian florin, which +is worth about forty-nine cents of American money.] apiece, it is hard +to account for. It is very peremptory, this audience, in its likes and +dislikes, and applauds and hisses with great vehemence. It likes best +the sanguinary local spectacular drama; it cheers and cheers again +every allusion to Venice; and when the curtain rises on some well-known +Venetian scene, it has out the scene-painter by name three times--which +is all the police permits. The auditors wear their hats in the pit, but +deny that privilege to the people in the boxes, and raise stormy and +wrathful cries of _cappello!_ till these uncover. Between acts, they +indulge in excesses of water flavored with anise, and even go to the +extent of candied nuts and fruits, which are hawked about the theatre, +and sold for two soldi the stick,--with the tooth-pick on which they are +spitted thrown into the bargain. + +The Malibran Theatre is well attended on Sunday night, but the one +entertainment which never fails of drawing and delighting full houses is +the theatre of the puppets, or the Marionette, and thither I like best +to go. The Marionette prevail with me, for I find in the performances of +these puppets, no new condition demanded of the spectator, but rather a +frank admission of unreality that makes every shadow of verisimilitude +delightful, and gives a marvelous relish to the immemorial effects and +traditionary tricks of the stage. + +The little theatre of the puppets is at the corner of a narrow street +opening from the Calle del Ridotto, and is of the tiniest dimensions and +simplest appointments. There are no boxes--the whole theatre is scarcely +larger than a stage-box--and you pay ten soldi to go into the pit, where +you are much more comfortable than the aristocrats who have paid fifteen +for places in the dress-circle above. The stage is very small, and the +scenery a kind of coarse miniature painting. But it is very complete, +and every thing is contrived to give relief to the puppets and to +produce an illusion of magnitude in their figures. They are very +artlessly introduced, and are maneuvered, according to the exigencies of +the scene, by means of cords running from their heads, arms, and legs +to the top of the stage. To the management of the cords they owe all +the vehemence of their passions and the grace of their oratory, not to +mention a certain gliding, ungradual locomotion, altogether spectral. + +The drama of the Marionette is of a more elevated and ambitious tone +than that of the Burattini, which exhibit their vulgar loves and coarse +assassinations in little punch-shows on the Riva, and in the larger +squares; but the standard characters are nearly the same with both, and +are all descended from the _commedia a braccio_ [Footnote: Comedy by the +yard.] which flourished on the Italian stage before the time of Goldoni. +And I am very far from disparaging the Burattini, which have great and +peculiar merits, not the least of which is the art of drawing the +most delighted, dirty, and picturesque audiences. Like most of the +Marionette, they converse vicariously in the Venetian dialect, and have +such a rapidity of utterance that it is difficult to follow them. I only +remember to have made out one of their comedies,--a play in which an +ingenious lover procured his rich and successful rival to be arrested +for lunacy, and married the disputed young person while the other +was raging in the mad-house. This play is performed to enthusiastic +audiences; but for the most part the favorite drama of the Burattini +appears to be a sardonic farce, in which the chief character--a puppet +ten inches high, with a fixed and staring expression of Mephistophelean +good-nature and wickedness--deludes other and weak-minded puppets into +trusting him, and then beats them with a club upon the back of the head +until they die. The murders of this infamous creature, which are always +executed in a spirit of jocose _sang-froid_, and accompanied by humorous +remarks, are received with the keenest relish by the spectators and, +indeed, the action is every way worthy of applause. The dramatic spirit +of the Italian race seems to communicate itself to the puppets, and they +perform their parts with a fidelity to theatrical unnaturalness which is +wonderful. I have witnessed death agonies on these little stages which +the great American tragedian himself (whoever he may happen to be) could +not surpass in degree of energy. And then the Burattini deserve the +greater credit because they are agitated by the legs from below the +scene, and not managed by cords from above, as at the Marionette +Theatre. Their audiences, as I said, are always interesting, and +comprise: first, boys ragged and dirty in inverse ratio to their size; +then weak little girls, supporting immense weight of babies; then +Austrian soldiers, with long coats and short pipes; lumbering Dalmat +sailors; a transient Greek or Turk; Venetian loafers, pale-faced, +statuesque, with the drapery of their cloaks thrown over their +shoulders; young women, with bare heads of thick black hair; old women, +all fluff and fangs; wooden-shod peasants, with hooded cloaks of coarse +brown; then boys--and boys. They all enjoy the spectacle with approval, +and take the drama _au grand sérieux_, uttering none of the gibes which +sometimes attend efforts to please in our own country. Even when the +hat, or other instrument of extortion, is passed round, and they give +nothing, and when the manager, in an excess of fury and disappointment, +calls out, “Ah! sons of dogs! I play no more to you!” and closes the +theatre, they quietly and unresentfully disperse. Though, indeed, _fioi +de cani_ means no great reproach in Venetian parlance; and parents of +the lower classes caressingly address their children in these terms. +Whereas to call one Figure of a Pig, is to wreak upon him the deadliest +insult which can be put into words. + +In the _commedia a braccio_, before mentioned as the inheritance of the +Marionette, the dramatist furnished merely the plot, and the outline of +the action; the players filled in the character and dialogue. With any +people less quick-witted than the Italians, this sort of comedy must +have been insufferable, but it formed the delight of that people till +the middle of the last century, and even after Goldoni went to Paris +he furnished his Italian players with the _commedia a braccio_. I +have heard some very passable _gags_ at the Marionette, but the real +_commedia a braccio_ no longer exists, and its familiar and invariable +characters perform written plays. + +Facanapa is a modern addition to the old stock of _dramatis personae_, +and he is now without doubt the popular favorite in Venice. He is +always, like Pantalon, a Venetian; but whereas the latter is always a +merchant, Facanapa is any thing that the exigency of the play demands. +He is a dwarf, even among puppets, and his dress invariably consists of +black knee-breeches and white stockings, a very long, full-skirted black +coat, and a three-cornered hat. His individual traits are displayed in +all his characters, and he is ever a coward, a boaster, and a liar; a +glutton and avaricious, but withal of an agreeable bonhomie that wins +the heart. To tell the truth, I care little for the plays in which he +has no part and I have learned to think a certain trick of his--lifting +his leg rigidly to a horizontal line, by way of emphasis, and saying, +“Capisse la?” or “Sa la?” (You understand? You know?)--one of the finest +things in the world. + +In nearly all of Goldoni’s Venetian comedies, and in many which he wrote +in Italian, appear the standard associates of Facanapa,--Arlecchino, il +Dottore, Pantalon dei Bisognosi, and Brighella. The reader is at first +puzzled by their constant recurrence, but never weary of Goldoni’s witty +management of them. They are the chief persons of the obsolete _commedia +a braccio_, and have their nationality and peculiarities marked by +immemorial attribution. Pantalon is a Venetian merchant, rich, and +commonly the indulgent father of a wilful daughter or dissolute son, +figuring also sometimes as the childless uncle of large fortune. The +second old man is il Dottore, who is a Bolognese, and a doctor of the +University. Brighella and Arlecchino are both of Bergamo. The one is a +sharp and roguish servant, busy-body, and rascal; the other is dull and +foolish, and always masked and dressed in motley--a gibe at the poverty +of the Bergamasks among whom, moreover, the extremes of stupidity and +cunning are most usually found, according to the popular notion in +Italy. + +The plays of the Marionette are written expressly for them, and are +much shorter than the standard drama as it is known to us. They embrace, +however, a wide range of subjects, from lofty melodrama to broad farce, +as you may see by looking at the advertisements in the Venetian Gazettes +for any week past, where perhaps you shall find the plays performed +to have been: The Ninety-nine Misfortunes of Facanapa; Arlecchino, the +Sleeping King; Facanapa as Soldier in Catalonia; The Capture of Smyrna, +with Facanapa and Arlecchino Slaves in Smyrna (this play being repeated +several nights); and, Arlecchino and Facanapa Hunting an Ass. If you can +fancy people going night after night to this puppet-drama, and enjoying +it with the keenest appetite, you will not only do something toward +realizing to yourself the easily-pleased Italian nature, but you will +also suppose great excellence in the theatrical management. For my own +part, I find few things in life equal to the Marionette. I am never +tired of their bewitching absurdity, their inevitable defects, their +irresistible touches of verisimilitude. At their theatre I have seen the +relenting parent (Pantalon) twitchingly embrace his erring son, while +Arlecchino, as the large-hearted cobbler who has paid the house-rent of +the erring son when the prodigal was about to be cast into the street, +looked on and rubbed his hands with amiable satisfaction and the +conventional delight in benefaction which we all know. I have witnessed +the base terrors of Facanapa at an apparition, and I have beheld the +keen spiritual agonies of the Emperor Nicholas on hearing of the fall of +Sebastopol. Not many passages of real life have affected me as deeply +as the atrocious behavior of the brutal baronial brother-in-law, when +he responds to the expostulations of his friend the Knight of Malta,--a +puppet of shaky and vacillating presence, but a soul of steel and rock: + +“Why, O baron, detain this unhappy lady in thy dungeons? Remember, she +is thy brother’s wife. Remember thine own honor. Think on the +sacred name of virtue.” (Wrigglingly, and with a set countenance and +gesticulations toward the pit.) + +To which the ferocious baron makes answer with a sneering laugh, +“Honor?--I know it not! Virtue?--I detest it!” and attempting to +pass the knight, in order to inflict fresh indignities upon his +sister-in-law, he yields to the natural infirmities of rags and +pasteboard, and topples against him. + +Facanapa, also, in his great scene of the Haunted Poet, is tremendous. +You discover him in bed, too much visited by the Muse to sleep, and +reading his manuscripts aloud to himself, after the manner of poets +when they cannot find other listeners. He is alarmed by various ghostly +noises in the house, and is often obliged to get up and examine the +dark corners of the room, and to look under the bed. When at last +the spectral head appears at the foot-board, Facanapa vanishes with a +miserable cry under the bed-clothes, and the scene closes. Intrinsically +the scene is not much, but this great actor throws into it a life, a +spirit, a drollery wholly irresistible. + +The ballet at the Marionette is a triumph of choreographic art, and is +extremely funny. The _prima ballerina_ has all the difficult grace and +far-fetched arts of the _prima ballerina_ of flesh and blood; and when +the enthusiastic audience calls her back after the scene, she is humanly +delighted, and acknowledges the compliment with lifelike _empressement_. +I have no doubt the _corps de ballet_ have their private jealousies +and bickerings, when quietly laid away in boxes, and deprived of all +positive power by the removal of the cords which agitate their arms and +legs. The puppets are great in _pirouette_ and _pas seul_; but I think +the strictly dramatic part of such spectacular ballets, as The Fall of +Carthage, is their strong point. + +The people who witness their performances are of all ages and +conditions--I remember to have once seen a Russian princess and some +German countesses in the pit--but the greater number of spectators are +young men of the middle classes, pretty shop-girls, and artisans and +their wives and children. The little theatre is a kind of trysting-place +for lovers in humble life, and there is a great deal of amusing drama +going on between the acts, in which the invariable Beppo and Nina of +the Venetian populace take the place of the invariable Arlecchino and +Facanapa of the stage. I one day discovered a letter at the bottom of +the Canal of the Giudecca, to which watery resting-place some recreant, +addressed as “Caro Antonio,” had consigned it; and from this letter I +came to know certainly of at least one love affair at the Marionette. +“Caro Antonio” was humbly besought, “if his heart still felt the force +of love,” to meet the writer (who softly reproached him with neglect) at +the Marionette the night of date, at six o’clock; and I would not like +to believe he could resist so tender a prayer, though perhaps it fell +out so. I fished up through the lucent water this despairing little +epistle,--it was full of womanly sweetness and bad spelling,--and dried +away its briny tears on the blade of my oar. If ever I thought to +keep it, with some vague purpose of offering it to any particularly +anxious-looking Nina at the Marionette as to the probable writer--its +unaccountable loss spared me the delicate office. Still, however, when +I go to see the puppets, it is with an interest divided between the +drolleries of Facanapa, and the sad presence of expectation somewhere +among the groups of dark-eyed girls there, who wear such immense hoops +under such greasy dresses, who part their hair at one side, and call +each other “Ciò!” Where art thou, O fickle and cruel, yet ever dear +Antonio? All unconscious, I think,--gallantly posed against the wall, +thy slouch hat brought forward to the point of thy long cigar, the arms +of thy velvet jacket folded on thy breast, and thy ear-rings softly +twinkling in the light. + + + +CHAPTER VI. + +VENETIAN DINNERS AND DINERS. + + +When I first came to Venice, I accepted the fate appointed to young men +on the Continent. I took lodgings, and I began dining drearily at the +restaurants. Worse prandial fortunes may befall one, but it is hard to +conceive of the continuance of so great unhappiness elsewhere; while +the restaurant life is an established and permanent thing in Italy, +for every bachelor and for many forlorn families. It is not because the +restaurants are very dirty--if you wipe your plate and glass carefully +before using them, they need not stomach you; it is not because the +rooms are cold--if you sit near the great vase of smoldering embers in +the centre of each room you may suffocate in comparative comfort; it is +not because the prices are great--they are really very reasonable; it +is not for any very tangible fault that I object to life at the +restaurants, and yet I cannot think of its hopeless homelessness without +rebellion against the whole system it implies, as something unnatural +and insufferable. + +But before we come to look closely at this aspect of Italian +civilization, it is better to look first at a very noticeable trait of +Italian character,--temperance in eating and drinking. As to the poorer +classes, one observes without great surprise how slenderly they fare, +and how with a great habit of talking of meat and drink, the verb +_mangiare_ remains in fact for the most part inactive with them. But +it is only just to say that this virtue of abstinence seems to be not +wholly the result of necessity, for it prevails with other classes which +could well afford the opposite vice. Meat and drink do not form the +substance of conviviality with Venetians, as with the Germans and the +English, and in degree with ourselves; and I have often noticed on the +Mondays-at-the-Gardens, and other social festivals of the people, +how the crowd amused itself with any thing--music, dancing, walking, +talking--any thing but the great northern pastime of gluttony. Knowing +the life of the place, I make quite sure that Venetian gayety is on few +occasions connected with repletion; and I am ashamed to confess that I +have not always been able to repress a feeling of stupid scorn for the +empty stomachs everywhere, which do not even ask to be filled, or, at +least, do not insist upon it. The truth is, the North has a gloomy +pride in gastronomic excess, which unfits her children to appreciate the +cheerful prudence of the South. + +Venetians eat but one meal a day, which is dinner. They breakfast on +a piece of bread with coffee and milk; supper is a little cup of black +coffee, or an ice, taken at a caffè. The coffee, however, is repeated +frequently throughout the day, and in the summertime fruit is eaten, but +eaten sparingly, like everything else. As to the nature of the dinner, +it of course varies somewhat according to the nature of the diner; but +in most families of the middle class a dinner at home consists of a +piece of boiled beef, a _minestra_ (a soup thickened with vegetables, +tripe, and rice), a vegetable dish of some kind, and the wine of the +country. The failings of the repast among all classes lean to the +side of simplicity, and the abstemious character of the Venetian finds +sufficient comment in his familiar invitation to dinner: “_Venga a +mangiar quattro risi con me_.” (Come eat four grains of rice with me.) + +But invitations to dinner have never formed a prime element of +hospitality in Venice. Goldoni notices this fact in his memoirs, and +speaking of the city in the early half of the last century, he says +that the number and excellence of the eating-houses in the city made +invitations to dinner at private houses rare, and superfluous among the +courtesies offered to strangers. + +The Venetian does not, like the Spaniard, place his house at your +disposition, and, having extended this splendid invitation, consider the +duties of hospitality fulfilled; he does not appear to think you want to +make use of his house for social purposes, preferring himself the caffè, +and finding home and comfort there, rather than under his own roof. +“What caffè do you frequent? Ah! so do I. We shall meet often there.” + This is frequently your new acquaintance’s promise of friendship. And +one may even learn to like the social footing on which people meet at +the caffè, as well as that of the parlor or drawing-room. I could not +help thinking one evening at Padua, while we sat talking with some +pleasant Paduans in one of the magnificent saloons of the Caffè +Pedrocchi, that I should like to go there for society, if I could always +find it there, much better than to private houses. There is far greater +ease and freedom, more elegance and luxury, and not the slightest weight +of obligation laid upon you for the gratification your friend’s company +has given you. One has not to be a debtor in the sum of a friend’s +outlay for house, servants, refreshments, and the like. Nowhere in +Europe is the senseless and wasteful American custom of _treating_ +known; and nothing could be more especially foreign to the frugal +instincts and habits of the Italians. So, when a party of friends at a +caffè eat or drink, each one pays for what he takes, and pecuniarily, +the enjoyment of the evening is uncostly or not, according as each +prefers. Of course no one sits down in such a place without calling for +something; but I have frequently seen people respond to this demand of +custom by ordering a glass of water with anise, at the expense of two +soldi. A cup of black coffee, for five soldi, secures a chair, a table, +and as many journals as you like, for as long time as you like. + +I say, a stranger may learn to like the life of the caffè,--that of the +restaurant never; though the habit of frequenting the restaurants, to +which Goldoni somewhat vaingloriously refers, seems to have grown upon +the Venetians with the lapse of time. The eating-houses are almost +without number, and are of every degree, from the shop of the +sausage-maker, who supplies gondoliers and facchini with bowls of +_sguassetto_, to the Caffè Florian. They all have names which are not +strange to European ears, but which ape sufficiently amusing to people +who come from a land where nearly every public thing is named from +some inspiration of patriotism or local pride. In Venice the principal +restaurants are called The Steamboat, The Savage, The Little Horse, The +Black Hat, and The Pictures; and I do not know that any one of them is +more uncomfortable, uncleanly, or noisy than another, or that any one of +them suffers from the fact that all are bad. + +You do not get breakfast at the restaurant for the reason, before +stated, of the breakfast’s unsubstantiality. The dining commences about +three o’clock in the afternoon, and continues till nine o’clock, most +people dining at five or six. As a rule the attendance is insufficient, +and no guest is served until he has made a savage clapping on the +tables, or clinking on his glass or plate. Then a hard-pushed waiter +appears, and calls out, dramatically, “Behold me!” takes the order, +shrieks it to the cook, and returning with the dinner, cries out again, +more dramatically than ever, “Behold it ready!” and arrays it with a +great flourish on the table. I have dined in an hotel at Niagara, to the +music of a brass band; but I did not find that so utterly bewildering, +so destructive of the individual savor of the dishes, and so conducive +to absent-minded gluttony, as I at first found the constant rush and +clamor of the waiters in the Venetian restaurants. The guests are, +for the most part, patient and quiet enough, eating their minestra and +boiled beef in such peace as the surrounding uproar permits them, and +seldom making acquaintance with each other. It is a mistake, I think, +to expect much talk from any people at dinner. The ingenious English +tourists who visit the United States from time to time, find us silent +over our meat, and I have noticed the like trait among people of divers +races in Europe. + +As I have said, the greater part of the diners at the restaurants are +single, and seem to have no knowledge of each other. Perhaps the gill +of the fiendish wine of the country, which they drink at their meals, +is rather calculated to chill than warm the heart. But, in any case, a +drearier set of my fellow-beings I have never seen,--no, not at evening +parties,--and I conceive that their life in lodgings, at the caffè and +the restaurant, remote from the society of women and all the higher +privileges of fellowship for which men herd together, is at once the +most gross and insipid, the most selfish and comfortless life in the +world. Our boarding-house life in America, dull, stupid, and flat as +it often is, seems to me infinitely better than the restaurant life +of young Italy. It is creditable to Latin Europe that, with all this +homelessness and domestic outlawry, its young men still preserve the +gentleness of civilization. + +The families that share the exile of the eating-houses sometimes make +together a feeble buzz of conversation, but the unfriendly spirit of +the place seems soon to silence them. Undoubtedly they frequent the +restaurant for economy’s sake. Fuel is costly, and the restaurant is +cheap, and its cooking better than they could perhaps otherwise afford +to have. Indeed, so cheap is the restaurant that actual experience +proved the cost of a dinner there to be little more than the cost of +the raw material in the market. From this inexpensiveness comes also the +custom, which is common, of sending home to purchasers meals from the +eating-houses. + +As one descends in the scale of the restaurants, the difference is not +so noticeable in the prices of the same dishes, as in the substitution +of cheaper varieties of food. At the best eating-houses, the Gallic +traditions bear sway more or less, but in the poorer sort the cooking +is done entirely by native artists, deriving their inspirations from +the unsophisticated tastes of exclusively native diners. It is perhaps +needless to say that they grow characteristic and picturesque as they +grow dirty and cheap, until at last the cook-shop perfects the descent +with a triumph of raciness and local coloring. The cook-shop in Venice +opens upon you at almost every turn,--everywhere, in fact, but in the +Piazza and the Merceria,--and looking in, you see its vast heaps of +frying fish, and its huge caldrons of ever-boiling broth which smell +to heaven with garlic and onions. In the seducing windows smoke golden +mountains of _polenta_ (a thicker kind of mush or hasty-pudding, made +of Indian meal, and universally eaten in North Italy), platters of crisp +minnows, bowls of rice, roast poultry, dishes of snails and liver; and +around the fascinating walls hang huge plates of bronzed earthenware +for a lavish and a hospitable show, and for the representation of those +scenes of Venetian story which are modeled upon them in bass-relief. +Here I like to take my unknown friend--my scoundrel facchino or rascal +gondolier--as he comes to buy his dinner, and bargains eloquently with +the cook, who stands with a huge ladle in his hand capable of skimming +mysterious things from vasty depths. I am spell-bound by the drama which +ensues, and in which all the chords of the human heart are touched, from +those that tremble at high tragedy, to those that are shaken by broad +farce. When the diner has bought his dinner, and issues forth with +his polenta in one hand, and his fried minnows or stewed snails in the +other, my fancy fondly follows him to his gondola-station, where he eats +it, and quarrels volubly with other gondoliers across the Grand Canal. + +A simpler and less ambitious sort of cook-shop abounds in the region +of Rialto, where on market mornings I have seen it driving a prodigious +business with peasants, gondoliers, and laborers. Its more limited +resources consist chiefly of fried eels, fish, polenta, and +_sguassetto_. The latter is a true _roba veneziana_, and is a +loud-flavored broth, made of those desperate scraps of meat which +are found impracticable even by the sausage-makers. Another, but more +delicate dish, peculiar to the place, is the clotted blood of poultry, +fried in slices with onions. A great number of the families of the poor +breakfast at these shops very abundantly, for three soldi each person. + +In Venice every holiday has its appropriate viand. During carnival all +the butter and cheese shop-windows are whitened with the snow of +beaten cream--_panamontata_. At San Martino the bakers parade troops of +gingerbread warriors. Later, for Christmas, comes _mandorlato_, which is +a candy made of honey and enriched with almonds. In its season only can +any of these devotional delicacies be had; but there is a species +of cruller, fried in oil, which has all seasons for its own. On the +occasion of every _festa_, and of every _sagra_ (which is the holiday of +one parish only), stalls are erected in the squares for the cooking and +sale of these crullers, between which and the religious sentiment proper +to the whole year there seems to be some occult relation. + +In the winter, the whole city appears to abandon herself to cooking for +the public, till she threatens to hopelessly disorder the law of demand +and supply. There are, to begin with, the caffè and restaurants of +every class. Then there are the cook-shops, and the poulterers’, and the +sausage-makers’. Then, also, every fruit-stall is misty and odorous with +roast apples, boiled beans, cabbage, and potatoes. The chestnut-roasters +infest every corner, and men, women, and children cry roast pumpkin at +every turn--till, at last, hunger seems an absurd and foolish vice, +and the ubiquitous beggars, no less than the habitual abstemiousness of +every class of the population, become the most perplexing and maddening +of anomalies. + + + +CHAPTER VII. + +HOUSEKEEPING IN VENICE. + + +I hope that it is by a not unnatural progress I pass from speaking of +dinners and diners to the kindred subject of the present chapter, and I +trust the reader will not disdain the lowly-minded muse that sings this +mild domestic lay. I was resolved in writing this book to tell what I +had found most books of travel very slow to tell,--as much as possible +of the everyday life of a people whose habits are so different from our +own; endeavoring to develop a just notion of their character, not only +from the show-traits which strangers are most likely to see, but also +from experience of such things as strangers are most likely to miss. + +The absolute want of society of my own nation in Venice would have +thrown me upon study of the people for my amusement, even if I had cared +to learn nothing of them; and the necessity of economical housekeeping +would have caused me to live in the frugal Venetian fashion, even if +I had been disposed to remain a foreigner in every thing. Of bachelor +lodgings I had sufficient experience during my first year; but as most +prudent travelers who visit the city for a week take lodgings, I need +not describe my own particularly. You can tell the houses in which +there are rooms to let, by the squares of white paper fastened to the +window-shutters; and a casual glance as you pass through the streets, +gives you the idea that the chief income of the place is derived from +letting lodgings. Carpetless, dreary barracks the rooms usually are, +with an uncompromising squareness of prints upon the wall, an appalling +breadth of husk-bed, a niggardness of wash-bowl, and an obduracy of +sofa, never, never to be dissociated in their victim’s mind from the +idea of the villanous hard bread of Venice on which the gloomy landlady +sustains her life with its immutable purposes of plunder. Flabbiness +without softness is the tone of these discouraging chambers, which are +dear or not according to the season and the situation. On the sunlit +Riva during winter, and on the Grand Canal in summer, they are costly +enough, but they are to be found on nearly all the squares at reasonable +rates. On the narrow streets, where most native bachelors have them, +they are absurdly cheap. + +As in nearly all places on the Continent, a house in Venice means a +number of rooms, including a whole story in a building, or part of it +only, but always completely separated from the story above and below, or +from the other rooms on the same floor. Every house has its own entrance +from the street, or by a common hall and stairway from the ground-floor, +where are the cellars or store-rooms, while each kitchen is usually on +a level with the other rooms of the house to which it belongs. The +isolation of the different families is secured (as perfectly as where +a building is solely appropriated to each), either by the exclusive +possession of a streetdoor, [Footnote: Where the street entrance is in +common, every floor has its bell, which being sounded, summons a servant +to some upper window with the demand, most formidable to strangers, +“_Chi xe?_” (Who is it?) But you do not answer with your name. You +reply, “_Amici!_” (Friends!) on which comforting reassurance, the +servant draws the latch of the door by a wire running upward to her +hand, and permits you to enter and wander about at your leisure till you +reach her secret height. This is, supposing the master or mistress of +the house to be at home. If they are not in, she answers your “_Amici!_” + with “_No ghe ne xe!_” (Nobody here!) and lets down a basket by a +string outside the window, and fishes up your card.] or by the unsocial +domestic habits of Europe. You bow and give good-day to the people whom +you meet in the common hall and on the common stairway, but you rarely +know more of them than their names, and you certainly care nothing about +them. The sociability of Europe, and more especially of Southern Europe, +is shown abroad; under the domestic roof it dwindles and disappears. And +indeed it is no wonder, considering how dispiriting and comfortless most +of the houses are. The lower windows are heavily barred with iron; the +wood-work is rude, even in many palaces in Venice; the rest is stone +and stucco; the walls are not often papered, though they are sometimes +painted: the most pleasing and inviting feature of the interior is the +frescoed ceiling of the better rooms. The windows shut imperfectly, +the heavy wooden blinds imperviously (is it worth while to observe that +there are no Venetian blinds in Venice?); the doors lift slantingly from +the floor, in which their lower hinges are imbedded; the stoves are of +plaster, and consume fuel without just return of heat; the balconies +alone are always charming, whether they hang high over the streets, or +look out upon the canals, and, with the gayly painted ceilings, go far +to make the houses habitable. + +It happens in the case of houses, as with nearly every thing else in +Italy, that you pay about the same price for half the comfort that you +get in America. In Venice, most of the desirable situations are on the +Grand Canal; but here the rents are something absurdly high, when taken +in consideration with the fact that the city is not made a place of +residence by foreigners like Florence, and that it has no commercial +activity to enhance the cost of living. Househunting, under these +circumstances, becomes an office of constant surprise and disconcertment +to the stranger. You look, for example, at a suite of rooms in a +tumble-down old palace, where the walls, shamelessly smarted up with +coarse paper, crumble at your touch; where the floor rises and falls +like the sea, and the door-frames and window-cases have long lost all +recollection of the plumb. Madama la Baronessa is at present occupying +these pleasant apartments, and you only gain admission to them after +an embassy to procure her permission. Madama la Baronessa receives +you courteously, and you pass through her rooms, which are a little +in disorder, the Baronessa being on the point of removal. Madama la +Baronessa’s hoop-skirts prevail upon the floors; and at the side of the +couch which her form lately pressed in slumber, you observe a French +novel and a wasted candle in the society of a half-bottle of the wine of +the country. A bedroomy smell pervades the whole suite, and through the +open window comes a curious stench explained as the odor of Madama la +Baronessa’s guinea-pigs, of which she is so fond that she has had their +sty placed immediately under her window in the garden. It is this garden +which has first taken your heart, with a glimpse caught through the +great open door of the palace. It is disordered and wild, but so much +the better; its firs are very thick and dark, and there are certain +statues, fauns and nymphs, which weather stains and mosses have made +much decenter than the sculptor intended. You think that for this +garden’s sake you could put up with the house, which must be very cheap. +What is the price of the rooms? you ask of the smiling landlord. He +answers, without winking, “If taken for several years, a thousand +florins a year.” At which you suppress the whistle of disdainful +surprise, and say you think it will not suit. He calls your attention to +the sun, which comes in at every side, which will roast you in summer, +and will not (as he would have you think) warm you in winter. “But there +is another apartment,”--through which you drag languidly. It is empty +now, being last inhabited by an English Ledi,--and her stove-pipes +went out of the windows, and blackened the shabby stucco front of the +villanous old palace. + +In a back court, upon a filthy canal, you chance on a house, the +curiously frescoed front of which tempts you within. A building which +has a lady and gentleman painted in fresco, and making love from balcony +to balcony, on the façade, as well as Arlecchino depicted in the act of +leaping from the second to the third story, promises something. Promises +something, but does not fulfill the promise. The interior is fresh, +clean, and new, and cold and dark as a cellar. This house--that is to +say, a floor of the house--you may have for four hundred florins a year; +and then farewell the world and the light of the sun! for neither will +ever find you in that back court, and you will never see any body but +the neighboring laundresses and their children, who cannot enough admire +the front of your house. + +_E via in seguito!_ This is of house keeping, not house-hunting. There +are pleasant and habitable houses in Venice--but they are not cheap, as +many of the uninhabitable houses also are not. Here, discomfort and ruin +have their price, and the tumble-down is patched up and sold at rates +astonishing to innocent strangers who come from countries in good +repair, where the tumble-down is worth nothing. If I were not ashamed +of the idle and foolish old superstitions in which I once believed +concerning life in Italy, I would tell how I came gradually to expect +very little for a great deal; and how a knowledge of many houses to let, +made me more and more contented with the house we had taken. + +It was in one corner of an old palace on the Grand Canal, and the window +of the little parlor looked down upon the water, which had made friends +with its painted ceiling, and bestowed tremulous, golden smiles upon +it when the sun shone. The dining-room was not so much favored by the +water, but it gave upon some green and ever-rustling tree-tops, +that rose to it from a tiny garden-ground, no bigger than a pocket +handkerchief. Through this window, also, we could see the quaint, +picturesque life of the canal; and from another room we could reach +a little terrace above the water. We were not in the _appartamento +signorile_, [Footnote: The noble floor--as the second or third story +of the palace is called.]--that was above,--but we were more snugly +quartered on the first story from the ground-floor, commonly used as a +winter apartment in the old times. But it had been cut up, and suites of +rooms had been broken according to the caprice of successive landlords, +till it was not at all palatial any more. The upper stories still +retained something of former grandeur, and had acquired with time more +than former discomfort. We were not envious of them, for they were +humbly let at a price less than we paid; though we could not quite +repress a covetous yearning for their arched and carven windows, which +we saw sometimes from the canal, above the tops of the garden trees. + +The gondoliers used always to point out our palace (which was called +Casa Falier) as the house in which Marino Faliero was born; and for a +long time we clung to the hope that it might be so. But however +pleasant it was, we were forced, on reading up the subject a little, to +relinquish our illusion, and accredit an old palace at Santi Apostoli +with the distinction we would fain have claimed for ours. I am rather at +a loss to explain how it made our lives in Casa Falier any pleasanter to +think that a beheaded traitor had been born in it, but we relished the +superstition amazingly as long as we could possibly believe in it. What +went far to confirm us at first in our credulity was the residence, in +another part of the palace, of the Canonico Falier, a lineal descendant +of the unhappy doge. He was a very mild-faced old priest, with a white +head, which he carried downcast, and crimson legs, on which he moved but +feebly. He owned the rooms in which he lived, and the apartment in the +front of the palace just above our own. The rest of the house belonged +to another, for in Venice many of the palaces are divided up and sold +among different purchasers, floor by floor, and sometimes even room by +room. + +But the tenantry of Casa Falier was far more various than its +proprietorship. Over our heads dwelt a Dalmatian family; below our feet +a Frenchwoman; at our right, upon the same floor, an English gentleman; +under him a French family; and over him the family of a marquis in exile +from Modena. Except with Mr. ----, the Englishman, who was at once our +friend and landlord (impossible as this may appear to those who know +any thing of landlords in Italy), we had no acquaintance, beyond that of +salutation, with the many nations represented in our house. We could not +help holding the French people in some sort responsible for the +invasion of Mexico; and, though opportunity offered for cultivating the +acquaintance of the Modenese, we did not improve it. + +As for our Dalmatian friends, we met them and bowed to them a great +deal, and we heard them overhead in frequent athletic games, involving +noise as of the maneuvering of cavalry; and as they stood a good deal +on their balcony, and looked down upon us on ours, we sometimes enjoyed +seeing them admirably foreshortened like figures in a frescoed ceiling. +The father of this family was a little man of a solemn and impressive +demeanor, who had no other occupation but to walk up and down the city +and view its monuments, for which purpose he one day informed us he had +left his native place in Dalmatia, after forty years’ study of Venetian +history. He further told us that this was by no means worth the time +given it; that whereas the streets of Venice were sepulchres in point +of narrowness and obscurity, he had a house in Zara, from the windows +of which you might see for miles uninterruptedly! This little gentleman +wore a black hat, in the last vivid polish of respectability, and I +think fortune was not his friend. The hat was too large for him, as the +hats of Italians always are; it came down to his eyes, and he carried a +cane. Every evening he marched solemnly at the head of a procession of +his handsome young children, who went to hear the military music in St. +Mark’s Square. + +The entrance to the house of the Dalmatians--we never knew their +names--gave access also to a house in the story above them, which +belonged to some mysterious person described on his door-plate as “Co. +Prata.” I think we never saw Co. Prata himself, and only by chance +some members of his family when they came back from their summer in the +country to spend the winter in the city. Prata’s “Co.,” we gradually +learnt, meant “Conte,” and the little counts and countesses, his +children, immediately on their arrival took an active part in the +exercises of the Dalmatian cavalry. Later in the fall, certain of the +count’s vassals came to the _riva_ [Footnote: The gondola landing-stairs +which descend to the water before palace-doors and at the ends of +streets.] in one of the great boats of the Po, with a load of brush and +corncobs for fuel--and this is all we ever knew of our neighbors on the +fourth floor. As long as he remained “Co.” we yearned to know who and +what he was; being interpreted as Conte Prata, he ceased to interest us. + +Such, then, was the house, and such the neighborhood in which two little +people, just married, came to live in Venice. + +They were by nature of the order of shorn lambs, and Providence, +tempering the inclemency of the domestic situation, gave them Giovanna. + +The house was furnished throughout, and Giovanna had been furnished with +it. She was at hand to greet the new-comers, and “This is my wife, the +new mistress,” said the young _Paron_ [Footnote: _Padrone_ in Italian. +A salutation with Venetian friends, and the title by which Venetian +servants always designate their employers.] with the bashful pride +proper to the time and place. Giovanna glowed welcome, and said, with +adventurous politeness, she was very glad of it. + +“_Serva sua!_” + +The _Parona_, not knowing Italian, laughed in English. + +So Giovanna took possession of us, and acting upon the great truth that +handsome is that handsome does, began at once to make herself a thing of +beauty. + +As a measure of convenience and of deference to her feelings, we +immediately resolved to call her G., merely, when speaking of her +in English, instead of Giovanna, which would have troubled her with +conjecture concerning what was said of her. And as G. thus became the +centre around which our domestic life revolved, she must be somewhat +particularly treated of in this account of our housekeeping. I suppose +that, given certain temperaments and certain circumstances, this would +have been much like keeping play-house anywhere; in Venice it had, but +for the unmistakable florins it cost, a curious property of unreality +and impermanency. It is sufficiently bad to live in a rented house; in +a house which you have hired ready-furnished, it is long till your life +takes root, and Home blossoms up in the alien place. For a great while +we regarded our house merely as very pleasant lodgings, and we were slow +to form any relations which could take from our residence its temporary +character. Had we but thought to get in debt to the butcher, the baker, +and the grocer, we might have gone far to establish ourselves at once; +but we imprudently paid our way, and consequently had no ties to bind us +to our fellow-creatures. In Venice provisions are bought by housekeepers +on a scale surprisingly small to one accustomed to wholesale American +ways, and G., having the purse, made our little purchases in cash, +never buying more than enough for one meal at a time. Every morning, +the fruits and vegetables are distributed from the great market at the +Rialto among a hundred greengrocers’ stalls in all parts of the city; +bread (which is never made at home) is found fresh at the baker’s; there +is a butcher’s stall in each campo with fresh meat. These shops are +therefore resorted to for family supplies day by day; and the poor lay +in provisions there in portions graduated to a soldo of their ready +means. A great Bostonian whom I remember to have heard speculate on the +superiority of a state of civilization in which you could buy two cents’ +worth of beef to that in which so small a quantity was unpurchasable, +would find the system perfected here, where you can buy half a cent’s +worth. It is a system friendly to poverty, and the small retail prices +approximate very closely the real value of the stuff sold, as we +sometimes proved by offering to purchase in quantity. Usually no +reduction would be made from the retail rate, and it was sufficiently +amusing to have the dealer figure up the cost of the quantity we +proposed to buy, and then exhibit an exact multiplication of his retail +rate by our twenty or fifty. Say an orange is worth a soldo: you get no +more than a hundred for a florin, though the dealer will cheerfully go +under that number if he can cheat you in the count. So in most things +we found it better to let G. do the marketing in her own small Venetian +fashion, and “guard our strangeness.” + +But there were some things which must be brought to the house by the +dealers, such as water for drinking and cooking, which is drawn from +public cisterns in the squares, and carried by stout young girls to all +the houses. These _bigolanti_ all come from the mountains of Friuli; +they all have rosy cheeks, white teeth, bright eyes, and no waists +whatever (in the fashionable sense), but abundance of back. The cisterns +are opened about eight o’clock in the morning, and then their day’s +work begins with chatter, and splashing, and drawing up buckets from the +wells; and each sturdy little maiden in turn trots off under a burden +of two buckets,--one appended from either end of a bow resting upon the +right shoulder. The water is very good, for it is the rain which +falls on the shelving surface of the campo, and soaks through a bed of +sea-sand around the cisterns into the cool depths below. The bigolante +comes every morning and empties her brazen buckets into the great +picturesque jars of porous earthenware which ornament Venetian kitchens; +and the daily supply of water costs a moderate family about a florin a +month. + +Fuel is likewise brought to your house, but this arrives in boats. It is +cut upon the eastern shore of the Adriatic, and comes to Venice in small +coasting vessels, each of which has a plump captain in command, whose +red face is so cunningly blended with his cap of scarlet flannel that it +is hard on a breezy day to tell where the one begins and the other ends. +These vessels anchor off the Custom House in the Guidecca Canal in the +fall, and lie there all winter (or until their cargo of fuel is sold), a +great part of the time under the charge solely of a small yellow dog of +the irascible breed common to the boats of the Po. Thither the smaller +dealers in firewood resort, and carry thence supplies of fuel to all +parts of the city, melodiously crying their wares up and down the +canals, and penetrating the land on foot with specimen bundles of fagots +in their arms. They are not, as a class, imaginative, I think--their +fancy seldom rising beyond the invention that their fagots are beautiful +and sound and dry. But our particular woodman was, in his way, a gifted +man. Long before I had dealings with him, I knew him by the superb song, +or rather incantation, with which he announced his coming on the Grand +Canal. The purport of this was merely that his bark was called the +Beautiful Caroline, and that his fagots were fine; but he so dwelt upon +the hidden beauties of this idea, and so prolonged their effect upon the +mind by artful repetition, and the full, round, and resonant roar with +which he closed his triumphal hymn, that the spirit was taken with the +charm, and held in breathless admiration. By all odds, this woodman’s +cry was the most impressive of all the street cries of Venice. There +may have been an exquisite sadness and sweetness in the wail of the +chimney-sweep; a winning pathos in the voice of the vender of roast +pumpkin; an oriental fancy and splendor in the fruiterers who cried +“Melons with hearts of fire!” and “Juicy pears that bathe your +beard!”--there may have been something peculiarly effective in the song +of the chestnut-man who shouted “Fat chestnuts,” and added, after a +lapse in which you got almost beyond hearing, “and well cooked!”--I do +not deny that there was a seductive sincerity in the proclamation of +one whose peaches could _not_ be called beautiful to look upon, and were +consequently advertised as “Ugly, but good!”--I say nothing to detract +from the merits of harmonious chair-menders;--to my ears the shout +of the melodious fisherman was delectable music, and all the birds of +summer sang in the voices of the countrymen who sold finches and larks +in cages, and roses and pinks in pots;--but I say, after all, none +of these people combined the vocal power, the sonorous movement, the +delicate grace, and the vast compass of our woodman. Yet this man, as +far as virtue went, was _vox et praeterea nihil_. He was a vagabond of +the most abandoned; he was habitually in drink, and I think his sins +had gone near to make him mad--at any rate he was of a most lunatical +deportment. In other lands, the man of whom you are a regular purchaser, +serves you well; in Italy he conceives that his long service gives him +the right to plunder you if possible. I felt in every fibre that this +woodman invariably cheated me in measurement, and, indeed, he +scarcely denied it on accusation. But my single experience of the +more magnificent scoundrels of whom _he_ bought the wood originally, +contented me with the swindle with which I had become familiarized. On +this occasion I took a boat and went to the Custom House, to get my fuel +at first hand. The captain of the ship which I boarded wished me to pay +more than I gave for fuel delivered at my door, and thereupon ensued the +tragic scene of bargaining, as these things are conducted in Italy. We +stood up and bargained, we sat down and bargained; the captain turned +his back upon me in indignation; I parted from him and took to my boat +in scorn; he called me back and displayed the wood--good, sound, dryer +than bones; he pointed to the threatening heavens, and declared that it +would snow that night, and on the morrow I could not get wood for twice +the present price; but I laughed incredulously. Then my captain took +another tack, and tried to make the contract in obsolete currencies, in +Austrian pounds, in Venetian pounds, but as I inexorably reduced these +into familiar money, he paused desperately, and made me an offer which +I accepted with mistaken exultation. For my captain was shrewder than I, +and held arts of measurement in reserve against me. He agreed that +the measurement and transportation should not cost me the value of his +tooth-pick--quite an old and worthless one--which he showed me. Yet I +was surprised into the payment of a youth whom this man called to assist +at the measurement, and I had to give the boatman drink-money at the +end. He promised that the measure should be just: yet if I lifted my eye +from the work he placed the logs slantingly on the measure, and threw +in knotty chunks that crowded wholesome fuel out, and let the daylight +through and through the pile. I protested, and he admitted the wrong +when I pointed it out: “_Ga razon, lu!_” (He’s right!) he said to +his fellows in infamy, and throwing aside the objectionable pieces, +proceeded to evade justice by new artifices. When I had this memorable +load of wood housed at home, I found that it had cost just what I paid +my woodman, and that I had additionally lost my self-respect in being +plundered before my face, and I resolved thereafter to be cheated +in quiet dignity behind my back. The woodman exulted in his restored +sovereignty, and I lost nothing in penalty for my revolt. + +Among other provisioners who come to your house in Venice, are those +ancient peasant-women, who bring fresh milk in bottles carefully packed +in baskets filled with straw. They set off the whiteness of their wares +by the brownness of their sunburnt hands and faces, and bear in their +general stoutness and burliness of presence, a curious resemblance to +their own comfortable bottles. They wear broad straw hats, and dangling +ear-rings of yellow gold, and are the pleasantest sight of the morning +streets of Venice, to the stoniness of which they bring a sense of +the country’s clovery pasturage, in the milk just drawn from the great +cream-colored cows. + +Fishermen, also, come down the little _calli_--with shallow baskets +of fish upon their heads and under either arm, and cry their soles and +mackerel to the neighborhood, stopping now and then at some door to +bargain away the eels which they chop into sections as the thrilling +drama proceeds, and hand over as a denouement at the purchaser’s own +price. “Beautiful and all alive!” is the engaging cry with which they +hawk their fish. + +Besides these daily purveyors, there are men of divers arts who come +to exercise their crafts at your house: not chimney-sweeps merely, +but glaziers, and that sort of workmen, and, best of all, +chair-menders,--who bear a mended chair upon their shoulders for a +sign, with pieces of white wood for further mending, a drawing-knife, a +hammer, and a sheaf of rushes, and who sit down at your door, and plait +the rush bottoms of your kitchen-chairs anew, and make heaps of fragrant +whittlings with their knives, and gossip with your serving-woman. + +But in the mean time our own serving-woman Giovanna, the great central +principle of our housekeeping, is waiting to be personally presented to +the company. In Italy, there are old crones so haggard, that it is hard +not to believe them created just as crooked, and foul, and full of fluff +and years as you behold them, and you cannot understand how so much +frowziness and so little hair, so great show of fangs and so few teeth, +are growths from any ordinary human birth. G. is no longer young, but +she is not after the likeness of these old women. It is of a middle age, +unbeginning, interminable, of which she gives you the impression. +She has brown apple-cheeks, just touched with frost; her nose is of a +strawberry formation abounding in small dints, and having the slightly +shrunken effect observable in tardy perfections of the fruit mentioned. +A tough, pleasant, indestructible woman--for use, we thought, not +ornament--the mother of a family, a good Catholic, and the flower of +serving-women. + +I do not think that Venetian servants are, as a class, given to +pilfering; but knowing ourselves subject by nature to pillage, we cannot +repress a feeling of gratitude to G. that she does not prey upon us. She +strictly accounts for all money given her at the close of each week, and +to this end keeps a kind of account-book, which I cannot help regarding +as in some sort an inspired volume, being privy to the fact, confirmed +by her own confession, that G. is not good for reading and writing. On +settling with her I have been permitted to look into this book, which is +all in capital letters,--each the evident result of serious labor,--with +figures representing combinations of the pot-hook according to bold +and original conceptions. The spelling is also a remarkable effort of +creative genius. The only difficulty under which the author labors in +regard to the book is the confusion naturally resulting from the effort +to get literature right side up when it has got upside down. The writing +is a kind of pugilism--the strokes being made straight out from the +shoulder. The account-book is always carried about with her in a +fathomless pocket overflowing with the aggregations of a housekeeper +who can throw nothing away, to wit: matchboxes, now appointed to hold +buttons and hooks-and-eyes; beeswax in the lump; the door-key (which +in Venice takes a formidable size, and impresses you at first sight as +ordnance); a patch-bag; a porte-monnaie; many lead-pencils in the stump; +scissors, pincushions, and the Beata Vergine in a frame. Indeed, this +incapability of throwing things away is made to bear rather severely +upon us in some things, such as the continual reappearance of familiar +dishes at table--particularly veteran _bifsteca_. But we fancy that the +same frugal instinct is exercised to our advantage and comfort in other +things, for G. makes a great show and merit of denying our charity to +those bold and adventurous children of sorrow, who do not scruple to +ring your door-bell, and demand alms. It is true that with G., as +with every Italian, almsgiving enters into the theory and practice of +Christian life, but she will not suffer misery to abuse its privileges. +She has no hesitation, however, in bringing certain objects of +compassion to our notice, and she procures small services to be done for +us by many lame and halt of her acquaintance. Having bought my boat (I +come, in time, to be willing to sell it again for half its cost to me), +I require a menial to clean it now and then, and Giovanna first calls +me a youthful Gobbo for the work,--a festive hunchback, a bright-hearted +whistler of comic opera. Whether this blithe humor is not considered +decent, I do not know, but though the Gobbo serves me faithfully, I find +him one day replaced by a venerable old man, whom--from his personal +resemblance to Time--I should think much better occupied with an +hourglass, or engaged with a scythe in mowing me and other mortals down, +than in cleaning my boat. But all day long he sits on my riva in the +sun, when it shines, gazing fixedly at my boat; and when the day is +dark, he lurks about the street, accessible to my slightest boating +impulse. He salutes my going out and coming in with grave reverence, +and I think he has no work to do but that which G.’s wise compassion has +given him from me. Suddenly, like the Gobbo, the Veccio also disappears, +and I hear vaguely--for in Venice you never know any thing with +precision--that he has found a regular employment in Padua, and again +that he is dead. While he lasts, G. has a pleasant, even a sportive +manner with this poor old man, calculated to cheer his declining years; +but, as I say, cases of insolent and aggressive misery fail to touch +her. The kind of wretchedness that comes breathing woe and _sciampagnin_ +[Footnote: Little champagne,--the name which the Venetian populace gave +to a fierce and deadly kind of brandy drunk during the scarcity of wine. +After the introduction of coal-oil this liquor came to be jocosely known +as _petrolio_.] under our window, and there spends a leisure hour in the +rehearsal of distress, establishes no claim either upon her pity or her +weakness. She is deaf to the voice of that sorrow, and the monotonous +whine of that dolor cannot move her to the purchase of a guilty +tranquillity. I imagine, however, that she is afraid to deny charity to +the fat Capuchin friar in spectacles and bare feet, who comes twice a +month to levy contributions of bread and fuel for his convent, for +we hear her declare from the window that the master is not at home, +whenever the good brother rings; and at last, as this excuse gives out, +she ceases to respond to his ring at all. + +Sometimes, during the summer weather, comes down our street a certain +tremulous old troubadour with an aged cithern, on which he strums +feebly with bones which remain to him from former fingers, and in a thin +quivering voice pipes worn-out ditties of youth and love. Sadder music +I have never heard, but though it has at times drawn from me the sigh of +sensibility without referring sympathy to my pocket, I always hear the +compassionate soldo of Giovanna clink reproof to me upon the pavement. +Perhaps that slender note touches something finer than habitual charity +in her middle-aged bosom, for these were songs she says that they used +to sing when she was a girl, and Venice was gay and glad, and different +from now--_veramente, tutt’ altro, signor!_ + +It is through Giovanna’s charitable disposition that we make the +acquaintance of two weird sisters, who live not far from us in Calle +Falier, and whom we know to this day merely as the Creatures--_creatura_ +being in the vocabulary of Venetian pity the term for a fellow-being +somewhat more pitiable than a _poveretta_. Our Creatures are both well +stricken in years, and one of them has some incurable disorder which +frequently confines her to the wretched cellar in which they live with +the invalid’s husband,--a mild, pleasant-faced man, a tailor by trade, +and of batlike habits, who hovers about their dusky doorway in the +summer twilight. These people have but one room, and a little nook of +kitchen at the side; and not only does the sun never find his way into +their habitation, but even the daylight cannot penetrate it. They pay +about four florins a month for the place, and I hope their landlord is +as happy as his tenants. For though one is sick, and all are wretchedly +poor, they are far from being discontented. They are opulent in the +possession of a small dog, which they have raised from the cradle, as it +were, and adopted into the family. They are never tired of playing +with their dog,--the poor old children,--and every slight display of +intelligence on his part delights them. They think it fine in him to +follow us as we go by, but pretend to beat him; and then they excuse +him, and call him ill names, and catch him up, and hug him and kiss him. +He feeds upon their slender means and the pickings that G. carefully +carries him from our kitchen, and gives to him on our doorstep in spite +of us, while she gossips with his mistresses, who chorus our appearance +at such times with “_I miei rispetti, signori!_” We often see them in +the street, and at a distance from home, carrying mysterious bundles of +clothes; and at last we learn their vocation, which is one not known +out of Italian cities, I think. There the state is Uncle to the +hard-pressed, and instead of many pawnbrokers’ shops there is one large +municipal spout, which is called the Monte di Pietà, where the needy +pawn their goods. The system is centuries old in Italy, but there are +people who to this day cannot summon courage to repair in person to the +Mount of Pity, and, to meet their wants, there has grown up a class of +frowzy old women who transact the business for them, and receive a small +percentage for their trouble. Our poor old Creatures were of this class, +and as there were many persons in impoverished, decaying Venice who had +need of the succor they procured, they made out to earn a living when +both were well, and to eke out existence by charity when one was ill. +They were harmless neighbors, and I believe they regretted our removal, +when this took place, for they used to sit down under an arcade +opposite our new house, and spend the duller intervals of trade in the +contemplation of our windows. + +The alarming spirit of nepotism which Giovanna developed at a later +day was, I fear, a growth from the encouragement we gave her charitable +disposition. But for several months it was merely from the fact of a boy +who came and whistled at the door until Giovanna opened it and reproved +him in the name of all the saints and powers of darkness, that we knew +her to be a mother; and we merely had her word for the existence of +a husband, who dealt in poultry. Without seeing Giovanna’s husband, I +nevertheless knew him to be a man of downy exterior, wearing a canvas +apron, thickly crusted with the gore of fowls, who sat at the door of +his shop and plucked chickens forever, as with the tireless hand of +Fate. I divined that he lived in an atmosphere of scalded pullet; +that three earthen cups of clotted chickens’ blood, placed upon his +window-shelf, formed his idea of an attractive display, and that he +shadowed forth his conceptions of the beautiful in symmetrical rows of +plucked chickens, presenting to the public eye rear views embellished +with a single feather erect in the tail of each bird; that he must be, +through the ethics of competition, the sworn foe of those illogical +peasants who bring dead poultry to town in cages, like singing birds, +and equally the friend of those restaurateurs who furnish you a meal of +victuals and a feather-bed in the same _mezzo-polio arrosto_. He turned +out on actual appearance to be all I had prefigured him, with the +additional merit of having a large red nose, a sidelong, fugitive gait, +and a hangdog countenance. He furnished us poultry at rates slightly +advanced, I think. + +As for the boy, he turned up after a while as a constant guest, and +took possession of the kitchen. He came near banishment at one time for +catching a large number of sea-crabs in the canal, and confining them in +a basket in the kitchen, which they left at the dead hour of night, to +wander all over our house,--making a mysterious and alarming sound of +snapping, like an army of death-watches, and eluding the cunningest +efforts at capture. On another occasion, he fell into the canal before +our house, and terrified us by going under twice before the arrival of +the old gondolier, who called out to him “_Petta! petta!_” (Wait! +wait!) as he placidly pushed his boat to the spot. Developing other +disagreeable traits, Beppi was finally driven into exile, from which he +nevertheless furtively returned on holidays. + +The family of Giovanna thus gradually encroaching upon us, we came +also to know her mother,--a dread and loathly old lady, whom we would +willingly have seen burned at the stake for a witch. She was commonly +encountered at nightfall in our street, where she lay in wait, as it +were, to prey upon the fragrance of dinner drifting from the kitchen +windows of our neighbor, the Duchess of Parma. Here was heard the voice +of cooks and of scullions, and the ecstasies of helpless voracity in +which we sometimes beheld this old lady were fearful to witness. Nor did +we find her more comfortable in our own kitchen, where we often saw +her. The place itself is weird and terrible--low ceiled, with the stone +hearth built far out into the room, and the melodramatic implements of +Venetian cookery dangling tragically from the wall. Here is no every-day +cheerfulness of cooking-range, but grotesque andirons wading into the +bristling embers, and a long crane with villanous pots gibbeted upon it. +When Giovanna’s mother, then (of the Italian hags, haggard), rises to +do us reverence from the darkest corner of this kitchen, and croaks her +good wishes for our long life, continued health, and endless happiness, +it has the effect upon our spirits of the darkest malediction. + +Not more pleasing, though altogether lighter and cheerfuler, was +Giovanna’s sister-in-law, whom we knew only as the Cognata. Making her +appearance first upon the occasion of Giovanna’s sickness, she slowly +but surely established herself as an habitual presence, and threatened +at one time, as we fancied, to become our paid servant. But a happy +calamity which one night carried off a carpet and the window curtains +of an unoccupied room, cast an evil suspicion upon the Cognata, and she +never appeared after the discovery of the theft. We suspected her of +having invented some dishes of which we were very fond, and we hated +her for oppressing us with a sense of many surreptitious favors. +Objectively, she was a slim, hoopless little woman, with a tendency to +be always at the street-door when we opened it. She had a narrow, narrow +face, with eyes of terrible slyness, an applausive smile, and a demeanor +of slavish patronage. Our kitchen, after her addition to the household, +became the banqueting-hall of Giovanna’s family, who dined there every +day upon dishes of fish and garlic, that gave the house the general +savor of a low cook-shop. + +As for Giovanna herself, she had the natural tendency of excellent +people to place others in subjection. Our servitude at first was +not hard, and consisted chiefly in the stimulation of appetite to +extraordinary efforts when G. had attempted to please us with some +novelty in cooking. She held us to a strict account in this respect; but +indeed our applause was for the most part willing enough. Her culinary +execution, first revealing itself in a noble rendering of our ideas of +roast potatoes,--a delicacy foreign to the Venetian kitchen,--culminated +at last in the same style of _polpetti_ [Footnote: I confess a +tenderness for this dish, which is a delicater kind of hash skillfully +flavored and baked in rolls of a mellow complexion and fascinating +appearance.] which furnished forth the table of our neighbor, the +Duchess, and was a perpetual triumph with us. + +But G.’s spirit was not wholly that of the serving-woman. We noted in +her the liveliness of wit seldom absent from the Italian poor. She was a +great babbler, and talked willingly to herself, and to inanimate things, +when there was no other chance for talk. She was profuse in maledictions +of bad weather, which she held up to scorn as that dog of a weather. The +crookedness of the fuel transported her, and she upbraided the fagots as +springing from races of ugly old curs. (The vocabulary of Venetian +abuse is inexhaustible, and the Venetians invent and combine terms of +opprobrium with endless facility, but all abuse begins and ends with the +attribution of doggishness.) The conscription was held in the campo near +us, and G. declared the place to have become unendurable--“_proprio un +campo di sospiri!_” (Really a field of sighs.) “_Staga comodo!_” she +said to a guest of ours who would have moved his chair to let her pass +between him and the wall. “Don’t move; the way to Paradise is not wider +than this.” We sometimes lamented that Giovanna, who did not sleep in +the house, should come to us so late in the morning, but we could not +deal harshly with her on that account, met, as we always were, with +plentiful and admirable excuses. Who were we, indeed, to place our +wishes in the balance against the welfare of the sick neighbor with whom +Giovanna passed so many nights of vigil? Should we reproach her with +tardiness when she had not closed the eye all night for a headache +properly of the devil? If she came late in the morning, she stayed late +at night; and it sometimes happened that when the Paron and Parona, +supposing her gone, made a stealthy expedition to the kitchen for cold +chicken, they found her there at midnight in the fell company of the +Cognata, bibbing the wine of the country and holding a mild Italian +revel with that vinegar and the stony bread of Venice. + +I have said G. was the flower of serving-women; and so at first +she seemed, and it was long till we doubted her perfection. We knew +ourselves to be very young, and weak, and unworthy. The Parona had the +rare gift of learning to speak less and less Italian every day, and fell +inevitably into subjection. The Paron in a domestic point of view was +naturally nothing. It had been strange indeed if Giovanna, beholding the +great contrast we presented to herself in many respects, had forborne to +abuse her advantage over us. But we trusted her implicitly, and I hardly +know how or when it was that we began to waver in our confidence. It is +certain that with the lapse of time we came gradually to have breakfast +at twelve o’clock, instead of nine, as we had originally appointed it, +and that G. grew to consume the greater part of the day in making our +small purchases, and to give us our belated dinners at seven o’clock. +We protested, and temporary reforms ensued, only to be succeeded by more +hopeless lapses; but it was not till all entreaties and threats failed +that we began to think seriously it would be well to have done with +Giovanna, as an unprofitable servant. I give the result, not all the +nice causes from which it came. But the question was, How to get rid of +a poor woman and a civil, and the mother of a family dependent in great +part upon her labor? We solemnly resolve a hundred times to dismiss +G., and we shrink a hundred times from inflicting the blow. At last, +somewhat in the spirit of Charles Lamb’s Chinaman who invented roast +pig, and discovered that the sole method of roasting it was to burn +down a house in order to consume the adjacent pig-sty, and thus cook +the roaster in the flames,--we hit upon an artifice by which we could +dispense with Giovanna, and keep an easy conscience. We had long ceased +to dine at home, in despair; and now we resolved to take another +house, in which there were other servants. But even then, it was a sore +struggle to part with the flower of serving-women, who was set over the +vacated house to put it in order after our flitting, and with whom +the imprudent Paron settled the last account in the familiar little +dining-room, surrounded by the depressing influences of the empty +chambers. The place was peopled after all, though we had left it, and +I think the tenants who come after us will be haunted by our spectres, +crowding them on the pleasant little balcony, and sitting down with +them at table. G. stood there, the genius of the place, and wept six +regretful tears, each one of which drew a florin from the purse of the +Paron. She had hoped to remain with us always while we lived in Venice; +but now that she could no longer look to us for support, the Lord must +take care of her. The gush of grief was transient: it relieved her, +and she came out sunnily a moment after. The Paron went his way more +sorrowfully, taking leave at last with the fine burst of Christian +philosophy: “We are none of us masters of ourselves in this world, and +cannot do what we wish. _Ma! Come si fa? Ci vuol pazienza!_” Yet he was +undeniably lightened in heart. He had cut adrift from old moorings, and +had crossed the Grand Canal. G. did not follow him, nor any of the +long line of pensioners who used to come on certain feast-days to levy +tribute of eggs at the old house. (The postman was among these, on +Christmas and New Year’s, and as he received eggs at every house, it was +a problem with us, unsolved to this hour, how he carried them all, +and what he did with them.) Not the least among the Paron’s causes for +self-gratulation was the non-appearance at his new abode of two +local newspapers, for which in an evil hour he subscribed, which were +delivered with unsparing regularity, and which, being never read, formed +the keenest reproach of his imprudent outlay and his idle neglect of +their contents. + + + +CHAPTER VIII. + +THE BALCONY ON THE GRAND CANAL. + + +The history of Venice reads like a romance; the place seems a fantastic +vision at the best, from which the world must at last awake some +morning, and find that after all it has only been dreaming, and that +there never was any such city. There our race seems to be in earnest in +nothing. People sometimes work, but as if without any aim; they suffer, +and you fancy them playing at wretchedness. The Church of St. Mark, +standing so solidly, with a thousand years under the feet of its +innumerable pillars, is not in the least gray with time--no grayer than +a Greek lyric. + + “All has suffered a sea-change + Into something rich and strange,” + +in this fantastic city. The prose of earth has risen poetry from its +baptism in the sea. + +And if, living constantly in Venice, you sometimes for a little while +forget how marvelous she is, at any moment you may be startled into +vivid remembrance. The cunning city beguiles you street by street, and +step by step, into some old court, where a flight of marble stairs leads +high up to the pillared gallery of an empty palace, with a climbing vine +green and purple on its old decay, and one or two gaunt trees stretching +their heads to look into the lofty windows,--blind long ago to their +leafy tenderness,--while at their feet is some sumptuously carven well, +with the beauty of the sculptor’s soul wrought forever into the stone. +Or Venice lures you in a gondola into one of her remote canals, where +you glide through an avenue as secret and as still as if sea-deep under +our work-day world; where the grim heads carven over the water-gates +of the palaces stare at you in austere surprise, where the innumerable +balconies are full of the Absences of gay cavaliers and gentle dames, +gossiping and making love to one another, from their airy perches. Or if +the city’s mood is one of bolder charm, she fascinates you in the very +places where you think her power is the weakest, and as if impatient of +your forgetfulness, dares a wilder beauty, and enthralls with a yet +more unearthly and incredible enchantment. It is in the Piazza, and the +Austrian band is playing, and the promenaders pace solemnly up and down +to the music, and the gentle Italian loafers at Florian’s brood vacantly +over their little cups of coffee, and nothing can be more stupid; when +suddenly every thing is changed, and a memorable tournament flashes up +in many-glittering action upon the scene, and there upon the gallery of +the church, before the horses of bronze, sit the Senators, bright-robed, +and in the midst the bonneted Doge with his guest Petrarch at his side. +Or the old Carnival, which had six months of every year to riot in, +comes back and throngs the place with motley company,--dominoes, +harlequins, pantaloni, illustrissimi and illustrissime, and perhaps even +the Doge himself, who has the right of incognito when he wears a little +mask of wax at his button-hole. Or may be the grander day revisits +Venice when Doria has sent word from his fleet of Genoese at Chioggia +that he will listen to the Senate when he has bridled the horses of +Saint Mark,--and the whole Republic of rich and poor crowds the square, +demanding the release of Pisani, who comes forth from his prison to +create victory from the dust of the crumbling commonwealth. + +But whatever surprise of memorable or beautiful Venice may prepare for +your forgetfulness, be sure it will be complete and resistless. Nay, +what potenter magic needs my Venice to revivify her past whenever she +will, than the serpent cunning of her Grand Canal? Launched upon this +great S have I not seen hardened travelers grow sentimental, and has not +this prodigious sybillant, in my hearing, inspired white-haired Puritan +ministers of the gospel to attempt to quote out of the guide-book “that +line from Byron”? Upon my word, I have sat beside wandering editors in +their gondolas, and witnessed the expulsion of the newspaper from +their nature, while, lulled by the fascination of the place, they were +powerless to take their own journals from their pockets, and instead of +politics talked some bewildered nonsense about coming back with their +families next summer. For myself, I must count as half-lost the year +spent in Venice before I took a house upon the Grand Canal. There +alone can existence have the perfect local flavor. But by what witchery +touched one’s being suffers the common sea-change, till life at last +seems to ebb and flow with the tide in that wonder-avenue of palaces, it +would be idle to attempt to tell. I can only take you to our dear little +balcony at Casa Falier, and comment not very coherently on the scene +upon the water under us. + +And I am sure (since it is either in the spring or the fall) you will +not be surprised to see, the first thing, a boat-load of those English, +who go by from the station to their hotels, every day, in well-freighted +gondolas. These parties of traveling Englishry are all singularly alike, +from the “Pa’ty” traveling alone with his opera-glass and satchel, to +the party which fills a gondola with well-cushioned English middle age, +ruddy English youth, and substantial English baggage. We have learnt +to know them all very well: the father and the mother sit upon the back +seat, and their comely girls at the sides and front. These girls all +have the honest cabbage-roses of English health upon their cheeks; they +all wear little rowdy English hats, and invariable waterfalls of hair +tumble upon their broad English backs. They are coming from Switzerland +and Germany, and they are going south to Rome and to Naples, and they +always pause at Venice a few days. To-morrow we shall see them in the +Piazza, and at Florian’s, and St. Mark’s, and the Ducal Palace; and the +young ladies will cross the Bridge of Sighs, and will sentimentally feed +the vagabond pigeons of St. Mark which loaf about the Piazza and defile +the sculptures. But now our travelers are themselves very hungry, and +are more anxious than Americans can understand about the table-d’hôte of +their hotel. It is perfectly certain that if they fall into talk there +with any of our nation, the respectable English father will remark that +this war in America is a very sad war, and will ask to know when it will +all end. The truth is, Americans do not like these people, and I believe +there is no love lost on the other side. But, in many things, they +are travelers to be honored, if not liked: they voyage through all +countries, and without awaking fervent affection in any land through +which they pass; but their sterling honesty and truth have made the +English tongue a draft upon the unlimited confidence of the continental +peoples, and French, Germans, and Italians trust and respect private +English faith as cordially as they hate public English perfidy. + +They come to Venice chiefly in the autumn, and October is the month of +the Sunsets and the English. The former are best seen from the Public +Gardens, whence one looks westward, and beholds them glorious behind +the domes and towers of San Giorgio Maggiore and the church of the +Redentore. Sometimes, when the sky is clear, your sunset on the lagoon +is a fine thing; for then the sun goes down into the water with a broad +trail of bloody red behind him, as if, wounded far out at sea, he had +dragged himself landward across the crimsoning expanses, and fallen and +died as he reached the land. But we (upon whom the idleness of Venice +grows daily, and from whom the Gardens, therefore, grow farther and +farther) are commonly content to take our bit of sunset as we get +it from our balcony, through the avenue opened by the narrow canal +opposite. We like the earlier afternoon to have been a little rainy, +when we have our sunset splendid as the fury of a passionate beauty--all +tears and fire. There is a pretty but impertinent little palace on the +corner which is formed by this canal as it enters the Canalazzo, and +from the palace, high over the smaller channel, hangs an airy balcony. +When the sunset sky, under and over the balcony, is of that pathetic and +angry red which I have tried to figure, we think ourselves rich in the +neighborhood of that part of the “Palace of Art,” whereon + + “The light aerial gallery, golden railed, + Burnt like a fringe of fire.” + +And so, after all, we do not think we have lost any greater thing in +not seeing the sunset from the Gardens, where half a dozen artists +are always painting it, or from the quay of the Zattere, where it is +splendid over and under the island church of San Giorgio in Alga. + +It is only the English and the other tourist strangers who go by upon +the Grand Canal during the day. But in the hours just before the summer +twilight the gondolas of the citizens appear, and then you may see +whatever is left of Venetian gayety and looking down upon the groups +in the open gondolas may witness something of the home-life of the +Italians, who live out-of-doors. + +The groups do not vary a great deal one from another: inevitably the +pale-faced papa, the fat mamma, the over-dressed handsome young girls. +We learned to look for certain gondolas, and grew to feel a fond +interest in a very mild young man who took the air in company and +contrast with a ferocious bull-dog--boule-dogue he called him, I +suppose. He was always smoking languidly, that mild young man, and I +fancied I could read in his countenance a gentle, gentle antagonism +to life--the proportionate Byronic misanthropy, which might arise from +sugar and water taken instead of gin. But we really knew nothing about +him, and our conjecture was conjecture. Officers went by in their +brilliant uniforms, and gave the scene an alien splendor. Among these we +enjoyed best the spectacle of an old major, or perhaps general, in +whom the arrogance of youth had stiffened into a chill hauteur, and who +frowned above his gray overwhelming moustache upon the passers, like +a citadel grim with battle and age. We used to fancy, with a certain +luxurious sense of our own safety, that one broadside from those +fortressed eyes could blow from the water the slight pleasure-boats in +which the young Venetian idlers were innocently disporting. But again +this was merely conjecture. The general’s glance may have had no such +power. Indeed, the furniture of our apartment sustained no damage from +it, even when concentrated through an opera-glass, by which means the +brave officer at times perused our humble lodging from the balcony of +his own over against us. He may have been no more dangerous in his way +than two aged sisters (whom we saw every evening) were in theirs. They +represented Beauty in its most implacable and persevering form, and +perhaps they had one day been belles and could not forget it. They were +very old indeed, but their dresses were new and their paint fresh, and +as they glided by in the good-natured twilight, one had no heart to +smile at them. We gave our smiles, and now and then our soldi, to the +swarthy beggar, who, being short of legs, rowed up and down the canal +in a boat, and overhauled Charity in the gondolas. He was a singular +compromise, in his vocation and his equipment, between the mendicant +and corsair: I fear he would not have hesitated to assume the +pirate altogether in lonelier waters; and had I been a heavily laden +oyster-boat returning by night through some remote and dark canal, I +would have steered clear of that truculent-looking craft, of which the +crew must have fought with a desperation proportioned to the lack of +legs and the difficulty of running away, in case of defeat. + +About nightfall came the market boats on their way to the Rialto market, +bringing heaped fruits and vegetables from the main-land; and far into +the night the soft dip of the oar, and the gurgling progress of the +boats was company and gentlest lullaby. By which time, if we looked out +again, we found the moon risen, and the ghost of dead Venice shadowily +happy in haunting the lonesome palaces, and the sea, which had so loved +Venice, kissing and caressing the tide-worn marble steps where her feet +seemed to rest. + +At night sometimes we saw from our balcony one of those _freschi_, which +once formed the chief splendor of festive occasions in Venice, and are +peculiar to the city, where alone their fine effects are possible. +The fresco is a procession of boats with music and lights. Two immense +barges, illumined with hundreds of paper lanterns, carry the military +bands; the boats of the civil and military dignitaries follow, and +then the gondolas of such citizens as choose to take part in the +display,--though since 1859 no Italian, unless a government official, +has been seen in the procession. No gondola has less than two lanterns, +and many have eight or ten, shedding mellow lights of blue, and red, +and purple, over uniforms and silken robes. The soldiers of the bands +breathe from their instruments music the most perfect and exquisite +of its kind in the world; and as the procession takes the width of the +Grand Canal in its magnificent course, soft crimson flushes play upon +the old, weather-darkened palaces, and die tenderly away, giving to +light and then to shadow the opulent sculptures of pillar, and arch, and +spandrel, and weirdly illuminating the grim and bearded visages of stone +that peer down from doorway and window. It is a sight more gracious and +fairy than ever poet dreamed; and I feel that the lights and the music +have only got into my description by name, and that you would not know +them when you saw and heard them, from any thing I say. In other days, +people tell you, the fresco was much more impressive than now. At +intervals, rockets used to be sent up, and the Bengal lights, burned +during the progress of the boats, threw the gondoliers’ spectral +shadows, giant-huge, on the palace-walls. But, for my part, I do not +care to have the fresco other than I know it: indeed, for my own selfish +pleasure, I should be sorry to have Venice in any way less fallen and +forlorn than she is. + +Without doubt the most picturesque craft ever seen on the Grand Canal +are the great boats of the river Po, which, crossing the lagoons from +Chioggia, come up to the city with the swelling sea. They are built with +a pointed stern and bow rising with the sweep of a short curve from the +water high above the cabin roof, which is always covered with a straw +matting. Black is not the color of the gondolas alone, but of all boats +in Venetia; and these of the Po are like immense funeral barges, and any +one of them might be sent to take King Arthur and bear him to Avilon, +whither I think most of them are bound. A path runs along either +gunwale, on which the men pace as they pole the boat up the canal,--her +great sail folded and lying with the prostrate mast upon the deck. The +rudder is a prodigious affair, and the man at the helm is commonly kind +enough to wear a red cap with a blue tassel, and to smoke. The other +persons on board are no less obliging and picturesque, from the +dark-eyed young mother who sits with her child in her arms at the +cabin-door, to the bronze boy who figures in play at her feet with a +small yellow dog of the race already noticed in charge of the fuel-boats +from Dalmatia. The father of the family, whom we take to be the +commander of the vessel, occupies himself gracefully in sitting down and +gazing at the babe and its mother. It is an old habit of mine, formed in +childhood from looking at rafts upon the Ohio, to attribute, with a kind +of heart-ache, supreme earthly happiness to the navigators of lazy +river craft; and as we glance down upon these people from our balcony, +I choose to think them immensely contented, and try, in a feeble, tacit +way, to make friends with so much bliss. But I am always repelled +in these advances by the small yellow dog, who is rendered extremely +irascible by my contemplation of the boat under his care, and who, +ruffling his hair as a hen ruffles her feathers, never fails to bark +furious resentment of my longing. + +Far different from the picture presented by this boat’s progress--the +peacefulness of which even the bad temper of the small yellow dog could +not mar--was another scene which we witnessed upon the Grand Canal, when +one morning we were roused from our breakfast by a wild and lamentable +outcry. Two large boats, attempting to enter the small canal opposite +at the same time, had struck together with a violence that shook the +boatmen to their inmost souls. One barge was laden with lime, and +belonged to a plasterer of the city; the other was full of fuel, and +commanded by a virulent rustic. These rival captains advanced toward the +bows of their boats, with murderous looks, + + “Con la test’alta e con rabbiosa fame, + Sì che parea che l’aer ne temesse,” + +and there stamped furiously, and beat the wind with hands of deathful +challenge, while I looked on with that noble interest which the +enlightened mind always feels in people about to punch each other’s +heads. + +But the storm burst in words. + +“Figure of a pig!” shrieked the Venetian, “you have ruined my boat +forever!” + +“Thou liest, son of an ugly old dog!” returned the countryman, “and it +was my right to enter the canal first.” + +They then, after this exchange of insult, abandoned the main subject of +dispute, and took up the quarrel laterally and in detail. Reciprocally +questioning the reputation of all their female relatives to the third +and fourth cousins, they defied each other as the offspring of assassins +and prostitutes. As the peace-making tide gradually drifted their boats +asunder, their anger rose, and they danced back and forth and hurled +opprobrium with a foamy volubility that quite left my powers of +comprehension behind. At last the townsman, executing a _pas seul_ +of uncommon violence, stooped and picked up a bit of lime, while the +countryman, taking shelter at the stern of his boat, there attended +the shot. To my infinite disappointment it was not fired. The +Venetian seemed to have touched the climax of his passion in the mere +demonstration of hostility, and gently gathering up his oar gave the +countryman the right of way. The courage of the latter rose as the +danger passed, and as far as he could be heard, he continued to exult +in the wildest excesses of insult: “Ah-heigh! brutal executioner! +Ah, hideous headsman!” _Da capo._ I now know that these people never +intended to do more than quarrel, and no doubt they parted as well +pleased as if they had actually carried broken heads from the encounter. +But at the time I felt affronted and trifled with by the result, for my +disappointments arising out of the dramatic manner of the Italians had +not yet been frequent enough to teach me to expect nothing from it. + +There was some compensation for me--coming, like all compensation, a +long while after the loss--in the spectacle of a funeral procession +on the Grand Canal, which had a singular and imposing solemnity only +possible to the place. It was the funeral of an Austrian general, whose +coffin, mounted on a sable catafalco, was borne upon the middle boat of +three that moved abreast. The barges on either side bristled with the +bayonets of soldiery, but the dead man was alone in his boat, except for +one strange figure that stood at the head of the coffin, and rested its +glittering hand upon the black fall of the drapery. This was a man clad +cap-a-pie in a perfect suit of gleaming mail, with his visor down, and +his shoulders swept by the heavy raven plumes of his helm. As at times +he moved from side to side, and glanced upward at the old palaces, sad +in the yellow morning light, he put out of sight, for me, every thing +else upon the Canal, and seemed the ghost of some crusader come back to +Venice, in wonder if this city, lying dead under the hoofs of the Croat, +were indeed that same haughty Lady of the Sea who had once sent her +blind old Doge to beat down the pride of an empire and disdain its +crown. + + + +CHAPTER IX. + +A DAY-BREAK RAMBLE. + + +One summer morning the mosquitoes played for me with sleep, and won. It +was half-past four, and as it had often been my humor to see Venice at +that hour, I got up and sallied forth for a stroll through the city. + +This morning walk did not lay the foundation of a habit of early rising +in me, but I nevertheless advise people always to get up at half-past +four, if they wish to receive the most vivid impressions, and to take +the most absorbing interest in every thing in the world. It was with a +feeling absolutely novel that I looked about me that morning, and +there was a breezy freshness and clearness in my perceptions altogether +delightful, and I fraternized so cordially with Nature that I do not +think, if I had sat down immediately after to write out the experience, +I should have at all patronized her, as I am afraid scribbling people +have sometimes the custom to do. I know that my feeling of brotherhood +in the case of two sparrows, which obliged me by hopping down from a +garden wall at the end of Calle Falier and promenading on the pavement, +was quite humble and sincere; and that I resented the ill-nature of a +cat, + + “Whom love kept wakeful and the muse,” + +and who at that hour was spitefully reviling the morn from a window +grating. As I went by the gate of the Canonico’s little garden, +the flowers saluted me with a breath of perfume,--I think the white +honey-suckle was first to offer me this politeness,--and the dumpy +little statues looked far more engaging than usual. + +After passing the bridge, the first thing to do was to drink a cup of +coffee at the Caffè Ponte di Ferro, where the eyebrows of the waiter +expressed a mild surprise at my early presence. There was no one else +in the place but an old gentleman talking thoughtfully to himself on +the subject of two florins, while he poured his coffee into a glass of +water, before drinking it. As I lingered a moment over my cup, I was +reinforced by the appearance of a company of soldiers, marching to +parade in the Campo di Marte. Their officers went at their head, +laughing and chatting, and one of the lieutenants smoking a long pipe, +gave me a feeling of satisfaction only comparable to that which I +experienced shortly afterward in beholding a stoutly built small dog on +the Ponte di San Moisè. The creature was only a few inches high, and it +must have been through some mist of dreams yet hanging about me that +he impressed me as having something elephantine in his manner. When I +stooped down and patted him on the head, I felt colossal. + +On my way to the Piazza, I stopped in the church of Saint Mary of the +Lily, where, in company with one other sinner, I found a relish in +the early sacristan’s deliberate manner of lighting the candles on the +altar. Saint Mary of the Lily has a façade in the taste of the declining +Renaissance. The interior is in perfect keeping, and all is hideous, +abominable, and abandoned. My fellow-sinner was kneeling, and repeating +his prayers. He now and then tapped himself absent-mindedly on the +breast and forehead, and gave a good deal of his attention to me as I +stood at the door, hat in hand. The hour and the place invested him with +so much interest, that I parted from him with emotion. My feelings were +next involved by an abrupt separation from a young English East-Indian, +whom I overheard asking the keeper of a caffè his way to the Campo di +Marte. He was a claret-colored young fellow, tall, and wearing folds +of white muslin around his hat. In another world I trust to know how he +liked the parade that morning. + +I discovered that Piazza San Marco is every morning swept by troops +of ragged facchini, who gossip noisily and quarrelsomely together over +their work. Boot-blacks, also, were in attendance, and several followed +my progress through the square, in the vague hope that I would relent +and have my boots blacked. One peerless waiter stood alone amid the +desert elegance of Caffè Florian, which is never shut, day or night, +from year to year. At the Caffè of the Greeks, two individuals of the +Greek nation were drinking coffee. + +I went upon the Molo, passing between the pillars of the Lion and the +Saint, and walked freely back and forth, taking in the glory of that +prospect of water and of vague islands breaking the silver of the +lagoons, like those scenes cunningly wrought in apparent relief on old +Venetian mirrors. I walked there freely, for though there were already +many gondoliers at the station, not one took me for a foreigner or +offered me a boat. At that hour, I was in myself so improbable, that if +they saw me at all, I must have appeared to them as a dream. My sense +of security was sweet, but it was false, for on going into the church +of St. Mark, the keener eye of the sacristan detected me. He instantly +offered to show me the Zeno Chapel; but I declined, preferring the +church, where I found the space before the high altar filled with +market-people come to hear the early mass. As I passed out of the +church, I witnessed the partial awaking of a Venetian gentleman who had +spent the night in a sitting posture, between the columns of the main +entrance. He looked puffy, scornful, and uncomfortable, and at +the moment of falling back to slumber, tried to smoke an unlighted +cigarette, which he held between his lips. I found none of the shops +open as I passed through the Merceria, and but for myself, and here and +there a laborer going to work, the busy thoroughfare seemed deserted. In +the mere wantonness of power, and the security of solitude, I indulged +myself in snapping several door-latches, which gave me a pleasure as +keen as that enjoyed in boyhood from passing a stick along the pickets +of a fence. I was in nowise abashed to be discovered in this amusement +by an old peasant-woman, bearing at either end of a yoke the usual +basket with bottles of milk packed in straw. + +Entering Campo San Bartolomeo, I found trade already astir in that noisy +place; the voice of cheap bargains, which by noonday swells into an +intolerable uproar, was beginning to be heard. Having lived in Campo San +Bartolomeo, I recognized several familiar faces there, and particularly +noted among them that of a certain fruit-vender, who frequently swindled +me in my small dealings with him. He now sat before his stand, and for a +man of a fat and greasy presence, looked very fresh and brisk, and as if +he had passed a pleasant night. + +On the other side of the Rialto Bridge, the market was preparing for +the purchasers. Butchers were arranging their shops; fruit-stands, and +stands for the sale of crockery, and--as I must say for want of a better +word, if there is any--notions, were in a state of tasteful readiness. +The person on the steps of the bridge who had exposed his stock of cheap +clothing and coarse felt hats on the parapet, had so far completed his +preparations as to have leisure to be talking himself hot and hoarse +with the neighboring barber. He was in a perfectly good humor, and was +merely giving a dramatic flavor to some question of six soldi. + +At the landings of the market-place squadrons of boats loaded with +vegetables were arriving and unloading. Peasants were building +cabbages into pyramids; collective squashes and cucumbers were taking a +picturesque shape; wreaths of garlic and garlands of onions graced the +scene. All the people were clamoring at the tops of their voices; and +in the midst of the tumult and confusion, resting on heaps of +cabbage-leaves and garbage, men lay on their bellies sweetly sleeping. +Numbers of eating-houses were sending forth a savory smell, and +everywhere were breakfasters with bowls of sguassetto. In one of the +shops, somewhat prouder than the rest, a heated brunette was turning +sections of eel on a gridiron, and hurriedly coqueting with the +purchasers. Singularly calm amid all this bustle was the countenance +of the statue called the Gobbo, as I looked at it in the centre of the +market-place. The Gobbo (who is not a hunchback, either) was patiently +supporting his burden, and looking with a quiet, thoughtful frown upon +the ground, as if pondering some dream of change that had come to him +since the statutes of the haughty Republic were read aloud to the people +from the stone tribune on his shoulders. + +Indeed, it was a morning for thoughtful meditation; and as I sat at the +feet of the four granite kings shortly after, waiting for the gate of +the ducal palace to be opened, that I might see the girls drawing the +water, I studied the group of the Judgment of Solomon, on the corner of +the palace, and arrived at an entirely new interpretation of that Bible +story, which I have now wholly forgotten. + +The gate remained closed too long for my patience, and I turned away +from a scene momently losing its interest. The brilliant little shops +opened like hollyhocks as I went home; the swelling tide of life filled +the streets, and brought Venice back to my day-time remembrance, robbing +her of that keen, delightful charm with which she greeted my early +morning sense. + + + +CHAPTER X. + +THE MOUSE. + + +Wishing to tell the story of our Mouse, because I think it illustrates +some amusing traits of character in a certain class of Italians, I +explain at once that he was not a mouse, but a man so called from his +wretched, trembling little manner, his fugitive expression, and peaked +visage. + +He first appeared to us on the driver’s seat of that carriage in which +we posted so splendidly one spring-time from Padua to Ponte Lagoscuro. +But though he mounted to his place just outside the city gate, we did +not regard him much, nor, indeed, observe what a mouse he was, until +the driver stopped to water his horses near Battaglia, and the Mouse got +down to stretch his forlorn little legs. Then I got down too, and bade +him good-day, and told him it was a very hot day--for he was a mouse +apparently so plunged in wretchedness that I doubted if he knew what +kind of day it was. + +When I had spoken, he began to praise (in the wary manner of the +Venetians when they find themselves in the company of a foreigner who +does not look like an Englishman) the Castle of the Obiza near by, which +is now the country-seat of the ex-Duke of Modena; and he presently said +something to imply that he thought me a German. + +“But I am not a German,” said I. + +“As many excuses,” said the Mouse sadly, but with evident relief; and +then began to talk more freely, and of the evil times. + +“Are you going all the way with us to Florence?” I asked. + +“No, signor, to Bologna; from there to Ancona.” + +“Have you ever been in Venice? We are just coming from there.” + +“Oh, yes.” + +“It is a beautiful place. Do you like it?” + +“Sufficiently. But one does not enjoy himself very well there.” + +“But I thought Venice interesting.” + +“Sufficiently, signor. _Ma!_” said the Mouse, shrugging his shoulders, +and putting on the air of being luxuriously fastidious in his choice of +cities, “the water is so bad in Venice.” + +The Mouse is dressed in a heavy winter overcoat, and has no garment to +form a compromise with his shirt-sleeves, if he should wish to render +the weather more endurable by throwing off the surtout. In spite of his +momentary assumption of consequence, I suspect that his coat is in the +Monte di Pietà. It comes out directly that he is a ship-carpenter who +has worked in the Arsenal of Venice, and at the ship-yards in Trieste. + +But there is no work any more. He went to Trieste lately to get a job on +the three frigates which the Sultan had ordered to be built there. _Ma!_ +After all, the frigates are to be built in Marseilles instead. There is +nothing. And every thing is so dear. In Venetia you spend much and gain +little. Perhaps there is work at Ancona. + +By this time the horses are watered; the Mouse regains his seat, and we +almost forget him, till he jumps from his place, just before we reach +the hotel in Rovigo, and disappears--down the first hole in the side of +a house, perhaps. He might have done much worse, and spent the night at +the hotel, as we did. + +The next morning at four o’clock, when we start, he is on the box again, +nibbling bread and cheese, and glancing furtively back at us to say good +morning. He has little twinkling black eyes, just like a mouse, and a +sharp moustache, and sharp tuft on his chin--as like Victor Emanuel’s as +a mouse’s tuft can be. + +The cold morning air seems to shrivel him, and he crouches into a little +gelid ball on the seat beside the driver, while we wind along the Po on +the smooth gray road; while the twilight lifts slowly from the distances +of field and vineyard; while the black boats of the Po, with their gaunt +white sails, show spectrally through the mists; while the trees and the +bushes break into innumerable voice, and the birds are glad of another +day in Italy; while the peasant drives his mellow-eyed, dun oxen +afield; while his wife comes in her scarlet bodice to the door, and +the children’s faces peer out from behind her skirts; while the air +freshens, the east flushes, and the great miracle is wrought anew. + +Once again, before we reach the ferry of the Po, the Mouse leaps down +and disappears as mysteriously as at Rovigo. We see him no more till we +meet in the station on the other side of the river, where we hear him +bargaining long and earnestly with the ticket-seller for a third-class +passage to Bologna. He fails to get it, I think, at less than the usual +rate, for he retires from the contest more shrunken and forlorn than +ever, and walks up and down the station, startled at a word, shocked at +any sudden noise. + +For curiosity, I ask how much he paid for crossing the river, mentioning +the fabulous sum it had cost us. + +It appears that he paid sixteen soldi only. “What could they do when a +man was in misery? I had nothing else.” + +Even while thus betraying his poverty, the Mouse did not beg, and we +began to respect his poverty. In a little while we pitied it, witnessing +the manner in which he sat down on the edge of a chair, with a smile of +meek desperation. + +It is a more serious case when an artisan is out of work in the Old +World than one can understand in the New. There the struggle for bread +is so fierce and the competition so great; and, then, a man bred to one +trade cannot turn his hand to another as in America. Even the rudest and +least skilled labor has more to do it than are wanted. The Italians +are very good to the poor, but the tradesman out of work must become a +beggar before charity can help him. + +We, who are poor enough to be wise, consult foolishly together +concerning the Mouse. It blesses him that gives, and him that +takes--this business of charity. And then, there is something +irresistibly relishing and splendid in the consciousness of being the +instrument of a special providence! Have I all my life admired those +beneficent characters in novels and comedies who rescue innocence, +succor distress, and go about pressing gold into the palm of poverty, +and telling it to take it and be happy; and now shall I reject an +occasion, made to my hand, for emulating them in real life? + +“I think I will give the Mouse five francs,” I say. + +“Yes, certainly.” + +“But I will be prudent,” I continue. “I will not give him this money. +I will tell him it is a loan which he may pay me back again whenever he +can. In this way I shall relieve him now, and furnish him an incentive +to economy.” + +I call to the Mouse, and he runs tremulously toward me. + +“Have you friends in Ancona?” + +“No, signor.” + +“How much money have you left?” + +He shows me three soldi. “Enough for a coffee.” + +“And then?” + +“God knows.” + +So I give him the five francs, and explain my little scheme of making it +a loan, and not a gift; and then I give him my address. + +He does not appear to understand the scheme of the loan; but he takes +the money, and is quite stunned by his good fortune. He thanks me +absently, and goes and shows the piece to the guards, with a smile that +illumines and transfigures his whole person. At Bologna, he has come +to his senses; he loads me with blessings, he is ready to weep; he +reverences me, he wishes me a good voyage, endless prosperity, and +innumerable days; and takes the train for Ancona. + +“Ah, ah!” I congratulate myself,--“is it not a fine thing to be the +instrument of a special providence?” + +It is pleasant to think of the Mouse during all that journey, and if we +are never so tired, it rests us to say, “I wonder where the Mouse is +by this time?” When we get home, and coldly count up our expenses, we +rejoice in the five francs lent to the Mouse. “And I know he will pay it +back if ever he can,” I say. “That was a Mouse of integrity.” + +Two weeks later comes a comely young woman, with a young child--a child +strong on its legs, a child which tries to open every thing in the room, +which wants to pull the cloth off the table, to throw itself out of +the open window--a child of which I have never seen the peer for +restlessness and curiosity. This young woman has been directed to call +on me as a person likely to pay her way to Ferrara. “But who sent you? +But, in fine, why should I pay your way to Ferrara? I have never seen +you before.” + +“My husband, whom you benefited on his way to Ancona, sent me. Here is +his letter and the card you gave him.” + +I call out to my fellow-victim,--“My dear, here is news of the Mouse!” + +“Don’t _tell_ me he’s sent you that money already!” + +“Not at all. He has sent me his wife and child, that I may forward them +to him at Ferrara, out of my goodness, and the boundless prosperity +which has followed his good wishes--I, who am a great signor in his +eyes, and an insatiable giver of five-franc pieces--the instrument of a +perpetual special providence. The Mouse has found work at Ferrara, and +his wife comes here from Trieste. As for the rest, I am to send her to +him, as I said.” + +“You are deceived,” I say solemnly to the Mouse’s wife. “I am not a rich +man. I lent your husband five francs because he had nothing. I am sorry +but I cannot spare twenty florins to send you to Ferrara. If _one_ will +help you?” + +“Thanks the same,” said the young woman, who was well dressed enough; +and blessed me, and gathered up her child, and went her way. + +But her blessing did not lighten my heart, depressed and troubled by +so strange an end to my little scheme of a beneficent loan. After all, +perhaps the Mouse may have been as keenly disappointed as myself. With +the ineradicable idea of the Italians, that persons who speak English +are wealthy by nature, and _tutti originali_, it was not such an absurd +conception of the case to suppose that if I had lent him five francs +once, I should like to do it continually. Perhaps he may yet pay back +the loan with usury. But I doubt it. In the mean time, I am far from +blaming the Mouse. I merely feel that there is a misunderstanding, which +I can pardon if he can. + + + +CHAPTER XI. + +CHURCHES AND PICTURES. + + +One day in the gallery of the Venetian Academy a family party of the +English, whom we had often seen from our balcony in their gondolas, were +kind enough to pause before Titian’s John the Baptist. It was attention +that the picture could scarcely demand in strict justice, for it hangs +at the end of a suite of smaller rooms through which visitors usually +return from the great halls, spent with looking at much larger +paintings. As these people stood gazing at the sublime figure of the +Baptist,--one of the most impressive, if not the most religious, +that the master has painted,--and the wild and singular beauty of +the landscape made itself felt through the infinite depths of their +respectability, the father of the family and the head of the group +uttered approval of the painter’s conception: “Quite my idea of the +party’s character,” he said; and then silently and awfully led his +domestic train away. + +I am so far from deriding the criticism of this honest gentleman that +I would wish to have equal sincerity and boldness in saying what I +thought--if I really thought any thing at all--concerning the art which +I spent so great a share of my time at Venice in looking at. But I fear +I should fall short of the terseness as well as the candor I applaud, +and should presently find myself tediously rehearsing criticisms which +I neither respect for their honesty, nor regard for their justice. It is +the sad fortune of him who desires to arrive at full perception of the +true and beautiful in art, to find that critics have no agreement except +upon a few loose general principles; and that among the artists, to whom +he turns in his despair, no two think alike concerning the same master, +while his own little learning has made him distrust his natural likings +and mislikings. Ruskin is undoubtedly the best guide you can have +in your study of the Venetian painters; and after reading him, and +suffering confusion and ignominy from his theories and egotisms, the +exercises by which you are chastised into admission that he has taught +you any thing cannot fail to end in a humility very favorable to your +future as a Christian. But even in this subdued state you must distrust +the methods by which he pretends to relate the aesthetic truths you +perceive to certain civil and religious conditions: you scarcely +understand how Tintoretto, who genteelly disdains (on one page) to paint +well any person baser than a saint or senator, and with whom “exactly +in proportion to the dignity of the character is the beauty of the +painting,”--comes (on the next page) to paint a very “weak, mean, and +painful” figure of Christ; and knowing a little the loose lives of the +great Venetian painters, you must reject, with several other humorous +postulates, the idea that good colorists are better men than bad +colorists. Without any guide, I think, these painters may be studied and +understood, up to a certain point, by one who lives in the atmosphere +of their art at Venice, and who, insensibly breathing in its influence, +acquires a feeling for it which all the critics in the world could not +impart where the works themselves are not to be seen. I am sure that no +one strange to the profession of artist ever received a just notion of +any picture by reading the most accurate and faithful description of +it: stated dimensions fail to convey ideas of size; adjectives are not +adequate to the ideas of movement; and the names of the colors, however +artfully and vividly introduced and repeated, cannot tell the reader +of a painter’s coloring. I should be glad to hear what Titian’s +“Assumption” is like from some one who knew it by descriptions. Can any +one who has seen it tell its likeness, or forget it? Can any cunning +critic describe intelligibly the difference between the styles of +Titian, of Tintoretto, and of Paolo Veronese,--that difference which no +one with the slightest feeling for art can fail to discern after looking +thrice at their works? It results from all this that I must believe +special criticisms on art to have their small use only in the presence +of the works they discuss. This is my sincere belief, and I could not, +in any honesty, lumber my pages with descriptions or speculations which +would be idle to most readers, even if I were a far wiser judge of art +than I affect to be. As it is, doubting if I be gifted in that way at +all, I think I may better devote myself to discussion of such things in +Venice as can be understood by comparison with things elsewhere, and so +rest happy in the thought that I have thrown no additional darkness on +any of the pictures half obscured now by the religious dimness of the +Venetian churches. + +Doubt, analogous to that expressed, has already made me hesitate to +spend the reader’s patience upon many well-known wonders of Venice; +and, looking back over the preceding chapters, I find that some of the +principal edifices of the city have scarcely got into my book even by +name. It is possible that the reader, after all, loses nothing by this; +but I should regret it, if it seemed ingratitude to that expression of +the beautiful which beguiled many dull hours for me, and kept me company +in many lonesome ones. For kindnesses of this sort, indeed, I am under +obligations to edifices in every part of the city; and there is hardly +a bit of sculptured stone in the Ducal Palace to which I do not owe some +pleasant thought or harmless fancy. Yet I am shy of endeavoring in +my gratitude to transmute the substance of the Ducal Palace into some +substance that shall be sensible to the eyes that look on this print; +and I forgive myself the reluctance the more readily when I remember +how, just after reading Mr. Ruskin’s description of St. Mark’s Church, +I, who had seen it every day for three years, began to have dreadful +doubts of its existence. + +To be sure, this was only for a moment, and I do not think all the +descriptive talent in the world could make me again doubt St. Mark’s, +which I remember with no less love than veneration. This church indeed +has a beauty which touches and wins all hearts, while it appeals +profoundly to the religious sentiment. It is as if there were a +sheltering friendliness in its low-hovering domes and arches, which +lures and caresses while it awes; as if here, where the meekest soul +feels welcome and protection, the spirit oppressed with the heaviest +load of sin might creep nearest to forgiveness, hiding the anguish of +its repentance in the temple’s dim cavernous recesses, faintly starred +with mosaic, and twilighted by twinkling altar-lamps. + +Though the temple is enriched with incalculable value of stone and +sculpture, I cannot remember at any time to have been struck by its +mere opulence. Preciousness of material has been sanctified to the +highest uses, and there is such unity and justness in the solemn +splendor, that wonder is scarcely appealed to. Even the priceless and +rarely seen treasures of the church--such as the famous golden +altarpiece, whose costly blaze of gems and gold was lighted in +Constantinople six hundred years ago--failed to impress me with their +pecuniary worth, though I + + “Value the giddy pleasure of the eyes,” + +and like to marvel at precious things. The jewels of other churches are +conspicuous and silly heaps of treasure; but St. Mark’s, where every +line of space shows delicate labor in rich material, subdues the jewels +to their place of subordinate adornment. So, too, the magnificence +of the Romish service seems less vainly ostentatious there. In other +churches the ceremonies may sometimes impress you with a sense of +their grandeur, and even spirituality, but they all need the effect of +twilight upon them. You want a foreground of kneeling figures, and faces +half visible through heavy bars of shadow; little lamps must tremble +before the shrines; and in the background must rise the high altar, all +ablaze with candles from vault to pavement, while a hidden choir pours +music from behind, and the organ shakes the heart with its heavy tones. +But with the daylight on its splendors even the grand function of the +_Te Deum_ fails to awe, and wearies by its length, except in St. Mark’s +alone, which is given grace to spiritualize what elsewhere would be +mere theatric pomp. [Footnote: The cardinal-patriarch officiates in the +Basilica San Marco with some ceremonies which I believe are peculiar to +the patriarchate of Venice, and which consist of an unusual number of +robings and disrobings, and putting on and off of shoes. All this +is performed with great gravity, and has, I suppose, some peculiar +spiritual significance. The shoes are brought by a priest to the foot +of the patriarchal throne, when a canon removes the profane, out-of-door +_chaussure_, and places the sacred shoes on the patriarch’s feet. A like +ceremony replaces the patriarch’s every-day gaiters, and the pious rite +ends.] The basilica, however, is not in every thing the edifice best +adapted to the Romish worship; for the incense, which is a main element +of the function, is gathered and held there in choking clouds under the +low wagon-roofs of the cross-naves.--Yet I do not know if I would +banish incense from the formula of worship even in St. Mark’s. There is +certainly a poetic if not a religious grace in the swinging censer and +its curling fumes; and I think the perfume, as it steals mitigated to +your nostrils, out of the open church door, is the reverendest smell in +the world. + +The music in Venetian churches is not commonly very good: the best is +to be heard at St. Mark’s, though the director of the choir always +contrives to make so odious a slapping with his _bâton_ as nearly +to spoil your enjoyment. The great musical event of the year is the +performance (immediately after the _Festa del Redentore_) of the Soldini +Masses. These are offered for the repose of one Guiseppe Soldini of +Verona, who, dying possessed of about a million francs, bequeathed a +part (some six thousand francs) annually to the church of St. Mark, +on conditions named in his will. The terms are, that during three +successive days, every year, there shall be said for the peace of his +soul a certain number of masses,--all to be done in the richest and +costliest manner. In case of delinquency, the bequest passes to the +Philharmonic Society of Milan; but the priesthood of the basilica so +strictly regard the wishes of the deceased that they never say less +than four masses over and above the prescribed number. [Footnote: After +hearing these masses, curiosity led me to visit the _Casa di Ricovero_, +in order to look at Soldini’s will, and there I had the pleasure of +recognizing the constantly recurring fact, that beneficent humanity +is of all countries and religions. The Casa di Ricovero is an immense +edifice dedicated to the shelter and support of the decrepit and +helpless of either sex, who are collected there to the number of five +hundred. The more modern quarter was erected from a bequest by Soldini; +and eternal provision is also made by his will for ninety of the +inmates. The Secretary of the Casa went through all the wards and +infirmaries with me, and everywhere I saw cleanliness and comfort (and +such content as is possible to sickness and old age), without surprise; +for I had before seen the Civil Hospital of Venice, and knew something +of the perfection of Venetian charities. + +At last we came to the wardrobe, where the clothes of the pensioners are +made and kept. Here we were attended by a little, slender, pallid young +nun, who exhibited the dresses with a simple pride altogether pathetic. +She was a woman still, poor thing, though a nun, and she could not help +loving new clothes. They called her Madre, who would never be it except +in name and motherly tenderness. When we had seen all, she stood a +moment before us, and as one of the coarse woolen lappets of her cape +had hidden it, she drew out a heavy crucifix of gold, and placed it in +sight, with a heavenly little ostentation, over her heart. Sweet and +beautiful vanity! An angel could have done it without harm, but she +blushed repentance, and glided away with downcast eyes. Poor little +mother!] + +As there is so little in St. Mark’s of the paltry or revolting character +of modern Romanism, one would form too exalted an idea of the dignity of +Catholic worship if he judged it there. The truth is, the sincerity +and nobility of a spirit well-nigh unknown to the Romish faith of these +times, are the ruling influences in that temple: the past lays its spell +upon the present, transfiguring it, and the sublimity of the early faith +honors the superstition which has succeeded it. To see this superstition +in all its proper grossness and deformity you must go into some of the +Renaissance churches,--fit tabernacles for that droning and mumming +spirit which has deprived all young and generous men in Italy of +religion; which has made the priests a bitter jest and byword; which has +rendered the population ignorant, vicious, and hopeless; which gives its +friendship to tyranny and its hatred to freedom; which destroys the life +of the Church that it may sustain the power of the Pope. The idols of +this superstition are the foolish and hideous dolls which people bow to +in most of the Venetian temples, and of which the most abominable is in +the church of the Carmelites. It represents the Madonna with the Child, +elevated breast-high to the worshipers. She is crowned with tinsel and +garlanded with paper flowers; she has a blue ribbon about her tightly +corseted waist; and she wears an immense spreading hoop. On her painted, +silly face of wood, with its staring eyes shadowed by a wig, is figured +a pert smile; and people come constantly and kiss the cross that hangs +by a chain from her girdle, and utter their prayers to her; while the +column near which she sits is hung over with pictures celebrating the +miracles she has performed. + +These votive pictures, indeed, are to be seen on most altars of the +Virgin, and are no less interesting as works of art than as expressions +of hopeless superstition. That Virgin who, in all her portraits, is +dressed in a churn-shaped gown and who holds a Child similarly habited, +is the Madonna most efficacious in cases of dreadful accident and +hopeless sickness, if we may trust the pictures which represent her +interference. You behold a carriage overturned and dragged along the +ground by frantic horses, and the fashionably dressed lady and gentleman +in the carriage about to be dashed into millions of pieces, when the +havoc is instantly arrested by this Madonna who breaks the clouds, +leaving them with jagged and shattered edges, like broken panes of +glass, and visibly holds back the fashionable lady and gentleman from +destruction. It is the fashionable lady and gentleman who have thus +recorded their obligation; and it is the mother, doubtless, of the +little boy miraculously preserved from death in his fall from the +second-floor balcony, who has gratefully caused the miracle to be +painted and hung at the Madonna’s shrine. Now and then you also find +offerings of corn and fruits before her altar, in acknowledgment of good +crops which the Madonna has made to grow; and again you find rows of +silver hearts, typical of the sinful hearts which her intercession has +caused to be purged. The greatest number of these, at any one shrine, +is to be seen in the church of San Nicolò dei Tolentini, where I should +think there were three hundred. + +Whatever may be the popularity of the Madonna della Salute in pestilent +times, I do not take it to be very great when the health of the city is +good, if I may judge from the spareness of the worshipers in the church +of her name: it is true that on the annual holiday commemorative of +her interposition to save Venice from the plague, there is an immense +concourse of people there; but at other times I found the masses and +vespers slenderly attended, and I did not observe a great number of +votive offerings in the temple,--though the great silver lamp placed +there by the city, in memory of the Madonna’s goodness during the +visitation of the cholera in 1849, may be counted, perhaps, as +representative of much collective gratitude. It is a cold, superb +church, lording it over the noblest breadth of the Grand Canal; and I do +not know what it is saves it from being as hateful to the eye as other +temples of the Renaissance architecture. But it has certainly a fine +effect, with its twin belltowers and single massive dome, its majestic +breadth of steps rising from the water’s edge, and the many-statued +sculpture of its façade. Strangers go there to see the splendor of its +high altar (where the melodramatic Madonna, as the centre of a marble +group, responds to the prayer of the operatic Venezia, and drives away +the haggard, theatrical Pest), and the excellent Titians and the grand +Tintoretto in the sacristy. + +The Salute is one of the great show-churches, like that of San Giovanni +e Paolo, which the common poverty of imagination has decided to call the +Venetian Westminster Abbey, because it contains many famous tombs and +monuments. But there is only one Westminster Abbey; and I am so far a +believer in the perfectibility of our species as to suppose that vergers +are nowhere possible but in England. There would be nothing to say, +after Mr. Ruskin, in praise or blame of the great monuments in San +Giovanni e Paolo, even if I cared to discuss them; I only wonder that, +in speaking of the bad art which produced the tomb of the Venieri, he +failed to mention the successful approach to its depraved feeling, made +by the single figure sitting on the case of a slender shaft, at the side +of the first altar on the right of the main entrance. I suppose this +figure typifies Grief, but it really represents a drunken woman, whose +drapery has fallen, as if in some vile debauch, to her waist, and +who broods, with a horrible, heavy stupor and chopfallen vacancy, on +something which she supports with her left hand upon her knee. It is a +round of marble, and if you have the daring to peer under the arm of +the debauchee, and look at it as she does, you find that it contains the +bass-relief of a skull in bronze. Nothing more ghastly and abominable +than the whole thing can be conceived, and it seemed to me the fit type +of the abandoned Venice which produced it; for one even less Ruskinian +than I might have fancied that in the sculptured countenance could be +seen the dismay of the pleasure-wasted harlot of the sea when, from time +to time, death confronted her amid her revels. + +People go into the Chapel of the Rosary here to see the painting of +Titian, representing The Death of Peter Martyr. Behind it stands a +painting of equal size by John Bellini,--the Madonna, Child, and Saints, +of course,--and it is curious to study in the two pictures those points +in which Titian excelled and fell short of his master. The treatment +of the sky in the landscape is singularly alike in both, but where the +greater painter has gained in breadth and freedom, he has lost in that +indefinable charm which belonged chiefly to Bellini, and only to that +brief age of transition, of which his genius was the fairest flower and +ripest fruit. I have looked again and again at nearly every painting of +note in Venice, having a foolish shame to miss a single one, and having +also a better wish to learn something of the beautiful from them; but +at last I must say, that, while I wondered at the greatness of some, +and tried to wonder at the greatness of others, the only paintings which +gave me genuine and hearty pleasure were those of Bellini, Carpaccio, +and a few others of that school and time. + +Every day we used to pass through the court of the old Augustinian +convent adjoining the church of San Stefano. It is a long time since +the monks were driven out of their snug hold; and the convent is now +the headquarters of the Austrian engineer corps, and the colonnade +surrounding the court is become a public thoroughfare. On one wall of +this court are remains--very shadowy remains indeed--of frescos painted +by Pordenone at the period of his fiercest rivalry with Titian; and it +is said that Pordenone, while he wrought upon the scenes of scriptural +story here represented, wore his sword and buckler, in readiness to +repel an attack which he feared from his competitor. The story is very +vague, and I hunted it down in divers authorities only to find it grow +more and more intangible and uncertain. But it gave a singular relish +to our daily walk through the old cloister, and I added, for my own +pleasure (and chiefly out of my own fancy, I am afraid, for I can +nowhere localize the fable on which I built), that the rivalry between +the painters was partly a love-jealousy, and that the disputed object of +their passion was that fair Violante, daughter of the elder Palma, who +is to be seen in so many pictures painted by her father, and by her +lover, Titian. No doubt there are readers will care less for this +idleness of mine than for the fact that the hard-headed German monk, +Martin Luther, once said mass in the adjoining church of San Stefano, +and lodged in the convent, on his way to Rome. The unhappy Francesco +Carrara, last Lord of Padua, is buried in this church; but Venetians +are chiefly interested there now by the homilies of those fervent +preacher-monks, who deliver powerful sermons during Lent. The monks are +gifted men, with a most earnest and graceful eloquence, and they attract +immense audiences, like popular and eccentric ministers among ourselves. +It is a fashion to hear them, and although the atmosphere of the +churches in the season of Lent is raw, damp, and most uncomfortable, +the Venetians then throng the churches where they preach. After Lent +the sermons and church-going cease, and the sanctuaries are once more +abandoned to the possession of the priests, droning from the altars to +the scattered kneelers on the floor,--the foul old women and the young +girls of the poor, the old-fashioned old gentlemen and devout ladies +of the better class, and that singular race of poverty-stricken old men +proper to Italian churches, who, having dabbled themselves with holy +water, wander forlornly and aimlessly about, and seem to consort with +the foreigners looking at the objects of interest. Lounging young +fellows of low degree appear with their caps in their hands, long enough +to tap themselves upon the breast and nod recognition to the high-altar; +and lounging young fellows of high degree step in to glance at the faces +of the pretty girls, and then vanish. The droning ends, presently, +and the devotees disappear, the last to go being that thin old woman, +kneeling before a shrine, with a grease-gray shawl falling from her +head to the ground. The sacristan, in his perennial enthusiasm about +the great picture of the church, almost treads upon her as he brings +the strangers to see it, and she gets meekly up and begs of them in +a whispering whimper. The sacristan gradually expels her with the +visitors, and at one o’clock locks the door and goes home. + +By chance I have got a fine effect in churches at the five o’clock mass +in the morning, when the worshipers are nearly all peasants who have +come to market, and who are pretty sure, each one, to have a bundle +or basket. At this hour the sacristan is heavy with sleep; he dodges +uncertainly at the tapers as he lights and extinguishes them; and his +manner to the congregation, as he passes through it to the altar, is +altogether rasped and nervous. I think it is best to be one’s self a +little sleepy,--when the barefooted friar at the altar (if it is in the +church of the Scalzi, say) has a habit of getting several centuries +back from you, and of saying mass to the patrician ghosts from the +tombs under your feet and there is nothing at all impossible in the +Renaissance angels and cherubs in marble, floating and fatly tumbling +about on the broken arches of the altars. + +I have sometimes been puzzled in Venice to know why churches should keep +cats, church-mice being proverbially so poor, and so little capable of +sustaining a cat in good condition; yet I have repeatedly found sleek +and portly cats in the churches, where they seem to be on terms of +perfect understanding with the priests, and to have no quarrel even with +the little boys who assist at mass. There is, for instance, a cat in the +sacristy of the Frari, which I have often seen in familiar association +with the ecclesiastics there, when they came into his room to robe +or disrobe, or warm their hands, numb with supplication, at the great +brazier in the middle of the floor. I do not think this cat has the +slightest interest in the lovely Madonna of Bellini which hangs in the +sacristy; but I suspect him of dreadful knowledge concerning the tombs +in the church. I have no doubt he has passed through the open door +of Canova’s monument, and that he sees some coherence and meaning in +Titian’s; he has been all over the great mausoleum of the Doge Pesaro, +and he knows whether the griffins descend from their perches at the +midnight hour to bite the naked knees of the ragged black caryatides. +This profound and awful animal I take to be a blood relation of the +cat in the church of San Giovanni e Paolo, who sleeps like a Christian +during divine service, and loves a certain glorious bed on the top of a +bench, where the sun strikes upon him through the great painted window, +and dapples his tawny coat with lovely purples and crimsons. + +The church cats are apparently the friends of the sacristans, with whom +their amity is maintained probably by entire cession of the spoils of +visitors. In these, therefore, they seldom take any interest, merely +opening a lazy eye now and then to wink at the sacristans as they drag +the deluded strangers from altar to altar, with intense enjoyment of +the absurdity, and a wicked satisfaction in the incredible stories +rehearsed. I fancy, being Italian cats, they feel something like a +national antipathy toward those troops of German tourists, who always +seek the Sehenswürdigkeiten in companies of ten or twenty,--the men +wearing their beards, and the women their hoops and hats, to look as +much like English people as possible; while their valet marshals them +forward with a stream of guttural information, unbroken by a single +punctuation point. These wise cats know the real English by their +“Murrays;” and I think they make a shrewd guess at the nationality of us +Americans by the speed with which we pass from one thing to another, and +by our national ignorance of all languages but English. They must also +hear us vaunt the superiority of our own land in unpleasant comparisons, +and I do not think they believe us, or like us, for our boastings. I +am sure they would say to us, if they could, “_Quando finirà mai quella +guerra? Che sangue! che orrore_!” [Footnote: “When will this war ever be +ended? what blood! what horror!” I have often heard the question and the +comment from many Italians who were not cats.] The French tourist they +distinguish by his evident skepticism concerning his own wisdom in +quitting Paris for the present purpose; and the traveling Italian, by +his attention to his badly dressed, handsome wife, with whom he is now +making his wedding trip. + +I have found churches undergoing repairs (as most of them always are in +Venice) rather interesting. Under these circumstances, the sacristan is +obliged to take you into all sorts of secret places and odd corners, +to show you the objects of interest; and you may often get glimpses of +pictures which, if not removed from their proper places, it would be +impossible to see. The carpenters and masons work most deliberately, as +if in a place so set against progress that speedy workmanship would be +a kind of impiety. Besides the mechanics, there are always idle priests +standing about, and vagabond boys clambering over the scaffolding. +In San Giovanni e Paolo I remember we one day saw a small boy appear +through an opening in the roof, and descend by means of some hundred +feet of dangling rope. The spectacle, which made us ache with fear, +delighted his companions so much that their applause was scarcely +subdued by the sacred character of the place. As soon as he reached the +ground in safety, a gentle, good-natured looking priest took him by the +arm and cuffed his ears. It was a scene for a painter. + + + +CHAPTER XII. + +SOME ISLANDS OF THE LAGOONS. + + +Nothing can be fairer to the eye than these “summer isles of Eden” lying +all about Venice, far and near. The water forever trembles and changes, +with every change of light, from one rainbow glory to another, as with +the restless hues of an opal; and even when the splendid tides recede, +and go down with the sea, they leave a heritage of beauty to the +empurpled mud of the shallows, all strewn with green, disheveled +sea-weed. The lagoons have almost as wide a bound as your vision. On the +east and west you can see their borders of sea-shore and main-land; but +looking north and south, there seems no end to the charm of their vast, +smooth, all-but melancholy expanses. Beyond their southern limit rise +the blue Euganean Hills, where Petrarch died; on the north loom +the Alps, white with snow. Dotting the stretches of lagoon in every +direction lie the islands--now piles of airy architecture that the water +seems to float under and bear upon its breast, now + + “Sunny spots of greenery,” + +with the bell-towers of demolished cloisters shadowily showing above +their trees;--for in the days of the Republic nearly every one of the +islands had its monastery and its church. At present the greater +number have been fortified by the Austrians, whose sentinel paces the +once-peaceful shores, and challenges all passers with his sharp “_Halt! +Wer da_!” and warns them not to approach too closely. Other islands have +been devoted to different utilitarian purposes, and few are able to keep +their distant promises of loveliness. One of the more faithful is the +island of San Clemente, on which the old convent church is yet standing, +empty and forlorn within, but without all draped in glossy ivy. After +I had learned to row in the gondolier fashion, I voyaged much in the +lagoon with my boat, and often stopped at this church. It has a curious +feature in the chapel of the Madonna di Loreto, which is built in the +middle of the nave, faced with marble, roofed, and isolated from the +walls of the main edifice on all sides. On the back of this there is +a bass-relief in bronze, representing the Nativity--a work much in +the spirit of the bass-reliefs in San Giovanni e Paolo; and one of +the chapels has an exquisite little altar, with gleaming columns of +porphyry. There has been no service in the church for many years; +and this altar had a strangely pathetic effect, won from the black +four-cornered cap of a priest that lay before it, like an offering. I +wondered who the priest was that wore it, and why he had left it there, +as if he had fled away in haste. I might have thought it looked like the +signal of the abdication of a system; the gondolier who was with me took +it up and reviled it as representative of _birbanti matricolati_, who +fed upon the poor, and in whose expulsion from that island he rejoiced. +But he had little reason to do so, since the last use of the place was +for the imprisonment of refractory ecclesiastics. Some of the tombs +of the Morosini are in San Clemente--villanous monuments, with bronze +Deaths popping out of apertures, and holding marble scrolls inscribed +with undying deeds. Indeed, nearly all the decorations of the poor old +church are horrible, and there is one statue in it meant for an angel, +with absolutely the most lascivious face I ever saw in marble. + +The islands near Venice are all small, except the Giudecca (which is +properly a part of the city), the Lido, and Murano. The Giudecca, +from being anciently the bounds in which certain factious nobles were +confined, was later laid out in pleasure-gardens, and built up with +summer-palaces. The gardens still remain to some extent; but they are +now chiefly turned to practical account in raising vegetables and +fruits for the Venetian market, and the palaces have been converted into +warehouses and factories. This island produces a variety of beggar, the +most truculent and tenacious in all Venice, and it has a convent of lazy +Capuchin friars, who are likewise beggars. To them belongs the church of +the Redentore, which only the Madonnas of Bellini in the sacristy make +worthy to be seen,--though the island is hardly less famed for this +church than for the difficult etymology of its name. + +At the eastern extremity of the Giudecca lies the Island of San Giorgio +Maggiore, with Palladio’s church of that name. There are some great +Tintorettos in the church, and I like the beautiful wood-carvings in +the choir. The island has a sad interest from the political prison into +which part of the old convent has been perverted; and the next island +eastward is the scarcely sadder abode of the mad. Then comes the fair +and happy seat of Armenian learning and piety, San Lazzaro, and then the +Lido. + +The Lido is the sea-shore, and thither in more cheerful days the +Venetians used to resort in great numbers on certain holidays, called +the Mondays of the Lido, to enjoy the sea-breeze and the country +scenery, and to lunch upon the flat tombs of the Hebrews, buried there +in exile from the consecrated Christian ground. On a summer’s day there +the sun glares down upon the sand and flat gravestones, and it seems +the most desolate place where one’s bones might be laid. The Protestants +were once also interred on the Lido, but now they rest (apart from the +Catholics, however) in the cemetery of San Michele. + +The island is long and narrow: it stretches between the lagoons and the +sea, with a village at either end, and with bath-houses on the beach, +which is everywhere faced with forts. There are some poor little trees +there, and grass,--things which we were thrice a week grateful for, when +we went thither to bathe. I do not know whether it will give the place +further interest to say, that it was among the tombs of the Hebrews +Cooper’s ingenious Bravo had the incredible good luck to hide himself +from the _sbirri_ of the Republic; or to relate that it was the habit of +Lord Byron to gallop up and down the Lido in search of that conspicuous +solitude of which the sincere bard was fond. + +One day of the first summer I spent in Venice (three years of Venetian +life afterward removed it back into times of the remotest antiquity), a +friend and I had the now-incredible enterprise to walk from one end of +the Lido to the other,--from the port of San Nicolò (through which the +Bucintoro passed when the Doges went to espouse the Adriatic) to the +port of Malamocco, at the southern extremity. + +We began with that delicious bath which you may have in the Adriatic, +where the light surf breaks with a pensive cadence on the soft sand, all +strewn with brilliant shells. The Adriatic is the bluest water I have +ever seen; and it is an ineffable, lazy delight to lie and watch the +fishing sails of purple and yellow dotting its surface, and the greater +ships dipping down its utmost rim. It was particularly good to do this +after coming out of the water; but our American blood could not brook +much repose, and we got up presently, and started on our walk to the +little village of Malamocco, some three miles away. The double-headed +eagle keeps watch and ward from a continuous line of forts along the +shore, and the white-coated sentinels never cease to pace the bastions, +night or day. Their vision of the sea must not be interrupted by even so +much as the form of a stray passer; and as we went by the forts, we had +to descend from the sea-wall, and walk under it, until we got beyond the +sentry’s beat. The crimson poppies grow everywhere on this sandy little +isle, and they fringe the edges of the bastions with their bloom, as +if the “blood-red blossoms of war” had there sprung from the seeds of +battle sown in old forgotten fights. But otherwise the forts were not +very engaging in appearance. A sentry-box of yellow and black, a sentry, +a row of seaward frowning cannon--there was not much in all this to +interest us; and so we walked idly along, and looked either to the city +rising from the lagoons on one hand, or the ships going down the sea on +the other. In the fields, along the road, were vines and Indian corn; +but instead of those effigies of humanity, doubly fearful from their +wide unlikeness to any thing human, which we contrive to scare away +the birds, the devout peasant-folks had here displayed on poles the +instruments of the Passion of the Lord--the hammer, the cords, the +nails--which at once protected and blessed the fields. But I doubt if +even these would save them from the New-World pigs, and certainly the +fences here would not turn pork, for they are made of a matting of +reeds, woven together, and feebly secured to tremulous posts. The +fields were well cultivated, and the vines and garden vegetables looked +flourishing; but the corn was spindling, and had, I thought, a homesick +look, as if it dreamed vainly of wide ancestral bottom-lands, on +the mighty streams that run through the heart of the Great West. The +Italians call our corn _gran turco_, but I knew that it was for the West +that it yearned, and not for the East. + +No doubt there were once finer dwellings than the peasants’ houses which +are now the only habitations on the Lido; and I suspect that a genteel +villa must formerly have stood near the farm-gate, which we found +surmounted by broken statues of Venus and Diana. The poor goddesses were +both headless, and some cruel fortune had struck off their hands, and +they looked strangely forlorn in the swaggering attitudes of the absurd +period of art to which they belonged: they extended their mutilated arms +toward the sea for pity, but it regarded them not; and we passed before +them scoffing at their bad taste, for we were hungry, and it was yet +some distance to Malamocco. + +This dirty little village was the capital of the Venetian islands before +King Pepin and his Franks burned it, and the shifting sands of empire +gathered solidly about the Rialto in Venice. It is a thousand years +since that time, and Malamocco has long been given over to fishermen’s +families and the soldiers of the forts. We found the latter lounging +about the unwholesome streets; and the former seated at their +thresholds, engaged in those pursuits of the chase which the use of a +fine-tooth comb would undignify to mere slaughter. + +There is a church at Malamocco, but it was closed, and we could not find +the sacristan; so we went to the little restaurant, as the next best +place, and demanded something to eat. What had the padrone? He answered +pretty much to the same effect as the innkeeper in “Don Quixote,” who +told his guests that they could have any thing that walked on the earth, +or swam in the sea, or flew in the air. We would take, then, some fish, +or a bit of veal, or some mutton chops. The padrone sweetly shrugged the +shoulders of apology. There was nothing of all this, but what would we +say to some liver or gizzards of chickens, fried upon the instant and +ready the next breath? No, we did not want them; so we compromised on +some ham fried in a batter of eggs, and reeking with its own fatness. +The truth is, it was a very bad little lunch we made, and nothing +redeemed it but the amiability of the smiling padrone and the bustling +padrona, who served us as kings and princes. It was a clean hostelry, +though, and that was a merit in Malamocco, of which the chief modern +virtue is that it cannot hold you long. No doubt it was more interesting +in other times. In the days when the Venetians chose it for their +capital, it was a walled town, and fortified with towers. It has been +more than once inundated by the sea, and it might again be washed out +with advantage. + +In the spring, two years after my visit to Malamocco, we people in Casa +Falier made a long-intended expedition to the island of Torcello, which +is perhaps the most interesting of the islands of the lagoons. We had +talked of it all winter, and had acquired enough property there to put +up some light Spanish castles on the desolate site of the ancient city, +that, so many years ago, sickened of the swamp air and died. A Count +from Torcello is the title which Venetian persiflage gives to improbable +noblemen; and thus even the pride of the dead Republic of Torcello has +passed into matter of scornful jest, as that of the dead Republic of +Venice may likewise in its day. + +When we leave the riva of Casa Falier, we pass down the Grand Canal, +cross the Basin of St. Mark, and enter one of the narrow canals +that intersect the Riva degli Schiavoni, whence we wind and deviate +southwestward till we emerge near the church of San Giovanni e Paolo, on +the Fondamenta Nuove. On our way we notice that a tree, hanging over the +water from a little garden, is in full leaf, and at Murano we see the +tender bloom of peaches and the drifted blossom of cherry-trees. + +As we go by the Cemetery of San Michele, Piero the gondolier and +Giovanna improve us with a little solemn pleasantry. + +“It is a small place,” says Piero, “but there is room enough for all +Venice in it.” + +“It is true,” assents Giovanna, “and here we poor folks become +landholders at last.” + +At Murano we stop a moment to look at the old Duomo, and to enjoy its +quaint mosaics within, and the fine and graceful spirit of the _apsis_ +without. It is very old, this architecture; but the eternal youth of the +beautiful belongs to it, and there is scarce a stone fallen from it that +I would replace. + +The manufacture of glass at Murano, of which the origin is so remote, +may be said to form the only branch of industry which still flourishes +in the lagoons. Muranese beads are exported to all quarters in vast +quantities, and the process of making them is one of the things that +strangers feel they must see when visiting Venice. The famous mirrors +are no longer made, and the glass has deteriorated in quality, as well +as in the beauty of the thousand curious forms it took. The test of the +old glass, which is now imitated a great deal, is its extreme lightness. +I suppose the charming notion that glass was once wrought at Murano of +such fineness that it burst into fragments if poison were poured into +it, must be fabulous. And yet it would have been an excellent thing in +the good old toxicological days of Italy; and people of noble family +would have found a sensitive goblet of this sort as sovereign against +the arts of venomers as an exclusive diet of boiled eggs. The city of +Murano has dwindled from thirty to five thousand in population. It is +intersected by a system of canals like Venice, and has a Grand Canal of +its own, of as stately breadth as that of the capital. The finer houses +are built on this canal; but the beautiful palaces, once occupied in +_villeggiatura_ by the noble Venetians, are now inhabited by herds of +poor, or converted into glass-works. The famous Cardinal Bembo and other +literati made the island their retreat, and beautified it with gardens +and fountains. Casa Priuli in that day was, according to Venetian ideas, +“a terrestrial Paradise,” and a proper haunt of “nymphs and demi-gods.” + But the wealth, the learning, and the elegance of former times, which +planted “groves of Academe” at Murano, have passed away, and the fair +pleasure-gardens are now weed-grown wastes, or turned into honest +cabbage and potato patches. It is a poor, dreary little town, with an +inexplicable charm in its decay. The city arms are still displayed upon +the public buildings (for Murano was ruled, independently of Venice, by +its own council); and the heraldic cock, with a snake in its beak, has +yet a lusty and haughty air amid the ruin of the place. + +The way in which the spring made itself felt upon the lagoon was full of +curious delight. It was not so early in the season that we should know +the spring by the first raw warmth in the air, and there was as yet +no assurance of her presence in the growth--later so luxuriant--of the +coarse grasses of the shallows. But somehow the spring was there, giving +us new life with every breath. There were fewer gulls than usual, and +those we saw sailed far overhead, debating departure. There was deeper +languor in the laziness of the soldiers of finance, as they lounged and +slept upon their floating custom houses in every channel of the lagoons; +and the hollow voices of the boatmen, yelling to each other as their +wont is, had an uncommon tendency to diffuse themselves in echo. Over +all, the heavens had put on their summer blue, in promise of that +delicious weather which in the lagoons lasts half the year, and which +makes every other climate seem niggard of sunshine and azure skies. +I know we have beautiful days at home--days of which the sumptuous +splendor used to take my memory with unspeakable longing and regret even +in Italy;--but we do not have, week after week, month after month, that + + “Blue, unclouded weather,” + +which, at Venice, contents all your senses, and makes you exult to be +alive with the inarticulate gladness of children, or of the swallows +that there all day wheel and dart through the air, and shriek out a +delight too intense and precipitate for song. + +The island of Torcello is some five miles away from Venice, in the +northern lagoon. The city was founded far back in the troubled morning +of Christian civilization, by refugees from barbarian invasion, and +built with stones quarried from the ruins of old Altinum, over which +Attila had passed desolating. During the first ages of its existence +Torcello enjoyed the doubtful advantage of protection from the Greek +emperors, but fell afterward under the domination of Venice. In the +thirteenth century the _debris_ of the river that emptied into the +lagoon there began to choke up the wholesome salt canals, and to poison +the air with swampy malaria; and in the seventeenth century the city had +so dwindled that the Venetian _podestà_ removed his residence from +the depopulated island to Burano,--though the bishopric established +immediately after the settlement of the refugees at Torcello continued +there till 1814, to the satisfaction, no doubt, of the frogs and +mosquitoes that had long inherited the former citizens. + +I confess that I know little more of the history of Torcello than I +found in my guide-book. There I read that the city had once stately +civic and religious edifices, and that in the tenth century the Emperor +Porphorygenitus called it “_magnum emporium Torcellanorum_.” The +much-restored cathedral of the seventh century, a little church, a +building supposed to have been the public palace, and other edifices so +ruinous and so old that their exact use in other days is not now known, +are all that remain of the _magnum emporium_, except some lines of +moldering wall that wander along the canals, and through pastures and +vineyards, in the last imbecile stages of dilapidation and decay. There +is a lofty bell-tower, also, from which, no doubt, the Torcellani +used to descry afar off the devouring hordes of the barbarians on the +main-land, and prepare for defense. As their city was never actually +invaded, I am at a loss to account for the so-called Throne of Attila, +which stands in the grass-grown piazza before the cathedral; and I fear +that it may really have been after all only the seat which the ancient +Tribunes of Torcello occupied on public occasions. It is a stone +arm-chair, of a rude stateliness, and though I questioned its +authenticity, I went and sat down in it a little while, to give myself +the benefit of a doubt in case Attila had really pressed the same seat. + +As soon as our gondola touched the grassy shores at Torcello, Giovanna’s +children, Beppi and Nina, whom we had brought with us to give a first +experience of trees and flowers and mother earth, leaped from the boat +and took possession of land and water. By a curious fatality the little +girl, who was bred safely amid the hundred canals of Venice, signalized +her absence from their perils by presently falling into the only +canal in Torcello, whence she was taken dripping, to be confined at +a farm-house during the rest of our stay. The children were wild with +pleasure, being absolutely new to the country, and ran over the island, +plucking bouquets of weeds and flowers by armsful. A rake, borne afield +upon the shoulder of a peasant, afterwhile fascinated the Venetian +Beppi, and drew him away to study its strange and wonderful uses. + +The simple inhabitants of Torcello came forth with gifts, or rather +bargains, of flowers, to meet their discoverers, and, in a little while, +exhausted our soldi. They also attended us in full force when we sat +down to lunch,--the old, the young men and maidens, and the little +children, all alike sallow, tattered, and dirty. Under these +circumstances, a sense of the idyllic and the patriarchal gave zest to +our collation, and moved us to bestow, in a splendid manner, fragments +of the feast among the poor Torcellani. Knowing the abstemiousness +of Italians everywhere, and seeing the hungry fashion in which the +islanders clutched our gifts and devoured them, it was our doubt whether +any one of them had ever experienced perfect repletion. I incline to +think that a chronic famine gnawed their entrails, and that they never +filled their bellies but with draughts of the east wind disdained of +Job. The smaller among them even scrambled with the dog for the bones, +until a little girl was bitten, when a terrific tumult arose, and the +dog was driven home by the whole multitude. The children presently +returned. They all had that gift of beauty which Nature seldom denies to +the children of their race; but being, as I said, so dirty, their +beauty shone forth chiefly from their large soft eyes. They had a very +graceful, bashful archness of manner, and they insinuated beggary so +winningly, that it would have been impossible for hungry people to deny +them. As for us, having lunched, we gave them every thing that remained, +and went off to feast our enthusiasm for art and antiquity in the +cathedral. + +Of course, I have not the least intention of describing it. I remember +best among its wonders the bearing of certain impenitents in one of +the mosaics on the walls, whom the earnest early artist had meant to +represent as suffering in the flames of torment. I think, however, I +have never seen complacence equal to that of these sinners, unless it +was in the countenances of the seven fat kine, which, as represented in +the vestibule of St. Mark’s, wear an air of the sleepiest and laziest +enjoyment, while the seven lean kine, having just come up from the +river, devour steaks from their bleeding haunches. There are other +mosaics in the Torcello cathedral, especially those in the _apsis_ and +in one of the side chapels, which are in a beautiful spirit of art, and +form the widest possible contrast to the eighteenth-century high altar, +with its insane and ribald angels flying off at the sides, and poising +themselves in the rope-dancing attitudes favored by statues of heavenly +persons in the decline of the Renaissance. The choir is peculiarly +built, in the form of a half-circle, with seats rising one above +another, as in an amphitheatre, and a flight of steps ascending to the +bishop’s seat above all,--after the manner of the earliest Christian +churches. The partition parapet before the high altar is of almost +transparent marble, delicately and quaintly sculptured with peacocks and +lions, as the Byzantines loved to carve them; and the capitals of the +columns dividing the naves are of infinite richness. Part of the marble +pulpit has a curious bass-relief, said to be representative of the +worship of Mercury; and indeed the Torcellani owe much of the beauty of +their Duomo to unrequited antiquity. (They came to be robbed in their +turn: for the opulence of their churches was so great that in the +fifteenth and sixteenth centuries the severest penalties had to be +enacted against those who stole from them. No one will be surprised to +learn that the clergy themselves participated in these spoliations; but +I believe no ecclesiastic was ever lashed in the piazza, or deprived of +an eye or a hand for his offense.) The Duomo has the peculiar Catholic +interest, and the horrible fascination, of a dead saint’s mortal part in +a glass case. + +An arcade runs along the facade of the cathedral, and around the side +and front of the adjoining church of Santa Fosca, which is likewise very +old. But we found nothing in it but a dusty, cadaverous stench, and so +we came away and ascended the campanile. From the top of this you have +a view of the lagoon, in all its iridescent hues, and of the heaven-blue +sea. Here, looking toward the main-land, I would have been glad to +experience the feelings of the Torcellani of old, as they descried the +smoking advance of Huns or Vandals. But the finer emotions are like +gifted children, and are seldom equal to occasions. I am ashamed to say +that mine got no further than Castle Bluebeard, with Lady Bluebeard’s +sister looking out for her brothers, and tearfully responding to Lady +B.’s repeated and agonized entreaty, “O sister, do you see them yet?” + +The old woman who had opened the door of the campanile was surprised +into hospitality by the sum of money we gave her, and took us through +her house (which was certainly very neat and clean) into her garden, +where she explained the nature of many familiar trees and shrubs to us +poor Venetians. + +We went back home over the twilight lagoon, and Giovanna expressed the +general feeling when she said: “_Torsello xe beo--no si pol negar--la +campagna xe bea; ma, benedetta la mia Venezia!_” + +(The country is beautiful--it can’t be denied--Torcello is beautiful; +but blessed be my Venice!) + +The panorama of the southern lagoon is best seen in a voyage to +Chioggia, or Ciozza, the quaint and historic little city that lies +twenty miles away from Venice, at one of the ports of the harbor. The +Giant Sea-wall, built there by the Republic in her decline, is a work of +Roman grandeur, which impresses you more deeply than any other monument +of the past with a sense of her former industrial and commercial +greatness. Strips of village border the narrow Littorale all the way +to Chioggia, and on the right lie the islands of the lagoon. Chioggia +itself is hardly more than a village,--a Venice in miniature, like +Murano, with canals and boats and bridges. But here the character of +life is more amphibious than in brine-bound Venice; and though there is +no horse to be seen in the central streets of Chioggia, peasants’ teams +penetrate her borders by means of a long bridge from the main-land. + +Of course Chioggia has passed through the customary vicissitudes of +Italian towns, and has been depopulated at divers times by pestilence, +famine, and war. It suffered cruelly in the war with the Genoese in +1380, when it was taken by those enemies of St. Mark; and its people +were so wasted by the struggle that the Venetians, on regaining it, were +obliged to invite immigration to repopulate its emptiness. I do not know +how great comfort the Chiozzotti of that unhappy day took in the fact +that some of the earliest experiments with cannon were made in the +contest that destroyed them, but I can hardly offer them less tribute +than to mention it here. At present the place is peopled almost entirely +by sailors and fishermen, whose wives are more famous for their beauty +than their amiability. Goldoni’s “Baruffe Chiozzotte” is an amusing and +vivid picture of the daily battles which the high-spirited ladies of +the city fought in the dramatist’s [Footnote: Goldoni’s family went from +Venice to Chioggia when the dramatist was very young. The description +of his life there form some of the most interesting chapters of his +Memoirs.] time, and which are said to be of frequent occurrence at this +day. The Chiozzotte are the only women of this part of Italy who still +preserve a semblance of national costume; and this remnant of more +picturesque times consists merely of a skirt of white, which, being open +in front, is drawn from the waist over the head and gathered in the hand +under the chin, giving to the flashing black eyes and swarthy features +of the youthful wearer a look of very dangerous slyness and cunning. +The dialect of the Chiozzotti is said to be that of the early Venetians, +with an admixture of Greek, and it is infinitely more sweet and musical +than the dialect now spoken in Venice. “Whether derived,” says the +author of the “Fiore di Venezia,” alluding to the speech of these +peculiar people, “from those who first settled these shores, or +resulting from other physical and moral causes, it is certain that the +tone of the voice is here more varied and powerful: the mouth is thrown +wide open in speaking; a passion, a lament mingles with laughter itself, +and there is a continual _ritornello_ of words previously spoken. But +this speech is full of energy; whoever would study brief and strong +modes of expression should come here.” + +Chioggia was once the residence of noble and distinguished persons, +among whom was the painter Rosalba Carrera, famed throughout Europe for +her crayon miniatures; and the place produced in the sixteenth century +the great maestro Giuseppe Zarlino, “who passes,” says Cantù, “for the +restorer of modern music,” and “whose ‘Orfeo’ heralded the invention +of the musical drama.” This composer claimed for his birthplace the +doubtful honor of the institution of the order of the Capuchins, which +he declared to have been founded by Fra Paolo (Giovanni Sambi) of +Chioggia. There is not much now to see in poor little Chioggia except +its common people, who, after a few minutes’ contemplation, can hardly +interest any one but the artist. There are no dwellings in the town +which approach palatial grandeur, and nothing in the Renaissance +churches to claim attention, unless it be an attributive Bellini in +one of them. Yet if you have the courage to climb the bell-tower of +the cathedral, you get from its summit the loveliest imaginable view of +many-purpled lagoon and silver-flashing sea; and if you are sufficiently +acquainted with Italy and Italians to observe a curious fact, and care +to study the subject, you may note the great difference between the +inhabitants of Chioggia and those of Palestrina,--an island divided from +Chioggia by a half mile of lagoon, and by quite different costume, type +of face, and accent. + +Just between Chioggia and the sea lies the lazy town of Sottomarina, and +I should say that the population of Sottomarina chiefly spent its time +in lounging up and down the Sea-wall; while that of Chioggia, when not +professionally engaged with the net, gave its leisure to playing _mora_ +[Footnote: Mora is the game which the Italians play with their fingers, +one throwing out two, three, or four fingers, as the case may be, and +calling the number at the same instant. If (so I understood the game) +the player mistakes the number of fingers he throws out, he loses; if he +hits the number with both voice and fingers he wins. It is played with +tempestuous interest, and is altogether fiendish in appearance.] in the +shade, or pitilessly pursuing strangers, and offering them boats. For my +own part, I refused the subtlest advances of this kind which were made +me in Chiozzotto, but fell a helpless prey to a boatman who addressed me +in some words of wonderful English, and then rowed me to the Sea-wall at +about thrice the usual fare. + +These primitive people are bent, in their out-of-the-world, remote way, +upon fleecing the passing stranger quite as earnestly as other Italians, +and they naïvely improve every occasion for plunder. As we passed up the +shady side of their wide street, we came upon a plump little blond boy, +lying asleep on the stones, with his head upon his arm; and as no +one was near, the artist of our party stopped to sketch the sleeper. +Atmospheric knowledge of the fact spread rapidly, and in a few minutes +we were the centre of a general assembly of the people of Chioggia, +who discussed us, and the artist’s treatment of her subject, in open +congress. They handed round the airy chaff as usual, but were very +orderly and respectful, nevertheless,--one father of the place quelling +every tendency to tumult by kicking his next neighbor, who passed on the +penalty till, by this simple and ingenious process, the guilty cause of +the trouble was infallibly reached and kicked at last. I placed a number +of soldi in the boy’s hand, to the visible sensation of the crowd, and +then we moved away and left him, heading, as we went, a procession of +Chiozzotti, who could not make up their minds to relinquish us till +we took refuge in a church. When we came out the procession had +disappeared, but all round the church door, and picturesquely scattered +upon the pavement in every direction, lay boys asleep, with their +heads upon their arms. As we passed laughing through the midst of these +slumberers, they rose and followed us with cries of “_Mi tiri zu! Mi +tiri zu!_” (Take me down! Take me down!) They ran ahead, and fell asleep +again in our path, and round every corner we came upon a sleeping boy; +and, indeed, we never got out of that atmosphere of slumber till we +returned to the steamer for Venice, when Chioggia shook off her drowsy +stupor, and began to tempt us to throw soldi into the water, to be dived +for by her awakened children. + + + +CHAPTER XIII. + +THE ARMENIANS. + + +Among the pleasantest friends we made in Venice were the monks of the +Armenian Convent, whose cloistral buildings rise from the glassy lagoon, +upon the south of the city, near a mile away. This bulk + + “Of mellow brick-work on an isle of bowers” + +is walled in with solid masonry from the sea, and encloses a +garden-court, filled with all beautiful flowers, and with the memorable +trees of the East; while another garden encompasses the monastery +itself, and yields those honest fruits and vegetables which supply the +wants of the well-cared-for mortal part of the good brothers. The island +is called San Lazzaro, and the convent was established in 1717 by a +learned and devoted Armenian priest named Mechithar, from whom the +present order of monks is called Mechitharist. He was the first who +formed the idea of educating a class of priests to act as missionaries +among the Armenian nation in the East, and infuse into its civil and +religious decay the life of European piety and learning. He founded at +Sebaste, therefore, a religious order of which the seat was presently +removed to Constantinople, where the friars met with so much persecution +from Armenian heterodoxy that it was again transferred, and fixed at +Modone in Morea. That territory falling into the hands of the Turks, +the Mechitharists fled with their leader to Venice, where the Republic +bestowed upon them a waste and desolate island, which had formerly +been used as a place of refuge for lepers; and the monks made it the +loveliest spot in all the lagoons. + +The little island has such a celebrity in travel and romance, that I +feel my pen catching in the tatters of a threadbare theme. And yet I +love the place and its people so well, that I could scarcely pass it +without mention. Every tourist who spends a week in Venice goes to see +the convent, and every one is charmed with it and the courteous welcome +of the fathers. Its best interest is the intrinsic interest attaching +to it as a seat of Armenian culture; but persons who relish the +cheap sentimentalism of Byron’s life, find the convent all the more +entertaining from the fact that he did the Armenian language the favor +to study it there, a little. The monks show his autograph, together with +those of other distinguished persons, and the Armenian Bible which +he used to read. I understood from one of the friars, Padre Giacomo +Issaverdanz, that the brothers knew little or nothing of Byron’s +celebrity as a poet while he studied with them, and that his proficiency +as an Armenian scholar was not such as to win high regard from them. + +I think most readers who have visited the convent will recall the +pleasant face and manners of the young father mentioned, who shows the +place to English-speaking travelers, and will care to know that Padre +Giacomo was born at Smyrna, and dwelt there in the family of an English +lady, till he came to Venice, and entered on his monastic life at San +Lazzaro. + +He came one morning to breakfast with us, bringing with him Padre +Alessio, a teacher in the Armenian College in the city. As for the +latter, it was not without a certain shock that I heard Mesopotamia +mentioned as his birthplace, having somehow in childhood learned to +regard that formidable name as little better than a kind of profane +swearing. But I soon came to know Padre Alessio apart from his +birthplace, and to find him very interesting as a scholar and an artist. +He threw a little grace of poetry around our simple feast, by repeating +some Armenian verses,--grace all the more ethereal from our entire +ignorance of what the verses meant. Our breakfast-table talk wrought to +friendship the acquaintance made some time before, and the next morning +we received the photograph of Padre Giacomo, and the compliments of the +Orient, in a heaped basket of ripe and luscious figs from the garden +of the Convent San Lazzaro. When, in turn, we went to visit him at +the convent, we had experience of a more curious oriental hospitality. +Refreshments were offered to us as to friends, and we lunched fairily +upon little dishes of rose leaves, delicately preserved, with all +their fragrance, in a “lucent sirup.” It seemed that this was a common +conserve in the East; but we could hardly divest ourselves of the notion +of sacrilege, as we thus fed upon the very most luxurious sweetness +and perfume of the soul of summer. Pleasant talk accompanied the dainty +repast,--Padre Giacomo recounting for us some of his adventures with +the people whom he had to show about the convent, and of whom many +were disappointed at not finding a gallery or museum, and went away in +extreme disgust; and relating with a sly, sarcastic relish that blent +curiously with his sweetness and gentleness of spirit, how some English +people once came with the notion that Lord Byron was an Armenian; how an +unhappy French gentleman, who had been robbed in Southern Italy, would +not be parted a moment from a huge bludgeon which he carried in +his hand, and (probably disordered by his troubles) could hardly be +persuaded from attacking the mummy which is in one of the halls; how +a sharp, bustling, go-ahead Yankee rushed in one morning, rubbing his +hands, and demanding, “Show me all you can in five minutes.” + +As a seat of learning, San Lazzaro is famed throughout the Armenian +world, and gathers under its roof the best scholars and poets of that +nation. In the printing-office of the convent books are printed in +some thirty different languages; and a number of the fathers employ +themselves constantly in works of translation. The most distinguished of +the Armenian literati now living at San Lazzaro is the Reverend Father +Gomidas Pakraduni, who has published an Armenian version of “Paradise +Lost,” and whose great labor the translation of Homer, has been recently +issued from the convent press. He was born at Constantinople of an +ancient and illustrious family, and took religious orders at San +Lazzaro, where he was educated, and where for twenty-five years after +his consecration he held the professorship of his native tongue. He +devoted himself especially to the culture of the ancient Armenian, and +developed it for the expression of modern ideas, he made exhaustive +study of the vast collection of old manuscripts at San Lazzaro, and then +went to Paris in pursuance of his purpose, and acquainted himself with +all the treasures of Armenian learning in the Bibliothèque Royale. +He became the first scholar of the age in his national language, and +acquired at the same time a profound knowledge of Latin and Greek. + +Returning to Constantinople, Father Pakraduni, whose fame had preceded +him, took up his residence in the family of a noble Armenian, high in +the service of the Turkish government; and while assuming the care of +educating his friend’s children, began those labors of translation +which have since so largely employed him. He made an Armenian version +of Pindar, and wrote a work on Rhetoric, both of which were destroyed +by fire while yet in the manuscript. He labored, meanwhile, on his +translation of the Iliad,--a youthful purpose which he did not see +fulfilled till the year 1860, when he had already touched the Psalmist’s +limit of life. In this translation he revived with admirable success +an ancient species of Armenian verse, which bears, in flexibility and +strength, comparison with the original Greek. Another of his great +labors was the production of an Armenian Grammar, in which he reduced +to rule and order the numerous forms of his native tongue, never before +presented by one work in all its eastern variety. + +Padre Giacomo, to whose great kindness I am indebted for a biographic +and critical notice in writing of Father Pakraduni, considers the epic +poem by that scholar a far greater work than any of his philological +treatises, profound and thorough as they are. When nearly completed, +this poem perished in the same conflagration which consumed the Pindar +and the Rhetoric; but the poet patiently began his work anew, and after +eight years gave his epic of twenty books and twenty-two thousand verses +to the press. The hero of the poem is Haïk, the first Armenian patriarch +after the flood, and the founder of a kingly dynasty. Nimrod, the great +hunter, drunk with his victories, declares himself a god, and ordains +his own worship throughout the Orient. Haïk refuses to obey the commands +of the tyrant, takes up arms against him, and finally kills him in +battle. “In the style of this poem,” writes Padre Giacomo, “it is hard +to tell whether to admire most its richness, its energy, its sweetness, +its melancholy, its freedom, its dignity, or its harmony, for it has +all these virtues in turn. The descriptive parts are depicted with the +faithfulest pencil: the battle scenes can only be matched in the Iliad.” + +Father Pakraduni returned, after twenty-five years’ sojourn at +Constantinople, to publish his epic at San Lazzaro, where he still +lives, a tranquil, gentle old man, with a patriarchal beauty and +goodness of face. In 1861 he printed his translation of Milton, with +a dedication to Queen Victoria. His other works bear witness to the +genuineness of his inspiration and piety, and the diligence of his +study: they are poems, poetic translations from the Italian, religious +essays, and grammatical treatises. + +Indeed, the existence of all the friars at San Lazzaro is one of close +and earnest study; and life grows so fond of these quiet monks that it +will hardly part with them at last. One of them is ninety-five years +old, and, until 1863, there was a lay-brother among them whose years +numbered a hundred and eight, and who died of old age, on the 17th +of September, after passing fifty-eight years at San Lazzaro. From +biographic memoranda furnished me by Padre Giacomo, I learn that the +name of this patriarch was George Karabagiak, and that he was a native +of Kutaieh in Asia Minor. He was for a long time the disciple of Dèdè +Vartabied, a renowned preacher of the Armenian faith, and he afterward +taught the doctrines of his master in the Armenian schools. Failing +in his desire to enter upon the sacerdotal life at Constantinople, he +procured his admission as lay-brother at San Lazzaro, where all his +remaining days were spent. He was but little learned; but he had great +passion for poetry, and he was the author of some thirty small works +on different subjects. During the course of his long and diligent life, +which was chiefly spent in learning and teaching, he may be said to have +hardly known a day’s sickness. And at last he died of no perceptible +disorder. The years tired him to death. He had a trifling illness in +August, and as he convalesced, he grew impatient of the tenacious life +which held him to earth. Slowly pacing up and down the corridors of +the convent, he used to crave the prayers of the brothers whom he met, +beseeching them to intercede with Heaven that he might be suffered to +die. One day he said to the archbishop, “I fear that God has abandoned +me, and I shall live.” Only a little while before his death he wrote +some verses, as Padre Giacomo’s memorandum witnesses, “with a firm and +steady hand,” and the manner of his death was this,--as recorded in the +grave and simple words of my friend’s note:--“Finally, on the 17th of +September, very early in the morning, a brother entering his chamber, +asked him how he was. ‘Well,’ he replied, turning his face to the wall, +and spoke no more. He had passed to a better life.” + +It seems to me there is a pathos in the close of this old man’s +life,--which I hope has not been lost by my way of describing it,--and +there is certainly a moral. I have read of an unlucky sage who +discovered the Elixir of Life, and who, after thrice renewing his +existence, at last voluntarily resigned himself to death, because he had +exhausted all that life had to offer of pleasure or of pain, and knew +all its vicissitudes but the very last. Brother Karabagiak seems to have +had no humor to take even a second ease of life. It is perhaps as well +that most men die before reaching the over-ripeness of a hundred +and eight years; and, doubtless, with all our human willfulness and +ignorance, we would readily consent, if we could fix the time, to go +sooner--say, at a hundred and seven years, friends? + +Besides the Convent of San Lazzaro, where Armenian boys from all parts +of the East are educated for the priesthood, the nation has a college +in the city in which boys intended for secular careers receive their +schooling. The Palazzo Zenobia is devoted to the use of this college, +where, besides room for study, the boys have abundant space and +apparatus for gymnastics, and ample grounds for gardening. We once +passed a pleasant summer evening there, strolling through the fragrant +alleys of the garden, in talk with the father-professors, and looking +on at the gymnastic feats of the boys; and when the annual exhibition of +the school took place in the fall, we were invited to be present. + +The room appointed for the exhibition was the great hall of the palace, +which in other days had evidently been a ball-room. The ceiling was +frescoed in the manner of the last century, with Cupids and Venuses, +Vices and Virtues, fruits and fiddles, dwarfs and blackamoors; and the +painted faces looked down on a scene of as curious interest as ever the +extravagant loves and graces of Tiepolo might hope to see, when the boys +of the college, after assisting at _Te Deum_ in the chapel, entered the +room, and took their places. + +At the head of the hall sat the archbishop in his dark robes, with +his heavy gold chain about his neck--a figure and a countenance in all +things spiritual, gracious, and reverend. There is small difference, I +believe, between the creeds of the Armenians and the Roman Catholics, +but a very great disparity in the looks of the two priesthoods, which is +all in favor of the former. The Armenian wears his beard, and the +Latin shaves--which may have a great deal to do with the holiness of +appearance. Perhaps, also, the gentle and mild nature of the +oriental yields more sweetly and entirely to the self-denials of the +ecclesiastical vocation, and thus wins a fairer grace from them. At any +rate, I have not seen any thing but content and calm in the visages of +the Armenian fathers, among whom the priest-face, as a type, does not +exist, though it would mark the Romish ecclesiastic in whatever dress he +wore. There is, moreover, a look of such entire confidence and unworldly +sincerity in their eyes, that I could not help thinking, as I turned +from the portly young fathers to the dark-faced, grave, old-fashioned +school-boys, that an exchange of beard only was needed to effect an +exchange of character between those youthful elders and their pupils. +The gray-haired archbishop is a tall and slender man; but nearly all the +fathers take kindly to curves and circles, and glancing down a row of +these amiable priests I could scarcely repress a smile at the constant +recurrence of the line of beauty in their well-rounded persons. + +On the right and left of the archbishop were the few invited guests, +and at the other end of the saloon sat one of the fathers, the plump +key-stone of an arch of comfortable young students expanding toward +us. Most of the boys are from Turkey (the Armenians of Venice, though +acknowledging the Pope as their spiritual head, are the subjects of the +Sultan), others are of Asiatic birth, and two are Egyptians. + +As to the last, I think the Sphinx and the Pyramid could hardly have +impressed me more than their dark faces, that seemed to look vaguely +on our modern world from the remote twilights of old, and in their very +infancy to be reverend through the antiquity of their race. The mother +of these boys--a black-eyed, olive-cheeked lady, very handsome and +stylish--was present with their younger brother. I hardly know whether +to be ashamed of having been awed by hearing of the little Egyptian that +his native tongue was Arabic, and that he spoke nothing more occidental +than Turkish. But, indeed, was it wholly absurd to offer a tacit homage +to this favored boy, who must know the “Arabian Nights” in the original? + +The exercises began with a theme in Armenian--a language which, but for +its English abundance of sibilants, and a certain German rhythm, was +wholly outlandish to our ears. Themes in Italian, German, and French +succeeded, and then came one in English. We afterward had speech with +the author of this essay, who expressed the liveliest passion for +English, in the philosophy and poetry of which it seemed he particularly +delighted. He told us that he was a Constantinopolitan, and that in +six months more he would complete his collegiate course, when he would +return to his native city, and take employment in the service of the +Turkish Government. Many others of the Armenian students here also find +this career open to them in the East. + +The literary exercises closed with another essay in Armenian; and then +the archbishop delivered, very gracefully and impressively, an address +to the boys. After this, the distribution of the premiums--medals of +silver and bronze, and books--took place at the desk of the archbishop. +Each boy, as he advanced to receive his premium, knelt and touched the +hand of the priest with his lips and forehead,--a quaint and pleasing +ceremony which had preceded and followed the reading of all the themes. + +The social greetings and congratulations that now took place ended +an entertainment throughout which every body was pleased, and the +goodnatured fathers seemed to be moved with a delight no less hearty +than that of the boys themselves. Indeed, the ground of affection and +confidence on which the lads and their teachers seemed to meet, was +something very novel and attractive. We shook hands with our smiling +friends among the padri, took leave of the archbishop, and then visited +the studio of Padre Alessio, who had just finished a faithful and +spirited portrait of monsignore. Adieux to the artist and to Padre +Giacomo brought our visit to an end; and so, from that scene of oriental +learning, simplicity, and kindliness, we walked into our western life +once more, and resumed our citizenship and burden in the Venetian +world--out of the waters of which, like a hydra or other water beast, a +bathing boy instantly issued and begged of us. + +A few days later our good Armenians went to pass a month on the +main-land near Padua, where they have comfortable possessions. Peace +followed them, and they came back as plump as they went. + + + +CHAPTER XIV. + +THE GHETTO AND THE JEWS OF VENICE. + + +As I think it extremely questionable whether I could get through a +chapter on this subject without some feeble pleasantry about Shylock, +and whether, if I did, the reader would be at all satisfied that I had +treated the matter fully and fairly, I say at the beginning that Shylock +is dead; that if he lived, Antonio would hardly spit upon his gorgeous +pantaloons or his Parisian coat, as he met him on the Rialto; that +he would far rather call out to him, “_Ció Shylock! Bon dí! Go piaser +vederla;_” [Footnote: “Shylock, old fellow, good-day. Glad to see you.”] +that if Shylock by any chance entrapped Antonio into a foolish promise +to pay him a pound of his flesh on certain conditions, the honest +commissary of police before whom they brought their affair would dismiss +them both to the madhouse at San Servolo. In a word, the present social +relations of Jew and Christian in this city render the “Merchant of +Venice” quite impossible; and the reader, though he will find the Ghetto +sufficiently noisome and dirty, will not find an oppressed people there, +nor be edified by any of those insults or beatings which it was once a +large share of Christian duty to inflict upon the enemies of our +faith. The Catholic Venetian certainly understands that his Jewish +fellow-citizen is destined to some very unpleasant experiences in the +next world, but _Corpo di Bacco_! that is no reason why he should not +be friends with him in this. He meets him daily on exchange and at the +Casino, and he partakes of the hospitality of his conversazioni. If he +still despises him--and I think he does, a little--he keeps his contempt +to himself, for the Jew is gathering into his own hands great part of +the trade of the city, and has the power that belongs to wealth. He is +educated, liberal, and enlightened, and the last great name in Venetian +literature is that of the Jewish historian of the Republic, Romanin. +The Jew’s political sympathies are invariably patriotic, and he calls +himself, not Ebreo, but Veneziano. He lives, when rich, in a palace or a +fine house on the Grand Canal, and he furnishes and lets many others (I +must say at rates which savor of the loan secured by the pound of flesh) +in which he does not live. The famous and beautiful Ca’ Doro now belongs +to a Jewish family; and an Israelite, the most distinguished physician +in Venice, occupies the _appartamento signorile_ in the palace of the +famous Cardinal Bembo. The Jew is a physician, a banker, a manufacturer, +a merchant; and he makes himself respected for his intelligence and +his probity,--which perhaps does not infringe more than that of Italian +Catholics. He dresses well,--with that indefinable difference, however, +which distinguishes him in every thing from a Christian,--and his wife +and daughter are fashionable and stylish, They are sometimes, also, very +pretty; and I have seen one Jewish lady who might have stepped out +of the sacred page, down from the patriarchal age, and been known for +Rebecca, with her oriental grace, and delicate, sensitive, high-bred +look and bearing--no more western and modern than a lily of Palestine. + +But it is to the Ghetto I want to take you now (by the way we went one +sunny day late last fall), that I may show you something of the Jewish +past, which has survived to the nineteenth century in much of the +discomfort and rank savor of the dark ages. + +In the fifteenth century all the riches of the Orient had been poured +into the lap of Venice, and a spirit of reckless profusion took +possession of her citizens. The money, hastily and easily amassed, went +as rapidly as it came. It went chiefly for dress, in which the Venetian +still indulges very often to the stint of his stomach; and the ladies of +that bright-colored, showy day bore fortunes on their delicate persons +in the shape of costly vestments of scarlet, black, green, white, +maroon, or violet, covered with gems, glittering with silver buttons, +and ringing with silver bells. The fine gentlemen of the period were not +behind them in extravagance; and the priests were peculiarly luxurious +in dress, wearing gay silken robes, with cowls of fur, and girdles +of gold and silver. Sumptuary laws were vainly passed to repress the +general license, and fortunes were wasted, and wealthy families reduced +to beggary. [Footnote: Galliciolli, _Memorie Venete_.] At this time, +when so many worthy gentlemen and ladies had need of the Uncle to whom +hard-pressed nephews fly to pledge the wrecks of prosperity, there +was yet no Monte di Pietà, and the demand for pawnbrokers becoming +imperative, the Republic was obliged to recall the Hebrews from the +exile into which they had been driven some time before, that they might +set up pawnshops and succor necessity. They came back, however, only for +a limited time, and were obliged to wear a badge of yellow color upon +the breast, to distinguish them from the Christians, and later a yellow +cap, then a red hat, and then a hat of oil-cloth. They could not acquire +houses or lands in Venice, nor practice any trade, nor exercise any +noble art but medicine. They were assigned a dwelling-place in the +vilest and unhealthiest part of the city, and their quarter was +called Ghetto, from the Hebrew _nghedah_, a congregation. [Footnote: +Mutinelli.] They were obliged to pay their landlords a third more rent +than Christians paid; the Ghetto was walled in, and its gates were kept +by Christian guards, who every day opened them at dawn and closed them +at dark, and who were paid by the Jews. They were not allowed to issue +at all from the Ghetto on holidays; and two barges, with armed men, +watched over them night and day, while a special magistracy had +charge of their affairs. Their synagogues were built at Mestre, on the +main-land; and their dead were buried in the sand upon the seashore, +whither, on the Mondays of September, the baser sort of Venetians went +to make merry, and drunken men and women danced above their desecrated +tombs. These unhappy people were forced also to pay tribute to the state +at first every third year, then every fifth year, and then every tenth +year, the privilege of residence being ingeniously renewed to them at +these periods for a round sum; but, in spite of all, they flourished +upon the waste and wickedness of their oppressors, waxed rich as these +waxed poor, and were not again expelled from the city. [Footnote: _Del +Commercia del Veneziani_. Mutinelli.] + +There never was any attempt to disturb the Hebrews by violence, except +on one occasion, about the close of the fifteenth century, when a tumult +was raised against them for child-murder. This, however, was promptly +quelled by the Republic before any harm was done them; and they dwelt +peacefully in their Ghetto till the lofty gates of their prison caught +the sunlight of modern civilization, and crumbled beneath it. Then many +of the Jews came forth and fixed their habitations in different parts +of the city, but many others clung to the spot where their temples still +remain, and which was hallowed by long suffering, and soaked with the +blood of innumerable generations of geese. So, although you find Jews +everywhere in Venice, you never find a Christian in the Ghetto, which is +held to this day by a large Hebrew population. + +We had not started purposely to see the Ghetto, and for this reason it +had that purely incidental relish, which is the keenest possible savor +of the object of interest. We were on an expedition to find Sior Antonio +Rioba, who has been, from time immemorial, the means of ponderous +practical jokes in Venice. Sior Antonio is a rough-hewn statue set in +the corner of an ordinary grocery, near the Ghetto. He has a pack on +his back and a staff in his hand; his face is painted, and is habitually +dishonored with dirt thrown upon it by boys. On the wall near him is +painted a bell-pull, with the legend, _Sior Antonio Rioba_. Rustics, +raw apprentices, and honest Germans new to the city, are furnished with +packages to be carried to Sior Antonio Rioba, who is very hard to find, +and not able to receive the messages when found, though there is always +a crowd of loafers near to receive the unlucky simpleton who brings +them. _“E poi, che commedia vederli arrabiarsi! Che ridere_!” That is +the Venetian notion of fun, and no doubt the scene is amusing. I was +curious to see Sior Antonio, because a comic journal bearing his name +had been published during the time of the Republic of 1848, and from the +fact that he was then a sort of Venetian Pasquino. But I question now +if he was worth seeing, except as something that brought me into the +neighborhood of the Ghetto, and suggested to me the idea of visiting +that quarter. + +As we left him and passed up the canal in our gondola, we came unawares +upon the church of Santa Maria dell’ Orto, one of the most graceful +Gothic churches in the city. The façade is exquisite, and has two Gothic +windows of that religious and heavenly beauty which pains the heart +with its inexhaustible richness. One longed to fall down on the space +of green turf before the church, now bathed in the soft golden October +sunshine, and recant these happy, commonplace centuries of heresy, +and have back again the good old believing days of bigotry, and +superstition, and roasting, and racking, if only to have once more the +men who dreamed those windows out of their faith and piety (if they did, +which I doubt), and made them with their patient, reverent hands (if +their hands _were_ reverent, which I doubt). The church is called Santa +Maria dell’ Orto, from the miraculous image of Our Lady which was +found in an orchard where the temple now stands. We saw this miraculous +sculpture, and thought it reflected little credit upon the supernatural +artist. The church is properly that of Saint Christopher, but the +saint has been titularly vanquished by the Madonna, though he comes out +gigantically triumphant in a fresco above the high altar, and leads to +confused and puzzling reminiscences of Bluebeard and Morgante Maggiore, +to both of which characters he bears a bewildering personal resemblance. + +There were once many fine paintings by Tintoretto and Bellini in +this church; but as the interior is now in course of restoration, the +paintings have been removed to the Academy, and we only saw one, which +was by the former master, and had all his striking imagination in the +conception, all his strength in the drawing and all his lampblack in the +faded coloring. In the centre of the church, the sacristan scraped the +carpenter’s rubbish away from a flat tablet in the floor, and said that +it was Tintoretto’s tomb. It is a sad thing to doubt even a sacristan, +but I pointed out that the tomb bore any name in the world rather than +Robusti. “Ah!” said the sacristan, “it is just that which makes it so +very curious,--that Tintoretto should wish to be buried under another +name!” [Footnote: Members of the family of Tintoretto are actually +buried in this church; and no sacristan of right feeling could do less +than point out some tomb as that of the great painter himself.] + +It was a warm, sunny day in the fall, as I said; yet as we drew near the +Ghetto, we noticed in the air many white, floating particles, like lazy, +straggling flakes of snow. These we afterward found to be the down of +multitudes of geese, which are forever plucked by the whole apparent +force of the populace,--the fat of the devoted birds being substituted +for lard in the kitchens of the Ghetto, and their flesh for pork. As +we approached the obscene little riva at which we landed, a blond young +Israelite, lavishly adorned with feathers, came running to know if we +wished to see the church--by which name he put the synagogue to the +Gentile comprehension. The street through which we passed had shops +on either hand, and at the doors groups of jocular Hebrew youth sat +plucking geese; while within, long files of all that was mortal of geese +hung from the rafters and the walls. The ground was webbed with the feet +of geese, and certain loutish boys, who paused to look at us, had each +a goose dragging at his heels, in the forlorn and elongated manner +peculiar to dead poultry. The ground was stained with the blood of +geese, and the smell of roasting geese came out of the windows of the +grim and lofty houses. + +Our guide was picturesque, but the most helpless and inconclusive +cicerone I ever knew; and while his long, hooked Hebrew nose caught my +idle fancy, and his soft blue eyes excused a great deal of inefficiency, +the aimless fashion in which he mounted dirty staircases for the keys +of the synagogue, and came down without them, and the manner in which +he shouted to the heads of unctuous Jessicas thrust out of windows, and +never gained the slightest information by his efforts, were imbecilities +that we presently found insupportable, and we gladly cast him off for a +dark-faced Hebrew boy who brought us at once to the door of the Spanish +synagogue. + +Of seven synagogues in the Ghetto, the principal was built in 1655, by +the Spanish Jews who had fled to Venice from the terrors of the Holy +Office. Its exterior has nothing to distinguish it as a place of +worship, and we reached the interior of the temple by means of some dark +and narrow stairs. In the floor and on the walls of the passage-way +were set tablets to the memory of rich and pious Israelites who had +bequeathed their substance for the behoof of the sanctuary; and the +sacristan informed us that the synagogue was also endowed with a fund by +rich descendants of Spanish Jews in Amsterdam. These moneys are kept to +furnish indigent Israelitish couples with the means of marrying, and +who claim the benefit of the fund are entitled to it. The sacristan--a +little wiry man, with bead-black eyes, and of a shoemakerish +presence--told us with evident pride that he was himself a descendant of +the Spanish Jews. Howbeit, he was now many centuries from speaking the +Castilian, which, I had read, was still used in the families of the +Jewish fugitives from Spain to the Levant. He spoke, instead, the +abominable Venetian of Cannaregio, with that Jewish thickness which +distinguishes the race’s utterance, no matter what language its children +are born to. It is a curious philological fact, which I have heard +repeatedly alleged by Venetians, and which is perhaps worth noting +here, that Jews speaking their dialect, have not only this thickness of +accent, but also a peculiarity of construction which marks them at once. + +We found the contracted interior of the synagogue hardly worth +looking at. Instead of having any thing oriental or peculiar in its +architecture, it was in a bad spirit of Renaissance art. A gallery +encircled the inside, and here the women, during worship, sat apart +from the men, who had seats below, running back from either side of the +altar. I had no right, coming from a Protestant land of pews, to indulge +in that sentimentality; but I could not help being offended to see that +each of these seats might be lifted up and locked into the upright back +and thus placed beyond question at the disposal of the owner: I like the +freedom and equality in the Catholic churches much better. The sacristan +brought a ponderous silver key, and unlocking the door behind the +pulpit, showed us the Hebrew Scriptures used during the service by the +Rabbi. They formed an immense parchment volume, and were rolled in +silk upon a wooden staff. This was the sole object of interest in the +synagogue, and its inspection concluded our visit. + +We descended the narrow stairs and emerged upon the piazza which we +had left. It was only partly paved with brick, and was very dirty. The +houses which surrounded it were on the outside old and shabby, and, +even in this Venice of lofty edifices, remarkably high. A wooden bridge +crossed a vile canal to another open space, where once congregated +the merchants who sell antique furniture, old pictures, and objects of +vertu. They are now, however, found everywhere in the city, and most +of them are on the Grand Canal, where they heap together marvelous +collections, and establish authenticities beyond cavil. “Is it an +original?” asked a young lady who was visiting one of their shops, as +she paused before an attributive Veronese, or--what know I?--perhaps a +Titian. “_Si, signora, originalissimo_!” + +I do not understand why any class of Jews should still remain in the +Ghetto, but it is certain, as I said, that they do remain there in great +numbers. It may be that the impurity of the place and the atmosphere is +conducive to purity of race; but I question if the Jews buried on the +sandy slope of the Lido, and blown over by the sweet sea wind--it must +needs blow many centuries to cleanse them of the Ghetto--are not rather +to be envied by the inhabitants of those high dirty houses and low dirty +lanes. There was not a touch of any thing wholesome, or pleasant, or +attractive, to relieve the noisomeness of the Ghetto to its visitors; +and they applauded, with a common voice, the neatness which had prompted +Andrea the gondolier to roll up the carpet from the floor of his +gondola, and not to spread it again within the limits of that quarter. + +In the good old times, when pestilence avenged the poor and oppressed +upon their oppressors, what grim and dismal plagues may not have stalked +by night and noonday out of those hideous streets, and passed the marble +bounds of patrician palaces, and brought to the bedsides of the rich and +proud the filthy misery of the Ghetto turned to poison! Thank God that +the good old times are gone and going. One learns in these aged lands to +hate and execrate the past. + + + +CHAPTER XV. + +SOME MEMORABLE PLACES. + + +We came away from the Ghetto, as we had arrived, in a gentle fall of +goose-down, and winding crookedly through a dirty canal, glided into +purer air and cleaner waters. I cannot well say how it was we came +upon the old Servite Convent, which I had often looked for in vain, and +which, associated with the great name of Paolo Sarpi, is to me one of +the most memorable places in Venice. We reached it, after passing by +that old, old palace, which was appointed in the early ages of Venetian +commerce for the reception of oriental traffic and traffickers, and +where it is said the Moorish merchants resided till the later time of +the Fondaco dei Turchi on the Grand Canal. The façade of the palace is +richly sculptured; and near one corner is the bass-relief of a camel +and his turbaned driver,--in token, perhaps, that man and beast (as +orientals would understand them) were here entertained. + +We had lived long enough in Venice to know that it was by no means worth +while to explore the interior of this old palace because the outside was +attractive, and so we left it; and turning a corner, found ourselves +in a shallow canal, with houses on one side, and a grassy bank on the +other. The bank sloped gently from the water up to the walls of some +edifice, on which ruin seemed to have fastened soon after the architect +had begun his work. The vast walls, embracing several acres in their +close, rose only some thirty or forty feet from the ground--only high +enough, indeed, to join over the top of the great Gothic gates, which +pierced them on two façades. There must have been barracks near; for on +the sward, under the walls, muskets were stacked, and Austrian soldiers +were practicing the bayonet-exercise with long poles padded at the +point. “_Ein, zwei, drei,--vorwärts! Ein, zwei, drei,--ruckwärts_!” + snarled the drill-sergeant, and the dark-faced Hungarian soldiers--who +may have soon afterward prodded their Danish fellow-beings all the +more effectively for that day’s training--stooped, writhed, and leaped +obedient. I, who had already caught sight of a little tablet in the wall +bearing the name of Paolo Sarpi, could not feel the propriety of the +military performance on that scene; yet I was very glad, dismounting +from the gondola, to get by the soldiers without being forced back at +the padded point of a pole, and offered no audible objection to their +presence. + +So passing to the other side, I found entrance through a disused chapel +to the interior of the convent. The gates on the outside were richly +sculptured, and were reverend and clean; tufts of harsh grass grew +from their arches, and hung down like the “overwhelming brows” of age. +Within, at first light, I saw nothing but heaps of rubbish, piles of +stone, and here and there a mutilated statue. I remember two pathetic +caryatides, that seemed to have broken and sunk under too heavy a weight +for their gentle beauty--and everywhere the unnamable filth with which +ruin is always dishonored in Italy, and which makes the most picturesque +and historic places inaccessible to the foot, and intolerable to the +senses and the soul. I was thinking with a savage indignation on this +incurable _porcheria_, of the Italian poor (who are guilty of such +desecrations), when my eye fell upon an enclosed space in one corner, +where some odd-looking boulders were heaped together. It was a space +about six feet in depth, and twenty feet square; and the boulders, on +closer inspection, turned out to be human skulls, nestling on piles of +human bones. In any other land than Italy I think I should have turned +from the grisly sight with a cowardly sickness and shuddering; +but here!--Why, heaven and earth seem to take the loss of men so +good-naturedly,--so many men have died and passed away with their +difficult, ambitious, and troublesome little schemes,--and the great +mass of mankind is taken so small account of in the course of destiny, +that the idea of death does not appear so alien and repulsive as +elsewhere, and the presence of such evidences of our poor mortality can +scarcely offend sensibility. These were doubtless the bones of the good +Servite friars who had been buried in their convent, and had been digged +up to make way for certain improvements now taking place within its +walls. I have no doubt that their deaths were a rest to their bodies, +to say nothing of their souls. If they were at all in their lives +like those who have come after them, the sun baked their bald brows in +Summer, and their naked feet--poor feet! clapping round in wooden-soled +sandals over the frozen stones of Venice--were swollen and gnawed with +chilblains in winter; and no doubt some fat friar of their number, +looking all the droller in his bare feet for the spectacles on his nose, +came down Calle Falier then, as now, to collect the charity of bread and +fuel, far oftener than the dwellers in that aristocratic precinct wished +to see him. + +The friars’ skulls looked contented enough, and smiled after the hearty +manner of skulls; and some of the leg-bones were thrust through the +enclosing fence, and hung rakishly over the top. As to their spirits, +I suppose they must have found out by this time that these confused +and shattered tabernacles which they left behind them are not nearly so +corrupt and dead as the monastic system which still cumbers the earth. +People are building on the site of the old convent a hospital for +indigent and decrepit women, where a religious sisterhood will have care +of the inmates. It is a good end enough, but I think it would be the +true compensation if all the rubbish of the old cloister were cleared +from the area of those walls, and a great garden planted in the space, +where lovers might whisper their wise nonsense, and children might +romp and frolic, till the crumbling masonry forgot its old office of +imprisonment and the memory of its prisoners. For here, one could only +think of the moping and mumming herd of monks, who were certainly not +worth remembering, while the fame of Paolo Sarpi, and the good which +he did, refused to be localized. That good is an inheritance which has +enriched the world; but the share of Venice has been comparatively +small in it, and that of this old convent ground still less. I rather +wondered, indeed, that I should have taken the trouble to look up the +place; but it is a harmless, if even a very foolish, pastime to go +seeking for the sublime secret of the glory of the palm in the earth +where it struck root and flourished. So far as the lifelong presence and +the death of a man of clear brain and true heart could hallow any scene, +this ground was holy; for here Sarpi lived, and here in his cell +he died, a simple Servite friar--he who had caught the bolts of +excommunication launched against the Republic from Rome, and broken +them in his hand,--who had breathed upon the mighty arm of the temporal +power, and withered it to the juiceless stock it now remains. And yet I +could not feel that the ground _was_ holy, and it did not make me think +of Sarpi; and I believe that only those travelers who invent in cold +blood their impressions of memorable places ever have remarkable +impressions to record. + +Once, before the time of Sarpi, an excommunication was pronounced +against the Republic with a result as terrible as that of the later +interdict was absurd. Venice took possession, early in the fourteenth +century, of Ferrara, by virtue of a bargain which the high contracting +parties--the Republic and an exiled claimant to the ducal crown of +Ferrara--had no right to make. The father of the banished prince had +displeased him by marrying late in life, when the thoughts of a good +man should be turned on other things, and the son compassed the sire’s +death. For this the Ferrarese drove him away, and as they would not take +him back to reign over them at the suggestion of Venice, he resigned his +rights in favor of the Republic, and the Republic at once annexed the +city to its territories. The Ferrarese appealed to the pope for his +protection, and Clement V., supporting an ancient but long quiescent +claim to Ferrara on the part of the Church, called upon the Venetians +to surrender the city, and, on their refusal, excommunicated them. All +Christian peoples were commanded “to arm against the Venetians, to spoil +them of their goods, as separated from the union of Christians, and as +enemies of the Roman Church.” They were driven out of Ferrara, but +their troubles did not end with their loss of the city. Giustina +Renier-Michiel says the nations, under the shelter of the pope’s +permission and command, “exercised against them every species of +cruelty; there was no wrong or violence of which they were not victims. +All the rich merchandise which they had in France, in Flanders, and +in other places, was confiscated; their merchants were arrested, +maltreated, and some of them killed. Woe to us, if the Saracens had been +baptized Christians! our nation would have been utterly destroyed.” Such +was the ruin brought upon us by this excommunication that to this day it +is a popular saying, concerning a man of gloomy aspect, “_He looks as if +he were bringing the excommunication of Ferrara_.” + +No proverb, sprung from the popular terror, commemorates the interdict +of the Republic which took place in 1606, and which, I believe, does not +survive in popular recollection at Venice. It was at first a collision +of the Venetian and Papal authorities at Ferrara, and then an +interference of the pope to prevent the execution of secular justice +upon certain ecclesiastical offenders in Venetia, which resulted in the +excommunication of the Republic, and finally in the defeat of St. Peter +and the triumph of St. Mark. Chief among the ecclesiastical offenders +mentioned were the worthy Abbate Brandolino of Narvesa, who was accused, +among other things, of poisoning his own father; and the good Canonico +Saraceni of Vicenza, who was repulsed in overtures made to his beautiful +cousin, and who revenged himself by defaming her character, and +“filthily defacing” the doors of her palace. The abbate was arrested, +and the canon, on this lady’s complaint to the Ten at Venice, was thrown +into prison, and the weak and furious Pope Paul V., being refused their +release by the Ten, excommunicated the whole Republic. + +In the same year, that is to say 1552, the bane and antidote, Paul the +Pope and Paul Sarpi the friar, were sent into the world. The latter +grew in piety, fame, and learning, and at the time the former began his +quarrel with the Republic, there was none in Venice so fit and prompt +as Sarpi to stand forth in her defense. He was at once taken into the +service of St. Mark, and his clear, acute mind fashioned the spiritual +weapons of the Republic, and helped to shape the secular measures taken +to annul the interdict. As soon as the bull of excommunication was +issued, the Republic instructed her officers to stop every copy of it +at the frontier, and it was never read in any church in the Venetian +dominions. The Senate refused to receive it from the Papal Nuncio. All +priests, monks, and other servants of the Church, as well as all secular +persons, were commanded to disregard it; and refractory ecclesiastics +were forced to open their churches on pain of death. The Jesuits and +Capuchins were banished; and clerical intriguers, whom Rome sent in +swarms to corrupt social and family relations, by declaring an end of +civil government in Venice, and preaching among women disobedience to +patriotic husbands and fathers, were severely punished. With internal +safety thus provided for, the Republic intrusted her moral, religious, +and political defense entirely to Sarpi, who devoted himself to his +trust with fidelity, zeal, and power. + +It might have been expected that the friend of Galileo, and the most +learned and enlightened man of his country, would have taken the short +and decisive method of discarding all allegiance to Rome as the most +logical resistance to the unjust interdict. But the Venetians have ever +been faithful Catholics, [Footnote: It is convenient here to attest +the truth of certain views of religious sentiment in Italy, which Mr. +Trollope, in his _Paul the Pope and Paul the Friar_, quotes from an +“Italian author, by no means friendly to Catholicism, and very well +qualified to speak of the progress of opinions and tendencies among his +fellow-countrymen.” + +This author is Bianchi Giovini, who, speaking of modern Catholicism as +the heir of the old materialistic paganism, says: “The Italians have +identified themselves with this mode of religion. Cultivated men find +in it the truth there is in it, and the people find what is agreeable +to them. But both the former and the latter approve it as conformable to +the national character. And whatever may be the religious system which +shall govern our descendants twenty centuries hence, I venture to affirm +that the exterior forms of it will be pretty nearly the same as those +which prevail at present, and which did prevail twenty centuries ago.” + Mr. Trollope generously dissents from the “_pessimism_” of these views. +The views are discouraging for some reasons; but, with considerable +disposition and fair opportunity to observe Italian character in this +respect, I had arrived at precisely these conclusions. I wish here to +state that in my slight sketch of Sarpi and his times I have availed +myself freely of Mr. Trollope’s delightful book--it is near being too +much of a good thing--named above.] and Sarpi was (or, according to +the papal writers, seemed to be) a sincere and obedient Servite friar, +believing in the spiritual supremacy of the pope, and revering the +religion of Rome. He therefore fought Paul inside of the Church, and his +writings on the interdict remain the monument of his polemical success. +He was the heart and brain of the Republic’s whole resistance,--he +supplied her with inexhaustible reasons and answers,--and, though +tempted, accused, and threatened, he never swerved from his fidelity to +her. + +As he was the means of her triumph, [Footnote: The triumph was such only +so far as the successful resistance to the interdict was concerned; +for at the intercession of the Catholic powers the Republic gave up the +ecclesiastical prisoners, and he allowed all the banished priests except +the Jesuits to return. The Venetians utterly refused to perform any +act of humiliation or penance. The interdict had been defied, and it +remained despised.] remained the object of her love. He could never be +persuaded to desert his cell in the Minorite Convent for the apartments +appointed him by the State; and even when his busy days were spent in +council at the Ducal Palace, he returned each night to sleep in the +cloister. After the harmless interdict had been removed by Paul, and the +unyielding Republic forgiven, the wrath of Rome remained kindled against +the friar whose logic had been too keen for the last reason of popes. He +had been tried for heresy in his youth at Milan, and acquitted; again, +during the progress of St. Mark’s quarrel with Rome, his orthodoxy had +been questioned; and now that all was over, and Rome could turn +her attention to one particular offender, he was entreated, coaxed, +commanded to come to her, and put her heart at rest concerning these old +accusations. But Sarpi was very well in Venice. He had been appointed +Consultor in Theology to the Republic, and had received free admission +to the secret archives of the State,--a favor, till then, never bestowed +on any. So he would not go to Rome, and Rome sent assassins to take his +life. One evening, as he was returning from the Ducal Palace in company +with a lay-brother of the convent, and an old patrician, very infirm and +helpless, he was attacked by these _nuncios_ of the papal court: one of +them seized the lay-brother, and another the patrician, while a third +dealt Sarpi innumerable dagger thrusts. He fell as if dead, and the +ruffians made off in the confusion. + +Sarpi had been fearfully wounded, but he recovered. The action of the +Republic in this affair is a comforting refutation of the saying +that Republics are ungrateful, and the common belief that Venice was +particularly so. The most strenuous and unprecedented efforts were made +to take the assassins, and the most terrific penalties were denounced +against them. What was much better, new honors were showered upon Sarpi, +and extraordinary and affectionate measures were taken to provide for +his safety. + +And, in fine, he lived in the service of the Republic, revered and +beloved, till his seventieth year, when he died with zeal for her good +shaping his last utterance: “I must go to St. Mark, for it is late, and +I have much to do.” + +Brave Sarpi, and brave Republic! Men cannot honor them enough. For +though the terrors of the interdict were doubted to be harmless even +at that time, it had remained for them to prove the interdict, then and +forever, an instrument as obsolete as the catapult. + +I was so curious as to make some inquiry among the workmen on the old +convent ground, whether any stone or other record commemorative of Sarpi +had been found in the demolished cells. I hoped, not very confidently, +to gather some trace of his presence there--to have, perhaps, the spot +on which he died shown me. To a man, they were utterly ignorant of +Sarpi, while affecting, in the Italian manner, to be perfectly informed +on the subject. I was passed, with my curiosity, from one to another, +till I fell into the hands of a kind of foreman, to whom I put my +questions anew. He was a man of Napoleonic beard, and such fair +red-and-white complexion that he impressed me as having escaped from +a show of wax-works, and I was not at all surprised to find him a wax +figure in point of intelligence. He seemed to think my questions the +greatest misfortunes which had ever befallen him, and to regard each +suggestion of Sarpi--_tempo della Repubblica--scomunica di Paolo +Quinto_--as an intolerable oppression. He could only tell me that on +a certain spot (which he pointed out with his foot) in the demolished +church, there had been found a stone with Sarpi’s name upon it. +The padrone, who had the contract for building the new convent, had +said,--“Truly, I have heard speak of this Sarpi;” but the stone had been +broken, and he did not know what had become of it. + +And, in fact, the only thing that remembered Sarpi, on the site of the +convent where he spent his life, died, and was buried, was the little +tablet on the outside of the wall, of which the abbreviated Latin +announced that he had been Theologue to the Republic, and that his dust +was now removed to the island of San Michele. After this failure, I +had no humor to make researches for the bridge on which the friar +was attacked by his assassins. But, indeed, why should I look for it? +Finding it, could I have kept in my mind the fine dramatic picture I now +have, of Sarpi returning to his convent on a mild October evening, weary +with his long walk from St. Mark’s, and pacing with downcast eyes,--the +old patrician and the lay-brother at his side, and the masked and +stealthy assassins, with uplifted daggers, behind him? Nay, I fear I +should have found the bridge with some scene of modern life upon it, +and brought away in my remembrance an old woman with an oil-bottle, or a +straggling boy with a tumbler, and a very little wine in it. + +On our way home from the Servite Convent, we stopped again near the +corner and bridge of Sior Antonio Rioba,--this time to go into the house +of Tintoretto, which stands close at the right hand, on the same quay. +The house, indeed, might make some pretensions to be called a palace: it +is large, and has a carved and balconied front, in which are set a +now illegible tablet describing it as the painter’s dwelling, and +a medallion portrait of Robusti. It would have been well if I had +contented myself with this goodly outside; for penetrating, by a long +narrow passage and complicated stairway, to the interior of the house, +I found that it had nothing to offer me but the usual number of +commonplace rooms in the usual blighting state of restoration. I must +say that the people of the house, considering they had nothing in +the world to show me, were kind and patient under the intrusion, and +answered with very polite affirmation my discouraged inquiry if this +were really Tintoretto’s house. + +Their conduct was different from that of the present inmates of Titian’s +house, near the Fondamenta Nuove, in a little court at the left of +the church of the Jesuits. These unreasonable persons think it an +intolerable bore that the enlightened traveling public should break in +upon their privacy. They put their heads out of the upper windows, and +assure the strangers that the house is as utterly restored within as +they behold it without (and it _is_ extremely restored), that it merely +occupies the site of the painter’s dwelling, and that there is nothing +whatever to see in it. I never myself had the heart to force an entrance +after these protests; but an acquaintance of the more obdurate sex, whom +I had the honor to accompany thither, once did so, and came out with a +story of rafters of the original Titianic kitchen being still visible in +the new one. After a lapse of two years I revisited the house, and found +that so far from having learned patience by frequent trial, the inmates +had been apparently goaded into madness during the interval. They seemed +to know of our approach by instinct, and thrust their heads out, ready +for protest, before we were near enough to speak. The lazy, frowzy +women, the worthless men, and idle, loafing boys of the neighborhood, +gathered round to witness the encounter; but though repeatedly commanded +to ring (I was again in company with ladies), and try to force the +place, I refused decidedly to do so. The garrison were strengthening +their position by plastering and renewed renovation, and I doubt that by +this time the original rafters are no longer to be seen. A plasterer’s +boy, with a fine sense of humor, stood clapping his trowel on his board, +inside the house, while we debated retreat, and derisively invited us +to enter: _“Suoni pure, O signore! Questa e la famosa casa del gran +pittore, l’immortale Tiziano,--suoni, signore!_” (Ring, by all means, +sir. This is the famous house of the great painter, the immortal Titian. +Ring!) _Da capo_. We retired amid the scorn of the populace. But +indeed I could not blame the inhabitants of Titian’s house; and were +I condemned to live in a place so famous as to attract idle curiosity, +flushed and insolent with travel, I should go to the verge of man-traps +and shot-guns to protect myself. + +This house, which is now hemmed in by larger buildings of later date, +had in the painter’s time an incomparably “lovely and delightful +situation.” Standing near the northern boundary of the city, it +looked out over the lagoon,--across the quiet isle of sepulchres, San +Michele,--across the smoking chimneys of the Murano glass-works, and the +bell-towers of her churches,--to the long line of the sea-shore on the +right and to the mainland on the left; and beyond the nearer lagoon +islands and the faintly penciled outlines of Torcello and Burano in +front, to the sublime distance of the Alps, shining in silver and +purple, and resting their snowy heads against the clouds. It had a +pleasant garden of flowers and trees, into which the painter descended +by an open stairway, and in which he is said to have studied the famous +tree in The Death of Peter Martyr. Here he entertained the great and +noble of his day, and here he feasted and made merry with the gentle +sculptor Sansovino, and with their common friend, the rascal-poet +Aretino. The painter’s and the sculptor’s wives knew each other, and +Sansovino’s Paola was often in the house of Cecilia Vecellio; [Footnote: +The wife of Titian’s youth was, according to Ticozzi, named Lucia. It is +in Mutinelli that I find allusion to Cecilia. The author of the _Annali +Urbani_, speaking of the friendship and frequent meetings of Titian and +Sansovino, says,--“Vivevano ... allora ambedue di un amore fatto sacro +dalle leggi divine, essendo moglie di Tiziano una Cecilia.” I would not +advise the reader to place too fond a trust in any thing concerning the +house of Titian. Mutinelli refers to but one house of the painter, while +Ticozzi makes him proprietor of two.] and any one who is wise enough not +to visit the place, can easily think of those ladies there, talking at +an open window that gives upon the pleasant garden, where their husbands +walk up and down together in the purple evening light. + +In the palace where Goldoni was born a servant showed me an entirely new +room near the roof, in which he said the great dramatist had composed +his immortal comedies. As I knew, however, that Goldoni had left the +house when a child, I could scarcely believe what the cicerone said, +though I was glad he said it, and that he knew any thing at all of +Goldoni. It is a fine old Gothic palace on a small canal near the Frari, +and on the Calle del Nomboli, just across from a shop of indigestible +pastry. It is known by an inscription, and by the medallion of the +dramatist above the land-door; and there is no harm in looking in at the +court on the ground-floor, where you may be pleased with the picturesque +old stairway, wandering upward I hardly know how high, and adorned with +many little heads of lions. + +Several palaces dispute the honor of being Bianca Cappello’s birthplace, +but Mutinelli awards the distinction to the palace at Sant’ Appollinare +near the Ponte Storto. One day a gondolier vaingloriously rowed us to +the water-gate of the edifice through a very narrow, damp, and uncleanly +canal, pretending that there was a beautiful staircase in its court. At +the moment of our arrival, however, Bianca happened to be hanging out +clothes from a window, and shrilly disclaimed the staircase, attributing +this merit to another Palazzo Cappello. We were less pleased with her +appearance here, than with that portrait of her which we saw on another +occasion in the palace of a lady of her name and blood. This lady has +since been married, and the name of Cappello is now extinct. + +The Palazzo Mocenigo, in which Byron lived, is galvanized into ghastly +newness by recent repairs, and as it is one of the ugliest palaces on +the Grand Canal, it has less claim than ever upon one’s interest. The +custodian shows people the rooms where the poet wrote, dined, and slept, +and I suppose it was from the hideous basket-balcony over the main door +that one of his mistresses threw herself into the canal. Another of +these interesting relicts is pointed out in the small butter-and-cheese +shop which she keeps in the street leading from Campo Sant’ Angelo to +San Paterinan: she is a fat sinner, long past beauty, bald, and somewhat +melancholy to behold. Indeed, Byron’s memory is not a presence which I +approach with pleasure, and I had most enjoyment in his palace when +I thought of good-natured little Thomas Moore, who once visited his +lordship there. Byron himself hated the recollection of his life in +Venice, and I am sure no one else need like it. But he is become a _cosa +di Venezia_, and you cannot pass his palace without having it pointed +out to you by the gondoliers. Early after my arrival in the city I made +the acquaintance of an old smooth-shaven, smooth-mannered Venetian, who +said he had known Byron, and who told me that he once swam with him from +the Port of San Nicolò to his palace-door. The distance is something +over three miles, but if the swimmers came in with the sea the feat +was not so great as it seems, for the tide is as swift and strong as a +mill-race. I think it would be impossible to make the distance against +the tide. + + + +CHAPTER XVI. + +COMMERCE. + + +To make an annual report in September upon the Commercial Transactions +of the port, was an official duty to which I looked forward at Venice +with a vague feeling of injury during a year of almost uninterrupted +tranquillity. It was not because the preparation of the report was an +affair of so great labor that I shrank from it; but because the material +was wanting with which to make a respectable show among my consular +peers in the large and handsomely misprinted volume of Commercial +Relations annually issued by the enterprising Congressional publishers. +It grieved me that upstart ports like Marseilles, Liverpool, and Bremen, +should occupy so much larger space in this important volume than my +beloved Venice; and it was with a feeling of profound mortification that +I used to post my meagre account of a commerce that once was greater +than all the rest of the world’s together. I sometimes desperately eked +out the material furnished me in the statistics of the Venetian Chamber +of Commerce by an agricultural essay on the disease of the grapes and +its cure, or by a few wretched figures representative of a very slender +mining interest in the province. But at last I determined to end these +displeasures, and to make such researches into the history of her +Commerce as should furnish me forth material for a report worthy of the +high place Venice held in my reverence. + +Indeed, it seemed to be by a sort of anachronism that I had ever +mentioned contemporary Venetian Commerce; and I turned with exultation +from the phantom transactions of the present to that solid and +magnificent prosperity of the past, of which the long-enduring +foundations were laid in the earliest Christian times. For the new +cities formed by the fugitives from barbarian invasion of the main-land, +during the fifth century, had hardly settled around a common democratic +government on the islands of the lagoons, when they began to develop +maritime energies and resources; and long before this government was +finally established at Rialto, (the ancient sea-port of Padua,) or +Venice had become the capital of the young Republic, the Veneti had +thriftily begun to turn the wild invaders of the main-land to account, +to traffic with them, and to make treaties of commerce with their +rulers. Theodoric, the king of the Goths, had fixed his capital at +Ravenna, in the sixth century, and would have been glad to introduce +Italian civilization among his people; but this warlike race were not +prepared to practice the useful arts, and although they inhabited one of +the most fruitful parts of Italy, with ample borders of sea, they were +neither sailors nor tillers of the ground. The Venetians supplied them +(at a fine profit, no doubt,) with the salt made in the lagoons, and +with wines brought from Istria. The Goths viewed with especial amazement +their skill in the management of their river-craft, by means of which +the dauntless traders ascended the shallowest streams to penetrate the +main-land, “running on the grass of the meadows, and between the stalks +of the harvest field,”--just as in this day our own western steamers are +known to run in a heavy dew. + +The Venetians continued to extend and confirm their commerce with those +helpless and hungry warriors, and were ready also to open a lucrative +trade with the Longobards when they descended into Italy about the year +570. They had, in fact, abetted the Longobards in their war with the +Greek Emperor Justinian, (who had opposed their incursion,) and in +return the barbarians gave them the right to hold great free marts or +fairs on the shores of the lagoons, whither the people resorted from +every part of the Longobard kingdom to buy the salt of the lagoons, +grain from Istria and Dalmatia, and slaves from every country. + +The slave-trade, indeed, formed then one of the most lucrative branches +of Venetian commerce, as now it forms the greatest stain upon the annals +of that commerce. The islanders, however, were not alone guilty of this +infamous trade in men; other Italian states made profit of it, and it +may be said to have been all but universal. But the Venetians were the +most deeply involved in it, they pursued it the most unscrupulously, +and they relinquished it the last. The pope forbade and execrated their +commerce, and they sailed from the papal ports with cargoes of slaves +for the infidels in Africa. In spite of the prohibitions of their own +government, they bought Christians of kidnappers throughout Europe, and +purchased the captives of the pirates on the seas, to sell them again to +the Saracens. Nay, being an ingenious people, they turned their honest +penny over and over again: they sold the Christians to the Saracens, +and then for certain sums ransomed them and restored them to their +countries; they sold Saracens to the Christians, and plundered the +infidels in similar transactions of ransom and restoration. It is not +easy to fix the dates of the rise or fall of this slave-trade; but +slavery continued in Venice as late as the fifteenth century, and in +earlier ages was so common that every prosperous person had two or +three slaves. [Footnote: Mutinelli, _Del Costume Veneziano_. The present +sketch of the history of Venetian commerce is based upon facts +chiefly drawn from Mutinelli’s delightful treatise, _Del Commercio dei +Veneziani_.] The corruption of the citizens at this time is properly +attributed in part to the existence of slavery among them; and Mutinelli +goes so far as to declare that the institution impressed permanent +traits on the populace, rendering them idle and indisposed to honest +labor, by degrading labor and making it the office of bondmen. + +While this hateful and enormous traffic in man was growing up, +the Venetians enriched themselves by many other more blameless and +legitimate forms of commerce, and gradually gathered into their grasp +that whole trade of the East with Europe which passed through their +hands for so many ages. After the dominion of the Franks was established +in Italy in the eighth century, they began to supply that people, more +luxurious than the Lombards, with the costly stuffs, the rich jewelry, +and the perfumes of Byzantium; and held a great annual fair at the +imperial city of Pavia, where they sold the Franks the manufactures of +the polished and effeminate Greeks, and whence in return they carried +back to the East the grain, wine, wool, iron, lumber, and excellent +armor of Lombardy. + +From the time when they had assisted the Longobards against the Greeks, +the Venetians found it to their interest to cultivate the friendship of +the latter, until, in the twelfth century, they mastered the people +so long caressed, and took their capital, under Enrico Dandolo. The +privileges conceded to the wily and thrifty republican traders by the +Greek Emperors, were extraordinary in their extent and value. Otho, the +western Caesar, having succeeded the Franks in the dominion of Italy, +had already absolved the Venetians from the annual tribute paid the +Italian kings for the liberty of traffic, and had declared their +commerce free throughout the Peninsula. In the mean time they had +attacked and beaten the pirates of Dalmatia, and the Greeks now +recognized their rule all over Dalmatia, thus securing to the Republic +every port on the eastern shores of the Adriatic. Then, as they aided +the Greeks to repel the aggressions of the Saracens and Normans, their +commerce was declared free in all the ports of the empire, and they were +allowed to trade without restriction in all the cities, and to build +warehouses and dépôts throughout the dominions of the Greeks, wherever +they chose. The harvest they reaped from the vast field thus opened to +their enterprise, must have more than compensated them for their losses +in the barbarization of the Italian continent by the incessant civil +wars which followed the disruption of the Lombard League, when trade and +industry languished throughout Italy. When the Crusaders had taken the +Holy Land, the king of Jerusalem bestowed upon the Venetians, in return +for important services against the infidel, the same privileges conceded +them by the Greek Emperor; and when, finally, Constantinople fell into +the hands of the Crusaders, (whom they had skillfully diverted from the +reconquest of Palestine to the siege of the Greek metropolis,) nearly +all the Greek islands fell to the share of Venice; and the Latin +emperors, who succeeded the Greeks in dominion, gave her such privileges +as made her complete mistress of the commerce of the Levant. + +From this opulent traffic the insatiable enterprise of the Republic +turned, without relinquishing the old, to new gains in the farthest +Orient. Against her trade the exasperated infidel had closed the +Egyptian ports, but she did not scruple to coax the barbarous prince of +the Scythian Tartars, newly descended upon the shores of the Black Sea; +and having secured his friendship, she proceeded, without imparting +her design to her Latin allies at Constantinople, to plant a commercial +colony at the mouth of the Don, where the city of Azof stands. Through +this entrepôt, thenceforward, Venetian energy, with Tartar favor, +directed the entire commerce of Asia with Europe, and incredibly +enriched the Republic. The vastness and importance of such a trade, even +at that day, when the wants of men were far simpler and fewer than now, +could hardly be over-stated; and one nation then monopolized the traffic +which is now free to the whole world. The Venetians bought their wares +at the great marts of Samarcand, and crossed the country of Tartary +in caravans to the shores of the Caspian Sea, where they set sail and +voyaged to the River Volga, which they ascended to the point of its +closest proximity to the Don. Their goods were then transported overland +to the Don, and were again carried by water down to their mercantile +colony at its mouth. Their ships, having free access to the Black Sea, +could, after receiving their cargoes, return direct to Venice. The +products of every country of Asia were carried into Europe by these +dauntless traffickers, who, enlightened and animated by the travels and +discoveries of Matteo, Nicolò, and Marco Polo, penetrated the remotest +regions, and brought away the treasures which the prevalent fears and +superstitions of other nations would have deterred them from seeking, +even if they had possessed the means of access to them. + +The partial civilization of the age of chivalry had now reached its +climax, and the class which had felt its refining effects was that +best able to gratify the tastes still unknown to the great mass of the +ignorant and impoverished people. It was a splendid time, and the robber +counts and barons of the continent, newly tamed and Christianized into +knights, spent splendidly, as became magnificent cavaliers serving noble +ladies. The Venetians, who seldom did merely heroic things, who turned +the Crusades to their own account and made money out of the Holy Land, +and whom one always fancies as having a half scorn of the noisy grandeur +of chivalry, were very glad to supply the knights and ladies with the +gorgeous stuffs, precious stones, and costly perfumes of the East; and +they now also began to establish manufactories, and to practice the +industrial arts at home. Their jewelers and workers in precious metals +soon became famous throughout Europe; the glass-works of Murano rose +into celebrity and importance which they have never since lost (for they +still supply the world with beads); and they began to weave stuffs of +gold tissue at Venice, and silks so exquisitely dyed that no cavalier +or dame of perfect fashion was content with any other. Besides this they +gilded leather for lining walls, wove carpets, and wrought miracles of +ornament in wax,--a material that modern taste is apt to disdain,--while +Venetian candles in chandeliers of Venetian glass lighted up the palaces +of the whole civilized world. + +The private enterprise of citizens was in every way protected and +encouraged by the State, which did not, however, fail to make due and +just profit out of it. The ships of the merchants always sailed to +and from Venice in fleets, at stated seasons, seven fleets departing +annually,--one for the Greek dominions, a second for Azof, a third for +Trebizond, a fourth for Cyprus, a fifth for Armenia, a sixth for Spain, +France, the Low Countries, and England, and a seventh for Africa. Each +squadron of traders was accompanied and guarded from attacks of corsairs +and other enemies, by a certain number of the state galleys, let +severally to the highest bidders for the voyage, at a price never less +than about five hundred dollars of our money. The galleys were all +manned and armed by the State, and the crew of each amounted to three +hundred persons; including a captain, four supercargoes, eight pilots, +two carpenters, two calkers, a master of the oars, fifty cross-bowmen, +three drummers, and two hundred rowers. The State also appointed a +commandant of the whole squadron, with absolute authority to hear +complaints, decide controversies, and punish offences. + +While the Republic was thus careful in the protection and discipline of +its citizens in their commerce upon the seas, it was no less zealous for +their security and its own dignity in their traffic with the continent +of Europe. In that rude day, neither the life nor the property of the +merchant who visited the ultramontane countries was safe; for the sorry +device which he practiced, of taking with him a train of apes, buffoons, +dancers, and singers, in order to divert his ferocious patrons from +robbery and murder, was not always successful. The Venetians, therefore, +were forbidden by the State to trade in those parts; and the Bohemians, +Germans, and Hungarians, who wished to buy their wares, were obliged to +come to the lagoons and buy them at the great marts which were held in +different parts of the city, and on the neighboring main-land. A triple +purpose was thus served,--the Venetian merchants were protected in their +lives and goods, the national honor was saved from insult, and many an +honest zecchino was turned by the innkeepers and others who lodged and +entertained the customers of the merchants. + +Five of these great fairs were held every week, the chief market being +at Rialto; and the transactions in trade were carefully supervised by +the servants of the State. Among the magistracies especially appointed +for the orderly conduct of the foreign and domestic commerce were the +so-called Mercantile Consuls (_Ufficio dei Consoli dei Mercanti_), whose +special duty it was to see that the traffic of the nation received +no hurt from the schemes of any citizen or foreigner, and to punish +offenses of this kind with banishment and even graver penalties. They +measured every ship about to depart, to learn if her cargo exceeded the +lawful amount; they guarded creditors against debtors and protected +poor debtors against the rapacity of creditors, and they punished thefts +sustained by the merchants. It is curious to find contemporary with +this beneficent magistracy, a charge of equal dignity exercised by +the College of Reprisals. A citizen offended in his person or property +abroad, demanded justice of the government of the country in which the +offense was committed. If the demand was refused, it was repeated by the +Republic; if still refused, then the Republic, although at peace with +the nation from which the offense came, seized any citizen of that +country whom it could find, and, through its College of Reprisals, +spoiled him of sufficient property to pay the damage done to its +citizen. Finally, besides several other magistracies resident in Venice, +the Republic appointed Consuls in its colonies and some foreign ports, +to superintend the traffic of its citizens, and to compose their +controversies. The Consuls were paid out of duties levied on the +merchandise; they were usually nobles, and acted with the advice and +consent of twelve other Venetian nobles or merchants. + +At this time, and, indeed, throughout its existence, the great lucrative +monopoly of the Republic was the salt manufactured in the lagoons, and +forced into every market, at rates that no other salt could compete +with. Wherever alien enterprise attempted rivalry, it was instantly +discouraged by Venice. There were troublesome salt mines, for example, +in Croatia; and in 1381 the Republic caused them to be closed by paying +the King of Hungary an annual pension of seven thousand crowns of gold. +The exact income of the State, however, from the monopoly of salt, or +from the various imposts and duties levied upon merchandise, it is now +difficult to know, and it is impossible to compute accurately the value +or extent of Venetian commerce at any one time. It reached the acme of +its prosperity under Tommaso Mocenigo, who was Doge from 1414 to +1423. There were then three thousand and three hundred vessels of the +mercantile marine, giving employment to thirty-three thousand seamen, +and netting to their owners a profit of forty per cent, on the capital +invested. How great has been the decline of this trade may be understood +from the fact that in 1863 it amounted, according to the careful +statistics of the Chamber of Commerce, to only $60,229,740, and that the +number of vessels now owned in Venice is one hundred and fifty. As the +total tonnage of these is but 26,000, it may be inferred that they are +small craft, and in fact they are nearly all coasting vessels. They no +longer bring to Venice the drugs and spices and silks of Samarcand, or +carry her own rare manufactures to the ports of western Europe; but they +sail to and from her canals with humble freights of grain, lumber, and +hemp. Almost as many Greek as Venetian ships now visit the old queen, +who once levied a tax upon every foreign vessel in her Adriatic; and the +shipping from the cities of the kingdom of Italy exceeds hers by ninety +sail, while the tonnage of Great Britain is vastly greater. Her commerce +has not only wasted to the shadow of its former magnitude, but it has +also almost entirely lost its distinctive character. Glass of Murano is +still exported to a value of about two millions of dollars annually; but +in this industry, as in nearly all others of the lagoons, there is +an annual decline. The trade of the port falls off from one to three +millions of dollars yearly, and the manufacturing interests of the +province have dwindled in the same proportion. So far as silk is +concerned, there has been an immediate cause for the decrease in the +disease which has afflicted the cocoons for several years past. Wine and +oil are at present articles of import solely,--the former because of a +malady of the grape, the latter because of negligent cultivation of the +olive. + +A considerable number of persons are still employed in the manufacture +of objects of taste and ornament; and in the Ruga Vecchia at Rialto they +yet make the famous Venetian gold chain, which few visitors to the city +can have failed to notice hanging in strands and wound upon spools, in +the shop windows of the Old Procuratie and the Bridge of Rialto. It is +wrought of all degrees of fineness, and is always so flexile that it +may be folded and wound in any shape. It is now no longer made in great +quantity, and is chiefly worn by contadine (as a safe investment of +their ready money), [Footnote: Certain foreigners living in Venice were +one day astonished to find their maid-servant in possession of a mass of +this chain, and thought it their business to reprove her extravagance. +“Signori,” she explained paradoxically, “if I keep my money, I spend +it; if I buy this chain, it is always money (_è sempre soldi_).”] and +old-fashioned people of the city, who display the finer sort in +skeins or strands. At Chioggia, I remember to have seen a babe at its +christening in church literally manacled and shackled with Venetian +chain; and the little girl who came to us one day, to show us the +splendors in which she had appeared at a _disputa_ (examination of +children in doctrine), was loaded with it. Formerly, in the luxurious +days of the Republic, it is said the chain was made as fine as +sewing-silk, and worn embroidered on Genoa velvet by the patrician +dames. It had then a cruel interest from the fact that its manufacture, +after a time, cost the artisans their eyesight, so nice and subtle was +the work. I could not help noticing that the workmen at the shops in the +Ruga Vecchia still suffer in their eyes, even though the work is much +coarser. I do not hope to describe the chain, except by saying that the +links are horseshoe and oval shaped, and are connected by twos,--an +oval being welded crosswise into a horseshoe, and so on, each two being +linked loosely into the next. + +An infinitely more important art, in which Venice was distinguished a +thousand years ago, has recently been revived there by Signor Salviati, +an enthusiast in mosaic painting. His establishment is on the Grand +Canal, not far from the Academy, and you might go by the old palace +quite unsuspicious of the ancient art stirring with new life in its +breast. “A. Salviati, Avvocato,” is the legend of the bell-pull, and you +do not by any means take this legal style for that of the restorer of a +neglected art, and a possessor of forgotten secrets in gilded glass and +“smalts,” as they term the small delicate rods of vitreous substance, +with which the wonders of the art are achieved. But inside of the palace +are some two hundred artisans at work,--cutting the smalts and glass +into the minute fragments of which the mosaics are made, grinding +and smoothing these fragments, polishing the completed works, and +reproducing, with incredible patience and skill, the lights and shadows +of the pictures to be copied. + +You first enter the rooms of those whose talent distinguishes them as +artists, and in whose work all the wonderful neatness and finish and +long-suffering toil of the Byzantines are visible, as well as original +life and inspiration alike impossible and profane to the elder +mosaicists. Each artist has at hand a great variety of the slender stems +of smalts already mentioned, and breaking these into minute fragments +as he proceeds, he inserts them in the bed of cement prepared to receive +his picture, and thus counterfeits in enduring mineral the perishable +work of the painter. + +In other rooms artisans are at work upon various tasks of +_marqueterie_,--table-tops, album-covers, paper-weights, brooches, pins +and the like,--and in others they are sawing the smalts and glass into +strips, and grinding the edges. Passing through yet another room, where +the finished mosaic-works--of course not the pictorial mosaics--are +polished by machinery, we enter the store-room, where the crowded +shelves display blocks of smalts and glass of endless variety of +color. By far the greater number of these colors are discoveries or +improvements of the venerable mosaicist Lorenzo Radi, who has found +again the Byzantine secrets of counterfeiting, in vitreous paste, +aventurine (gold stone), onyx, chalcedony, malachite, and other natural +stones, and who has been praised by the Academy of Fine Arts in Venice +for producing mosaics even more durable in tint and workmanship than +those of the Byzantine artists. + +In an upper story of the palace a room is set apart for the exhibition +of the many beautiful and costly things which the art of the +establishment produces. Here, besides pictures in mosaic, there are +cunningly inlaid tables and cabinets, caskets, rich vases of chalcedony +mounted in silver, and delicately wrought jewelry, while the floor is +covered with a mosaic pavement ordered for the Viceroy of Egypt. There +are here, moreover, to be seen the designs furnished by the Crown +Princess of Prussia for the mosaics of the Queen’s Chapel at Windsor. +These, like all other pictures and decorations in mosaic, are completed +in the establishment on the Grand Canal, and are afterward put up as +wholes in the places intended for them. + +In Venice nothing in decay is strange. But it is startling to find her +in her old age nourishing into fresh life an art that, after feebly +preserving the memory of painting for so many centuries, had decorated +her prime only with the glories of its decline;--for Kugler ascribes the +completion of the mosaics of the church of St. Cyprian in Murano to +the year 882, and the earliest mosaics of St. Mark’s to the tenth or +eleventh centuries, when the Greek Church had already laid her ascetic +hand on Byzantine art, and fixed its conventional forms, paralyzed its +motives, and forbidden its inspirations. I think, however, one would +look about him in vain for other evidences of a returning prosperity in +the lagoons. The old prosperity of Venice, was based upon her monopoly +of the most lucrative traffic in the world, as we have already +seen,--upon her exclusive privileges in foreign countries, upon the +enlightened zeal of her government, and upon men’s imperfect knowledge +of geography, and the barbarism of the rest of Europe, as well as upon +the indefatigable industry and intelligent enterprise of her citizens. +America was still undiscovered; the overland route to India was the only +one known; the people of the continent outside of Italy were unthrifty +serfs, ruled and ruined by unthrifty lords. The whole world’s ignorance, +pride, and sloth were Venetian gain; and the religious superstitions +of the day, which, gross as they were, embodied perhaps its noblest +and most hopeful sentiment, were a source of incalculable profit to +the sharp-witted mistress of the Adriatic. It was the age of penances, +pilgrimages, and relic-hunting, and the wealth which she wrung from the +devotion of others was exceedingly great. Her ships carried the pilgrims +to and from the Holy Land; her adventurers ransacked Palestine and +the whole Orient for the bones and memorials of the saints; and her +merchants sold the precious relics throughout Europe at an immense +advance upon first cost. + +But the foundations of this prosperity were at last tapped by the tide +of wealth which poured into Venice from every quarter of the world. Her +citizens brought back the vices as well as the luxuries of the debauched +Orient, and the city became that seat of splendid idleness and proud +corruption which it continued till the Republic fell. It is needless +here to rehearse the story of her magnificence and decay. At the time +when the hardy, hungry people of other nations were opening paths to +prosperity by land and sea, the Venetians, gorged with the spoils of +ages, relinquished their old habits of daring enterprise, and dropped +back into luxury and indolence. Their incessant wars with the Genoese +began, and though they signally defeated the rival Republic in battle, +Genoa finally excelled in commerce. A Greek prince had arisen to dispute +the sovereignty of the Latin Emperors, whom the Venetians had helped +to place upon the Byzantine throne; the Genoese, seeing the favorable +fortunes of the Greek, threw the influence of their arms and intrigues +in his favor, and the Latins were expelled from Constantinople in 1271. +The new Greek Emperor had promised to give the sole navigation of the +Black Sea to his allies, together with the church and palaces possessed +by the Venetians in his capital, and he bestowed also upon the Genoese +the city of Smyrna. It does not seem that he fulfilled literally all his +promises, for the Venetians still continued to sail to and from their +colony of Tana, at the head of the Sea of Azof, though it is certain +that they had no longer the sovereignty of those waters; and the Genoese +now planted on the shores of the Black Sea three large and important +colonies to serve as entrepôts for the trade taken from their rivals. +The oriental traffic of the latter was maintained through Tana, however, +for nearly two centuries later, when, in 1410, the Mongol Tartars, +under Tamerlane, fell upon the devoted colony, took, sacked, burnt, +and utterly destroyed it. This was the first terrible blow to the +most magnificent commerce which the world had ever seen, and which had +endured for ages. No wonder that, on the day of Tana’s fall, terrible +portents of woe were seen at Venice,--that meteors appeared, that demons +rode the air, that the winds and waters rose and blew down houses and +swallowed ships! A thousand persons are said to have perished in the +calamities which commemorated a stroke so mortally disastrous to the +national grandeur. After that the Venetians humbly divided with their +ancient foes the possession and maintenance of the Genoese colony of +Caffa, and continued, with greatly diminished glory, their traffic +in the Black Sea; till the Turks having taken Constantinople, and the +Greeks having acquired under their alien masters a zeal for commerce +unknown to them during the times of their native princes, the Venetians +were finally, on the first pretext of war, expelled from those waters in +which they had latterly maintained themselves only by payment of heavy +tribute to the Turks. + +In the mean time the industrial arts, in which Venice had heretofore +excelled, began to be practiced elsewhere, and the Florentines and +the English took that lead in the manufactures of the world, which the +latter still retain. The league of the Hanseatic cities was established +and rose daily in importance. At London, at Bruges, at Bergen, and +Novogorod banks were opened under the protection and special favor of +the Hanseatic League; its ships were preferred to any other, and the +tide of commerce setting northward, the cities of the League persecuted +the foreigners who would have traded in their ports. On the +west, Barcelona began to dispute the preëminence of Venice in the +Mediterranean, and Spanish salt was brought to Italy itself and sold +by the enterprising Catalonians. Their corsairs vexed Venetian commerce +everywhere; and in that day, as in our own, private English enterprise +was employed in piratical depredations on the traffic of a friendly +power. + +The Portuguese also began to extend their commerce, once so important, +and catching the rage for discovery then prevalent, infested every sea +in search of unknown land. One of their navigators, sailing by a chart +which a monk named Fra Mauro, in his convent on the island of San +Michele, had put together from the stories of travelers, and his own +guesses at geography, discovered the Cape of Good Hope, and the trade +of India with Europe was turned in that direction, and the old over-land +traffic perished. The Venetian monopoly of this traffic had long been +gone; had its recovery been possible, it would now have been useless to +the declining prosperity of the Republic. + +It remained for Christopher Columbus, born of that Genoese nation which +had hated the Venetians so long and so bitterly, to make the discovery +of America, and thus to give the death-blow to the supremacy of Venice. +While all these discoveries were taking place, the old queen of the seas +had been weighed down with many and unequal wars. Her naval power +had been everywhere crippled; her revenues had been reduced; her +possessions, one after one, had been lopped away; and at the time +Columbus was on his way to America half Europe, united in the League of +Cambray, was attempting to crush the Republic of Venice. + +The whole world was now changed. Commerce sought new channels; fortune +smiled on other nations. How Venice dragged onward from the end of +her commercial greatness, and tottered with a delusive splendor to her +political death, is surely one of the saddest of stories if not the +sternest of lessons. + + + +CHAPTER XVII. + +VENETIAN HOLIDAYS. + + +The national character of the Venetians was so largely influenced by the +display and dissipation of the frequent festivals of the Republic, that +it cannot be fairly estimated without taking them into consideration, +nor can the disuse of these holidays (of which I have heretofore spoken) +be appreciated in all its import, without particular allusion to their +number and nature. They formed part of the aristocratic polity of the +old commonwealth, which substituted popular indulgence for popular +liberty, and gave the people costly pleasures in return for the +priceless rights of which they had been robbed, set up national pride in +the place of patriotism, and was as well satisfied with a drunken joy in +its subjects as if they had possessed a true content. + +Full notice of these holidays would be history [Footnote: “Siccome,” + says the editor of Giustina Renier-Michiel’s _Origine delle Feste +Veneziane_,--“Siccome l’illustre Autrice ha voluto applicare al suo +lavoro il modesto titolo di _Origins delle Feste Veneziane_, e siccome +questo potrebbe porgere un’ idea assai diversa dell’ opera a chi non ne +ha alcuna cognizione, da quello che è sostanzialmente, si espone questo +Epitome, perchè ognun regga almeno in parte, che quest’ opera sarebbe +del titolo di _storia_ condegna, giacchè essa non è che una costante +descrizione degli avvenimenti più importanti e luminosi della Repubblica +di Venezia.” The work in question is one of much research and small +philosophy, like most books which Venetians have written upon Venice; +but it has admirably served my purpose, and I am indebted to it for most +of the information contained in this chapter.] of Venice, for each one +had its origin in some great event of her existence, and they were so +numerous as to commemorate nearly every notable incident in her annals. +Though, as has been before observed, they had nearly all a general +religious character, the Church, as usual in Venice, only seemed to +direct the ceremonies in its own honor, while it really ministered +to the political glory of the oligarchy, which knew how to manage its +priests as well as its prince and people. Nay, it happened in one case, +at least, that a religious anniversary was selected by the Republic +as the day on which to put to shame before the populace certain of the +highest and reverendest dignitaries of the Church. In 1162, Ulrich, the +Patriarch of Aquileja, seized, by a treacherous stratagem, the city of +Grado, then subject to Venice. The Venetians immediately besieged and +took the city, with the patriarch and twelve of his canons in it, and +carried them prisoners to the lagoons. The turbulent patriarchs of +Aquileja had long been disturbers of the Republic’s dominion, and +the people now determined to make an end of these displeasures. They +refused, therefore, to release the patriarch, except on condition that +he should bind himself to send them annually a bull and twelve fat hogs. +It is not known what meaning the patriarch attached to this singular +ceremony; but with the Venetians the bull was typical of himself, +and the swine of his canons, and they yearly suffered death in these +animals, which were slaughtered during Shrovetide in the Piazza San +Marco amid a great concourse of the people, in the presence of the +Doge and Signory. The locksmiths, and other workers in iron, had +distinguished themselves in the recapture of Grado, and to their guild +was allotted the honor of putting to death the bull and swine. Great art +was shown in striking off the bull’s head at one blow, without suffering +the sword to touch the ground after passing through the animal’s neck; +the swine were slain with lances. Athletic games among the people +succeeded, and the Doge and his Senators attacked and destroyed, with +staves, several lightly built wooden castles, to symbolize the abasement +of the feudal power before the Republic. As the centuries advanced this +part of the ceremony, together with the slaughter of the swine, was +disused; in which fact Mr. Ruskin sees evidence of a corrupt disdain of +simple and healthy allegory on the part of the proud doges, but in which +I think most people will discern only a natural wish to discontinue in +more civilized times a puerile barbarity. Mr. Ruskin himself finds +no evidence of “state pride” in the abolition of the slaughter of the +swine. The festival was very popular, and continued a long time, though +I believe not till the fall of the Republic. + +Another tribute, equally humiliating to those who paid it, was imposed +upon the Paduans for an insult offered to St. Mark, and gave occasion +for a national holiday, some fifty years after the Patriarch of Aquileja +began atonement for his outrage. In the year 1214, the citizens of +Treviso made an entertainment to which they invited the noble youth of +the surrounding cities. In the chief piazza of the town a castle of wood +exquisitely decorated was held against all comers by a garrison of the +fairest Trevisan damsels. The weapons of defense were flowers, fruits, +bonbons, and the bright eyes of the besieged; while the missiles of +attack were much the same, with whatever added virtue might lie in +tender prayers and sugared supplications. Padua, Vicenza, Bassano, and +Venice sent their gallantest youths, under their municipal banners, to +take part in this famous enterprise; and the attack was carried on by +the leagued forces with great vigor, but with no effect on the Castle +of Love, as it was called, till the Venetians made a breach at a weak +point. These young men were better skilled in the arts of war than their +allies; they were richer, and had come to Treviso decked in the spoils +of the recent sack of Constantinople, and at the moment they neared +the castle it is reported that they corrupted the besieged by throwing +handfuls of gold into the tower. Whether this be true or not, it is +certain that the conduct of the Venetians in some manner roused the +Paduans to insult, and that the hot youths came to blows. In an instant +the standard of St. Mark was thrown down and trampled under the feet of +the furious Paduans; blood flowed, and the indignant Trevisans drove the +combatants out of their city. The spark of war spreading to the rival +cities, the Paduans were soon worsted, and three hundred of their number +were made prisoners. These they would willingly have ransomed at any +price, but their enemies would not release them except on the payment of +two white pullets for each warrior. The shameful ransom was paid in the +Piazza, to the inextinguishable delight of the Venetians, who, never +wanting in sharp and biting wit, abandoned themselves to sarcastic +exultation. They demanded that the Paduans should, like the patriarch, +repeat the tribute annually; but the prudent Doge Ziani judged the +single humiliation sufficient, and refused to establish a yearly +celebration of the feast. + +One of the most famous occasional festivals of Venice is described by +Petrarch in a Latin letter to his friend Pietro Bolognese. It was in +celebration of the reduction of the Greeks of Candia, an island which +in 1361 had recently been ceded to the Republic. The Candiotes rose in +general rebellion, but were so promptly subdued that the news of the +outbreak scarcely anticipated the announcement of its suppression in +Venice. Petrarch was at this time the guest of the Republic, and from +his seat at the right of the Doge on the gallery of St. Mark’s Church, +in front of the bronze horses, he witnessed the chivalric shows given +in the Piazza below, which was then unpaved, and admirably adapted for +equestrian feats of arms. It is curious to read the poet’s account of +these in a city where there is now no four-footed beast larger than a +dog. But in the age of chivalry even the Venetians were mounted, and +rode up and down their narrow streets, and jousted in their great +campos. + +Speaking of twenty-four noble and handsome youths, whose feats formed +a chief part of a show of which he “does not know if in the whole world +there has been seen the equal,” Petrarch says: “It was a gentle sight +to see so many youths decked in purple and gold, as they ruled with +the rein and urged with the spur their coursers, moving in glittering +harness, with iron-shod feet which scarcely seemed to touch the ground.” + And it must have been a noble sight, indeed, to behold all this before +the “golden façade of the temple,” in a place so packed with spectators +“that a grain of barley could not have fallen to the ground. The great +piazza, the church itself, the towers, the roofs, the arcades, the +windows, all were--I will not say full, but running over, walled +and paved with people.” At the right of the church was built a great +platform, on which sat “four hundred honestest gentlewomen, chosen +from the flower of the nobility, and distinguished in their dress and +bearing, who, amid the continual homage offered them morning, noon, and +night, presented the image of a celestial congress.” Some noblemen, come +hither by chance, “from the part of Britain, comrades and kinsmen of +their King, were present,” and attracted the notice of the poet. The +feasts lasted many days, but on the third day Petrarch excused himself +to the Doge, pleading, he says, his “ordinary occupations, already known +to all.” + +Among remoter feasts in honor of national triumphs, was one on the Day +of the Annunciation, commemorative of the removal of the capital of the +Venetian isles to Rialto from Malamocco, after King Pepin had burnt the +latter city, and when, advancing on Venice, he was met in the lagoons +and beaten by the islanders and the tides: these by their recession +stranding his boats in the mud, and those falling upon his helpless host +with the fury of an insulted and imperiled people. The Doge annually +assisted at mass in St. Mark’s in honor of the victory, but not long +afterward the celebration of it ceased, as did that of a precisely +similar defeat of the Hungarians, who had just descended from Asia into +Europe. In 1339 there were great rejoicings in the Piazza for the peace +with Mastino della Scala, who, beaten by the Republic, ceded his city of +Treviso to her. + +Doubtless the most splendid of all the occasional festivals was that +held for the Venetian share of the great Christian victory at Lepanto +over the Turks. All orders of the State took part in it; but the most +remarkable feature of the celebration was the roofing of the Merceria, +all the way from St. Mark’s to Rialto, with fine blue cloth, studded +with golden stars to represent the firmament, as the shopkeepers +imagined it. The pictures of the famous painters of that day, Titian, +Tintoretto, Palma, and the rest, were exposed under this canopy, at the +end near Rialto. Later, the Venetian victories over the Turks at the +Dardanelles were celebrated by a regatta, in 1658; and Morosini’s +brilliant reconquest of the Morea, in 1688, was the occasion of other +magnificent shows. + +The whole world has now adopted, with various modifications, the +picturesque and exciting pastime of the regatta, which, according to +Mutinelli, [Footnote: _Annali Urbani di Venezia_.] originated among the +lagoons at a very early period, from a peculiar feature in the military +discipline of the Republic. A target for practice with the bow and +cross-bow was set up every week on the beach at the Lido, and nobles and +plebeians rowed thither in barges of thirty oars, vying with each other +in the speed and skill with which the boats were driven. To divert +the popular discontent that followed the Serrar del Consiglio and the +suppression of Bajamonte Tiepolo’s conspiracy early in the fourteenth +century, the proficiency arising from this rivalry was turned to +account, and the spectacle of the regatta was instituted. Agreeably, +however, to the aristocratic spirit of the newly established oligarchy, +the patricians withdrew from the lists, and the regatta became the +affair exclusively of the gondoliers. In other Italian cities, where +horse and donkey races were the favorite amusement, the riders were of +both sexes; and now at Venice women also entered into the rivalry of the +regatta. But in gallant deference to their weakness, they were permitted +to begin the course at the mouth of the Grand Canal before the Doganna +di Mare, while the men were obliged to start from the Public Gardens. +They followed the Grand Canal to its opposite extremity, beyond the +present railway station, and there doubling a pole planted in the water +near the Ponte della Croce, returned to the common goal before the +Palazzo Foscari. Here was erected an ornate scaffolding to which the +different prizes were attached. The first boat carried off a red banner; +the next received a green flag; the third, a blue; and the fourth, a +yellow one. With each of these was given a purse, and with the last was +added, by way of gibe, a live pig, a picture of which was painted on the +yellow banner. Every regatta included five courses, in which single and +double oared boats, and single and double oared gondolas successively +competed,--the fifth contest being that in which the women participated +with two-oared boats. Four prizes like those described were awarded to +the winners in each course. + +The regatta was celebrated with all the pomp which the superb city could +assume. As soon as the government announced that it was to take place, +the preparations of the champions began. “From that time the gondolier +ceased to be a servant; he became almost an adoptive son;” [Footnote: +_Feste Veneziane_.] his master giving him every possible assistance and +encouragement in the daily exercises by which he trained himself for the +contest, and his parish priest visiting him in his own house, to bless +his person, his boat, and the image of the Madonna or other saint +attached to the gondola. When the great day arrived the Canalazzo +swarmed with boats of every kind. “All the trades and callings,” says +Giustina Renier-Michiel, [Footnote: _Feste Veneziane_] with that pride +in the Venetian past which does not always pass from verbosity to +eloquence, “had each its boats appropriately mounted and adorned; and +private societies filled an hundred more. The chief families among the +nobility appeared in their boats, on which they had lavished their taste +and wealth.” The rowers were dressed with the most profuse and +elaborate luxury, and the barges were made to represent historical and +mythological conceptions. “To this end the builders employed carving and +sculpture, together with all manner of costly stuffs of silk and velvet, +gorgeous fringes and tassels of silver and gold, flowers, fruits, +shrubs, mirrors, furs, and plumage of rare birds.... Young patricians, +in fleet and narrow craft, propelled by swift rowers, preceded the +champions and cleared the way for them, obliging the spectators to +withdraw on either side.... They knelt on sumptuous cushions in the +prows of their gondolas, cross-bow in hand, and launched little pellets +of plaster at the directors of such obstinate boats as failed to obey +their orders to retire.... + +“To augment the brilliancy of the regatta the nature of the place +concurred. Let us imagine that superb canal, flanked on either side by +a long line of edifices of every sort; with great numbers of marble +palaces,--nearly all of noble and majestic structure, some admirable +for an antique and Gothic taste, some for the richest Greek and Roman +architecture,--their windows and balconies decked with damasks, stuffs +of the Levant, tapestries, and velvets, the vivid colors of which were +animated still more by borders and fringes of gold, and on which leaned +beautiful women richly dressed and wearing tremulous and glittering +jewels in their hair. Wherever the eye turned, it beheld a vast +multitude at doorways, on the rivas, and even on the roofs. Some of the +spectators occupied scaffoldings erected at favorable points along the +sides of the canal; and the patrician ladies did not disdain to leave +their palaces, and, entering their gondolas, lose themselves among the +infinite number of the boats.... + +“The cannons give the signal of departure. The boats dart over the +water with the rapidity of lightning.... They advance and fall behind +alternately. One champion who seems to yield the way to a rival suddenly +leaves him in the rear. The shouts of his friends and kinsmen hail his +advantage, while others already passing him, force him to redouble his +efforts. Some weaker ones succumb midway, exhausted.... They withdraw, +and the kindly Venetian populace will not aggravate their shame with +jeers; the spectators glance at them compassionately, and turn again to +those still in the lists. Here and there they encourage them by +waving handkerchiefs, and the women toss their shawls in the air. Each +patrician following close upon his gondolier’s boat, incites him with +his voice, salutes him by name, and flatters his pride and spirit.... +The water foams under the repeated strokes of the oars; it leaps up in +spray and falls in showers on the backs of the rowers already dripping +with their own sweat.... At last behold the dauntless mortal who seizes +the red banner! His rival had almost clutched it, but one mighty stroke +of the oar gave him the victory.... The air reverberates with a clapping +of hands so loud that at the remotest point on the canal the moment of +triumph is known. The victors plant on their agile boat the conquered +flag, and instead of thinking to rest their weary arms, take up the oars +again and retrace their course to receive congratulations and applause.” + +The regattas were by no means of frequent occurrence, for only forty-one +took place during some five centuries. The first was given in 1315, +and the last in 1857, in honor of the luckless Archduke Maximilian’s +marriage with Princess Charlotte of Belgium. The most sumptuous and +magnificent regatta of all was that given to the city in the year 1686, +by Duke Ernest of Brunswick. This excellent prince having sold a great +part of his subjects to the Republic for use in its wars against +the Turk, generously spent their price in the costly and edifying +entertainments of which Venice had already become the scene. The +Judgment of Paris, and the Triumph of the Marine Goddesses had been +represented at his expense on the Grand Canal, with great acceptance. +And now the Triumph of Neptune formed a principal feature in the +gayeties of his regatta. Nearly the whole of the salt-water mythology +was employed in the ceremony. An immense wooden whale supporting a +structure of dolphins and Tritons, surmounted by a statue of Neptune, +and drawn by sea-horses, moved from the Piazzetta to the Palazzo +Foscari, where numbers of Sirens sported about in every direction till +the Regatta began. The whole company of the deities, very splendidly +arrayed, then joined them as spectators, and behaved in the manner +affected by gods and goddesses on these occasions. Mutinelli [Footnote: +_Annali Urbani._] recounts the story with many sighs and sneers and +great exactness; but it is not interesting. The miraculous recovery of +the body of St. Mark, in 1094, after it had been lost for nearly two +centuries, created a festive anniversary which was celebrated for a +while with great religious pomp; but the rejoicings were not separately +continued in after years. The festival was consolidated (if one may +so speak) with two others in honor of the same saint, and the triple +occasions were commemorated by a single holiday. The holidays annually +distinguished by civil or ecclesiastical displays were twenty-five in +number, of which only eleven were of religious origin, though all were +of partly religious observance. One of the most curious and interesting +of the former was of the earliest date, and was continued till the last +years of the Republic. In 596 Narses, the general of the Greek Emperor, +was furnished by the Venetians with means of transport by sea from +Aquileja to Ravenna for the army which he was leading against the +Ostrogoths; and he made a vow that if successful in his campaign, he +would requite their generosity by erecting two churches in Venice. +Accordingly, when he had beaten the Ostrogoths, he caused two votive +churches to be built,--one to St. Theodore, on the site of the present +St. Mark’s Church, and another to San Geminiano, on the opposite bank +of the canal which then flowed there. In lapse of time the citizens, +desiring to enlarge their Piazza, removed the church of San Geminiano +back as far as the present Fabbrica Nuova, which Napoleon built on the +site of the demolished temple, between the western ends of the New and +Old Procuratie. The removal was effected without the pope’s leave, which +had been asked, but was refused in these words,--“The Holy Father +cannot sanction the commission of a sacrilege, though he can pardon +it afterwards.” The pontiff, therefore, imposed on the Venetians for +penance that the Doge should pay an annual visit forever to the church. +On the occasion of this visit the parish priest met him at the door, +and offered the holy water to him; and then the Doge, having assisted +at mass, marched with his Signory and the clergy of the church to its +original site, where the clergy demanded that it should be rebuilt, and +the Doge replied with the promise,--“Next year.” A red stone was set +in the pavement to mark the spot where the Doge renewed this +never-fulfilled promise. [Footnote: As the author of the _Feste +Veneziane_ tells this story it is less dramatic and characteristic. The +clergy, she says, reminded the Doge of the occasion of his visit, and +his obligation to renew it the following year, which he promised to do. +I cling to the version in the text, for it seems to me that the Doge’s +perpetual promise to rebuild the church was a return in kind for the +pope’s astute answer to the petition asking him to allow its removal. So +good a thing ought to be history.] The old church was destroyed by fire, +and Sansovino built, in 1506, the temple thrown down by Napoleon to make +room for his palace. + +The 31st of January, on which day in 828 the body of St. Mark was +brought from Alexandria to Venice, is still observed, though the +festival has lost all the splendor which it received from civil +intervention. For a thousand years the day was hallowed by a solemn mass +in St. Mark’s, at which the Doge and his Signory assisted. + +The chief of the State annually paid a number of festive visits, which +were made the occasion of as many holidays. To the convent of San +Zaccaria he went in commemoration of the visit paid to that retreat by +Pope Benedict III., in 855, when the pontiff was so charmed by the piety +and goodness of the fair nuns, that, after his return to Rome, he sent +them great store of relics and indulgences. It thus became one of the +most popular of the holidays, and the people repaired in great multitude +with their Doge to the convent, on each recurrence of the day, that +they might see the relics and buy the indulgences. The nuns were of the +richest and noblest families of the city, and on the Doge’s first visit, +they presented him with that bonnet which became the symbol of his +sovereignty. It was wrought of pure gold, and set with precious stones +of marvelous great beauty and value; and in order that the State might +never seem forgetful of the munificence which bestowed the gift, the +bonnet was annually taken from the treasury and shown by the Doge +himself to the Sisters of San Zaccaria. The Doge Pietro Tradonico, +to whom the bonnet was given, was killed in a popular tumult on this +holiday, while going to the convent. + +There was likewise a vast concourse of people and traffic in indulgences +at the church of Santa Maria della Carita (now the Academy of Fine +Arts), on the anniversary of the day when Pope Alexander III., in 1177, +flying from the Emperor Barbarossa, found refuge in that monastery. +[Footnote: Selvatico and Lazari in their admirable _Guida Artistica e +Storica di Veneza_, say that the pope merely lodged in the monastery on +the day when he signed the treaty of peace with Barbarossa.] He bestowed +great privileges upon it, and the Venetians honored the event to the end +of their national existence. + +One of the rare occasions during the year when the Doge appeared +officially in public after nightfall, was on St. Stephen’s Day. He then +repaired at dusk in his gilded barge, with splendid attendance of nobles +and citizens, to the island church of San Giorgio Maggiore, whither, in +1009, the body of St. Stephen was brought from Constantinople. On the +first of May the Doge visited the Convent of the Virgins, (the convent +building now forms part of the Arsenal,) where the abbess presented +him with a bouquet, and graceful and pleasing ceremonies took place in +commemoration of the erection and endowment of the church. The head of +the State also annually assisted at mass in St. Mark’s, to celebrate the +arrival in Venice of St. Isidore’s body, which the Doge Domenico Michiel +brought with him from the East, at the end of twenty-six years’ war +against the infidels; and, finally, after the year 1485, when the +Venetians stole the bones of San Rocco from the Milanese, and deposited +them in the newly finished Scuola di San Rocco, a ducal visit was +annually paid to that edifice. + +Two only of the national religious festivals yet survive the +Republic,--that of the church of the Redentore on the Giudecca, and that +of the church of the Salute on the Grand Canal,--both votive churches, +built in commemoration of the city’s deliverances from the pest in 1578 +and 1630. In their general features the celebrations of the two holidays +are much alike; but that of the Salute is the less important of the two, +and is more entirely religious in its character. A bridge of boats +is annually thrown across the Canalazzo, and on the day of the +Purification, the people throng to the Virgin’s shrine to express their +gratitude for her favor. This gratitude was so strong immediately after +the cessation of the pest in 1630, that the Senate, while the architects +were preparing their designs for the present church, caused a wooden +one to be built on its site, and consecrated with ceremonies of singular +splendor. On the Festa del Redentore (the third Sunday of July) a bridge +of boats crosses the great canal of the Giudecca, and vast throngs +constantly pass it, day and night. But though the small tradesmen who +deal in fried cakes, and in apples, peaches, pears, and other fruits, +make intolerable uproar behind their booths on the long quay before the +church; though the venders of mulberries (for which the gardens of the +Giudecca are famous) fill the air with their sweet jargoning (for +their cries are like the shrill notes of so many singing-birds); though +thousands of people pace up and down, and come and go upon the bridge, +yet the Festa del Redentore has now none of the old-time gayety it wore +when the Venetians thronged the gardens, and feasted, sang, danced, +and flirted the night away, and at dawn went in their fleets of +many-lanterned boats, covering the lagoon with fairy light, to behold +the sunrise on the Adriatic Sea. + +Besides the religious festivals mentioned, there were five banquets +annually given by the State on the several days of St. Mark, St. Vitus, +St. Jerome, and St. Stephen, and the Day of the Ascension, all of which +were attended with religious observances. Good Friday was especially +hallowed by church processions in each of the campos; and St. Martha’s +Day was occasion for junketings on the Giudecca Canal, when a favorite +fish, being in season, was devotionally eaten. + +The civil and political holidays which lasted till the fall of the +Republic were eleven. One of the earliest was the anniversary of +the recapture of the Venetian Brides, who were snatched from their +bridegrooms, at the altar of San Pietro di Castello, by Triestine +pirates. The class of citizens most distinguished in the punishment +of the abductors was the trade of carpenters, who lived chiefly in the +parish of Santa Maria Formosa; and when the Doge in his gratitude bade +them demand any reasonable grace, the trade asked that he should pay +their quarter an annual visit. “But if it rains?” said the Doge. “We +will give you a hat to cover you,” answered the carpenters. “And if I am +hungry?” “We will give you to eat and drink.” So when the Doge made his +visit on the day of the Virgin’s Purification, he was given a hat of +gilded straw, a bottle of wine, and loaves of bread. On this occasion +the State bestowed dowers upon twelve young girls among the fairest and +best of Venice (chosen two from each of the six sections of the city), +who marched in procession to the church of Santa Maria Formosa. But as +time passed, the custom lost its simplicity and purity: pretty girls +were said to make eyes at handsome youths in the crowd, and scandals +occurred in public. Twelve wooden figures were then substituted, but the +procession in which they were carried was followed by a disgusted +and hooting populace, and assailed with a shower of turnips. +The festivities, which used to last eight days, with incredible +magnificence, fell into discredit, and were finally abolished during the +war when the Genoese took Chioggia and threatened Venice, under Doria. +This was the famous Festa delle Marie. + +In 997 the Venetians beat the Narentines at sea, and annexed all Istria, +as far as Dalmatia, to the Republic. On the day of the Ascension, of +the same year, the Doge, for the first time, celebrated the dominion of +Venice over the Adriatic, though it was not till some two hundred years +later that the Pope Alexander III. blessed the famous espousals, and +confirmed the Republic in the possession of the sea forever. “What,” + cries Giustina Renier-Michiel, turning to speak of the holiday +thus established, and destined to be the proudest in the Venetian +calendar,--“what shall I say of the greatest of all our solemnities, +that of the Ascension? Alas! I myself saw Frenchmen and Venetians, full +of derision and insult, combine to dismantle the Bucintoro and burn it +for the gold upon it!” [Footnote: That which follows is a translation +of the report given by Cesare Cantù, in his _Grande Illustrazione +del Lombardo-Veneto_, of a conversation with the author of _Feste +Veneziane_. It is not necessary to remind readers of Venetian history +that Renier and Michiel were of the foremost names in the Golden Book. +She who bore them both was born before the fall of the Republic which +she so much loved and lamented, and no doubt felt more than the grief +she expresses for the fate of the last Bucintoro. It was destroyed, as +she describes, in 1796, by the French Republicans and Venetian Democrats +after the abdication of the oligarchy; but a fragment of its mast yet +remains, and is to be seen in the museum of the Arsenal.].... (This +was the nuptial-ship in which the Doge went to wed the sea, and the +patriotic lady tells us concerning the Bucintoro of her day): “It was +in the form of a galley, and two hundred feet long, with two decks. +The first of these was occupied by an hundred and sixty rowers, the +handsomest and strongest of the fleet, who sat four men to each oar, and +there awaited their orders; forty other sailors completed the crew. The +upper deck was divided lengthwise by a partition, pierced with arched +doorways, ornamented with gilded figures, and covered with a roof +supported by caryatides--the whole surmounted by a canopy of crimson +velvet embroidered with gold. Under this were ninety seats, and at the +stern a still richer chamber for the Doge’s throne, over which drooped +the banner of St. Mark. The prow was double-beaked, and the sides of +the vessel were enriched with figures of Justice, Peace, Sea, Land, and +other allegories and ornaments. + +“Let me imagine those times--it is the habit of the old. At midday, +having heard mass in the chapel of the Collegio, the Doge descends the +Giant’s Stairs, issues from the Porta della Carta, [Footnote: The gate +of the Ducal Palace which opens upon the Piazzetta next St. Mark’s.] and +passes the booths of the mercers and glass-venders erected for the fair +beginning that evening. He is preceded by eight standard-bearers with +the flags of the Republic,--red, blue, white, and purple,--given by +Alexander III. to the Doge Ziani. Six trumpets of silver, borne by as +many boys, mix their notes with the clangor of the bells of the city. +Behind come the retinues of the ambassadors in sumptuous liveries, and +the fifty Comandadori in their flowing blue robes and red caps; then +follow musicians, and the squires of the Doge in black velvet; then the +guards of the Doge, two chancellors, the secretary of the Pregadi, a +deacon clad in purple and bearing a wax taper, six canons, three parish +priests in their sacerdotal robes, and the Doge’s chaplain dressed +in crimson. The grand chancellor is known by his crimson vesture. Two +squires bear the Doge’s chair and the cushion of cloth of gold. And +the Doge--the representative, and not the master of his country; the +executor, and not the maker of the laws; citizen and prince, revered and +guarded, sovereign of individuals, servant of the State--comes clad in +a long mantle of ermine, cassock of blue, and vest and hose of _tocca +d’oro_ [Footnote: A gauze of gold and silk.] with the golden bonnet on +his head, under the umbrella borne by a squire, and surrounded by the +foreign ambassadors and the papal nuncio, while his drawn sword is +carried by a patrician recently destined for some government of land or +sea, and soon to depart upon his mission. In the rear comes a throng of +personages,--the grand captain of the city, the judges, the three chiefs +of the Forty, the Avogodori, the three chiefs of the Council of Ten, +the three censors, and the sixty of the Senate with the sixty of the +Aggiunta, all in robes of crimson silk. + +“On the Bucintoro, each takes the post assigned him, and the prince +ascends the throne. The Admiral of the Arsenal and the Lido stands in +front as pilot; at the helm is the Admiral of Malamacco, and around him +the ship-carpenters of the Arsenal. The Bucintoro, amid redoubled clamor +of bells and roar of cannon, quits the riva and majestically plows the +lagoon, surrounded by innumerable boats of every form and size. + +“The Patriarch, who had already sent several vases of flowers to do +courtesy to the company in the Bucintoro, joins them at the island of +Sant’ Elena, and sprinkles their course with holy water. So they reach +the port of Lido, whence they formerly issued out upon the open sea; +but in my time they paused there, turning the stern of the vessel to the +sea. Then the Doge, amid the thunders of the artillery of the fort, took +the ring blessed by the Patriarch,--who now emptied a cup of holy water +into the sea,--and, advancing into a little gallery behind his throne, +threw the ring into the waves, pronouncing the words, _Desponsamus te, +mare, in signum veri perpetuique dominii_. Proceeding then to the +church of San Nicoletto, they listened to a solemn mass, and returned to +Venice, where the dignitaries were entertained at a banquet, while +the multitude peacefully dispersed among the labyrinths of the booths +erected for the fair.” [Footnote: One of the sops thrown to the populace +on this occasion, as we learn from Mutinelli, was the admission to the +train of gilded barges following the Bucintoro of a boat bearing +the chief of the Nicolotti, one of the factions into which from time +immemorial the lower classes of Venice had been divided. The distinction +between the two parties seems to have been purely geographical; for +there is no apparent reason why a man should have belonged to the +Castellani except that he lived in the eastern quarter of the city, +or to the Nicolotti, except that he lived in the western quarter. The +government encouraged a rivalry not dangerous to itself, and for a long +time the champions of the two sections met annually and beat each other +with rods. The form of contest was afterwards modified, and became a +struggle for the possession of certain bridges, in which the defeated +were merely thrown into the canals. I often passed the scene of the +fiercest of these curious battles at San Barnaba, where the Ponte de +Pugni is adorned with four feet of stone let into the pavement, and +defying each other from the four corners of the bridge. Finally, even +these contests were given up and the Castellani and Nicolotti spent +their rivalry in marvelous acrobatic feats.] This fair, which was +established as early as 1180, was an industrial exhibition of the +arts and trades peculiar to Venice, and was repeated annually, with +increasing ostentation, till the end, in 1796. Indeed, the feasts of the +Republic at last grew so numerous that it became necessary, as we have +seen before, to make a single holiday pay a double or triple debt of +rejoicing. When the Venetians recovered Chioggia after the terrible war +of 1380, the Senate refused to yield them another _festa_, and merely +ordered that St. Mark’s Day should be thereafter observed with some +added ceremony: there was already one festival commemorative of a +triumph over the Genoese (that of San Giovanni Decollate, on whose day, +in 1358, the Venetians beat the Genoese at Negroponte), and the Senate +declared that this was sufficient. A curious custom, however, on the +Sunday after Ascension, celebrated a remoter victory over the same +enemies, to which it is hard to attach any historic probability. It +is not known exactly when the Genoese in immense force penetrated to +Poveglia (one of the small islands of the lagoons), nor why being there +they stopped to ask the islanders the best way of getting to Venice. +But tradition says that the sly Povegliesi persuaded these silly Genoese +that the best method of navigating the lagoons was by means of rafts, +which they constructed for them, and on which they sent them afloat. +About the time the Venetians came out to meet the armada, the withes +binding the members of the rafts gave way, and the Genoese who were not +drowned in the tides stuck in the mud, and were cut in pieces like so +many melons. No one will be surprised to learn that not a soul of them +escaped, and that only the Povegliesi lived to tell the tale. Special +and considerable privileges were conferred on them for their part in +this exploit, and were annually confirmed by the Doge, when a deputation +of the islanders called on him in his palace, and hugged and kissed the +devoted prince. + +People who _will_ sentimentalize over the pigeons of St. Mark’s, may +like to know that they have been settled in the city ever since 877. +After the religious services on Palm Sunday, it was anciently the custom +of the sacristans of St. Mark’s to release doves fettered with fragments +of paper, and thus partly disabled from flight, for the people to +scramble for in the Piazza. The people fatted such of the birds as they +caught, and ate them at Easter, but those pigeons which escaped took +refuge in the roof of the church, where they gradually assumed a certain +sacredness of character, and increased to enormous numbers. They were +fed by provision of the Republic, and being neglected at the time of its +fall, many of them were starved. But they now flourish on a bequest left +by a pious lady for their maintenance, and on the largess of grain +and polenta constantly bestowed by strangers. Besides the holidays +mentioned, the 6th of December was religiously observed in honor of the +taking of Constantinople, the Doge assisting at mass in the ducal chapel +of St. Nicholas. He also annually visited, with his Signory in the state +barges, and with great concourse of people, the church of San Vito +on the 15th of June, in memory of the change of the government from a +democracy to an oligarchy, and of the suppression of Bajamonte Tiepolo’s +conspiracy. On St. Isidore’s Day he went with his Signory, and the +religious confraternities, in torchlight procession, to hear mass at St. +Mark’s in celebration of the failure of Marin Falier’s plot. On the 17th +of January he visited by water the hospital erected for invalid soldiers +and sailors, and thus commemorated the famous defence of Scutari +against the Turks, in 1413. For the peace of 1516, concluded after the +dissolution of the League of Cambray, he went in his barge to the +church of Santa Marina, who had potently exerted her influence for the +preservation of the Republic against allied France, Austria, Spain, and +Rome. On St. Jerome’s Day, when the newly-elected members of the Council +of Ten took their seats, the Doge entertained them with a banquet, and +there were great popular rejoicings over an affair in which the people +had no interest. + +It is by a singular caprice of fortune that, while not only all the +Venetian holidays in anywise connected with the glory of the Republic, +but also those which peculiarly signalized her piety and gratitude, have +ceased to be, a festival common to the whole Catholic world should still +be observed in Venice with extraordinary display. On the day of Corpus +Christi there is a superb ecclesiastical procession in the Piazza. + +The great splendor of the solemnization is said to date from the times +when Enrico Dandolo and his fellow-Crusaders so far forgot their purpose +of taking Palestine from the infidels as to take Constantinople from the +schismatics. Up to that period the day of Corpus Christi was honored by +a procession from what was then the Cathedral of San Pietro di Castello; +but now all the thirty parishes of the city, with their hundred +churches, have part in the procession, which is of such great length as +to take some two hours in its progress round the Piazza. + +Several days before the holiday workmen begin to build, within the Place +of St. Mark, the colonnade through which the procession is to pass; they +roof it with blue cotton cloth, and adorn it with rolls of pasteboard +representing garlands of palm. At last, on the festive morning, +the dwellers on the Grand Canal are drawn to their balconies by the +apparition of boat-loads of facchini, gorgeous in scarlet robes, +and bearing banners, painted candles, and other movable elements of +devotion, with which they pass to the Piazzetta, and thence into St. +Mark’s. They re-appear presently, and, with a guard of Austrian troops +to clear the way before them, begin their march under the canopy of the +colonnade. + +When you have seen the Place of St. Mark by night your eye has tasted +its most delicate delight, but then it is the delight given by a +memory only, and it touches you with sadness. You must see the Piazza +to-day,--every window fluttering with rich stuffs and vivid colors; the +three great flag staffs [Footnote: Once bearing the standards of Cyprus, +Candia, and Venice.] hanging their heavy flags; the brilliant square +alive with a holiday population, with resplendent uniforms, with Italian +gesture and movement, and that long glittering procession, bearing +slowly on the august paraphernalia of the Church--you must see all this +before you can enter into the old heart of Venetian magnificence, and +feel its life about you. + +To-day, the ancient church of San Pietro di Castello comes first in the +procession, and, with a proud humility, the Basilica San Marco last. +Before each parochial division goes a banner displaying the picture +or distinctive device of its titular saint, under the shadow of which +chants a priest; there are the hosts of the different churches, and +the gorgeous canopies under which they are elevated; then come facchini +dressed in scarlet and bearing the painted candles, or the long +carved and gilded candlesticks; and again facchini delicately robed +in vestments of the purest white linen, with caps of azure, green, and +purple, and shod with sandals or white shoes, carrying other apparatus +of worship. Each banner and candlestick has a fluttering leaf of tinsel +paper attached to it, and the procession makes a soft rustling as +it passes. The matter-of-fact character of the external Church walks +between those symbolists, the candle-bearers,--in the form of persons +who gather the dropping fatness of the candles, and deposit it in a vase +carried for that purpose. Citizens march in the procession with candles; +and there are charity-schools which also take part, and sing in the +harsh, shrill manner, of which I think only little boys who have their +heads closely shorn are capable. + +On all this we looked down from a window of the Old Procuratie--of +course with that calm sense of superiority which people are apt to have +in regarding the solemnities of a religion different from their own. +But that did not altogether prevent us from enjoying what was really +beautiful and charming in the scene. I thought most of the priests, very +good and gentle looking,--and in all respects they were much pleasanter +to the eye than the monks of the Carmelite order, who, in shaving their +heads to simulate the Saviour’s crown of thorns, produce a hideous +burlesque of the divine humiliation. Yet many even of these had earnest +and sincere faces, and I could not think so much as I ought, perhaps, of +their idle life, and the fleas in their coarse brown cloaks. I confess, +indeed, I felt rather a sadness than an indignation at all that +self-sacrifice to an end of which I could but dimly see the usefulness. +With some things in this grand spectacle we were wholly charmed, and +doubtless had most delight in the little child who personated John the +Baptist, and who was quite naked, but for a fleece folded about him: he +bore the cross-headed staff in one small hand, and led with the other +a lamb much tied up with blue ribbon. Here and there in the procession +little girls, exquisitely dressed, and gifted by fond mothers with wings +and aureoles, walked, scattering flowers. I likewise greatly relished +the lively holiday air of a company of airy old men, the pensioners of +some charity, who, in their white linen trousers and blue coats, formed +a prominent feature of the display. Far from being puffed up with their +consequence, they gossiped cheerfully with the spectators in the pauses +of the march, and made jests to each other in that light-hearted, +careless way observable in old men taken care of, and with nothing +before them to do worth speaking of but to die. I must own that the +honest facchini who bore the candles were equally affable, and even +freer with their jokes. But in this they formed a fine contrast to here +and there a closely hooded devotee, who, with hidden face and silent +lips, was carrying a taper for religion, and not, like them, for money. +I liked the great good-natured crowd, so orderly and amiable; and I +enjoyed even that old citizen in the procession who, when the Patriarch +gave his blessing, found it inconvenient to kneel, and compromised by +stretching one leg a great way out behind him. These things, indeed, +quite took my mind off of the splendors; and I let the canopy of the +Scuola di San Rocco (worth 40,000 ducats) go by with scarce a glance, +and did not bestow much more attention upon the brilliant liveries of +the Patriarch’s servants,--though the appearance of these ecclesiastical +flunkies is far more impressive than that of any of their secular +brethren. They went gorgeously before the Patriarch, who was surrounded +by the richly dressed clergy of St. Mark’s, and by clouds of incense +rising from the smoking censers. He walked under the canopy in his +cardinal’s robes, and with his eye fixed upon the Host. + +All at once the procession halted, and the Patriarch blessed the crowd, +which knelt in a profound silence. Then the military band before him +struck up an air from “Un Ballo in Maschera;” the procession moved on to +the cathedral, and the crowd melted away. + +The once-magnificent day of the Ascension the Venetians now honor by +closing all shop-doors behind them and putting all thought of labor +out of their minds, and going forth to enjoy themselves in the mild, +inexplosive fashion which seems to satisfy Italian nature. It is the +same on all the feast-days: then the city sinks into profounder quiet; +only bells are noisy, and where their clangor is so common as in +Venice, it seems at last to make friends with the general stillness, and +disturbs none but people of untranquil minds. We always go to the Piazza +San Marco when we seek pleasure, and now, for eight days only of all the +year, we have there the great spectacle of the Adoration of the Magi, +performed every hour by automata within the little golden-railed gallery +on the facade of the Giant’s Clock Tower. There the Virgin sits above +the azure circle of the zodiac, all heavily gilded, and holding the +Child, equally splendid. Through the doors on either side, usually +occupied by the illuminated figures of the hours, appears the procession +and disappears. The stately giant on the summit of the tower, at the +hither side of the great bell, solemnly strikes the hour--as a giant +should who has struck it for centuries--with a grand, whole-arm +movement, and a slow, muscular pride. We look up--we tourists of the +red-backed books; we peasant-girls radiant with converging darts of +silver piercing the masses of our thick black hair; we Austrian soldiers +in white coats and blue tights; we voiceful sellers of the cherries +of Padua, and we calm loafers about the many-pillared base of the +church--we look up and see the Adoration. First, the trumpeter, blowing +the world news of the act; then the first king, turning softly to the +Virgin, and bowing; then the second, that enthusiastic devotee,--the +second who lifts his crown quite from his head; last the Ethiopian +prince, gorgeous in green and gold, who, I am sorry to say, burlesques +the whole solemnity. His devotion may be equally heart-felt, but it is +more jerky than that of the others. He bows well and adequately, but +recovers his balance with a prodigious start, altogether too suggestive +of springs and wheels. Perhaps there is a touch of the pathetic in this +grotesque fatality of the black king, whose suffering race has always +held mankind between laughter and tears, and has seldom done a fine +thing without leaving somewhere the neutralizing absurdity; but if +there is, the sentimental may find it, not I. When the procession has +disappeared, we wait till the other giant has struck the hour, and then +we disperse. + +If it is six o’clock, and the sea has begun to breathe cool across the +Basin of St. Mark, we find our account in strolling upon the long Riva +degli Schiavoni towards the Public Gardens. One would suppose, at first +thought, that here, on this magnificent quay, with its glorious lookout +over the lagoons, the patricians would have built their finest palaces; +whereas there is hardly any thing but architectural shabbiness from the +Ponte della Paglia at one end, to the Ponte Santa Marina at the other. +But there need be nothing surprising in the fact, after all. The feudal +wealth and nobility of other cities kept the base at a respectful +distance by means of lofty stone walls, and so shut in their palaces and +gardens. Here equal seclusion could only be achieved by building flush +upon the water, and therefore all the finest palaces rise sheer from +the canals; and caffè, shops, barracks, and puppet-shows occupy the +Riva degli Schiavoni. Nevertheless, it is the favorite promenade of the +Venetians for the winter sunshine, and at such times in the summer as +when the sun’s rage is tempered. There is always variety in the throng +on the Riva, but the fashionable part of it is the least interesting: +here and there a magnificent Greek flashes through the crowd, in +dazzling white petticoats and gold-embroidered leggings and jacket; +now and then a tall Dalmat or a solemn Turk; even the fishermen and +the peasants, and the lower orders of the people, are picturesque; but +polite Venice is hopelessly given to the pride of the eyes, and commits +all the excesses of the French modes. The Venetian dandy, when dressed +to his own satisfaction, is the worst-dressed man in the world. His +hat curls outrageously in brim and sides; his coatsleeves are extremely +full, and the garment pinches him at the waist; his pantaloons flow +forth from the hips, and contract narrowly at the boot, which is +square-toed and made too long. The whole effect is something not to +be seen elsewhere, and is well calculated to move the beholder to +desperation. [Footnote: These exaggerations of the fashions of 1862 have +been succeeded by equal travesties of the present modes.] The Venetian +fine lady, also, is prone to be superfine. Her dress is as full of color +as a Paolo Veronese; in these narrow streets, where it is hard to expand +an umbrella, she exaggerates hoops to the utmost; and she fatally hides +her ankles in pantalets. + +In the wide thoroughfare leading from the last bridge of the Riva to the +gate of the gardens there is always a clapping of wooden shoes on the +stones, a braying of hand-organs, a shrieking of people who sell fish +and fruit, at once insufferable and indescribable. The street is a _rio +terrà_,--a filled-up canal,--and, as always happens with _rii terrai_, +is abandoned to the poorest classes who manifest themselves, as the +poorest classes are apt to do always, in groups of frowzy women, small +girls carrying large babies, beggars, of course, and soldiers. I spoke +of fruit-sellers; but in this quarter the traffic in pumpkin-seeds is +the most popular,--the people finding these an inexpensive and pleasant +excess, when taken with a glass of water flavored with anise. + +The Gardens were made by Napoleon, who demolished to that end some +monasteries once cumbering the ground. They are pleasant enough, and +are not gardens at all, but a park of formally-planted trees--sycamores, +chiefly. I do not remember to have seen here any Venetians of the better +class, except on the Mondays-of-the-Garden, in September. Usually the +promenaders are fishermen, Austrian corporals, loutish youth of +low degree, and women too old and too poor to have any thing to do. +Strangers go there, and the German visitors even drink the exceptionable +beer which is sold in the wooden cottage on the little hillock at the +end of the Gardens. There is also a stable--where are the only horses +in Venice. They are let at a florin an hour, and I do not know why the +riders are always persons of the Hebrew faith. In a word, nothing can be +drearier than the company in the Gardens, and nothing lovelier than the +view they command,--from the sunset on the dome of the church of the +Salute, all round the broad sweep of lagoon, to the tower at the port of +San Nicolò, where you catch a glimpse of the Adriatic. + +The company is commonly stupid, but one evening, as we strolled idly +through the walks, we came upon an interesting group--forty or fifty +sailors, soldiers, youth of the people, gray-haired fishermen and +contadini--sitting and lying on the grass, and listening with rapt +attention to an old man reclining against a tree. I never saw a manner +of sweeter or easier dignity than the speaker’s. Nature is so lavish of +her grace to these people that grow near her heart--the sun! Infinite +study could not have taught one northern-born the charm of oratory as +this old man displayed it. I listened, and heard that he was speaking +Tuscan. Do you guess with what he was enchanting his simple auditors? +Nothing less than “Orlando Furioso.” They listened with the hungriest +delight, and when Ariosto’s interpreter raised his finger and said, +“Disse l’imperatore,” or, “Orlando disse, Carlomano mio,” they hardly +breathed. + +On the _Lunedì dei Giardini_, already mentioned, all orders of the +people flock thither, and promenade, and banquet on the grass. The trees +get back the voices of their dryads, and the children fill the aisles +with glancing movement and graceful sport. + +Of course, the hand-organ seeks here its proper element, the +populace,--but here it brays to a peculiarly beautiful purpose. For +no sooner does it sound than the young girls of the people wreathe +themselves into dances, and improvise the poetry of motion. Over the +grass they whirl, and up and down the broad avenues, and no one of all +the gentle and peaceable crowd molests or makes them afraid. It is a +scene to make you believe in Miriam dancing with Donatello there in that +old garden at Rome, and reveals a simple beauty in the nature of the +Italian poor, which shall one day, I hope, be counted in their favor +when they are called to answer for lying and swindling. + + + +CHAPTER XVIII. + +CHRISTMAS HOLIDAYS. + + +It often happens, even after the cold has announced itself in +Venice, that the hesitating winter lingers in the Tyrol, and a mellow +Indian-summer weather has possession of the first weeks of December. +There was nothing in the December weather of 1863 to remind us +Northerners that Christmas was coming. The skies were as blue as those +of June, the sun was warm, and the air was bland, with only now and then +a trenchant breath from the Alps, coming like a delicate sarcasm from +loveliness unwilling to be thought insipidly amiable. But if there was +no warning in the weather, there were other signs of Christmas-time +not to be mistaken: a certain foolish leaping of the heart in one’s +own breast, as if the dead raptures of childhood were stirred in their +graves by the return of the happy season; and in Venice, in weary, +forlorn Venice, there was the half-unconscious tumult, the expectant +bustle which cities feel at the approach of holidays. The little shops +put on their gayest airs; there was a great clapping and hammering +on the stalls and booths which were building in the campos; the +street-cries were more shrill and resonant than ever, and the air was +shaken with the continual clangor of the church bells. All this note of +preparation is rather bewildering to strangers, and is apt to disorder +the best-disciplined intentions of seeing Christmas as the Venetians +keep it. The public observance of the holiday in the churches and on the +streets is evident and accessible to the most transient sojourner; +but it is curious proof of the difficulty of knowledge concerning the +in-door life and usages of the Italians, that I had already spent +two Christmases in Venice without learning any thing of their home +celebration of the day. Perhaps a degree of like difficulty attends like +inquiry everywhere, for the happiness of Christmas contracts the +family circle more exclusively than ever around the home hearth, or the +domestic scaldino, as the case may be. But, at any rate, I was quite +ready to say that the observance of Christmas in Venice was altogether +public, when I thought it a measure of far-sighted prudence to consult +my barber. + +In all Latin countries the barber is a source of information, which, +skillfully tapped, pours forth in a stream of endless gossip and local +intelligence. Every man talks with his barber; and perhaps a lingering +dignity clings to this artist from his former profession of surgeon: +it is certain the barber here prattles on with a freedom and importance +perfectly admitted and respected by the interlocutory count under his +razor. Those who care to know how things passed in an Italian barber +shop three hundred years ago, may read it in Miss Evans’s “Romola;” + those who are willing to see Nello alive and carrying on his art in +Venice at this day, must go to be shaved at his shop in the Frezzaria. +Here there is a continual exchange of gossip, and I have often listened +with profit to the sage and piquant remarks of the head barber and chief +_ciarlone_, on the different events of human life brought to his notice. +His shop is well known as a centre of scandal, and I have heard a fair +Venetian declare that she had cut from her list all acquaintance who +go there, as persons likely to become infected with the worst habits of +gossip. + +To this Nello, however, I used to go only when in the most brilliant +humor for listening, and my authority on Christmas observances is +another and humbler barber, but not less a babbler, than the first. By +birth, I believe, he is a Mantuan, and he prides himself on speaking +Italian instead of Venetian. He has a defective eye, which obliges him +to tack before bringing his razor to bear, but which is all the more +favorable to conversation. On the whole, he is flattered to be asked +about Christmas in Venice, and he first tells me that it is one of the +chief holidays of the year:-- + +“It is then, Signore, that the Venetians have the custom to make three +sorts of peculiar presents: Mustard, Fish, and Mandorlato. You must have +seen the mustard in the shop windows: it is a thick conserve of fruits, +flavored with mustard; and the mandorlato is a candy made of honey, and +filled with almonds. Well, they buy fish, as many as they will, and a +vase of mustard, and a box of mandorlato, and make presents of them, one +family to another, the day before Christmas. It is not too much for a +rich family to present a hundred boxes of mandorlato and as many pots of +mustard. These are exchanged between friends in the city, and Venetians +also send them to acquaintance in the country, whence the gift is +returned in cakes and eggs at Easter. Christmas Eve people invite each +other to great dinners, and eat and drink, and make merry; but there +are only fish and vegetables, for it is a meagre day, and meats are +forbidden. This dinner lasts so long that, when it is over, it is almost +time to so to midnight mass, which all must attend, or else hear three +masses on the morrow; and no doubt it was some delinquent who made our +saying,--‘Long as a Christmas mass.’ On Christmas Day people dine at +home, keeping the day with family reunions. But the day after! Ah-heigh! +That is the first of Carnival, and all the theatres are opened, and +there is no end to the amusements--or was not, in the old time. Now, +they never begin. A week later comes the day of the Lord’s Circumcision, +and then the next holiday is Easter. The Nativity, the Circumcision, and +the Resurrection--behold! these are the three mysteries of the Christian +faith. Of what religion are the Americans, Signore?” + +I think I was justified in answering that we were Christians. My barber +was politely surprised. “But there are so many different religions,” he +said, in excuse. + +On the afternoon before Christmas I walked through the thronged Merceria +to the Rialto Bridge, where the tumultuous mart which opens at Piazza +San Marco culminates in a deafening uproar of bargains. At this time the +Merceria, or street of the shops, presents the aspect of a fair, and is +arranged with a tastefulness and a cunning ability to make the most of +every thing, which are seldom applied to the abundance of our fairs at +home. The shops in Venice are all very small, and the streets of lofty +houses are so narrow and dark, that whatever goods are not exposed +in the shop-windows are brought to the door to be clamored over by +purchasers; so that the Merceria is roused by unusual effort to produce +a more pronounced effect of traffic and noise than it always wears; but +now the effort had been made and the effect produced. The street was +choked with the throngs, through which all sorts of peddlers battled +their way and cried their wares. In Campo San Bartolomeo, into which +the Merceria expands, at the foot of Rialto Bridge, holiday traffic +had built enormous barricades of stalls, and entrenched itself behind +booths, whence purchasers were assailed with challenges to buy bargains. +More than half the campo was paved with crockery from Rovigo and +glass-ware from Murano; clothing of every sort, and all kinds of small +household wares, were offered for sale; and among the other booths, in +the proportion of two to one, were stalls of the inevitable Christmas +mustard and mandorlato. + +But I cared rather for the crowd than what the crowd cared for. I had +been long ago obliged to throw aside my preconceived notions of the +Italian character, though they were not, I believe, more absurd than the +impressions of others who have never studied Italian character in Italy. +I hardly know what of bacchantic joyousness I had not attributed to them +on their holidays: a people living in a mild climate under such a lovely +sky, with wine cheap and abundant, might not unreasonably have been +expected to put on a show of the greatest jollity when enjoying +themselves. Venetian crowds are always perfectly gentle and kindly, but +they are also as a whole usually serious; and this Christmas procession, +moving up and down the Merceria, and to and fro between the markets of +Rialto, was in the fullest sense a solemnity. It is true that the scene +was dramatic, but the drama was not consciously comic. Whether these +people bought or sold, or talked together, or walked up and down in +silence, they were all equally in earnest. The crowd, in spite of its +noisy bustle and passionate uproar, did not seem to me a blithe or +light-hearted crowd. Its sole activity was that of traffic, for, far +more dearly than any Yankee, a Venetian loves a bargain, and puts his +whole heart into upholding and beating down demands. + +Across the Bridge began the vegetable and fruit market, where whole +Hollands of cabbage and Spains of onions opened on the view, with every +other succulent and toothsome growth; and beyond this we entered the +glory of Rialto, the fish-market, which is now more lavishly supplied +than at any other season. It was picturesque and full of gorgeous color +for the fish of Venice seem all to catch the rainbow hues of the lagoon. +There is a certain kind of red mullet, called _triglia_, which is +as rich and tender in its dyes as if it had never swam in water +less glorious than that which crimsons under October sunsets. But +a fish-market, even at Rialto, with fishermen in scarlet caps and +_triglie_ in sunset splendors, is only a fish-market after all: it is +wet and slimy under foot, and the innumerable gigantic eels, writhing +everywhere, set the soul asquirm, and soon-sated curiosity slides +willingly away. + +We had an appointment with a young Venetian lady to attend midnight mass +at the church of San Moisè, and thither about half-past eleven we went +to welcome in Christmas. The church of San Moisè is in the highest style +of the Renaissance art, which is, I believe, the lowest style of any +other. The richly sculptured façade is divided into stories; the fluted +columns are stilted upon pedestals, and their lines are broken by the +bands which encircle them like broad barrel-hoops. At every possible +point theatrical saints and angels, only sustained from falling to the +ground by iron bars let into their backs, start from the niches and +cling to the sculpture. The outside of the church is in every way +detestable, and the inside is consistently bad. All the side-altars have +broken arches, and the high altar is built of rough blocks of marble to +represent Mount Sinai, on which a melodramatic statue of Moses receives +the tables of the law from God the Father, with frescoed seraphim in +the background. For the same reason, I suppose, that the devout prefer a +hideous Bambino and a Madonna in crinoline to the most graceful artistic +conception of those sacred personages, San Moisè is the most popular +church for the midnight mass in Venice, and there is no mass at all in +St. Mark’s, where its magnificence would be so peculiarly impressive. + +On Christmas Eve, then, this church was crowded, and the door-ways were +constantly thronged with people passing in and out. I was puzzled to +see so many young men present, for Young Italy is not usually in great +number at church; but a friend explained the anomaly: “After the guests +at our Christmas Eve dinners have well eaten and drunken, they all go to +mass in at least one church, and the younger offer a multiplied devotion +by going to all. It is a good thing in some ways, for by this means +they manage to see every pretty face in the city, which that night has +specially prepared itself to be seen;” and from this slender text my +friend began to discourse at large about these Christmas Eve dinners, +and chiefly how jollily the priests fared, ending with the devout wish, +“Would God had made me nephew of a canonico!” The great dinners of the +priests are a favorite theme with Italian talkers; but I doubt it is +after all only a habit of speech. The priests are too numerous to feed +sumptuously in most cases. + +We had a good place to see and hear, sitting in the middle of the main +aisle, directly over the dust of John Law, who alighted in Venice +when his great Mississippi bubble burst, and died here, and now sleeps +peacefully under a marble tablet in the ugly church of San Moisè. The +thought of that busy, ambitious life, come to this unscheming repose +under our feet,--so far from the scene of its hopes, successes, and +defeats,--gave its own touch of solemnity to the time and place, and +helped the offended sense of propriety through the bursts of operatic +music, which interspersed the mass. But on the whole, the music was good +and the function sufficiently impressive,--what with the gloom of the +temple everywhere starred with tapers, and the grand altar lighted to +the mountain-top. The singing of the priests also was here much better +than I had found it elsewhere in Venice. + +The equality of all classes in church is a noticeable thing always in +Italy, but on this Christmas Eve it was unusually evident. The rags of +the beggar brushed the silks of luxury, as the wearers knelt side by +side on the marble floor; and on the night when God was born to poverty +on earth, the rich seemed to feel that they drew nearer Him in the +neighborhood of the poor. In these costly temples of the eldest +Christianity, the poor seem to enter upon their inheritance of the +future, for it is they who frequent them most and possess them with the +deepest sense of ownership. The withered old woman, who creeps into St +Mark’s with her scaldino in her hand, takes visible possession of its +magnificence as God’s and hers, and Catholic wealth and rank would +hardly, if challenged, dispute her claim. + +Even the longest mass comes to an end at last, and those of our party +who could credit themselves with no gain of masses against the morrow, +received the benediction at San Moisè with peculiar unction. We all +issued forth, and passing through the lines of young men who draw +themselves up on either side of the doors of public places in Venice, to +look at the young ladies as they come out, we entered the Place of +St. Mark. The Piazza was more gloriously beautiful than ever I saw it +before, and the church had a saintly loveliness. The moon was full, and +snowed down the mellowest light on the gray domes, which in their soft, +elusive outlines, and strange effect of far-withdrawal, rhymed like +faint-heard refrains to the bright and vivid arches of the façade. And +if the bronze horses had been minded to quit their station before the +great window over the central arch, they might have paced around the +night’s whole half-world, and found no fairer resting-place. + +As for Christmas Day in Venice, it amounted to very little; every thing +was closed, and whatever merry-making went on was all within doors. +Although the shops and the places of amusement were opened the day +following, the city entered very sparingly on the pleasures of +Carnival, and Christmas week passed off in every-day fashion. It will be +remembered that on St. Stephen’s Day--the first of Carnival--one of the +five annual banquets took place at the Ducal Palace in the time of the +Republic. A certain number of patricians received invitations to the +dinner, and those for whom there was no room were presented with fish +and poultry by the Doge. The populace were admitted to look on during +the first course, and then, having sated their appetites with this +savory observance, were invited to withdraw. The patriotic Giustina +Renier-Michiel of course makes much of the courtesy thus extended to the +people by the State, but I cannot help thinking it must have been hard +to bear. The banquet, however, has passed away with the Republic which +gave it, and the only savor of dinner which Venetian poverty now inhales +on St. Stephen’s Day, is that which arises from its own proper pot of +broth. + +New Year’s is the carnival of the beggars in Venice. Their business is +carried on briskly throughout the year, but on this day it is pursued +with an unusual degree of perseverance, and an enterprise worthy of all +disinterested admiration. At every corner, on every bridge, under every +door-way, hideous shapes of poverty, mutilation, and deformity stand +waiting, and thrust out palms, plates, and pans, and advance good wishes +and blessings to all who pass. It is an immemorial custom, and it is one +in which all but the quite comfortable classes participate. The facchini +in every square take up their collections; the gondoliers have their +plates prepared for contribution at every ferry; at every caffè and +restaurant begging-boxes appeal to charity. Whoever has lifted hand in +your service in any way during the past year expects a reward on New +Year’s for the complaisance, and in some cases the shop-keepers send to +wish you a _bel capo d’anno_, with the same practical end in view. On +New Year’s Eve and morning bands of facchini and gondoliers go about +howling _vivas_ under charitable windows till they open and drop +alms. The Piazza is invaded by the legions of beggary, and held in +overpowering numbers against all comers; and to traverse it is like a +progress through a lazar-house. + +Beyond encouraging so gross an abuse as this, I do not know that Venice +celebrates New Year’s in a peculiar manner. It is a _festa_, and there +are masses, of course. Presents are exchanged, which consist chiefly of +books--printed for the season, and brilliant outside and dull within, +like all annuals. + + + +CHAPTER XIX. + +LOVE-MAKING AND MARRYING; BAPTISMS AND BURIALS. + + +The Venetians have had a practical and strictly business-like way of +arranging marriages from the earliest times. The shrewdest provision has +always been made for the dower and for the good of the State; private +and public interest being consulted, the small matters of affections +have been left to the chances of association; and it does not seem that +Venetian society has ever dealt severely with husbands or wives whom +incompatibilities forced to seek consolation outside of matrimony. +Herodotus relates that the Illyrian Veneti sold their daughters at +auction to the highest bidder; and the fair being thus comfortably +placed in life, the hard-favored were given to whomsoever would take +them, with such dower as might be considered a reasonable compensation. +The auction was discontinued in Christian times, but marriage contracts +still partook of the form of a public and half-mercantile transaction. +At a comparatively late period Venetian fathers went with their +daughters to a great annual matrimonial fair at San Pietro di Castello +Olivolo, and the youth of the lagoons repaired thither to choose wives +from the number of the maidens. These were all dressed in white, with +hair loose about the neck, and each bore her dower in a little box, +slung over her shoulder by a ribbon. It is to be supposed that there was +commonly a previous understanding between each damsel and some youth in +the crowd: as soon as all had paired off, the bishop gave them a sermon +and his benediction, and the young men gathered up their brides and +boxes, and went away wedded. It was on one of these occasions, in the +year 944, that the Triestine pirates stole the Brides of Venice with +their dowers, and gave occasion to the Festa delle Marie, already +described, and to Rogers’s poem, which every body pretends to have read. + +This going to San Pietro’s, selecting a wife and marrying her on +the spot, out of hand, could only have been the contrivance of a +straightforward, practical race. Among the common people betrothals were +managed with even greater ease and dispatch, till a very late day in +history; and in the record of a certain trial which took place in 1443 +there is an account of one of these brief and unceremonious courtships. +Donna Catarussa, who gives evidence, and whom I take to have been a +worthless, idle gossip, was one day sitting at her door, when Piero di +Trento passed, selling brooms, and said to her, “Madonna, find me some +nice girl.” To which Donna Catarussa replied, “Ugly fool! do you take me +for a go-between?” “No,” said Piero, “not that; I mean a girl to be my +wife.” And as Donna Catarussa thought at once of a suitable match, she +said, “In faith of God, I know one for you. Come again to-morrow.” So +they both met next day, and the woman chosen by Donna Catarussa being +asked, “Wouldst thou like to have Piero for thy husband, as God commands +and holy Church?” she answered, “Yes.” And Peter being asked the like +question, answered, “Why, yes, certainly.” And they went off and had +the wedding feast. A number of these betrothals takes place in the last +scene of Goldoni’s “Baruffe Chiozzotte,” where the belligerent women and +their lovers take hands in the public streets, and saluting each +other as man and wife, are affianced, and get married as quickly as +possible:-- + +“_Checa_ (to Tofolo). Take my hand. + +“_Tofolo_. Wife! + +“_Checa_. Husband! + +“_Tofolo_. Hurra!” + +The betrothals of the Venetian nobles were celebrated with as much +pomp and ceremony as could possibly distinguish them from those of the +people, and there was much more polite indifference to the inclinations +of the parties immediately concerned. The contract was often concluded +before the betrothed had seen each other, by means of a third person, +when the amount of the dower was fixed. The bridegroom elect having +verbally agreed with the parents of the bride, repaired at an early day +to the court-yard of the Ducal Palace, where the match was published, +and where he shook hands with his kinsmen and friends. On the day fixed +for signing the contract the bride’s father invited to his house the +bridegroom and all his friends, and hither came the high officers of +state to compliment the future husband. He, with the father of his +betrothed, met the guests at the door of the palace, and conducted them +to the grand saloon, which no woman was allowed (_si figuri!_) at this +time to enter. When the company was seated, the bride, clad in white, +was led from her rooms and presented. She wore a crown of pearls and +brilliants on her head, and her hair, mixed with long threads of +gold, fell loose about her shoulders, as you may see it in Carpaccio’s +pictures of the Espousals of St. Ursula. Her ear-rings were pendants of +three pearls set in gold; her neck and throat were bare but for a collar +of lace and gems, from which slid a fine jeweled chain into her bosom. +Over her breast she wore a stomacher of cloth of gold, to which were +attached her sleeves, open from the elbow to the hand. The formal words +of espousal being pronounced, the bride paced slowly round the hall to +the music of fifes and trumpets, and made a gentle inclination to each +of the guests; and then returned to her chamber, from which she issued +again on the arrival of any tardy friend, and repeated the ceremony. +After all this, she descended to the courtyard, where she was received +by gentlewomen, her friends, and placed on a raised seat (which was +covered with rich stuffs) in an open gondola, and thus, followed by a +fleet of attendant gondolas, went to visit all the convents in which +there were kinspeople of herself or her betrothed. The excessive +publicity of these ceremonies was supposed to strengthen the validity +of the marriage contract. At an early day after the espousals the +betrothed, preceded by musicians and followed by relatives and friends, +went at dawn to be married in the church,--the bridegroom wearing a +toga, and the bride a dress of white silk or crimson velvet, with +jewels in her hair, and pearls embroidered on her robes. Visits of +congratulation followed, and on the same day a public feast was given +in honor of the wedding, to which at least three hundred persons were +always invited, and at which the number, quality, and cost of the dishes +were carefully regulated by the Republic’s laws. On this occasion, one +or more persons were chosen as governors of the feast, and after the +tables were removed, a mock-heroic character appeared, and recounted +with absurd exaggeration the deeds of the ancestors of the bride and +groom. The next morning _ristorativi_ of sweetmeats and confectionery +were presented to the happy couple, by whom the presents were returned +in kind. + +A splendor so exceptional, even in the most splendid age of the most +splendid city, as that which marked the nuptial feasts of the unhappy +Jacopo Foscari, could not be left unnoticed in this place. He +espoused Lucrezia, daughter of Lionardo Contarini, a noble as rich +and magnificent as Jacopo’s own father, the Doge; and, on the 29th of +January 1441, the noble Eustachio Balbi being chosen lord of the feasts, +the bridegroom, the bride’s brother and eighteen other patrician youths, +assembled in the Palazzo Balbi, whence they went on horseback to conduct +Lucrezia to the Ducal Palace. They were all sumptuously dressed in +crimson velvet and silver brocade of Alexandria, and rode chargers +superbly caparisoned. Other noble friends attended them; musicians went +before; a troop of soldiers brought up the rear. They thus proceeded to +the court-yard of the Ducal Palace, and then, returning, traversed +the Piazza, and threading the devious little streets to the Campo San +Samuele, there crossed the Grand Canal upon a bridge of boats, to San +Barnaba opposite, where the Contarini lived. On their arrival at this +place the bride, supported by two Procuratori di San Marco, and attended +by sixty ladies, descended to the church and heard mass, after which +an oration was delivered in Campo San Barnaba before the Doge, the +ambassadors, and a multitude of nobles and people, in praise of the +spouses and their families. The bride then returned to her father’s +house, and jousts took place in the campos of Santa Maria Formosa and +San Polo (the largest in the city), and in the Piazza San Marco. The +Doge gave a great banquet, and at its close one hundred and fifty ladies +proceeded to the bride’s palace in the Bucintoro, where one hundred +other ladies joined them, together with Lucrezia, who, seated between +Francesco Sforza (then General-in-chief of the Republic’s armies) and +the Florentine ambassador, was conducted, amid the shouts of the people +and the sound of trumpets, to the Ducal Palace. The Doge received her +at the riva of the Piazzetta, and, with Sforza and Balbi led her to +the foot of the palace stairs, where the Dogaressa, with sixty ladies, +welcomed her. A state supper ended this day’s rejoicings, and on the +following day a tournament took place in the Piazza, for a prize of +cloth of gold, which was offered by Sforza. Forty knights contested the +prize and supped afterward with the Doge. On the next day there were +processions of boats with music on the Grand Canal; on the fourth and +last day there were other jousts for prizes offered by the jewelers and +Florentine merchants; and every night there were dancing and feasting in +the Ducal Palace. The Doge was himself the giver of the last tournament, +and with this the festivities came to an end. + +I have read an account by an old-fashioned English traveler of a +Venetian marriage which he saw, sixty or seventy years ago, at the +church of San Giorgio Maggiore: “After a crowd of nobles,” he says, “in +their usual black robes, had been some time in attendance, the gondolas +appearing, exhibited a fine show, though all of them were painted of a +sable hue, in consequence of a sumptuary law, which is very necessary in +this place, to prevent an expense which many who could not bear it would +incur; nevertheless the barcarioli, or boatmen, were dressed in handsome +liveries; the gondolas followed one another in a line, each carrying two +ladies, who were likewise dressed in black. As they landed they arranged +themselves in order, forming a line from the gate to the great altar. +At length the bride, arrayed in white as the symbol of innocence, led +by the bridesman, ascended the stairs of the landing-place. There she +received the compliments of the bridegroom, in his black toga, who +walked at her right hand to the altar, where they and all the company +kneeled. I was often afraid the poor young creature would have sunk upon +the ground before she arrived, for she trembled with great agitation, +while she made her low courtesies from side to side: however, the +ceremony was no sooner performed than she seemed to recover her spirits, +and looked matrimony in the face with a determined smile. Indeed, in +all appearance she had nothing to fear from her husband, whose age and +aspect were not at all formidable; accordingly she tripped back to the +gondola with great activity and resolution, and the procession ended as +it began. Though there was something attractive in this aquatic parade, +the black hue of the boats and the company presented to a stranger, +like me, the idea of a funeral rather than a wedding. My expectation +was raised too high by the previous description of the Italians, who are +much given to hyperbole, who gave me to understand that this procession +would far exceed any thing I had ever seen. When I reflect upon this +rhodomontade,” disdainfully adds Mr. Drummond, “I cannot help comparing, +in my memory, the paltry procession of the Venetian marriage with a very +august occurrence of which I was eyewitness in Sweden,” and which being +the reception of their Swedish Majesties by the British fleet, I am sure +the reader will not ask me to quote. With change of government, changes +of civilization following the revolutions, and the decay of wealth among +the Venetian nobles, almost all their splendid customs have passed away, +and the habit of making wedding presents of sweetmeats and confectionery +is perhaps the only relic which has descended from the picturesque past +to the present time. These gifts are still exchanged not only by nobles, +but by all commoners according to their means, and are sometimes a +source of very profuse outlay. It is the habit to send the candies in +the elegant and costly paper caskets which the confectioners sell, and +the sum of a thousand florins scarcely suffices to pass the courtesy +round a moderately large circle of friends. + +With the nobility and with the richest commoners marriage is still +greatly a matter of contract, and is arranged without much reference to +the principals, though it is now scarcely probable in any case that +they have not seen each other. But with all other classes, except the +poorest, who cannot and do not seclude the youth of either sex from each +other, and with whom, consequently, romantic contrivance and subterfuge +would be superfluous, love is made to-day in Venice as in the _capa y +espada_ comedies of the Spaniards, and the business is carried on with +all the cumbrous machinery of confidants, billets-doux, and stolen +interviews. + +Let us take our nominal friends, Marco and Todaro, and attend them in +their solemn promenade under the arcades of the Procuratie, or upon the +Molo, whither they go every evening to taste the air and to look at +the ladies, while the Austrians and the other foreigners listen to the +military music in the Piazza. They are both young, our friends; they +have both glossy silk hats; they have both light canes and an innocent +swagger. Inconceivably mild are these youth, and in their talk +indescribably small and commonplace. + +They look at the ladies, and suddenly Todaro feels the consuming ardors +of love. + +_Todaro_ (to Marco). Here, dear! Behold this beautiful blonde here! +Beautiful as an angel! But what loveliness! + +_Marco_. But where? + +_Todaro_. It is enough. Let us go. I follow her. + +Such is the force of the passion in southern hearts. They follow that +beautiful blonde, who, marching demurely in front of the gray-moustached +papa and the fat mamma, after the fashion in Venice, is electrically +conscious of pursuit. They follow her during the whole evening, and, at +a distance, softly follow her home, where the burning Todaro photographs +the number of the house upon the sensitized tablets of his soul. + +This is the first great step in love: he has seen his adored one, and he +knows that he loves her with an inextinguishable ardor. The next advance +is to be decided between himself and the faithful Marco, and is to +be debated over many cups of black coffee, not to name glasses of +sugar-and-water and the like exciting beverages. The friends may now +find out the caffè which the Biondina frequents with her parents, and +to which Todaro may go every evening and feast his eyes upon her +loveliness, never making his regard known by any word, till some night, +when he has followed her home, he steals speech with her as he stands in +the street under her balcony,--and looks sufficiently sheepish as +people detect him on their late return from the theatre. [Footnote: +The love-making scenes in Goldoni’s comedy of _Il Bugiarda_ are +photographically faithful to present usage in Venice.] Or, if the +friends do not take this course in their courtship (for they are both +engaged in the wooing), they decide that Todaro, after walking back +and forth a sufficient number of times in the street where the Biondina +lives, shall write her a tender letter, to demand if she be disposed to +correspond his love. This billet must always be conveyed to her by her +serving-maid, who must be bribed by Marco for the purpose. At every +juncture Marco must be consulted, and acquainted with every step of +progress; and no doubt the Biondina has some lively Moretta for her +friend, to whom she confides her part of the love-affair in all its +intricacy. + +It may likewise happen that Todaro shall go to see the Biondina in +church, whither, but for her presence, he would hardly go, and that +there, though he may not have speech with her, he shall still fan +the ardors of her curiosity and pity by persistent sighs. It must +be confessed that if the Biondina is not pleased with his looks, his +devotion must assume the character of an intolerable bore to her; and +that to see him everywhere at her heels--to behold him leaning against +the pillar near which she kneels at church, the head of his stick in his +mouth, and his attitude carefully taken with a view to captivation--to +be always in deadly fear lest she shall meet him in promenade, or, +turning round at the caffè encounter his pleading gaze--that all +this must drive the Biondina to a state bordering upon blasphemy and +finger-nails. _Ma, come si fa? Ci vuol pazienza!_ This is the sole +course open to ingenuous youth in Venice, where confessed and unashamed +acquaintance between young people is extremely difficult; and so this +blind pursuit must go on, till the Biondina’s inclinations are at last +laboriously ascertained. + +Suppose the Biondina consents to be loved? Then Todaro has just and +proper inquiries to make concerning her dower, and if her fortune is +as pleasing as herself, he has only to demand her in marriage of her +father, and after that to make her acquaintance. + +One day a Venetian friend of mine, who spoke a little English, came to +me with a joyous air and said: + +“I am in lofe.” + +The recipient of repeated confidences of this kind from the same person, +I listened with tempered effusion. + +“It is a blonde again?” + +“Yes, you have right; blonde again.” + +“And pretty?” + +“Oh, but beautiful. I lofe her--_come si dice!--immensamente.”_ “And +where did you see her? Where did you make her acquaintance?” + +“I have not make the acquaintance. I see her pass with his fazer every +night on Rialto Bridge We did not spoke yet--only with the eyes. +The lady is not of Venice. She has four thousand florins. It is not +much--no. But!” + +Is not this love at first sight almost idyllic? Is it not also a sublime +prudence to know the lady’s fortune better than herself, before herself? +These passionate, headlong Italians look well to the main chance before +they leap into matrimony, and you may be sure Todaro knows, in black and +white, what the Biondina has to her fortune before he weds her. After +that may come the marriage, and the sonnet written by the next of +friendship, and printed to hang up in all the shop-windows, celebrating +the auspicious event. If he be rich, or can write _nobile_ after his +Christian name, perhaps some abbate, elegantly addicted to verses and +alive to grateful consequences, may publish a poem, elegantly printed +by the matchless printers at Rovigo, and send it to all the bridegroom’s +friends. It is not the only event which the facile Venetian Muse shall +sing for him. If his child is brought happily through the measles by +Dottor Cavasangue, the Nine shall celebrate the fact. If he takes any +public honor or scholastic degree, it is equal occasion for verses; and +when he dies the mortuary rhyme shall follow him. Indeed, almost every +occurrence--a boy’s success at school, an advocate’s triumphal passage +of the perils of examination at Padua, a priest’s first mass, a nun’s +novitiate, a birth, an amputation--is the subject of tuneful effusion, +and no less the occasion of a visit from the facchini of the neighboring +campo, who assemble with blare of trumpets and tumult of voices around +the victim’s door, and proclaim his skill or good fortune, and break +into _vivas_ that never end till he bribes their enthusiasm into +silence. The naïve commonplaceness of feeling in all matrimonial +transactions, in spite of the gloss which the operatic methods of +courtship threw about them, was a source of endless amusement, as +it stole out in different ways. “You know my friend Marco?” asked an +acquaintance one day. “Well, we are looking out a wife for him. He +doesn’t want to marry, but his father insists; and he has begged us +to find somebody. There are three of us on the look-out. But he hates +women, and is very hard to suit. _Ben! Ci vuol pazienza!”_ + +It rarely happens now that the religious part of the marriage ceremony +is not performed in church, though it may be performed at the house of +the bride. In this case, it usually takes place in the evening, and the +spouses attend five o’clock mass next morning. But if the marriage takes +place at church, it must be between five and eleven in the morning, and +the blessing is commonly pronounced about six o’clock. Civil marriage +is still unknown among the Venetians. It is entirely the affair of the +Church, in which the bans are published beforehand, and which exacts +from the candidates a preliminary visit to their parish priest, for +examination in their catechism, and for instruction in religion when +they are defective in knowledge of the kind. There is no longer any +civil publication of the betrothals, and the hand-shaking in the court +of the Ducal Palace has long been disused. I cannot help thinking +that the ceremony must have been a great affliction, and that, in the +Republican times at Venice, a bridegroom must have fared nearly as hard +as a President elect in our times at home. + +There was a curious display on occasion of births among the nobility +in former times. The room of the young mother was decorated with a +profusion of paintings, sculpture, and jewelry; and, while yet in bed, +she received the congratulations of her friends, and regaled them with +sweetmeats served in vases of gold and silver. + +The child of noble parents had always at least two godfathers, and +sometimes as many as a hundred and fifty; but in order that the +relationship of godfather (which is the same according to the canonical +law as a tie of consanguinity) should not prevent desirable matrimony +between nobles, no patrician was allowed to be godfather to another’s +child. Consequently the _compare_ was usually a client of the noble +parent, and was not expected to make any present to the godchild, whose +father, on the day following the baptism, sent him a piece of marchpane, +in acknowledgment of their relationship. No women were present at the +baptism except those who had charge of the babe. After the fall of +the Republic the French custom of baptism in the parents’ house was +introduced, as well as the custom, on the godfather’s part, of giving a +present,--usually of sugarplums and silver toys. But I think that most +baptisms still take place in church, if I may judge from the numbers +of tight little glass cases I have noticed,--half bed and half +coffin,--containing little eight-day-old Venetians, closely swathed in +mummy-like bandages, and borne to and from the churches by mysterious +old women. The ceremony of baptism itself does not apparently differ +from that in other Catholic countries, and is performed, like all +religious services in Italy, without a ray of religious feeling or +solemnity of any kind. + +For many centuries funeral services in Venice have been conducted by the +_Scuole del Sacramento,_ instituted for that purpose. To one of +these societies the friends of the defunct pay a certain sum, and the +association engages to inter the dead, and bear all the expenses of the +ceremony, the dignity of which is regulated by the priest of the parish +in which the deceased lived. The rite is now most generally undertaken +by the Scuola di San Rocco. The funeral train is of ten or twenty +facchini, wearing tunics of white, with caps and capes of red, and +bearing the society’s long, gilded candlesticks of wood with lighted +tapers. Priests follow them chanting prayers, and then comes the +bier,--with a gilt crown lying on the coffin, if the dead be a babe, to +indicate the triumph of innocence. Formerly, hired mourners attended, +and a candle, weighing a pound, was given to any one who chose to carry +it in the procession. + +Anciently there was great show of mourning in Venice for the dead, when, +according to Mutinelli, the friends and kinsmen of the deceased, having +seen his body deposited in the church, “fell to weeping and howling, +tore their hair and rent their clothes, and withdrew forever from that +church, thenceforth become for them a place of abomination.” Decenter +customs prevailed in after-times, and there was a pathetic dignity in +the ceremony of condolence among patricians: the mourners, on the day +following the interment, repaired to the porticos of Rialto and the +court of the Ducal Palace, and their friends came, one after one, and +expressed their sympathy by a mute pressure of the hand. + +Death, however, is hushed up as much as possible in modern Venice. The +corpse is hurried from the house of mourning to the parish church, where +the friends, after the funeral service, take leave of it. Then it is +placed in a boat and carried to the burial-ground, where it is quickly +interred. I was fortunate, therefore, in witnessing a cheerful funeral +at which I one day casually assisted at San Michele. There was a church +on this island as early as the tenth century, and in the thirteenth +century it fell into the possession of the Comandulensen Friars. They +built a monastery on it, which became famous as a seat of learning, and +gave much erudite scholarship to the world. In later times Pope Gregory +XVI. carried his profound learning from San Michele to the Vatican. The +present church is in the Renaissance style, but not very offensively so, +and has some indifferent paintings. The arcades and the courts around +which it is built contain funeral monuments as unutterably ugly and +tasteless as any thing of the kind I ever saw at home; but the dead, for +the most part, lie in graves marked merely by little iron crosses in +the narrow and roofless space walled in from the lagoon, which laps +sluggishly at the foot of the masonry with the impulses of the tide. +The old monastery was abolished in 1810, and there is now a convent of +Reformed Benedictines on the island, who perform the last service for +the dead. + +On the day of which I speak, I was taking a friend to see the objects +of interest at San Michele, which I had seen before, and the funeral +procession touched at the riva of the church just as we arrived. The +procession was of one gondola only, and the pallbearers were four +pleasant ruffians in scarlet robes of cotton, hooded, and girdled at +the waist. They were accompanied by a priest of a broad and jolly +countenance, two grinning boys, and finally the corpse itself, severely +habited in an under-dress of black box, but wearing an outer garment of +red velvet, bordered and tasseled gayly. The pleasant ruffians (who all +wore smoking-caps with some other name) placed this holiday corpse upon +a bier, and after a lively dispute with our gondolier, in which the +compliments of the day were passed in the usual terms of Venetian chaff, +lifted the bier on shore and set it down. The priest followed with the +two boys, whom he rebuked for levity, simultaneously tripping over the +Latin of a prayer, with his eyes fixed on our harmless little party +as if we were a funeral, and the dead in the black box an indifferent +spectator Then he popped down upon his knees, and made us a lively +little supplication, while a blind beggar scuffled for a lost soldo +about his feet, and the gondoliers quarreled volubly. After which, he +threw off his surplice with the air of one who should say his day’s work +was done, and preceded the coffin into the church. + +We had hardly deposited the bier upon the floor in the centre of the +nave, when two pale young friars appeared, throwing off their hooded +cloaks of coarse brown, as they passed to the sacristy, and reappearing +in their rope-girdled gowns. One of them bore a lighted taper in his +right hand and a book in his left; the other had also a taper, but a pot +of holy water instead of the book. + +They are very handsome young men, these monks, with heavy, sad eyes, +and graceful, slender figures, which their monastic life will presently +overload with gross humanity full of coarse appetites. They go and stand +beside the bier, giving a curious touch of solemnity to a scene composed +of the four pleasant ruffians in the loaferish postures which they have +learned as facchini waiting for jobs; of the two boys with inattentive +grins, and of the priest with wandering eyes, kneeling behind them. + +A weak, thin-voiced organ pipes huskily from its damp loft: the monk +hurries rapidly over the Latin text of the service, while + + “His breath to heaven like vapor goes” + +on the chilly, humid air; and the other monk makes the responses, +giving and taking the sprinkler, which his chief shakes vaguely in the +direction of the coffin. They both bow their heads--shaven down to the +temples, to simulate His crown of thorns. Silence. The organ is still, +the priest has vanished; the tapers are blown out; the pall-bearers lay +hold of the bier, and raise it to their shoulders; the boys slouch into +procession behind them; the monks glide softly and dispiritedly away. +The soul is prepared for eternal life, and the body for the grave. + +The ruffians are expansively gay on reaching the open air again. They +laugh, they call “Ciò!” [Footnote: Literally, _That_ in Italian, and +meaning in Venetian, _You! Heigh!_ To talk in _Ciò ciappa_ is to assume +insolent familiarity or unbounded good fellowship with the person +addressed. A Venetian says _Ciò_ a thousand times in a day, and hails +every one but his superior in that way. I think it is hardly the Italian +pronoun, but rather a contraction of _Veccio_ (vecchio), _Old fellow!_ +It is common with all classes of the people: parents use it in speaking +to their children, and brothers and sisters call one mother _Ciò_. It +is a salutation between friends, who cry out, _Ciò!_ as they pass in the +street. Acquaintances, men who meet after separation, rush together +with _“Ah Ciò!”_ Then they kiss on the right cheek _“Ciò!”_ on the left, +_“Ciò!”_ on the lips, _“Ciò! Bon di Ciò!”_] continually, and banter each +other as they trot to the grave. + +The boys follow them, gamboling among the little iron crosses, and +trying if here and there one of them may not be overthrown. + +We two strangers follow the boys. + +But here the pall-bearers become puzzled: on the right is an open +trench, on the left is an open trench. + +“Presence of the Devil! To which grave does this dead belong?” They +discuss, they dispute, they quarrel. + +From the side of the wall, as if he rose from the sea, appears the grave +digger, with his shovel on his shoulder--slouching toward us. + +“Ah heigh! Ciò, the grave-digger! Where does this dead belong?” + +“Body of Bacchus, what potatoes! Here, in this trench to the right.” + +They set down the bier there, gladly. They strip away the coffin’s gay +upper garment; they leave but the under-dress of black box, painted to +that favor with pitch. They shove it into the grave-digger’s arms, where +he stands in the trench, in the soft earth, rich with bones. He lets it +slide swiftly to the ground--thump! _Ecco fatto!_ + +The two boys pick up the empty bier, and dance merrily away with it +to the riva-gate, feigning a little play after the manner of +children,--“Oh, what a beautiful dead!” + +The eldest of the pleasant ruffians is all the pleasanter for +_sciampagnin_, and can hardly be persuaded to go out at the right gate. + +We strangers stay behind a little, to consult with mother spectator-- +Venetian, this. “Who is the dead man, signore?” + +“It is a woman, poor little thing! Dead in child-bed. The baby is in +there with her.” + +It has been a cheerful funeral, and yet we are not in great spirits as +we go back to the city. + +For my part, I do not think the cry of sea-gulls on a gloomy day is +a joyous sound; and the sight of those theatrical angels, with their +shameless, unfinished backs, flying off the top of the rococo façade of +the church of the Jesuits, has always been a spectacle to fill me with +despondency and foreboding. + + + +CHAPTER XX. + +VENETIAN TRAITS AND CHARACTERS. + + +On a small canal, not far from the railroad station, the gondoliers +show you a house, by no means notable (except for the noble statue of +a knight, occupying a niche in one corner), as the house of Othello. It +was once the palace of the patrician family Moro, a name well known in +the annals of the Republic, and one which, it has been suggested, misled +Shakespeare into the invention of a Moor of Venice. Whether this +is possibly the fact, or whether there is any tradition of a tragic +incident in the history of the Moro family similar to that upon which +the play is founded, I do not know; but it is certain that the story +of Othello, very nearly as Shakespeare tells it, is popularly known in +Venice; and the gondoliers have fixed upon the Casa Moro in question as +the edifice best calculated to give satisfaction to strangers in search +of the True and the Memorable. The statue is happily darkened by time, +and thus serves admirably to represent Othello’s complexion, and to +place beyond the shadow of a doubt the fact of his residence in the +house. Indeed, what can you say to the gondolier, who, in answer to your +cavils, points to the knight, with the convincing argument, “There is +his statue!” + +One day I was taken to see this house, in company with some friends, and +when it had been victoriously pointed out, as usual, we asked meekly, +“Who was Othello?” + +“Othello, Signori,” answered the gondolier, “was a general of +the Republic, in the old times. He was an African, and black; but +nevertheless the State valued him, and he beat the Turks in many +battles. Well, Signori, this general Othello had a very young and +beautiful wife, and his wife’s cousin (_sic!_), Cassio was his +major-domo, or, as some say, his lieutenant. But after a while happens +along (_capita_) another soldier of Othello, who wants Cassio’s +employment, and so accuses him to the general of corrupting his wife. +Very well, Signori! Without thinking an instant, Othello, being made so, +flew into a passion (_si riscaldò là tèsta_), and killed his wife; and +then when her innocence came out, he killed himself and that liar; and +the State confiscated his goods, he being a very rich man. There has +been a tragedy written about all this, you know.” + +“But how is it called? Who wrote it?” + +“Oh! in regard to that, then, I don’t know. Some Englishman.” + +“Shakespeare?” + +“I don’t know, Signori. But if you doubt what I tell you, go to any +bookseller, and say, ‘Favor me with the tragedy of “Othello.”’ He will +give it you, and there you will find it all written out just as I tell +it.” + +This gondolier confirmed the authenticity of his story, by showing us +the house of Cassio near the Rialto Bridge, and I have no doubt he would +also have pointed out that of Iago if we had wished it. + +But as a general thing, the lore of the gondoliers is not rich nor very +great. They are a loquacious and a gossiping race, but they love better +to have a quiet chat at the tops of their voices, as they loaf idly at +the ferries, or to scream repartees across the Grand Canal, than to tell +stories. In all history that relates to localities they are sufficiently +versed to find the notable places for strangers, but beyond this they +trouble themselves as little with the past as with the future. Three +tragic legends, however, they know, and will tell with the most amusing +effect, namely: Biasio, _luganegher_; the Innocent Baker-Boy, and +Veneranda Porta. + +The first of these legends is that of a sausage-maker who flourished +in Venice some centuries ago, and who improved the quality of the broth +which the _luganegheri_ make of their scraps and sell to the gondoliers, +by cutting up into it now and then a child of some neighbor. He was +finally detected by a gondolier who discovered a little finger in his +broth, and being brought to justice, was dragged through the city at the +heels of a wild horse. This most uncomfortable character appears to +be the first hero in the romance of the gondoliers, and he certainly +deserves to rank with that long line of imaginary personages who have +made childhood so wretched and tractable. The second is the Innocent +Baker-Boy already named, who was put to death on suspicion of having +murdered a noble, because in the dead man’s heart was found a dagger +fitting a sheath which the baker had picked up in the street, on +the morning of the murder, and kept in his possession. Many years +afterwards, a malefactor who died in Padua confessed the murder, and +thereupon two lamps were lighted before a shrine in the southern façade +of St. Mark’s Church,--one for the murdered nobleman’s soul, and the +other for that of the innocent boy. Such is the gondoliers’ story, and +the lamps still burn every night before the shrine from dark till +dawn, in witness of its truth. The fact of the murder and its guiltless +expiation is an incident of Venetian history, and it is said that the +Council of the Ten never pronounced a sentence of death thereafter, till +they had been solemnly warned by one of their number with _“Ricordatevi +del povero Fornaretto!”_ (Remember the poor Baker-Boy!) The poet Dall +‘Ongaro has woven the story into a beautiful and touching tragedy; but I +believe the poet is still to be born who shall take from the gondoliers +their Veneranda Porta, and place her historic figure in dramatic +literature. Veneranda Porta was a lady of the days of the Republic, +between whom and her husband existed an incompatibility. This was +increased by the course of Signora Porta in taking a lover, and it at +last led to the assassination of the husband by the paramours. The head +of the murdered man was found in one of the canals, and being exposed, +as the old custom was, upon the granite pedestal at the corner of St. +Mark’s Church, it was recognized by his brother who found among the +papers on which the long hair was curled fragments of a letter he had +written to the deceased. The crime was traced to the paramours, and +being brought before the Ten, they were both condemned to be hanged +between the columns of the Piazzetta. The gondoliers relate that when +the sentence was pronounced, Veneranda said to the Chief of the Ten, +“But as for me this sentence will never be carried out. You cannot hang +a woman. Consider the impropriety!” The Venetian rulers were wise men +in their generation, and far from being balked by this question of +delicacy, the Chief replied, solving it, “My dear, you shall be hanged +in my breeches.” + +It is very coarse salt which keeps one of these stories; another is +remembered because it concerns one of the people; and another for its +abomination and horror. The incidents of Venetian history which take the +fancy and touch the sensibility of the world seem hardly known to the +gondoliers, the most intelligent and quick-witted of the populace, and +themselves the very stuff that some romantic dreams of Venice are made +of. However sad the fact, it is undeniable that the stories of the +sausage-maker whose broth was flavored with murder, and the baker-boy +who suffered guiltlessly, and that savage jest at the expense of the +murderess, interest these people more than the high-well-born sorrows +of the Foscari, the tragic fate of Carmagnola, or the story of +Falier,--which last they know partly, however, because of the scandal +about Falier’s wife. Yet after all, though the gondoliers are not +the gondoliers of imaginative literature, they have qualities which +recommended them to my liking, and I look back upon my acquaintance +with two or three of them in a very friendly spirit. Compared with +the truculent hackmen, who prey upon the traveling public in all other +cities of the civilized world, they are eminently intelligent and +amiable. Rogues they are, of course, for small dishonesties are the +breath in the nostrils of common carriers by land or water, everywhere; +but the trickery of the gondoliers is so good-natured and simple that +it can hardly offend. A very ordinary jocular sagacity defeats their +profoundest purposes of swindling, and no one enjoys their exposure +half so much as themselves, while a faint prospect of future employment +purifies them of every trait of dishonesty. I had only one troublesome +experience with them, and that was in the case of the old gondolier who +taught me to row. He, when I had no longer need of his services, plunged +into drunkenness, and came and dismissed me one day with every mark of +ignominy. But he afterwards forgave me, and saluted me kindly when we +met. + +The immediate goal of every gondolier’s ambition is to serve, no matter +for how short a time, an Inglese, by which generic title nearly all +foreigners except Germans are known to him. The Inglese, whether he +be English or American, is apt to make the tour of the whole city in +a gondola, and to give handsome drink money at the end, whereas your +Tedesco frugally walks to every place accessible by land, or when, in +a party of six or eight, he takes a gondola, plants himself upon the +letter of the tariff, and will give no more than the rate fixed by law. +The gondolier is therefore flowingly polite to the Inglese, and he is +even civil to the Tedesco; but he is not at all bound in courtesy to +that provincial Italian who comes from the country to Venice, bargains +furiously for his boat, and commonly pays under the tariff. The Venetian +who does not himself keep a gondola seldom hires one, and even on this +rare occasion makes no lavish demand such as “How much do you want for +taking me to the rail-way station?” Lest the fervid imagination of the +gondolier rise to zwanzigers and florins, and a tedious dispute ensue, +he asks: “How many centissimi do you want?” and the contract is made, +for a number of soldi. + +The number of private gondolas owned in Venice is not very great. The +custom is rather to hire a gondolier with his boat. The exclusive use of +the gondola is thus secured, and the gondolier gives his services as a +domestic when off his special duty. He waits at table, goes marketing, +takes the children to school, and serves the ladies as footman, for five +francs a day, himself paying the proprietor of the gondola about a +franc daily for the boat. In former times, when Venice was rich and +prosperous, many noble families kept six or seven gondolas; and what +with this service, and the numerous gala-days of the Republic, when the +whole city took boat for the Lido, or the Giudecca, or Murano, and +the gondoliers were allowed to exact any pay they could, they were a +numerous and prosperous class. But these times have passed from Venice +forever, and though the gondoliers are still, counting the boatmen of +the Giudecca and Lido, some thousands in number, there are comparatively +few young men among them, and their gains are meagre. + +In the little city of Venice, where the dialect spoken at Canareggio or +Castello is a different tongue from that heard under the Procuratie of +St. Mark’s Place, the boatmen of the several quarters of the city of +course vary greatly in character and appearance; and the gondolier who +lounges at the base of the columns of the Piazzetta, and airily invites +the Inglesi to tours of the Grand Canal, is of quite a different type +from the weather-beaten _barcaiuolo_, who croaks _“Barca!”_ at the +promenaders on the Zattere. But all, as I say, are simple and harmless +enough, and however loudly they quarrel among themselves, they never +pass from the defamation of their female relatives to blows. As for +the game of knives, as it is said to be played at Naples, and as About +describes it at Rome, I doubt if it is much known to the populace of +Venice. Only the doctors let blood there--though from their lancets it +flows pretty freely and constantly. + +It is true that the gondolier loves best of everything a clamorous +quarrel, carried on with the canal between him and his antagonist; but +next to this, he loves to spend his leisure at the ferry in talking +of eating and of money, and he does not differ from many of his +fellow-citizens in choice of topics. I have seldom caught a casual +expression from passers in the streets of Venice which did not relate +in some way to gold Napoleons, zwanzigers, florins, or soldi, or else +to wine and polenta. I note this trait in the Venetians, which Goldoni +observed in the Milanese a hundred years ago, and which I incline to +believe is common to all Italians. The gondoliers talk a great deal in +figure and hyperbole, and their jocose chaff is quite inscrutable even +to some classes of Venetians. With foreigners, to whom the silence and +easy progress of the gondola gives them the opportunity to talk, they +are fond of using a word or two of French. They are quick at repartee, +and have a clever answer ready for most occasions. I was one day +bargaining for a boat to the Lido, whither I refused to be taken in +a shabby gondola, or at a rate higher than seventy-five soldi for the +trip. At last the patience of the gondoliers was exhausted, and one of +them called out, “Somebody fetch the Bucintoro, and take this +gentleman to the Lido for seventy-five soldi!” (The Bucintoro being the +magnificent barge in which the Doge went to wed the Adriatic.) + +The skill with which the gondoliers manage their graceful craft is +always admired by strangers, and is certainly remarkable. The gondola is +very long and slender, and rises high from the water at either end. Both +bow and stern are sharp, the former being ornamented with that deeply +serrated blade of steel, which it is the pride of the gondolier to keep +bright as silver, and the poop having a small platform, not far behind +the cabin, on which he stands when he rows. The danger of collision has +always obliged Venetian boatmen to face the bow, and the stroke with the +oar (for the gondolier uses only a single oar) is made by pushing, and +not by pulling. No small degree of art (as I learnt from experience) +is thus required to keep the gondola’s head straight,--all the strokes +being made on one side,--and the sculling return of the oar-blade, +preparatory for each new stroke, is extremely difficult to effect. Under +the hands of the gondolier, however, the gondola seems a living thing, +full of grace and winning movement. The wood-work of the little cabin is +elaborately carved, and it is usually furnished with mirrors and seats +luxuriously cushioned. The sensation of the gondola’s progress, felt by +the occupant of the cabin, as he falls back upon these cushions, may be +described, to the female apprehension at least, as “_too_ divine.” The +cabin is removable at pleasure, and is generally taken off and replaced +by awnings in summer. But in the evening, when the fair Venetians go out +in their gondolas to take the air, even this awning is dispensed with, +and the long slender boat glides darkly down the Grand Canal, bearing +its dazzling freight of white _tulle_, pale-faced, black-eyed beauty, +and flashing jewels, in full view. + +As for the singing of the gondoliers, they are the only class of +Venetians who have not good voices, and I am scarcely inclined to regret +the silence which long ago fell upon them. I am quite satisfied with the +peculiar note of warning which they utter as they approach the corner of +a canal, and which meaning simply, “To the Right,” or “To the Left,” is +the most pathetic and melancholy sound in the world. If, putting +aside my own comfort, I have sometimes wished for the sake of a dear, +sentimental old friend at home, who loves such idle illusions with an +ardor unbecoming his years, that I might hear the voice + + “of Adria’s gondolier, + By distance mellowed, o’er the waters sweep,” + +I must still confess that I never did hear it under similar +circumstances, except in conversation across half a mile of lagoon, +when, as usual, the burden of the lay was polenta or soldi. + +A recent Venetian writer, describing the character of the lower classes +of Venice, says: “No one can deny that our populace is loquacious +and quickwitted; but, on the other hand, no one can deny that it +is regardless of improvement. Venice, a city exceptional in its +construction, its customs, and its habits, has also an exceptional +populace. It still feels, although sixty-eight years have passed, the +influence of the system of the fallen Republic, of that oligarchic +government, which, affording almost every day some amusement to the +people, left them no time to think of their offended rights.... Since +1859 Venice has resembled a sepulchre of the living,--squalor and +beggary gaining ground with each day, and commerce, with few exceptions, +converted into monopoly; yet the populace remains attached to its old +habits, and will have its pleasure. If the earnings are little, what +then? Must one die of ennui? The caffè is depopulated: not so the +drinking-house. The last day before the drawing of the lottery, the +offices are thronged with fathers and mothers of families, who stint +their children of bread to buy dearly a few hours of golden illusion.... +At the worst, there is the Monte di Pietà, as a last resort.” + +It is true, as this writer says, that the pleasure-loving populace still +looks back fondly to the old Republican times of feasting and holidays; +but there is certainly no truth any more in the old idea that any part +of Italy is a place where people may be “idle with impunity,” or make +amusement the serious business of life. I can remember that the book +from which I received my first impressions of geography was illuminated +with a picture professing to represent Italian customs. The spirit of +inquiry had long before caused me to doubt the exact fidelity of this +representation; but it cost me a pang to learn that the picture was +utterly delusive. It has been no part of my experience in Venice to see +an Italian sitting upon the ground, and strumming the guitar, while two +gayly dressed peasants danced to the music. Indeed, the indolence +of Venetians is listless and silent, not playful or joyous; and as I +learned to know their life more intimately, I came to understand that +in many cases they are idle from despair of finding work, and that +indolence is as much their fate as their fault. Any diligence of theirs +is surprising to us of northern and free lands, because their climate +subdues and enervates us, and because we can see before them no career +open to intelligent industry. With the poorest, work is necessarily +a hand-to-hand struggle against hunger; with those who would not +absolutely starve without it, work is an inexplicable passion. + +Partly because the ways of these people are so childlike and simple in +many things, and partly from one’s own swindling tendency to take one’s +self in (a tendency really fatal to all sincerity of judgment, and +incalculably mischievous to such downfallen peoples as have felt the +baleful effects of the world’s sentimental, impotent sympathy), there is +something pathetic in the patient content with which Italians work. They +have naturally so large a capacity for enjoyment, that the degree of +selfdenial involved in labor seems exorbitant, and one feels that these +children, so loved of Nature, and so gifted by her, are harshly dealt +with by their stepmother Circumstance. No doubt there ought to be +truth in the silly old picture, if there is none, and I would willingly +make-believe to credit it, if I could. I am glad that they at least work +in old-world, awkward, picturesque ways, and not in commonplace, handy, +modern fashion. Neither the habits nor the implements of labor are +changed since the progress of the Republic ceased, and her heart +began to die within her. All sorts of mechanics’ tools are clumsy and +inconvenient: the turner’s lathe moves by broken impulses; door-hinges +are made to order, and lift the door from the ground as it opens upon +them; all nails and tacks are hand-made; window-sashes are contrived to +be glazed without putty, and the panes are put in from the top, so that +to repair a broken glass the whole sash is taken apart; cooking-stoves +are unknown to the native cooks, who work at an open fire, with crane +and dangling pot-hooks; furniture is put together with wooden pegs +instead of screws; you do not buy a door-lock at a hardware store,--you +get a _fabbro_ to make it, and he comes with a leathern satchel full +of tools to fit and finish it on the door. The wheelbarrow of this +civilization is peculiarly wonderful in construction, with a prodigious +wooden wheel, and a ponderous, incapable body. The canals are dredged +with scoops mounted on long poles, and manned each by three or four +Chiozzotti. There never was a pile-driving machine known in Venice; +nor a steam-tug in all the channels of the lagoons, through which the +largest craft are towed to and from the ports by row-boats. In the model +of the sea-going vessels there has apparently been little change from +the first. Yet in spite of all this backwardness in invention, the city +is full of beautiful workmanship in every branch of artificing, and the +Venetians are still the best sailors in the Adriatic. + +I do not offer the idea as a contribution to statistics, but it seems to +me that the most active branch of industry in Venice is plucking fowls. +In summer the people all work on their thresholds, and in their windows, +and as nearly out of doors as the narrowness of the streets will let +them,--and it is hard to pass through any part of the city without +coming to a poulterer’s shop, in the door of which inevitably sits a +boy, tugging at the plumage of some wretched bird. He is seldom to be +seen except in that crisis of plucking when he seems to have all but +finished; yet he seems never to accomplish the fact perfectly. Perhaps +it is part of his hard fate that the feathers shall grow again under +his hand as fast as he plucks them away: at the restaurants, I know, +the quantity of plumage one devours in consuming roast chicken is +surprising--at first. The birds are always very lean, too, and have but +a languid and weary look, in spite of the ardent manner in which the boy +clasps them while at work. It may be that the Venetians do not like +fat poultry. Their turkeys, especially, are of that emaciation which +is attributed among ourselves only to the turkey of Job; and as for the +geese and ducks, they can only interest anatomists. It is as if the long +ages of incursion and oppression which have impoverished and devastated +Italy had at last taken effect upon the poultry, and made it as poor as +the population. + +I do not want to give too exclusive an impression of Venetian industry, +however, for now I remember the Venetian _lasagnoni_, whom I never saw +doing any thing, and who certainly abound in respectable numbers. + +The lasagnone is a loafer, as an Italian can be a loafer, without the +admixture of ruffianism, which blemishes most loafers of northern race. +He may be quite worthless, and even impertinent, but he cannot be +a rowdy,--that pleasing blossom on the nose of our fast, high-fed, +thick-blooded civilization. In Venice he must not be confounded with +other loiterers at the caffè; not with the natty people who talk +politics interminably over little cups of black coffee; not with those +old habitués, who sit forever under the Procuratie, their hands folded +upon the tops of their sticks, and staring at the ladies who pass with +a curious steadfastness and knowing skepticism of gaze, not pleasing in +the dim eyes of age; certainly, the last persons who bear any likeness +to the lasagnone are the Germans, with their honest, heavy faces +comically anglicized by leg-of-mutton whiskers. The truth is, the +lasagnone does not flourish in the best caffè; he comes to perfection +in cheaper resorts, for he is commonly not rich. It often happens that a +glass of water, flavored with a little anisette, is the order over which +he sits a whole evening. He knows the waiter intimately, and does not +call him “Shop!” (Bottega,) as less familiar people do, but Gigi, or +Beppi, as the waiter is pretty sure to be named. “Behold!” he says, when +the servant places his modest drink before him, “who is that loveliest +blonde there?” Or to his fellow-lasagnone: “She regards me! I have +broken her the heart!” This is his sole business and mission, the cruel +lasagnone--to break ladies the heart. He spares no condition,--neither +rank nor wealth is any defense against him. I often wonder what is in +that note he continually shows to his friend. The confession of some +broken heart, I think. When he has folded it, and put it away, he +chuckles _“Ah, cara!”_ and sucks at his long, slender Virginia cigar. +It is unlighted, for fire consumes cigars. I never see him read the +papers,--neither the Italian papers nor the Parisian journals, though +if he can get “Galignani” he is glad, and he likes to pretend to a +knowledge of English, uttering upon occasion, with great relish, such +distinctively English words as “Yes” and “Not,” and to the waiter, +“A-little-fire-if-you-please.” He sits very late in the caffè, and he +touches his hat--his curly French hat--to the company as he goes out +with a mild swagger, his cane held lightly in his left hand, his coat +cut snugly to show his hips, and genteelly swaying with the motion of +his body. He is a dandy, of course,--all Italians are dandies,--but his +vanity is perfectly harmless, and his heart is not bad. He would go +half an hour out of his way to put you in the direction of the Piazza. A +little thing can make him happy,--to stand in the pit at the opera, and +gaze at the ladies in the lower boxes--to attend the Marionette, or +the Malibran Theatre, and imperil the peace of pretty seamstresses and +contadinas--to stand at the church doors and ogle the fair saints as +they pass out. Go, harmless lasagnone, to thy lodging in some mysterious +height, and break hearts if thou wilt. They are quickly mended. + +Of other vagabonds in Venice, if I had my choice, I think I must select +a certain ruffian who deals in dog-flesh, as the nearest my ideal of +what a vagabond should be in all respects. He stands habitually under +the Old Procuratie, beside a basket of small puppies in that snuffling +and quivering state which appears to be the favorite condition of very +young dogs, and occupies himself in conversation with an adjacent dealer +in grapes and peaches, or sometimes fastidiously engages in trimming the +hair upon the closely shaven bodies of the dogs; for in Venice it is the +ambition of every dog to look as much like the Lion of St. Mark as the +nature of the case will permit. My vagabond at times makes expeditions +to the groups of travelers always seated in summer before the Caffè +Florian, appearing at such times with a very small puppy,--neatly poised +upon the palm of his hand, and winking pensively,--which he advertises +to the company as a “Beautiful Beast,” or a “Lovely Babe,” according to +the inspiration of his light and pleasant fancy. I think the latter term +is used generally as a means of ingratiation with the ladies, to whom my +vagabond always shows a demeanor of agreeable gallantry. I never saw him +sell any of these dogs, nor ever in the least cast down by his failure +to do so. His air is grave, but not severe; there is even, at times, a +certain playfulness in his manner, possibly attributable to sciampagnin. +His curling black locks, together with his velveteen jacket and +pantaloons, are oiled and glossy, and his beard is cut in the +French-imperial mode. His personal presence is unwholesome, and it is +chiefly his moral perfection as a vagabond that makes him fascinating. +One is so confident, however, of his fitness for his position and +business, and of his entire contentment with it, that it is impossible +not to exult in him. + +He is not without self-respect. I doubt, it would be hard to find any +Venetian of any vocation, however base, who forgets that he too is a +man and a brother. There is enough servility in the language,--it is the +fashion of the Italian tongue, with its _Tu_ for inferiors, _Voi_ for +intimates and friendly equals, and _Lei_ for superiors,--but in the +manner there is none, and there is a sense of equality in the ordinary +intercourse of the Venetians, at once apparent to foreigners. + +All ranks are orderly; the spirit of aggression seems not to exist among +them, and the very boys and dogs in Venice are so well-behaved, that I +have never seen the slightest disposition in them to quarrel. Of course, +it is of the street-boy--the _biricchino_, the boy in his natural, +unreclaimed state--that I speak. This state is here, in winter, marked +by a clouded countenance, bare head, tatters, and wooden-soled shoes +open at the heels; in summer by a preternatural purity of person, by +abandon to the amphibious pleasure of leaping off the bridges into the +canals, and by an insatiable appetite for polenta, fried minnows, and +water-melons. + +When one of these boys takes to beggary, as a great many of them do, out +of a spirit of adventure and wish to pass the time, he carries out the +enterprise with splendid daring. A favorite artifice is to approach +Charity with a slice of polenta in one hand, and, with the other +extended, implore a soldo to buy cheese to eat with the polenta. The +street-boys also often perform the duties of the _gransieri_, who draw +your gondola to shore, and keep it firm with a hook. To this order +of beggar I usually gave; but one day at the railway station I had +no soldi, and as I did not wish to render my friend discontented with +future alms by giving silver, I deliberately apologized, praying him to +excuse me, and promising him for another time. I cannot forget the lofty +courtesy with which he returned,--“_S’accomodi pur, Signor!_” They have +sometimes a sense of humor, these poor swindlers, and can enjoy the +exposure of their own enormities. An amiable rogue drew our gondola to +land one evening when we went too late to see the church of San Giorgio +Maggiore. The sacristan made us free of a perfectly dark church, and we +rewarded him as if it had been noonday. On our return to the gondola, +the same beggar whom we had just feed held out his hat for another +alms. “But we have just paid you,” we cried in an agony of grief and +desperation. _“Sì, signori!”_ he admitted with an air of argument, _“è +vero. Ma, la chiesa!”_ (Yes, gentlemen, it is true. But the church!) he +added with confidential insinuation, and a patronizing wave of the hand +toward the edifice, as if he had been San Giorgio himself, and held the +church as a source of revenue. This was too much, and we laughed him to +scorn; at which, beholding the amusing abomination of his conduct, he +himself joined in our laugh with a cheerfulness that won our hearts. + +Beggary is attended by no disgrace in Italy, and it therefore comes that +no mendicant is without a proper degree of the self-respect common to +all classes. Indeed, the habit of taking gifts of money is so general +and shameless that the street beggars must be diffident souls indeed if +they hesitated to ask for it. A perfectly well-dressed and well-mannered +man will take ten soldi from you for a trifling service, and not +consider himself in the least abased. The detestable custom of largess, +instead of wages, still obtains in so great degree in Venice that a +physician, when asked for his account, replies: “What you please to +give.” Knowing these customs, I hope I have never acted discourteously +to the street beggars of Venice even when I gave them nothing, and I +know that only one of them ever so far forgot himself as to curse me for +not giving. Him, however, I think to have been out of his right mind at +the time. + +There were two mad beggars in the parish of San Stefano, whom I should +be sorry to leave unmentioned here. One, who presided chiefly over the +Campo San Stefano, professed to be also a facchino, but I never saw him +employed, except in addressing select circles of idlers whom a brawling +noise always draws together in Venice. He had been a soldier, and he +sometimes put himself at the head of a file of Croats passing through +the campo, and gave them the word of command, to the great amusement of +those swarthy barbarians. He was a good deal in drink, and when in this +state was proud to go before any ladies who might be passing, and clear +away the boys and idlers, to make room for them. When not occupied in +any of these ways, he commonly slept in the arcades of the old convent. + +But the mad beggar of Campo Sant’ Angelo seemed to have a finer sense +of what became him as a madman and a beggar, and never made himself +obnoxious by his noise. He was, in fact, very fat and amiable, and in +the summer lay asleep, for the most part, at a certain street corner +which belonged to him. When awake he was a man of extremely complaisant +presence, and suffered no lady to go by without a compliment to her +complexion, her blond hair, or her beautiful eyes, whichever it might +be. He got money for these attentions, and people paid him for any +sort of witticism. One day he said to the richest young dandy of the +city,--“Pah! you stomach me with your perfumes and fine airs;” for which +he received half a florin. His remarks to gentlemen had usually this +sarcastic flavor. I am sorry to say that so excellent a madman was often +drunk and unable to fulfill his duties to society. + +There are, of course, laws against mendicancy in Venice, and they are, +of course, never enforced. Beggars abound everywhere, and nobody molests +them. There was long a troop of weird sisters in Campo San Stefano, +who picked up a livelihood from the foreigners passing to and from the +Academy of Fine Arts. They addressed people with the title of Count, +and no doubt gained something by this sort of heraldry, though there +are counts in Venice almost as poor as themselves, and titles are +not distinctions. The Venetian seldom gives to beggars; he says +deliberately, “_No go_” (I have nothing), or “_Quando ritornerò_” (when +I return), and never comes back that way. I noticed that professional +hunger and cold took this sort of denial very patiently, as they did +every other; but I confess I had never the heart to practice it. In +my walks to the Public Gardens there was a venerable old man, with the +beard and bearing of a patriarch, whom I encountered on the last bridge +of the Riva, and who there asked alms of me. When I gave him a soldo, +he returned me a blessing which I would be ashamed to take in the United +States for half a dollar; and when the soldo was in some inaccessible +pocket, and I begged him to await my coming back, he said +sweetly,--“Very well, Signor, I will be here.” And I must say, to his +credit, that he never broke his promise, nor suffered me, for shame’s +sake, to break mine. He was quite a treasure to me in this respect, and +assisted me to form habits of punctuality. + +That exuberance of manner which one notes, the first thing, in his +intercourse with Venetians, characterizes all classes, but is most +excessive and relishing in the poor. There is a vast deal of ceremony +with every order, and one hardly knows what to do with the numbers of +compliments it is necessary to respond to. A Venetian does not come to +see you, he comes to revere you; he not only asks if you be well when +he meets you, but he bids you remain well at parting, and desires you to +salute for him all common friends; he reverences you at leave-taking; +he will sometimes consent to incommode you with a visit; he will relieve +you of the disturbance when he rises to go. All spontaneous wishes +which must, with us, take original forms, for lack of the complimentary +phrase, are formally expressed by him,--good appetite to you, when you +go to dinner much; enjoyment, when you go to the theatre; a pleasant +walk, if you meet in promenade. He is your servant at meeting and +parting; he begs to be commanded when he has misunderstood you. But +courtesy takes its highest flights, as I hinted, from the poorest +company. Acquaintances of this sort, when not on the _Ciò ciappa_ +footing, or that of the familiar thee and thou, always address each +other in _Lei_ (lordship), or _Elo_, as the Venetians have it; and their +compliment-making at encounter and separation is endless: I salute you! +Remain well! Master! Mistress! (_Paron! parona!_) being repeated as long +as the polite persons are within hearing. + +One day, as we passed through the crowded Merceria, an old Venetian +friend of mine, who trod upon the dress of a young person before us, +called out, “_Scusate, bella giovane_!” (Pardon, beautiful girl!) She +was not so fair nor so young as I have seen women; but she half turned +her face with a forgiving smile, and seemed pleased with the accident +that had won her the amiable apology. The waiter of the caffè frequented +by the people, says to the ladies for whom he places seats,--“Take +this place, beautiful blonde;” or, “Sit here, lovely brunette,” as it +happens. + +A Venetian who enters or leaves any place of public resort touches his +hat to the company, and one day at the restaurant some ladies, who had +been dining there, said “_Complimenti!_” on going out, with a grace that +went near to make the beefsteak tender. It is this uncostly gentleness +of bearing which gives a winning impression of the whole people, +whatever selfishness or real discourtesy lie beneath it. At home it +sometimes seems that we are in such haste to live and be done with it, +we have no time to be polite. Or is popular politeness merely a vice of +servile peoples? And is it altogether better to be rude? I wish it were +not. If you are lost in his city (and you are pretty sure to be lost +there, continually), a Venetian will go with you wherever you wish. +And he will do this amiable little service out of what one may say old +civilization has established in place of goodness of heart, but which is +perhaps not so different from it. + +You hear people in the streets bless each other in the most dramatic +fashion. I once caught these parting words between an old man and a +young girl; + +_Giovanetta_. Revered sir! (_Patron riverito!_) + +_Vecchio_. (With that peculiar backward wave and beneficent wag of the +hand, only possible to Italians.) Blessed child! (_Benedetta!_) + +It was in a crowd, but no one turned round at the utterance of terms +which Anglo-Saxons would scarcely use in their most emotional moments. +The old gentleman who sells boxes for the theatre in the Old Procuratie +always gave me his benediction when I took a box. + +There is equal exuberance of invective, and I have heard many fine +maledictions on the Venetian streets, but I recollect none more +elaborate than that of a gondolier who, after listening peacefully to +a quarrel between two other boatmen, suddenly took part against one of +them, and saluted him with,--“Ah! baptized son of a dog! And if I had +been present at thy baptism, I would have dashed thy brains out against +the baptismal font!” + +All the theatrical forms of passion were visible in a scene I witnessed +in a little street near San Samuele, where I found the neighborhood +assembled at doors and windows in honor of a wordy battle between +two poor women. One of these had been forced in-doors by her prudent +husband, and the other upbraided her across the marital barrier. The +assailant was washing, and twenty times she left her tub to revile the +besieged, who thrust her long arms out over those of her husband, and +turned each reproach back upon her who uttered it, thus:-- + +_Assailant_. Beast! + +_Besieged_. Thou! + +_A_. Fool! + +_B_. Thou! + +_A_. Liar! + +_B_. Thou! + +_E via in seguito!_ At last the assailant, beating her breast with both +hands, and tempestuously swaying her person back and forth, wreaked her +scorn in one wild outburst of vituperation, and returned finally to +her tub, wisely saying, on the purple verge of asphyxiation, “_O, non +discorre più con gente_.” + +I returned half an hour later, and she was laughing and playing sweetly +with her babe. + +It suits the passionate nature of the Italians to have incredible ado +about buying and selling, and a day’s shopping is a sort of campaign, +from which the shopper returns plundered and discomfited, or laden with +the spoil of vanquished shopmen. + +The embattled commercial transaction is conducted in this wise: + +The shopper enters, and prices a given article. The shopman names a +sum of which only the fervid imagination of the South could conceive as +corresponding to the value of the goods. + +The purchaser instantly starts back with a wail of horror and +indignation, and the shopman throws himself forward over the counter +with a protest that, far from being dear, the article is ruinously cheap +at the price stated, though they may nevertheless agree for something +less. + +What, then, is the very most ultimate price? + +Properly, the very most ultimate price is so much. (Say, the smallest +trifle under the price first asked.) + +The purchaser moves toward the door. He comes back, and offers one third +of the very most ultimate price. + +The shopman, with a gentle desperation, declares that the thing cost +him as much. He cannot really take the offer. He regrets, but he cannot. +That the gentleman would say something more! So much--for example. That +he regard the stuff, its quality, fashion, beauty. + +The gentleman laughs him to scorn. Ah, heigh! and, coming forward, he +picks up the article and reviles it. Out of the mode, old, fragile, ugly +of its kind. The shopman defends his wares. There is no such quantity +and quality elsewhere in Venice. But if the gentleman will give even so +much (still something preposterous), he may have it, though truly its +sale for that money is utter ruin. + +The shopper walks straight to the door. The shopman calls him back from +the threshold, or sends his boy to call him back from the street. + +Let him accommodate himself--which is to say, take the thing at his own +price. + +He takes it. + +The shopman says cheerfully, “Servo suo!” + +The purchaser responds, “Bon dì! Patron!” (Good day! my Master!) + +Thus, as I said, every bargain is a battle, and every purchase a triumph +or a defeat. The whole thing is understood; the opposing forces know +perfectly well all that is to be done beforehand, and retire after the +contest, like the captured knights in “_Morgante Maggiore_” “calm as +oil,”--however furious and deadly their struggle may have appeared to +strangers. + +Foreigners soon discern, however, that there is no bloodshed in such +encounters, and enter into them with a zeal as great as that of natives, +though with less skill. I knew one American who prided himself on such +matters, and who haughtily closed a certain bargain without words, as he +called it. The shopman offered several articles, for which he demanded +prices amounting in all to ninety-three francs. His wary customer +rapidly computed the total and replied “Without words, now, I’ll give +you a hundred francs for the lot.” With a pensive elevation of the +eyebrows, and a reluctant shrug of the shoulders, the shopman suffered +him to take them. + +Your Venetian is _simpatico_, if he is any thing. He is always ready to +feel and to express the deepest concern, and I rather think he likes to +have his sensibilities appealed to, as a pleasant and healthful exercise +for them. His sympathy begins at home, and he generously pities himself +as the victim of a combination of misfortunes, which leave him citizen +of a country without liberty, without commerce, without money, without +hope. He next pities his fellow-citizens, who are as desperately +situated as himself. Then he pities the degradation, corruption, and +despair into which the city has fallen. And I think his compassion is +the most hopeless thing in his character. That alone is touched; that +alone is moved; and when its impulse ceases he and every thing about him +remain just as before. + +With the poor, this sensibility is amusingly mischievous. They never +speak of one of their own class without adding some such ejaculation as +“Poor fellow!” or, “Poor little creature!” They pity all wretchedness, +no matter from what cause, and the greatest rogue has their compassion +when under a cloud. It is all but impossible to punish thieves in +Venice, where they are very bold and numerous for the police are too +much occupied with political surveillance to give due attention to mere +cutpurses and housebreakers, and even when they make an arrest, people +can hardly be got to bear witness against their unhappy prisoner. +_Povareto anca lu!_ There is no work and no money; people must do +something; so they steal. _Ci vuol pazienza!_ Bear witness against an +ill-fated fellow-sufferer? God forbid! Stop a thief? I think a burglar +might run from Rialto to San Marco, and not one compassionate soul in +the Merceria would do aught to arrest him--_povareto!_ Thieves came to +the house of a friend of mine at noonday, when his servant was out. They +tied their boat to his landing, entered his house, filled their boat +with plunder from it, and rowed out into the canal. The neighbors on the +floor above saw them, and cried “Thieves! thieves!” It was in the most +frequented part of the Grand Canal, where scores of boats passed and +repassed; but no one molested the thieves, and these _povareti_ escaped +with their booty. [Footnote: The rogues, it must be confessed, are often +very polite. This same friend of mine one day found a man in the act +of getting down into a boat with his favorite singing bird in its cage. +“What are you doing with that bird?” he thought himself authorized to +inquire. The thief looked about him a moment, and perceiving himself +detected, handed back the cage with a cool “_La scusi!_” (“Beg pardon!”) +as if its removal had been a trifling inadvertance.] + +One night, in a little street through which we passed to our ferry, +there came a wild rush before us, of a woman screaming for help, +and pursued by her husband with a knife in his hand; their children, +shrieking piteously, came after them. The street was crowded with +people and soldiers, but no one put out his hand; and the man presently +overtook his wife and stabbed her in the back. We only knew of the rush, +but what it all meant we could not tell, till we saw the woman bleeding +from the stab, which, happily, was slight. Inquiry of the bystanders +developed the facts, but, singularly enough, scarcely a word of pity. +It was entirely a family affair, it seemed; the man, poor little fellow, +had a mistress, and his wife had maddened him with reproaches. _Come si +fa_? He had to stab her. The woman’s case was not one that appealed to +popular compassion, and the only words of pity for her which I heard +were expressed by the wife of a fruiterer, whom her husband angrily +silenced. + + + +CHAPTER XXI. + +SOCIETY. + + +It was natural that the Venetians, whose State lay upon the borders +of the Greek Empire, and whose greatest commerce was with the Orient, +should be influenced by the Constantinopolitan civilization. Mutinelli +records that in the twelfth century they had many religious offices and +observances in common with the Greeks, especially the homily or sermon, +which formed a very prominent part of the service of worship. At this +time, also, when the rupture of the Lombard League had left other +Italian cities to fall back into incessant local wars, and barbarized +their customs, the people of Venice dressed richly and delicately, after +the Greek fashion. They combed and dressed their hair, and wore the +long, pointed Greek beard; [Footnote: A. Foscarini, in 1687, was the +last patrician who wore the beard.] and though these Byzantine modes +fell, for the most part, into disuse, in after-time, there is still a +peculiarity of dress among the women of the Venetian poor which is said +to have been inherited from the oriental costumes of Constantinople; +namely, that high-heeled, sharp-toed slipper, or sandal, which covers +the front of the foot, and drops from the heel at every step, requiring +no slight art in the wearer to keep it on at all. + +The philosophic vision, accustomed to relate trifling particulars to +important generalities, may perhaps see another relic of Byzantine +civilization among the Venetians, in that jealous restraint which they +put upon all the social movements of young girls, and the great liberty +which they allow to married women. It is true that their damsels are now +no longer imprisoned under the parental roof, as they were in times when +they never left its shelter but to go, closely veiled, to communion in +the church, on Christmas and Easter; but it is still quite impossible +that any young lady should go out alone. Indeed, she would scarcely be +secure from insult in broad day if she did so. She goes out with her +governess, and, even with this protection, she cannot be too guarded and +circumspect in her bearing; for in Venice a woman has to encounter upon +the public street a rude license of glance, from men of all ages and +conditions, which falls little short of outrage. They stare at her as +she approaches; and I have seen them turn and contemplate ladies as they +passed them, keeping a few paces in advance, with a leisurely sidelong +gait. Something of this insolence might be forgiven to thoughtless, +hot-blooded youth; but the gross and knowing leer that the elders of +the Piazza and the caffè put on at the approach of a pretty girl is an +ordeal which few women, not as thoroughly inured to it as the Venetians, +would care to encounter. However, as I never heard the trial complained +of by any but foreigners, I suppose it is not regarded by Italians as +intolerable; and it is certain that an audible compliment, upon the +street, to a pretty girl of the poor, is by no means an affront. + +The arts of pleasing and of coquetry come by nature to the gentler sex; +and if in Italy they add to them a habit of intrigue, I wonder how much +they are to blame, never being in anywise trusted? They do not differ +from persons of any age or sex in that country, if the world has been as +justly, as it has always been firmly, persuaded that the people of Italy +are effete in point of good faith. I have seen much to justify this +opinion, and something also to confute it; and as long as Garibaldi +lives, I shall not let myself believe that a race which could produce +a man so signally truthful and single-hearted is a race of liars and +cheats. I think the student of their character should also be slow to +upbraid Italians for their duplicity, without admitting, in palliation +of the fault, facts of long ages of alien and domestic oppression, in +politics and religion, which must account for a vast deal of every kind +of evil in Italy. Yet after exception and palliation has been duly +made, it must be confessed that in Italy it does not seem to be thought +shameful to tell lies, and that there the standard of sincerity, +compared with that of the English or American, is low, as the Italian +standard of morality in other respects is also comparatively low. + +With the women, bred in idleness and ignorance, the imputed national +untruthfulness takes the form naturally to be expected, and contributes +to a state of things which must be examined with the greatest caution +and reservation by every one but the Italians themselves. Goethe says +that there is no society so corrupt that a man may not live virtuously +in it; and I think the immorality of any people will not be directly +and wholly seen by the stranger who does not seek it. Certainly, the +experience and acquaintance of a foreigner in Italy must have been +most unfortunate, if they confirm all the stories of corruption told by +Italians themselves. A little generous distrust is best in matters of +this kind; but while I strengthen my incredulity concerning the utter +depravation of Venetian society in one respect, I am not disposed to +deal so leniently with it in others. The state of things is bad in +Venice, not because all women in society are impure, but because the +Italian theory of morals does not admit the existence of opportunity +without sin. It is by rare chance that a young girl makes acquaintance +with young men in society; she seldom talks with them at the parties to +which she is sometimes taken by her mother, and they do not call upon +her at her home; while for her to walk alone with a young man would be +vastly more scandalous than much worse things, and is, consequently, +unheard of. The Italians say freely they cannot trust their women as +northern women are trusted; and some Italian women frankly confess that +their sex would be worse if it were trusted more. But the truth does not +appear in this shallow suspicion and this shallow self-conviction; and +one who cares to have a just estimate of this matter must by no means +believe all the evil he hears. There may be much corruption in society, +but there is infinitely more wrong in the habits of idle gossip and +guilty scandal, which eat all sense of shame and pity out of the heart +of Venice. There is no parallel to the prying, tattling, backbiting +littleness of the place elsewhere in the world. A small country village +in America or England has its meddlesomeness, but not its worldly, +wicked sharpness. Figure the meanness of a chimney-corner gossip, added +to the bitter shrewdness and witty penetration of a gifted roué, and you +have some idea of Venetian scandal. In that city, where all the nobler +organs of expression are closed by political conditions, the viler +channels run continual filth and poison, and the people, shut out from +public and free discussion of religious and political themes, occupy +themselves with private slander, and rend each other in their abject +desperation. As it is part of the existing political demonstration +to avoid the opera and theatre, the Venetians are deprived of these +harmless distractions; balls and evening parties, at which people, +in other countries, do nothing worse than bore each other, are almost +unknown, for the same reason; and when persons meet in society, it +is too often to retail personalities, or Italian politics made as +unintelligible and as like local gossip as possible. The talk which is +small and noxious in private circles is the same thing at the caffè, +when the dread of spies does not reduce the talkers to a dreary silence. +Not permitted to feel the currents of literature and the great world’s +thought in religion freshly and directly, they seldom speak of these +things, except in that tone of obsolete superiority which Italians are +still prone to affect, as the monopolists of culture. As to Art, the +Venetians are insensible to it and ignorant of it, here in the very +atmosphere of Art, to a degree absolutely amusing. I would as soon think +of asking a fish’s opinion of water as of asking a Venetian’s notion of +architecture or painting, unless he were himself a professed artist or +critic. + +Admitting, however, that a great part of the corruption of society is +imputed, there still remains, no doubt, a great deal of real immorality +to be accounted for. This, I think, is often to be attributed to the bad +system of female education, and the habits of idleness in which women +are bred. Indeed, to Americans, the whole system of Italian education +seems calculated to reduce women to a state of imbecile captivity before +marriage; and I have no fault to find with the Italians that they are +jealous in guarding those whom they have unfitted to protect themselves, +but have rather to blame them that, after marriage, their women are +thrown at once upon society, when worse than helpless against its +temptations. Except with those people who attempt to maintain a certain +appearance in public upon insufficient means (and there are too many of +these in Venice as everywhere else), and who spare in every other way +that they may spend on dress, it does not often happen that Venetian +ladies are housekeepers. Servants are cheap and numerous, as they are +uncleanly and untrustworthy, and the Venetians prefer to keep them +[Footnote: A clerk or employé with a salary of fifty cents a day keeps a +maid-servant, that his wife may fulfill to society the important duty of +doing nothing.] rather than take part in housewifely duties; and, since +they must lavish upon dress and show, to suffer from cold and hunger in +their fireless houses and at their meagre boards. In this way the young +girls, kept imprisoned from the world, instead of learning cookery and +other domestic arts, have the grievous burden of idleness added to that +of their solitary confinement, not only among the rich and noble, but +among that large class which is neither and wishes to appear both. +[Footnote: The poet Gray, genteelly making the grand tour in 1740, wrote +to his father from Florence: “The only thing the Italians shine in is +their reception of strangers. At such times every thing is magnificence: +the more remarkable as in their ordinary course of life they are +parsimonious to a degree of nastiness. I saw in one of the vastest +palaces of Rome (that of the Prince Pamfilio), the apartment which he +himself inhabited, a bed that most servants in England would disdain to +lie in, and furniture much like that of a soph at Cambridge. This man +is worth 30,000_l_. a year.” Italian nature has changed so little in a +century, that all this would hold admirably true of Italian life at this +time. The goodly outside in religion, in morals, in every thing is too +much the ambition of Italy; this achieved, she is content to endure +any pang of self-denial, and sell what little comfort she knows--it is +mostly imported, like the word, from England--to strangers at fabulous +prices. In Italy the luxuries of life are cheap, and the conveniences +unknown or excessively dear.] Their idle thoughts, not drilled by study +nor occupied with work, run upon the freedom which marriage shall bring +them, and form a distorted image of the world, of which they know +as little as of their own undisciplined selves. Denied the just and +wholesome amusements of society during their girlhood, it is scarcely a +matter of surprise that they should throw themselves into the giddiest +whirl of its excitement when marriage sets them free to do so. + +I have said I do not think Venetians who give each other bad names are +always to be credited, and I have no doubt that many a reputation in +Venice is stained while the victim remains without guilt. A questioned +reputation is, however, no great social calamity. It forms no bar to +society, and few people are so cruel as to blame it, though all discuss +it. And it is here that the harshness of American and English society +toward the erring woman (harshness which is not injustice, but +half-justice only) contrasts visibly to our advantage over the bad +naïveté and lenity of the Italians. The carefully secluded Italian girl +is accustomed to hear of things and speak of things which, with us, +parents strive in every way to keep from their daughters’ knowledge; +and while her sense of delicacy is thus early blunted, while she is thus +used to know good and evil, she hears her father and mother comment on +the sinful errors of a friend or neighbor, who visits them and meets +them every day in society. How can the impunity of the guilt which she +believes to exist around her but sometimes have its effect, and ripen, +with opportunity, into wrong? Nay, if the girl reveres her parents at +all, how can she think the sin, which they caress in the sinner, is +so very bad? If, however, she escape all these early influences of +depravation; if her idleness, and solitude and precocious knowledge +leave her unvitiated, if, when she goes into society, it is by marriage +with a man who is neither a dotard nor a fortune-seeker, and who remains +constant and does not tempt her, by neglect, to forbode offense and to +inflict anticipative reprisals--yet her purity goes uncredited, as her +guilt would go unpunished; scandal makes haste to blacken her name to +the prevailing hue; and whether she has sin or not, those with sin will +cast, not the stone that breaks and kills, but the filth that sticks and +stinks. The wife must continue the long social exile of her girlhood if +she would not be the prey of scandal. The _cavaliere servente_ no longer +exists, but gossip now attributes often more than one lover in his +place, and society has the cruel clemency to wink at the license. +Nothing is in worse taste than jealousy, and, consequently, though +intrigue sometimes causes stabbing, and the like, among low people, it +is rarely noticed by persons of good breeding. It seems to me that in +Venetian society the reform must begin, not with dissolute life, but +with the social toleration of the impure, and with the wanton habits of +scandal, which make all other life incredible, and deny to virtue the +triumph of fair fame. + +I confess that what I saw of the innocent amusements of this society was +not enough to convince me of their brilliancy and attractiveness; but +I doubt if a foreigner can be a trustworthy judge of these things, and +perhaps a sketch drawn by an alien hand, in the best faith, might have +an air of caricature. I would not, therefore, like to trust my own +impression of social diversions. They were, very probably, much more +lively and brilliant than I thought them. But Italians assembled +anywhere, except at the theatre or the caffè, have a certain stiffness, +all the more surprising, because tradition has always led one to expect +exactly the reverse of them. I have seen nothing equal to the formality +of this people, who deride colder nations for inflexible manners; and I +have certainly never seen society in any small town in America so ill +at ease as I have seen society in Venice, writhing under self-imposed +restraints. At a musical soirée, attended by the class of people who at +home would have been chatty and sociable, given to making acquaintance +and to keeping up acquaintance,--the young men harmlessly talking and +walking with the young ladies, and the old people listening together, +while constant movement and intercourse kept life in the assembly, and +there was some real pleasure felt amidst a good deal of unavoidable +suffering,--I say, I found such a soirée in Venice to be a spectacle of +ladies planted in formal rows of low-necks and white dresses around +the four sides of one room, and of gentlemen restively imprisoned in +dress-coats and white gloves in another. During the music all these +devoted people listened attentively, and at the end, the ladies lapsed +back into their chairs and fanned themselves, while the gentlemen walked +up and down the floor of their cell, and stopped, two by two, at the +door of the ladies’ room, glanced mournfully athwart the moral barrier +which divided them, and sadly and dejectedly turned away. Amazed at +this singular species of social enjoyment, I inquired afterward, of a +Venetian lady, if evening parties in Venice were usually such ordeals, +and was discouraged to learn that what I had seen was scarcely an +exaggeration of prevailing torments. Commonly people do not know each +other, and it is difficult for the younger to procure introductions; +and when there is previous acquaintance, the presence of some commanding +spirit is necessary to break the ice of propriety, and substitute +enjoyment for correctness of behavior. Even at dancing parties, where +it would seem that the poetry of motion might do something to soften the +rigid bosom of Venetian deportment, the poor young people separate +after each dance, and take each sex its appointed prison, till the next +quadrille offers them a temporary liberation. For my own part, I cannot +wonder that young men fly these virtuous scenes, and throng the rooms of +those pleasant women of the _demi-monde_, who only exact from them that +they shall be natural and agreeable; I cannot wonder that their +fair partners in wretchedness seize the first opportunity to revenge +themselves upon the propriety which has so cruelly used them. It is +said that the assemblies of the Jews, while quite as unexceptionable +in character, are far more sociable and lively than those of the +Christians. The young Hebrews are frequently intelligent, well-bred, and +witty, with a _savoir faire_ which their Christian brethren lack. But, +indeed, the young Venetian is, at that age when all men are owlish, +ignorant, and vapid, the most owlish, ignorant, and vapid man in the +world. He talks, not milk-and-water, but warm water alone, a little +sweetened; and, until he has grown wicked, has very little good in him. + +Most ladies of fashion receive calls on a certain day of each week, when +it is made a matter of pride to receive as many calls as possible. The +number sometimes reaches three hundred, when nobody sits down, and few +exchange more than a word with the hostess. In winter, the stove is +heated on these reception days, and little cups of black coffee are +passed round to the company; in summer lemonade is substituted for the +coffee; but in all seasons a thin, waferish slice of toasted rusk +(the Venetian _baicolo_) is offered to each guest with the drink. At +receptions where the sparsity of the company permits the lady of the +house to be seen, she is commonly visible on a sofa, surrounded by +visitors in a half-circle. Nobody stays more than ten or fifteen +minutes, and I have sometimes found even this brief time of much greater +apparent length, and apt to produce a low state of nerves, from which +one seldom recovers before dinner. Gentlemen, however, do not much +frequent these receptions; and I assert again the diffidence I should +feel in offering this glance at Venetian social enjoyment as conveying +a just and full idea of it. There is no doubt that the Venetians find +delight in their assemblies, where a stranger seeks it in vain. I dare +say they would not think our own reunions brilliant, and that, looking +obliquely (as a foreigner must) on the most sensible faces at one of +our evening parties, they might mistake the look of pathetic dejection, +visible in them, as the expression of people rather bored by their +pleasure than otherwise. + +The conversazioni are of all sorts, from the conversazioni of the rigid +proprietarians, where people sit down to a kind of hopeless whist, at +a soldo the point, and say nothing, to the conversazioni of the +_demi-monde_ where they say any thing. There are persons in Venice, as +well as everywhere else, of new-fashioned modes of thinking, and +these strive to give a greater life and ease to their assemblies, +by attracting as many young men as possible; and in their families, +gentlemen are welcome to visit, and to talk with the young ladies in the +presence of their mothers. But though such people are no more accused +of impropriety than the straitest of the old-fashioned, they are not +regarded with the greatest esteem, and their daughters do not so readily +find husbands. The Italians are fickle, the women say; they get soon +tired of their wives after marriage, and when they see much of ladies +before marriage, they get tired of them then, and never make them their +wives. So it is much better to see nothing of a possible husband till +you actually have him. I do not think conversazioni of any kind are +popular with young men, however; they like better to go to the caffè, +and the people you meet at private houses are none the less interesting +for being old, or middle-aged. A great many of the best families, at +present, receive no company at all, and see their friends only in the +most private manner; though there are still cultivated circles to +which proper introduction gives the stranger (who has no Austrian +acquaintance) access. But unless he have thorough knowledge of Italian +politics localized to apply to Venice, an interest in the affairs, +fortunes, and misfortunes of his neighbors, and an acquaintance with +the Venetian dialect, I doubt if he will be able to enjoy himself in the +places so cautiously opened to him. Even in the most cultivated society, +the dialect is habitually spoken; and if Italian is used, it is only in +compliment to some foreigner present, for whose sake, also, topics of +general interest are sometimes chosen. + +The best society is now composed of the families of professional men, +such as the advocates, the physicians, and the richer sort of merchants. +The shopkeepers, master-artisans, and others, whom industry and thrift +distinguish from the populace, seem not to have any social life, in +the American sense. They are wholly devoted to affairs, and partly from +choice, and partly from necessity, are sordid and grasping. It is their +class which has to fight hardest for life in Europe, and they give no +quarter to those above or below them. The shop is their sole thought and +interest, and they never, never sink it. But, since they have habits of +diligence, and, as far as they are permitted, of enterprise, they seem +to be in great part the stuff from which a prosperous State is to be +rebuilt in Venice, if ever the fallen edifice rise again. They have +sometimes a certain independence of character, which a better condition +of things, and further education, would perhaps lift into honesty; +though as yet they seem not to scruple to take any unfair advantage, +and not to know that commercial success can never rest permanently on a +system of bad faith. Below this class is the populace, between which and +the patrician order a relation something like Roman clientage existed, +contributing greatly to the maintenance of exclusively aristocratic +power in the State. The greatest conspiracy (that of Marin Falier) which +the commons ever moved against the oligarchy was revealed to one of +the nobility by his plebeian creature, or client; and the government +rewarded by every species of indulgence a class in which it had +extinguished even the desire of popular liberty. The heirs of the +servile baseness which such a system as this must create are not yet +extinct. There is still a helplessness in many of the servant class, and +a disposition to look for largess as well as wages, which are the traits +naturally resulting from a state of voluntary submission to others. The +nobles, as the government, enervated and debauched the character of the +poor by public shows and countless holidays; as individuals, they taught +them to depend upon patrician favor, and not upon their own plebeian +industry, for support. The lesson was an evil one, hard to be unlearned, +and it is yet to be forgotten in Venice. Certain traits of soft +and familiar dependence give great charm to the populace; but their +existence makes the student doubtful of a future to which the plebeians +themselves look forward with perfect hope and confidence. It may be that +they are right, and will really rise to the dignity of men, when free +government shall have taught them that the laborer is worthy of his +hire--after he has earned it. This has been the result, to some degree, +in the kingdom of Italy, where the people have found that freedom, like +happiness, means work. + +Undoubtedly the best people in the best society of Venice are the +advocates, an order of consequence even in the times of the Republic, +though then shut out from participation in public affairs by a native +government, as now by a foreign one. Acquaintance with several members +of this profession impressed me with a sense of its liberality of +thought and feeling, where all liberal thinking and feeling must be done +by stealth, and where the common intelligence of the world sheds its +light through multiplied barriers. Daniele Manin, the President of the +Republic of 1848, was of this class, which, by virtue of its learning, +enlightenment, and talent, occupies a place in the esteem and regard of +the Venetian people far above that held by the effete aristocracy. +The better part of the nobility, indeed, is merged in the professional +class, and some of the most historic names are now preceded by the +learned titles of Doctor and Advocate, rather than the cheap dignity +of Count, offered by the Austrian government to all the patricians who +chose to ask for it, when Austrian rule was extended over their country. + +The physicians rank next to the advocates, and are usually men learned +in their profession, however erroneous and old-fashioned some of their +theories of practice may be. Like the advocates, they are often men of +letters: they write for the journals, and publish little pamphlets on +those topics of local history which it is so much the fashion to treat +in Venice. No one makes a profession of authorship. The returns of an +author’s work would be too uncertain, and its restrictions and penalties +would be too vexatious and serious; and so literary topics are only +occasionally treated by those whose main energies are bent in another +direction. + +The doctors are very numerous, and a considerable number of them are +Hebrews, who, even in the old jealous times, exercised the noble art +of medicine, and who now rank very highly among their professional +brethren. These physicians haunt the neat and tasteful apothecary shops, +where they sit upon the benching that passes round the interior, read +the newspapers, and discuss the politics of Europe, Asia, Africa, and +America, with all the zest that you may observe to characterize their +discussions in Goldoni’s plays. There they spend their evenings, and +many hours of every day, and thither the sick send to call them,--each +physician resorting to a particular apothecary’s, and keeping his name +inscribed on a brass plate against the wall, above the head of the +druggist, who presides over the reunions of the doctors, while his +apprentice pestles away at their prescriptions. + +In 1786 there were, what with priests, monks, and nuns, a multitude of +persons of ecclesiastical profession in Venice; and though many convents +and monasteries were abolished by Napoleon, the priests are still very +numerous, and some monastic establishments have been revived under +Austrian rule. The high officers of the Church are, of course, well +paid, but most of the priesthood live miserably enough. They receive +from the government a daily stipend of about thirty-five soldi, and they +celebrate mass when they can get something to do in that way, for forty +soldi. Unless, then, they have private income from their own family, or +have pay for the education of some rich man’s son or daughter, they must +fare slenderly. + +There is much said, in and out of Venice, about their influence in +society; but this is greatly modified, and I think is chiefly exercised +upon the women of the old-fashioned families. [Footnote: It is no longer +usual for girls to be educated in convents, and most young ladies of +the better classes, up to the age of thirteen or fourteen years, receive +their schooling in secular establishments, whither they go every day +for study, or where they sometimes live as in our boarding-schools, and +where they are taught the usual accomplishments, greater attention being +paid to French and music than to other things.] I need hardly repeat +the wellknown fact that all the moral power of the Roman Church over the +younger men is gone; these seldom attend mass, and almost never go to +confession, and the priests are their scorn and by-word. Their example, +in some degree, must be much followed also by women; and though women +must everywhere make more public professions of religion than men, in +order to retain social standing, I doubt if the priests have a very firm +hold upon the fears or reverence of the sisters and wives of liberal +Venetians. + +If, however, they contribute in anywise to keep down the people, they +are themselves enslaved to their superiors and to each other. No priest +can leave the city of Venice without permission of the Patriarch. He is +cut off as much as possible from his own kinspeople, and subjected +to the constant surveillance of his class. Obliged to maintain a +respectable appearance on twenty cents a day,--hampered and hindered +from all personal liberty and private friendship, and hated by the great +mass of the people,--I hardly think the Venetian priest is to be envied +in his life. For my own part, knowing these things, I was not able to +cherish toward the priests those feelings of scornful severity which +swell many Protestant bosoms; and so far as I made their acquaintance, I +found them kind and amiable. One ecclesiastic, at least, I may describe +as one of the most agreeable and cultivated gentlemen I ever met. + +Those who fare best among the priests are the Jesuits, who returned from +repeated banishment with the Austrians in this century. Their influence +is very extended, and the confessional is their forte. Venetians say +that with the old and the old-fashioned these crafty priests suggest +remorse and impose penances; that with the young men and the latter-day +thinkers they are men of the world, and pass off pleasant sins as +trifles. All the students of the government schools are obliged by +law to confess twice a month, and are given printed certificates of +confession, in blank, which the confessor fills up and stamps with the +seal of the Church. Most of them go to confess at the church of the +Jesuits, who are glad to hear the cock-and-bull story invented by +the student, and to cultivate his friendship by an easy penance and +a liberal tone. This ingenuous young man of course despises the +confessional. He goes to confess because the law obliges him to do so; +but the law cannot dictate what he must confess. Therefore, he ventures +as near downright burlesque as he dares, and (if the account he gives of +the matter be true) puts off his confessor with some well-known fact, as +that he has blasphemed. Of course he has blasphemed, blasphemy being as +common as the forms of salutation in Venice. So the priest, who wishes +him to come again, and to found some sort of influence over him, +says,--“Oh dear, dear! This is very bad. Blasphemy is deadly sin. If you +_must_ swear, swear by the heathen gods: say Body of Diana, instead of +Body of God; Presence of the Devil, instead of Blood of Mary. Then +there is no harm done.” The students laugh over the pleasant absurdity +together, and usually agree upon the matter of their semimonthly +confessions beforehand. + +As I have hinted, the young men do not love the government or the +Church, and though I account for the loss of much high hope and generous +sympathy in growth from youth to middle age, I cannot see how, when +they have replaced their fathers, the present religious and political +discontent is to be modified. Nay, I believe it must become worse. The +middle-aged men of Venice grew up in times of comparative quiet, when +she did not so much care who ruled over her, and negatively, at least, +they honored the Church. They may now hate the foreign rule, but there +are many considerations of timidity, and many effects of education, to +temper their hate. They may dislike the priests, but they revere the +Church. The young men of to-day are bred in a different school, and all +their thoughts are of opposition to the government and of war upon the +Church, which they detest and ridicule. The fact that their education is +still in the hands of the priests in some measure, does not render them +more tractable. They have no fears to be wrought upon by their clerical +professors, who seldom have sought to act upon their nobler qualities. +The influence of the priesthood is again limited by the fact that the +teachers in the free schools of the city, to which the poor send their +children, are generally not priests; and ecclesiastics are no longer so +commonly the private tutors of the children of the rich, as they +once were when they lived with the family, and exercised a direct and +important influence on it. Express permission from the pope is now +necessary to the maintenance of a family chaplain, and the office is +nearly disused. [Footnote: In early days every noble Venetian family +had its chaplain, who, on the occasion of great dinners and suppers, +remained in the kitchen, and received as one of his perquisites the +fragments that came back from the table.] + +The Republic was extremely jealous of the political power of the +priests, who could not hold secular office in its time. A curious +punishment was inflicted upon the priest who proved false to his own +vows of chastity, and there is a most amusing old ballad--by no means +cleanly in its language--purporting to be the lament of a priest +suspended in the iron cage, appointed for the purpose, from the belfry +of the Campanile San Marco, and enduring the jeers and insults of the +mob below. We may suppose that with advancing corruption (if corruption +has indeed advanced from remote to later times) this punishment was +disused for want of room to hang out the delinquents. In the last +century, especially, the nuns and monks led a pleasant life. You may +see in the old pictures of Pietro Longhi and his school, how at the +aristocratic and fashionable convent of San Zaccaria, the lady nuns +received their friends and acquaintances of this world in the anteroom, +where the dames and their cavaliers flirted and drank coffee, and the +gentlemen coquetted with the brides of heaven through their grated +windows. + +Among other privileges of the Church, abolished in Venice long ago, was +that ancient right of the monks of St. Anthony, Abbot, by which +their herds of swine were made free of the whole city. These animals, +enveloped in an odor of sanctity, wandered here and there, and were +piously fed by devout people, until the year 1409, when, being found +dangerous to children and inconvenient to every body, they were made +the subject of a special decree, which deprived them of their freedom of +movement. The Republic was always limiting the privileges of the +Church! It is known how when the holy inquisition was established in its +dominions in 1249, the State stipulated that great part of the process +against heresy should be conducted by secular functionaries, and that +the sentence should rest with the Doge and his councillors,--a kind of +inquisition with claws clipped and teeth filed, as one may say, and +the only sort ever permitted in Venice. At present there is no absolute +disfavor shown to the clergy; but, as we have seen, many a pleasant +island, which the monks of old reclaimed from the salty marshes, and +planted with gardens and vineyards, now bears only the ruins of their +convents, or else, converted into a fortress or government dépôt, is +all thistly with bayonets. Anciently, moreover, there were many little +groves in different parts of the city, where the pleasant clergy, of +what Mr. Ruskin would have us believe the pure and religious days of +Venice, met and made merry so riotously together by night that the +higher officers of the Church were forced to prohibit their little +soirées. + +An old custom of rejoicing over the installation of a new parish priest +is still to be seen in almost primitive quaintness. The people of each +parish--nobles, citizens, and plebeians alike--formerly elected their +own priest, and, till the year 1576, they used to perambulate the city +to the sound of drums, with banners flying, after an election, and +proclaim the name of their favorite. On the day of the _parroco_’s +induction his portrait was placed over the church door and after the +celebration of the morning mass, a breakfast was given, which grew to be +so splendid in time, that in the fifteenth century a statute limited +its profusion. In the afternoon the new parroco, preceded by a band of +military music, visited all the streets and courts of his parish, +and then, as now, all the windows of the parish were decorated with +brilliant tapestries, and other gay-colored cloths and pictures. In +those times as in these, there was an illumination at night, throngs of +people in the campo of the church, and booths for traffic in cakes of +flour and raisins,--fried in lard upon the spot, and sold smoking hot, +with immense uproar on the part of the merchant; and for three days +afterward the parish bells were sounded in concert. + +The difficulty of ascertaining any thing with certainty in Venice +attends in a degree peculiarly great the effort to learn exactly the +present influence and standing of the nobility as a class. One is +tempted, on observing the free and unembarrassed bearing of all ranks +of people toward each other, to say that no sense of difference +exists,--and I do not think there is ever shown, among Italians, either +the aggressive pride or the abject meanness which marks the intercourse +of people and nobles elsewhere in Europe, and I have not seen the +distinction of rich and poor made so brutally in Italy as sometimes in +our own _soi-disant_ democratic society at home. There is, indeed, that +equality in Italian fibre which I believe fits the nation for democratic +institutions better than any other, and which is perhaps partly the +result of their ancient civilization. At any rate, it fascinates a +stranger to see people so mutually gentle and deferential; and must +often be a matter of surprise to the Anglo-Saxon, in whose race, +reclaimed from barbarism more recently, the native wild-beast is still +so strong as to sometimes inform the manner. The uneducated Anglo-Saxon +is a savage; the Italian, though born to utter ignorance, poverty, and +depravity, is a civilized man. I do not say that his civilization is of +a high order, or that the civilization of the most cultivated Italian is +at all comparable to that of a gentleman among ourselves. The Italian’s +education, however profound, has left his passions undisciplined, while +it has carefully polished his manner; he yields lightly to temptation, +he loses his self-control, he blasphemes habitually; his gentleness is +conventional, his civilization not individual. With us the education of +a gentleman (I do not mean a person born to wealth or station, but any +man who has trained himself in morals or religion, in letters, and in +the world) disciplines the impulses, and leaves the good manner to +grow naturally out of habits of self-command and consequent habitual +self-respect. + +The natural equality of the Italians is visible in their community of +good looks as well as good manners. They have never, perhaps, that +high beauty of sensitive expression which is found among Englishmen and +Americans (preferably among the latter), but it very rarely happens that +they are brutally ugly; and the man of low rank and mean vocation has +often a beauty of as fine sort as the man of education and refinement. +If they changed clothes, and the poor man could be persuaded to wash +himself, they might successfully masquerade, one for another. The +plebeian Italian, inspired by the national vanity, bears himself as +proudly as the noble, without at all aggressing in his manner. His +beauty, like that of the women of his class, is world-old,--the beauty +of the pictures and the statues: the ideal types of loveliness are +realized in Italy; the saints and heroes, the madonnas and nymphs, come +true to the stranger at every encounter with living faces. In Venice, +particularly, the carriage of the women, of whatever rank, is very free +and noble, and the servant is sometimes to be distinguished from the +mistress only by her dress and by her labor-coarsened hands; certainly +not always by her dirty finger-nails and foul teeth, for though the +clean shirt is now generally in Italy, some lesser virtues are still +unknown: the nail-brush and tooth-brush are of but infrequent use; the +four-pronged fork is still imperfectly understood, and as a nation the +Italians may be said to eat with their knives. + +The Venetian, then, seeing so little difference between himself and +others, whatever his rank may be, has, as I said, little temptation to +arrogance or servility. The effects of the old relationship of patron +and client are amusingly noticeable in the superior as well as the +inferior; a rich man’s dependents are perfectly free with advice and +comment, and it sometimes happens that he likes to hear their lively +talk, and at home secretly consorts with his servants. The former social +differences between commoners and patricians (which, I think, judging +from the natural temper of the race, must have been greatly modified +at all times by concession and exception) may be said to have quite +disappeared in point of fact; the nobility is now almost as effete +socially as it is politically. There is still a number of historic +families, which are in a certain degree exclusive; but rich _parvenus_ +have admission to their friendship, and commoners in good circumstances +are permitted their acquaintance; the ladies of this patrician society +visit ladies of less rank, and receive them at their great parties, +though not at more sacred assemblies, where they see only each other. + +The Venetians have a habit of saying their best families are in exile, +but this is not meant to be taken literally. Many of the best families +are yet in the city, living in perfect retirement, or very often merged +in the middle class, and become men of professions, and active, useful +lives. Of these nobles (they usually belong to the families which +did not care to ask nobility of Austria, and are therefore untitled) +[Footnote: The only title conferred on any patrician of Venice during +the Republic was Cavaliere, and this was conferred by a legislative +act in reward of distinguished service. The names of the nobility were +written in the Golden Book of the Republic, and they were addressed +as Illustrissimo or Eccellenza. They also signed themselves _nobile_, +between the Christian name and surname, as it is still the habit of the +untitled nobility to do.] the citizens are affectionately proud, while I +have heard from them nothing but contempt and ridicule of the patricians +who, upon a wretched pension or meagre government office, attempt to +maintain patrician distinction. Such nobles are usually Austriacanti in +their politics, and behind the age in every thing; while there are +other descendants of patrician families mingled at last with the very +populace, sharing their ignorance and degradation, and feeling with +them. These sometimes exercise the most menial employments: I knew one +noble lord who had been a facchino, and I heard of another who was a +street-sweeper. _Conte che non conta, non conta niente_, [Footnote: A +count who doesn’t count (money) counts for nothing.] says the sneering +Italian proverb; and it would be little less than miraculous if a +nobility like that of modern Venice maintained superior state and regard +in the eyes of the quick-witted, intelligent, sarcastic commonalty. + +The few opulent patricians are by no means the most violent of +Italianissimi. They own lands and houses, and as property is unsafe when +revolutionary feeling is rife, their patriotism is tempered. The wealth +amassed in early times by the vast and enterprising commerce of the +country was, when not dissipated in riotous splendor, invested in real +estate upon the main-land as the Republic grew in territory, and the +income of the nobles is now from the rents of these lands. They reside +upon their estates during the season of the _villeggiatura_, which +includes the months of September and October, when every one who can +possibly leave the city goes into the country. Then the patricians +betake themselves to their villas near Padua, Vicenza, Bassano, and +Treviso, and people the sad-colored, weather-worn stucco hermitages, +where the mutilated statues, swaggering above the gates, forlornly +commemorate days when it was a far finer thing to be a noble than it is +now. I say the villas look dreary and lonesome as places can be made to +look in Italy, what with their high garden walls, their long, low piles +of stabling, and the _passée_ indecency of their nymphs and fauns, +foolishly strutting in the attitudes of the silly and sinful old Past; +and it must be but a dull life that the noble proprietors lead there. + +It is better, no doubt, on the banks of the Brenta, where there are +still so many villas as to form a street of these seats of luxury, +almost the whole length of the canal, from Fusina to Padua. I am +not certain that they have a right to the place which they hold in +literature and sentiment, and yet there is something very charming about +them, with their gardens, and chapels, and statues, and shaded walks. +We went to see them one day early in October, and found them every one, +when habitable, inhabited, and wearing a cheerful look, that made their +proximity to Venice incredible. As we returned home after dark, we saw +the ladies from the villas walking unattended along the road, and giving +the scene an air of homelike peace and trustfulness which I had not +found before in Italy; while the windows of the houses were brilliantly +lighted, as if people lived in them; whereas, you seldom see a light in +Venetian palaces. I am not sure that I did not like better, however, the +villas that were empty and ruinous, and the gardens that had run wild, +and the statues that had lost legs and arms. Some of the ingenious +proprietors had enterprisingly whitewashed their statues, and there +was a horrible primness about certain of the well-kept gardens which +offended me. Most of the houses were not large, but there was here and +there a palace as grand as any in the city. Such was the great villa +of the Contarini of the Lions, which was in every way superb, with +two great lions of stone guarding its portals, and a gravel walk, +over-arched with stately trees, stretching a quarter of a mile before +it. At the moment I was walking down this aisle I met a cleanshaven old +canonico, with red legs and red-tasseled hat, and with a book under his +arm, and a meditative look, whom I here thank for being so venerably +picturesque. The palace itself was shut up, and I wish I had known, when +I saw it, that it had a ghostly underground passage from its cellar to +the chapel,--wherein, when you get half way, your light goes out, and +you consequently never reach the chapel. + +This is at Mira; but the greatest of all the villas is the magnificent +country-seat of the family Pisani at Stra, which now, with scarcely +any addition to its splendor, serves for the residence of the abdicated +Emperor of Austria. There is such pride in the vastness of this edifice +and its gardens as impresses you with the material greatness which found +expression in it, and never raises a regret that it has utterly passed +away. You wander around through the aisles of trim-cut lime-trees, +bullied and overborne by the insolent statues, and expect at every turn +to come upon intriguing spectres in bag-wigs, immense hoops and +patches. How can you feel sympathy for those dull and wicked ghosts of +eighteenth-century corruption? There is rottenness enough in the world +without digging up old putridity and sentimentalizing on it; and I doubt +if you will care to know much of the way in which the noble owner of +such a villa ascended the Brenta at the season of the _villeggiatura_ in +his great gilded barge, all carven outside with the dumpling loves and +loose nymphs of the period, with fruits, and flowers, and what not; +and within, luxuriously cushioned and furnished, and stocked with +good things for pleasure making in the gross old fashion. [Footnote: +Mutinelli, _Gli Ultimi Cinquant’ Anni della Repubblica di Veneza_.] +King Cole was not a merrier old soul than Illustrissimo of that day; he +outspent princes; and his agent, while he harried the tenants to supply +his master’s demands, plundered Illustrissimo frightfully. Illustrissimo +never looked at accounts. He said to his steward, “_Caro veccio, fè vu. +Mi remeto a quel che fè vu._” (Old fellow, you attend to it. I shall be +satisfied with what you do.) So the poor agent had no other course but +to swindle him, which he did; and Illustrissimo, when he died, died +poor, and left his lordly debts and vices to his sons. + +In Venice, the noble still lives sometimes in his ancestral palace, +dimly occupying the halls where his forefathers flourished in so much +splendor. I can conceive, indeed, of no state of things more flattering +to human pride than that which surrounded the patrician of the old +aristocratic Republic. The house in which he dwelt was the palace of +a king, in luxury of appointment and magnificence of size. Troops of +servants that ministered to his state peopled its vast extent; and the +gondolas that carried his grandeur abroad were moored in little fleets +to the piles that rose before his palace, painted with the family arms +and colors. The palace itself stood usually on the Grand Canal, and +rose sheer from the water, giving the noble that haughty inaccessibility +which the lord of the main-land achieved only by building lofty walls +and multiplying gates. The architecture was as costly in its ornament +as wild Gothic fancy, or Renaissance luxury of bad taste, could make it; +and when the palace front was not of sculptured marble, the painter’s +pencil filled it with the delight of color. The main-land noble’s house +was half a fortress, and formed his stronghold in times of popular +tumult or family fray; but at Venice the strong arm of St. Mark +suppressed all turbulence in a city secure from foreign war; and the +peaceful arts rejoiced in undisturbed possession of the palaces, which +rose in the most delicate and fantastic beauty, and mirrored in the +brine a dream of sea-deep strangeness and richness. You see much of the +beauty yet, but the pride and opulence which called it into being are +gone forever. + +Most palaces, whether of the Gothic or classicistic period, have the +same internal arrangement of halls and chambers, and are commonly built +of two lofty and two low stories. On the ground floor, or water level, +is a hall running back from the gate to a bit of garden at the other +side of the palace; and on either side of this hall, which in old times +was hung with the family trophies of the chase and war, are the porter’s +lodge and gondoliers’ rooms. On the first and second stories are the +family apartments, opening on either side from great halls, of the same +extent as that below, but with loftier roofs, of heavy rafters gilded +or painted. The fourth floor is of the same arrangement, but has a +lower roof, and was devoted to the better class of servants. Of the two +stories used by the family, the third is the loftier and airier, and was +occupied in summer; the second was the winter apartment. On either hand +the rooms open in suites. + +We have seen something of the ceremonies, public and private, which gave +peculiar gayety and brilliance to the life of the Venetians of +former days; but in his political character the noble had yet greater +consequence. He was part of the proudest, strongest, and securest system +of his time. He was a king with the fellowship of kings, flattered with +the equality of an aristocracy which was master of itself, and of its +nominal head. During the earlier times it was his office to go daily to +Rialto and instruct the people in their political rights and duties for +four hours; and even when the duties became every thing and the rights +nothing (after the Serrar del Consiglio), the friendly habit of daily +intercourse between patricians and citizens was still kept up at the +same place. Once each week, and on every holiday, the noble took his +seat in the Grand Council (the most august assembly in the world, +without doubt), or the Ten, or the Three, according to his office in the +State,--holding his place in the Council by right of birth, and in the +other bodies by election of his peers. + +Although the patricians were kept as one family apart from the people, +and jealously guarded in their aristocratic purity by the State, they +were only equals of the poorest before the laws of their own creation, +and their condescension to the people was frequent and great. Indeed, +the Venetians of all classes are social creatures, loving talk and +gossip, and these constant habits of intercourse must have done much to +produce that equality of manner now observable in them. Their amusements +were for a long time the same, the nobles taking part in the public +holidays, and in the popular exercises of rowing and swimming. In the +earlier times, hunting in the lagoons was a favorite diversion; but as +the decay of the Republic advanced, and the patrician blossomed into +the fine gentleman of the last century, these hearty sports were +relinquished, and every thing was voted vulgar but masking in carnival, +dancing and gaming at Ridotto, and intriguing everywhere. + +The accounts which Venetian writers give of Republican society in the +eighteenth century form a _chronique scandaleuse_ which need not be +minutely copied here. Much may be learned of Venetian manners of this +time from the comedies of Goldoni; and the faithlessness of society +may be argued from the fact that in these plays, which contain nothing +salacious or indecent, there is scarcely a character of any rank +who scruples to tell lies; and the truth is not to be found in works +intended to school the public to virtue. The ingenious old playwright’s +memoirs are full of gossip concerning that poor old Venice, which is +now no more; and the worthy autobiographer, Casanova, also gives much +information about things that had best not be known. + +As the Republic drew near its fall, in 1797, there was little left in +its dominant class worth saving, if we may believe the testimony of +Venetians which Mutinelli brings to bear upon the point in his “Annali +Urbani,” and his “History of the Last Fifty Years of the Republic.” + Long prosperity and prodigious opulence had done their worst, and the +patricians, and the lowest orders of the people, their creatures and +dependants, were thoroughly corrupt; while the men of professions began +to assume that station which they now hold. The days of a fashionable +patrician of those times began at a little before sunset, and ended with +the following dawn. Rising from his bed, he dressed himself in dainty +linen, and placed himself in the hands of the hairdresser to be combed, +oiled, perfumed, and powdered; and then sallied forth for a stroll +through the Merceria, where this excellent husband and father made +tasteful purchases to be carried to the lady he served. At dinner, +which he took about seven or eight, his board was covered with the most +tempting viands, and surrounded by needy parasites, who detailed the +spicy scandals of the day in payment of their dinner, while the children +of the host were confided to the care of the corrupt and negligent +servants. After dinner, the father went to the theatre, or to the +_casino_, and spent the night over cards and wine, in the society of +dissolute women; and renewed on the morrow the routine of his useful +existence. The education of the children of the man of fashion was +confided to a priest, who lived in his family, and called himself an +abbate, after the mode of the _abbés_ of French society; he had winning +manners with the ladies, indulgent habits with his pupils, and dressed +his elegant person in silks of Lyons and English broadcloths. In the +pleasant old days he flitted from palace to villa, dining and supping, +and flattering the ladies, and tapping the lid of his jeweled snuffbox +in all fashionable companies. He was the cadet of a patrician family +(when not the ambitious son of a low family), with a polite taste for +idleness and intrigue, for whom no secular sinecure could be found in +the State, and who obliged the Church by accepting orders. Whether in +the palace on the Grand Canal, or the villa on the Brenta, this gentle +and engaging priest was surely the most agreeable person to be met, and +the most dangerous to ladies’ hearts,--with his rich suit of black, +and his smug, clean-shaven face, and his jeweled hands, and his sweet, +seducing manners. Alas! the world is changed! The priests whom you see +playing _tre-sette_ now at the conversazioni are altogether different +men, and the delightful abbate is as much out of fashion as the bag-wig +or the queue. When in fashion he loved the theatre, and often showed +himself there at the side of his noble patron’s wife. Nay, in that time +the theatre was so prized by the Church that a popular preacher thought +it becoming to declare from his pulpit that to compose well his +hearers should study the comedies of Goldoni,--and his hearers were the +posterity of that devout old aristocracy which never undertook a journey +without first receiving the holy sacrament; which had built the churches +and endowed them from private wealth! + +Ignorance, as well as vice, was the mode in those elegant days, and it +is related that a charming lady of good society once addressed a foreign +_savant_ at her conversazione, and begged him to favor the company with +a little music, because, having heard that he was _virtuous_, she had +no other association with the word than its technical use in Italy to +indicate a professional singer as a _virtuoso_. A father of a family who +kept no abbate for the education of his children ingeniously taught them +himself. “Father,” asked one of his children, “what are the stars?” “The +stars are stars, and little things that shine as thou seest.” “Then they +are candles, perhaps?” “Make thy account that they are candles exactly.” + “Of wax or tallow?” pursues the boy. “What! tallow-candles in heaven? +No, certainly--wax, wax!” + +These, and many other scandalous stories, the Venetian writers recount +of the last days of their Republic, and the picture they produce is one +of the most shameless ignorance, the most polite corruption, the +most unblushing baseness. I have no doubt that the picture is full of +national exaggeration. Indeed, the method of Mutinelli (who I believe +intends to tell the truth) in writing social history is altogether too +credulous and incautious. It is well enough to study contemporary comedy +for light upon past society, but satirical ballads and lampoons, and +scurrilous letters, cannot be accepted as historical authority. Still +there is no question but Venice was very corrupt. As you read of her +people in the last century, one by one the ideas of family faith and +domestic purity fade away; one by one the beliefs in public virtue +are dissipated; until at last you are glad to fly the study, close the +filthy pages, and take refuge in doubt of the writers, who declare +that they must needs disgrace Venice with facts since her children have +dishonored her in their lives. “Such as we see them,” they say, “were +the patricians, such the people of Venice, after the middle of the +eighteenth century. The Venetians might be considered as extinguished; +the marvelous city, the pomp only of the Venetians, existed.” + +Shall we believe this? Let each choose for himself. At that very time +the taste and wealth of a Venetian noble fostered the genius of Canova +and then, when their captains starved the ragged soldiers of the +Republic to feed their own idleness and vice,--when the soldiers +dismantled her forts to sell the guns to the Turk,--when her sailors +rioted on shore and her ships rotted in her ports, she had still +military virtue enough to produce that Emo, who beat back the Algerine +corsairs from the commerce of Christendom, and attacked them in their +stronghold, as of old her galleys beat back the Turks. Alas! there was +not the virtue in her statesmen to respond to this greatness in the +hero. One of their last public acts was to break his heart with insult, +and to crave peace of the pirates whom he had cowed. It remained for the +helpless Doge and the abject patricians, terrified at a threat of war, +to declare the Republic at an end, and San Marco was no more. + +I love Republics too well to lament the fall of Venice. And yet, _Pax +tibi, Marce!_ If I have been slow to praise, I shall not hasten to +condemn, a whole nation. Indeed, so much occurs to me to qualify with +contrary sense what I have written concerning Venice, that I wonder if, +after all, I have not been treating throughout less of the rule than of +the exception. It is a doubt which must force itself upon every fair +and temperate man who attempts to describe another people’s life and +character; and I confess that it troubles me so sorely now, at the end +of my work, that I would fain pray the gentle reader to believe much +more good and much less evil of the Venetians than I have said. I am +glad that it remains for me to express a faith and hope in them for the +future, founded upon their present political feeling, which, however +tainted with self-interest in the case of many, is no doubt with +the great majority a high and true feeling of patriotism. And it is +impossible to believe that a people which can maintain the stern and +unyielding attitude now maintained by the Venetians toward an alien +government disposed to make them any concession short of freedom, in +order to win them into voluntary submission, can be wanting in the great +qualities which distinguish living peoples from those passed hopelessly +into history and sentiment. In truth, glancing back over the whole +career of the nation, I can discern in it nothing so admirable, so +dignified, so steadfastly brave, as its present sacrifice of all that +makes life easy and joyous, to the attainment of a good which shall make +life noble. + +The Venetians desire now, and first of all things, Liberty, knowing +that in slavery men can learn no virtues; and I think them fit, with all +their errors and defects, to be free now, because men are never fit to +be slaves. + + + +CHAPTER XXII. + +OUR LAST YEAR IN VENICE. + +_(As it seems Seven Years after.)_ + + +The last of four years which it was our fortune to live in the city +of Venice was passed under the roof of one of her most beautiful and +memorable palaces, namely, the Palazzo Giustiniani, whither we went, +as has been told in an earlier chapter of this book, to escape the +encroaching nepotism of Giovanna, the flower of serving-women. The +experience now, in Cambridge, Mass., refuses to consort with ordinary +remembrances, and has such a fantastic preference for the company of +rather vivid and circumstantial dreams, that it is with no very strong +hope of making it seem real that I shall venture to speak of it. + +The Giustiniani were a family of patricians very famous during the times +of a Republic that gave so many splendid names to history, and the race +was preserved to the honor and service of Saint Mark by one of the most +romantic facts of his annals. During a war with the Greek Emperor in the +twelfth century every known Giustiniani was slain, and the heroic strain +seemed lost forever. But the state that mourned them bethought itself +of a half forgotten monk of their house, who was wasting his life in the +Convent of San Nicolò; he was drawn forth from this seclusion, and, +the permission of Rome being won, he was married to the daughter of the +reigning doge. From them descended the Giustiniani of aftertimes, who +still exist; in deed, in the year 1865 there came one day a gentleman of +the family, and tried to buy from our landlord that part of the palace +which we so humbly and insufficiently inhabited. It is said that as the +unfrocked friar and his wife declined in life they separated, and, as if +in doubt of what had been done for the state through them, retired each +into a convent, Giustiniani going back to San Nicolò, and dying at last +to the murmur of the Adriatic waves along the Lido’s sands. + +Next after this Giustiniani I like best to think of that latest hero of +the family, who had the sad fortune to live when the ancient Republic +fell at a threat of Napoleon, and who alone among her nobles had +the courage to meet with a manly spirit the insolent menaces of the +conqueror. The Giustiniani governed Treviso for the Senate; he refused, +when Napoleon ordered him from his presence, to quit Treviso without the +command of the Senate; he flung back the taunts of bad faith cast upon +the Venetians; and when Napoleon changed his tone from that of disdain +to one of compliment, and promised that in the general disaster he +was preparing for Venice, Giustiniani should be spared, the latter +generously replied that he had been a friend of the French only because +the Senate was so; as to the immunity offered, all was lost to him +in the loss of his country, and he should blush for his wealth if it +remained intact amidst the ruin of his countrymen. + +The family grew in riches and renown from age to age, and, some +four centuries after the marriage of the monk, they reared the three +beautiful Gothic palaces, in the noblest site on the Grand Canal, whence +on one hand you can look down to the Rialto Bridge, and on the other far +up towards the church of the Salute, and the Basin of Saint Mark. The +architects were those Buoni, father and son, who did some of the +most beautiful work on the Ducal Palace, and who wrought in an equal +inspiration upon these homes of the Giustiniani, building the delicate +Gothic arches of the windows, with their slender columns and their +graceful balconies, and crowning all with the airy battlements. + +The largest of the three palaces became later the property of the +Foscari family, and here dwelt with his father that unhappy Jacopo +Foscari, who after thrice suffering torture by the state for a murder he +never did, at last died in exile; hither came the old Doge Foscari, who +had consented to this cruel error of the state, and who after a life +spent in its service was deposed and disgraced before his death; and +whither when he lay dead, came remorseful Venice, and claimed for +sumptuous obsequies the dust which his widow yielded with bitter +reproaches. Here the family faded away generation by generation, till, +(according to the tale told us) early in this century, when the ultimate +male survivor of the line had died, under a false name, in London, where +he had been some sort of obscure actor, there were but two old maiden +sisters left, who, lapsing into imbecility, were shown to strangers by +the rascal servants as the last of the Foscari; and here in our time was +quartered a regiment of Austrian troops, whose neatly pipe-clayed belts +decorated the balconies on which the princely ladies of the house had +rested their jewelled arms in other days. + +The Foscari added a story to the palace to distinguish it from the two +other palaces Giustiniani, but these remain to the present day as they +were originally planned. That in which we lived was called Palazzo +Giustiniani of the Bishops, because one of the family was the first +patriarch of Venice. After his death he was made a saint by the Pope; +and it is related that he was not only a very pious, but a very good +man. In his last hours he admitted his beloved people to his chamber, +where he meekly lay upon a pallet of straw, and at the moment he +expired, two monks in the solitude of their cloister, heard an angelical +harmony in the air: the clergy performed his obsequies not in black, +funereal robes, but in white garments, and crowned with laurel, and +bearing gilded torches, and although the patriarch had died of a +malignant fever, his body was miraculously preserved incorrupt during +the sixty-five days that the obsequies lasted. The other branch of the +family was called the Giustiniani of the Jewels, from the splendor of +their dress; but neither palace now shelters any of their magnificent +race. The edifice on our right was exclusively occupied by a noble +Viennese lady, who as we heard,--vaguely, in the right Venetian +fashion,--had been a ballet-dancer in her youth, and who now in her +matronly days dwelt apart from her husband, the Russian count, and had +gondoliers in blue silk, and the finest gondola on the Grand Canal, but +was a plump, florid lady, looking long past beauty, even as we saw her +from our balcony. + +Our own palace--as we absurdly grew to call it--was owned and inhabited +in a manner much more proper to modern Venice, the proprietorship being +about equally divided between our own landlord and a very well known +Venetian painter, son of a painter still more famous. This artist was +a very courteous old gentleman, who went with Italian and clock-like +regularity every evening in summer to a certain caffè, where he seemed +to make it a point of conscience to sip one sherbet, and to read the +“Journal des Débats.” In his coming and going we met him so often that +we became friends, and he asked us many times to visit him, and see his +father’s pictures, and some famous frescos with which his part of the +palace was adorned. It was a characteristic trait of our life, that +though we constantly meant to avail ourselves of this kindness, we never +did so. But we continued in the enjoyment of the beautiful garden, which +this gentleman owned at the rear of the palace and on which our chamber +windows looked. It was full of oleanders and roses, and other bright +and odorous blooms, which we could enjoy perfectly well without knowing +their names; and I could hardly say whether the garden was more charming +when it was in its summer glory, or when, on some rare winter day, a +breath from the mountains had clothed its tender boughs and sprays with +a light and evanescent flowering of snow. At any season the lofty palace +walls rose over it, and shut it in a pensive seclusion which was loved +by the old mother of the painter and by his elderly maiden sister. These +often walked on its moss-grown paths, silent as the roses and oleanders +to which one could have fancied the blossom of their youth had +flown; and sometimes there came to them there, grave, black-gowned +priests,--for the painter’s was a devout family,--and talked with them +in tones almost as tranquil as the silence was, save when one of the +ecclesiastics placidly took snuff,--it is a dogma of the Church for +priests to take snuff in Italy,--and thereafter, upon a prolonged search +for his handkerchief, blew a resounding nose. So far as we knew, the +garden walls circumscribed the whole life of these ladies; and I am +afraid that such topics of this world as they touched upon with their +priests must have been deplorably small. + +Their kinsman owned part of the story under us, and both of the stories +above us; he had the advantage of the garden over our landlord; but +he had not so grand a gondola-gate as we, and in some other respects +I incline to think that our part of the edifice was the finer. It +is certain that no mention is made of any such beautiful hall in the +property of the painter as is noted in that of our landlord, by +the historian of a “Hundred Palaces of Venice,”--a work for which +I subscribed, and then for my merit was honored by a visit from the +author, who read aloud to me in a deep and sonorous voice the annals +of our temporary home. This hall occupied half the space of the whole +floor; but it was altogether surrounded by rooms of various shapes and +sizes, except upon one side of its length, where it gave through Gothic +windows of vari-colored glass, upon a small court below,--a green-mouldy +little court, further dampened by a cistern, which had the usual curb +of a single carven block of marble. The roof of this stately _sala_ was +traversed by a long series of painted rafters, which in the halls of +nearly all Venetian palaces are left exposed, and painted or carved and +gilded. A suite of stately rooms closed the hall from the Grand Canal, +and one of these formed our parlor; on the side opposite the Gothic +windows was a vast aristocratic kitchen, which, with its rows of shining +coppers, its great chimney-place well advanced toward the middle of the +floor, and its tall gloomy windows, still affects my imagination as one +of the most patrician rooms which I ever saw; at the back of the hall +were those chambers of ours overlooking the garden of which I have +already spoken, and another kitchen, less noble than the first, but +still sufficiently grandiose to make most New World kitchens seem very +meekly minute and unimpressive. Between the two kitchens was another +court, with another cistern, from which the painter’s family drew water +with a bucket on a long rope, which, when let down from the fourth +story, appeared to be dropped from the clouds, and descended with a +noise little less alarming than thunder. + +Altogether the most surprising object in the great _sala_ was a +sewing-machine, and we should have been inconsolably outraged by its +presence there, amid so much that was merely venerable and beautiful, +but for the fact that it was in a state of harmonious and hopeless +disrepair, and, from its general contrivance, gave us the idea that it +had never been of any use. It was, in fact, kept as a sort of curiosity +by the landlord, who exhibited it to the admiration of his Venetian +friends. + +The reader will doubtless have imagined, from what I have been saying, +that the Palazzo Giustiniani had not all that machinery which we know in +our houses here as modern improvements. It had nothing of the kind, and +life there was, as in most houses in Italy, a kind of permanent camping +out. When I remember the small amount of carpeting, of furniture, and of +upholstery we enjoyed, it appears to me pathetic; and yet, I am not sure +that it was not the wisest way to live. I know that we had compensation +in things not purchasable here for money. If the furniture of the +principal bedroom was somewhat scanty, its dimensions were unstinted +the ceiling was fifteen feet high, and was divided into rich and heavy +panels, adorned each with a mighty rosette of carved and gilded wood, +two feet across. The parlor had not its original decorations in our +time, but it had once had so noble a carved ceiling that it was found +worth while to take it down and sell it into England; and it still had +two grand Venetian mirrors, a vast and very good painting of a miracle +of St. Anthony, and imitation-antique tables and arm-chairs. The last +were frolicked all over with carven nymphs and cupids; but they were of +such frail construction that they were not meant to be sat in, much less +to be removed from the wall against which they stood; and more than one +of our American visitors was dismayed at having these proud articles of +furniture go to pieces upon his attempt to use them like mere arm-chairs +of ordinary life. Scarcely less impressive or useless than these was a +monumental plaster-stove, surmounted by a bust of Æsculapius; when this +was broken by accident, we cheaply repaired the loss with a bust of +Homer (the dealer in the next campo being out of Æsculapiuses) which no +one could have told from the bust it replaced; and this and the other +artistic glories of the room made us quite forget all possible +blemishes and defects. And will the reader mention any house with modern +improvements in America which has also windows, with pointed arches of +marble, opening upon balconies that overhang the Grand Canal? + +For our new apartment, which consisted of six rooms, furnished with +every article necessary for Venetian housekeeping, we paid one dollar a +day which, in the innocence of our hearts we thought rather dear, though +we were somewhat consoled by reflecting that this extravagant outlay +secured us the finest position on the Grand Canal. We did not mean to +keep house as we had in Casa Falier, and perhaps a sketch of our easier +_ménage_ may not be out of place. Breakfast was prepared in the house, +for in that blessed climate all you care for in the morning is a cup of +coffee, with a little bread and butter, a musk-melon, and some clusters +of white grapes, more or less. Then we had our dinners sent in warm from +a cook’s who had learned his noble art in France; he furnished a dinner +of five courses for three persons at a cost of about eighty cents; and +they were dinners so happily conceived and so justly executed, that I +cannot accuse myself of an excess of sentiment when I confess that I +sigh for them to this day. Then as for our immaterial tea, we always +took that at the Caffè Florian in the Piazza of Saint Mark, where +we drank a cup of black coffee and ate an ice, while all the world +promenaded by, and the Austrian bands made heavenly music. + +Those bands no longer play in Venice, and I believe that they are not +the only charm which she has lost in exchanging Austrian servitude for +Italian freedom; though I should be sorry to think that freedom was not +worth all other charms. The poor Venetians used to be very rigorous +(as I have elsewhere related), about the music of their oppressors, +and would not come into the Piazza until it had ceased and the Austrian +promenaders had disappeared, when they sat down at Florian’s, and +listened to such bands of strolling singers and minstrels as chose to +give them a concord of sweet sounds, without foreign admixture. We, in +our neutrality, were wont to sit out both entertainments, and then go +home well toward midnight, through the sleepy little streets, and over +the bridges that spanned the narrow canals, dreaming in the shadows of +the palaces. + +We moved with half-conscious steps till we came to the silver expanse +of the Grand Canal, where, at the ferry, darkled a little brood of black +gondolas, into one of which we got, and were rowed noiselessly to the +thither side, where we took our way toward the land-gate of our palace +through the narrow streets of the parish of San Barnabà, and the campo +before the ugly façade of the church; or else we were rowed directly to +the water-gate, where we got out on the steps worn by the feet of the +Giustiniani of old, and wandered upward through the darkness of the +stairway, which gave them a far different welcome of servants and lights +when they returned from an evening’s pleasure in the Piazza. It seemed +scarcely just; but then, those Giustiniani were dead, and we were alive, +and that was one advantage; and, besides, the loneliness and desolation +of the palace had a peculiar charm, and were at any rate cheaper than +its former splendor could have been. I am afraid that people who live +abroad in the palaces of extinct nobles do not keep this important fact +sufficiently in mind; and as the Palazzo Giustiniani is still let in +furnished lodgings, and it is quite possible that some of my readers may +be going to spend next summer in it, I venture to remind them that if +they have to draw somewhat upon their fancy for patrician accommodations +there, it will cost them far less in money than it did the original +proprietors, who contributed to our selfish pleasure by the very thought +of their romantic absence and picturesque decay. In fact, the Past is +everywhere like the cake of proverb: you cannot enjoy it and have it. + +And here I am reminded of another pleasure of modern dwellers in +Venetian palaces, which could hardly have been indulged by the +patricians of old, and which is hardly imaginable by people of this day, +whose front doors open upon dry land: I mean to say the privilege of +sea-bathing from one’s own threshold. From the beginning of June +till far into September all the canals of Venice are populated by the +amphibious boys, who clamor about in the brine, or poise themselves for +a leap from the tops of bridges, or show their fine, statuesque figures, +bronzed by the ardent sun, against the façades of empty palaces, where +they hover among the marble sculptures, and meditate a headlong plunge. +It is only the Venetian ladies, in fact, who do not share this healthful +amusement. Fathers of families, like so many plump, domestic drakes, +lead forth their aquatic broods, teaching the little ones to swim by +the aid of various floats, and delighting in the gambols of the larger +ducklings. When the tide comes in fresh and strong from the sea the +water in the Grand Canal is pure and refreshing; and at these times +it is a singular pleasure to leap from one’s door-step into the swift +current, and spend a half-hour, very informally, among one’s neighbors +there. The Venetian bathing-dress is a mere sketch of the pantaloons of +ordinary life; and when I used to stand upon our balcony, and see some +bearded head ducking me a polite salutation from a pair of broad, +brown shoulders that showed above the water, I was not always able +to recognize my acquaintance, deprived of his factitious identity of +clothes. But I always knew a certain stately consul-general by a vast +expanse of baldness upon the top of his head; and it must be owned, +I think, that this form of social assembly was, with all its +disadvantages, a novel and vivacious spectacle. The Venetian ladies, +when they bathed, went to the Lido, or else to the bath-houses in front +of the Ducal Palace, where they saturated themselves a good part of the +day, and drank coffee, and, possibly, gossiped. + +I think that our balconies at Palazzo Giustiniani were even better +places to see the life of the Grand Canal from than the balcony of Casa +Falier, which we had just left. Here at least we had a greater stretch +of the Canal, looking, as we could, up either side of its angle. Here, +too, we had more gondola stations in sight, and as we were nearer the +Rialto, there was more picturesque passing of the market-boats. But if +we saw more of this life, we did not see it in greater variety, for +I think we had already exhausted this. There was a movement all night +long. If I woke at three or four o’clock, and offered myself the novel +spectacle of the Canal at that hour, I saw the heavy-laden barges go +by to the Rialto, with now and then also a good-sized coasting schooner +making lazily for the lagoons, with its ruddy fire already kindled for +cooking the morning’s meal, and looking very enviably cosey. After our +own breakfast we began to watch for the gondolas of the tourists of +different nations, whom we came to distinguish at a glance. Then the +boats of the various artisans went by, the carpenter’s, the mason’s, the +plasterer’s, with those that sold fuel, and vegetables, and fruit, and +fish, to any household that arrested them. From noon till three or four +o’clock the Canal was comparatively deserted; but before twilight it was +thronged again by people riding out in their open gondolas to take the +air after the day’s fervor. After nightfall they ceased, till only at +long intervals a solitary lamp, stealing over the dark surface, gave +token of the movement of some gondola bent upon an errand that could not +fail to seem mysterious or fail to be matter of fact. We never wearied +of this oft-repeated variety, nor of our balcony in any way; and when +the moon shone in through the lovely arched window and sketched its +exquisite outline on the floor, we were as happy as moonshine could make +us. + +Were we otherwise content? As concerns Venice, it is very hard to say, +and I do not know that I shall ever be able to say with certainty. For +all the entertainment it afforded us, it was a very lonely life, and we +felt the sadness of the city in many fine and not instantly recognizable +ways. Englishmen who lived there bade us beware of spending the whole +year in Venice, which they declared apt to result in a morbid depression +of the spirits. I believe they attributed this to the air of the +place, but I think it was more than half owing to her mood, to her old, +ghostly, aimless life. She was, indeed, a phantom of the past, haunting +our modern world,--serene, inexpressibly beautiful, yet inscrutably and +unspeakably sad. Remembering the charm that was in her, we often sigh +for the renewal of our own vague life there,--a shadow within the +shadow; but remembering also her deep melancholy, an involuntary shiver +creeps over us, and we are glad not to be there. Perhaps some of you who +have spent a summer day or a summer week in Venice do not recognize this +feeling; but if you will remain there, not four years as we did, but a +year or six months even, it will ever afterwards be only too plain. All +changes, all events, were affected by the inevitable local melancholy; +the day was as pensive amidst that populous silence as the night; the +winter not more pathetic than the long, tranquil, lovely summer. We +rarely sentimentalized consciously, and still more seldom openly, about +the present state of Venice as contrasted with her past glory. + +I am glad to say that we despised the conventional poetastery about her; +but I believe that we had so far lived into sympathy with her, that, +whether we realized it or not, we took the tone of her dispiritedness, +and assumed a part of the common experience of loss and of hopelessness. +History, if you live where it was created, is a far subtler influence +than you suspect; and I would not say how much Venetian history, amidst +the monuments of her glory and the witnesses of her fall, had to do in +secret and tacit ways with the prevailing sentiment of existence, which +I now distinctly recognize to have been a melancholy one. No doubt this +sentiment was deepened by every freshly added association with memorable +places; and each fact, each great name and career, each strange +tradition as it rose out of the past for us and shed its pale lustre +upon the present, touched us with a pathos which we could neither trace +nor analyze. + +I do not know how much the modern Venetians had to do with this +impression, but something I have no question. They were then under +Austrian rule; and in spite of much that was puerile and theatrical in +it, there was something very affecting in their attitude of what may +best be described as passive defiance. This alone made them heroic, but +it also made them tedious. They rarely talked of anything but politics; +and as I have elsewhere said, they were very jealous to have every one +declare himself of their opinion. Hemmed in by this jealousy on one +side, and by a heavy and rebellious sense of the wrongful presence of +the Austrian troops and the Austrian spies on the other, we forever felt +dimly constrained by something, we could not say precisely what, and we +only knew what, when we went sometimes on a journey into free Italy, and +threw off the irksome caution we had maintained both as to patriotic and +alien tyrants. This political misery circumscribed our acquaintance +very much, and reduced the circle of our friendship to three or four +families, who were content to know our sympathies without exacting +constant expression of them. So we learned to depend mainly upon passing +Americans for our society; we hailed with rapture the arrival of a +gondola distinguished by the easy hats of our countrymen and the pretty +faces and pretty dresses of our countrywomen. It was in the days of our +war; and talking together over its events, we felt a brotherhood with +every other American. + +Of course, in these circumstances, we made thorough acquaintance with +the people about us in the palace. The landlord had come somehow into +a profitable knowledge of Anglo-Saxon foibles and susceptibilities; but +his lodgings were charming, and I recognize the principle that it is not +for literature to make its prey of any possibly conscious object. For +this reason, I am likewise mostly silent concerning a certain _attaché_ +of the palace, the right-hand man and intimate associate of the +landlord. He was the descendant of one of the most ancient and noble +families of Italy,--a family of popes and cardinals, of princes and +ministers, which in him was diminished and tarnished in an almost +inexplicable degree. He was not at all worldly-wise, but he was a man +of great learning, and of a capacity for acquiring knowledge that I have +never seen surpassed. He possessed, I think, not many shirts on earth; +but he spoke three or four languages, and wrote very pretty sonnets in +Italian and German. He was one of the friendliest and willingest souls +living, and as generous as utter destitution can make a man; yet he had +a proper spirit, and valued himself upon his name. Sometimes he brought +his great-grandfather to the palace; a brisk old gentleman in his +nineties, who had seen the fall of the Republic and three other +revolutions in Venice, but had contrived to keep a government pension +through all, and now smiled with unabated cheerfulness upon a world +which he seemed likely never to leave. + +The palace-servants were two, the gondolier and a sort of +housekeeper,--a handsome, swarthy woman, with beautiful white teeth and +liquid black eyes. She was the mother of a pretty little boy, who was +going to bring himself up for a priest, and whose chief amusement was +saying mimic masses to an imaginary congregation. She was perfectly +statuesque and obliging, and we had no right, as lovers of the beautiful +or as lodgers, to complain of her, whatever her faults might have been. +As to the gondolier, who was a very important personage in our palatial +household, he was a handsome, bashful, well-mannered fellow, with a +good-natured blue eye and a neatly waxed mustache. He had been ten years +a soldier in the Austrian army, and was, from his own account and from +all I saw of him, one of the least courageous men in the world; but +then no part of the Austrian system tends to make men brave, and I +could easily imagine that before it had done with one it might give him +reasons enough to be timid all the rest of his life. Piero had not very +much to do, and he spent the greater part of his leisure in a sort +of lazy flirtation with the women about the kitchen-fire, or in the +gondola, in which he sometimes gave them the air. We always liked him; +I should have trusted him in any sort of way, except one that involved +danger. It once happened that burglars attempted to enter our rooms, +and Piero declared to us that he knew the men; but before the police, he +swore that he knew nothing about them. Afterwards he returned privately +to his first assertion, and accounted for his conduct by saying that +if he had borne witness against the burglars, he was afraid that their +friends would jump on his back (_saltarmi adosso_), as he phrased it, +in the dark; for by this sort of terrorism the poor and the wicked have +long been bound together in Italy. Piero was a humorist in his dry way, +and made a jest of his own caution; but his favorite joke was, when +he dressed himself with particular care, to tell the women that he was +going to pay a visit to the Princess Clary, then the star of +Austrian society. This mild pleasantry was repeated indefinitely with +never-failing effect. + +More interesting to us than all the rest was our own servant, Bettina, +who came to us from a village on the mainland. She was very dark, so +dark and so Southern in appearance as almost to verge upon the negro +type; yet she bore the English-sounding name of Scarbro, and how she +ever came by it remains a puzzle to this day, for she was one of the +most pure and entire of Italians. I mean this was her maiden name; she +was married to a trumpeter in the Austrian service, whose Bohemian name +she was unable to pronounce, and consequently never gave us. She was a +woman of very few ideas indeed, but perfectly honest and good-hearted. +She was pious, in her peasant fashion, and in her walks about the city +did not fail to bless the baby before every picture of the Madonna. +She provided it with an engraved portrait of that Holy Nail which was +venerated in the neighboring church of San Pantaleon; and she apparently +aimed to supply it with playthings of a religious and saving character +like that piece of ivory, which resembled a small torso, and which +Bettina described as “A bit of the Lord, Signor,”--and it was, in fact, +a fragment of an ivory crucifix, which she had somewhere picked up. +To Bettina’s mind, mankind broadly divided themselves into two races, +Italians and Germans, to which latter she held that we Americans in some +sort belonged. She believed that America lay a little to the south of +Vienna and in her heart I think she was persuaded that the real national +complexion was black, and that the innumerable white Americans she saw +at our house were merely a multitude of exceptions. But with all her +ignorance, she had no superstitions of a gloomy kind: the only ghost she +seemed ever to have heard of was the spectre of an American ship captain +which a friend of Piero’s had seen at the Lido. She was perfectly kind +and obedient, and was deeply attached in an inarticulate way to the +baby, which was indeed the pet of the whole palace. This young lady +ruled arbitrarily over them all, and was forever being kissed and +adored. When Piero went out to the wine-shop for a little temperate +dissipation, he took her with him on his shoulder, and exhibited her to +the admiring gondoliers of his acquaintance; there was no puppetshow, no +church festival, in that region to which she was not carried; and +when Bettina, and Giulia, and all the idle women of the neighborhood +assembled on a Saturday afternoon in the narrow alley behind the palace +(where they dressed one another’s thick black hair in fine braids soaked +in milk, and built it up to last the whole of the next week), the baby +was the cynosure of all hearts and eyes. But her supremacy was yet more +distinguished when, late at night, the household gave itself a feast of +snails stewed in oil and garlic, in the vast kitchen. There her anxious +parents have found her seated in the middle of the table with the bowl +of snails before her, and armed with a great spoon, while her vassals +sat round, and grinned their fondness and delight in her small +tyrannies; and the immense room, dimly lit, with the mystical implements +of cookery glimmering from the wall, showed like some witch’s cavern, +where a particularly small sorceress was presiding over the concoction +of an evil potion or the weaving of a powerful spell. + +From time to time we had fellow-lodgers, who were always more or less +interesting and mysterious. Among the rest there was once a French lady, +who languished, during her stay, under the disfavor of the police, and +for whose sake there was a sentinel with a fixed bayonet stationed +day and night at the palace gate. At last, one night, this French lady +escaped by a rope-ladder from her chamber window, and thus no doubt +satisfied alike the female instinct for intrigue and elopement and +the political agitator’s love of a mysterious disappearance. It +was understood dimly that she was an author, and had written a book +displeasing to the police. + +Then there was the German baroness and her son and daughter, the last +very beautiful and much courted by handsome Austrian officers; the son +rather weak-minded, and a great care to his sister and mother, from his +propensity to fall in love and marry below his station; the mother very +red-faced and fat, a good-natured old creature who gambled the summer +months away at Hombourg and Baden and in the winter resorted to Venice +to make a match for her pretty daughter. Then, moreover, there was that +English family, between whom and ourselves there was the reluctance and +antipathy, personal and national, which exists between all right-minded +Englishmen and Americans. No Italian can understand this just and +natural condition, and it was the constant aim of our landlord to +make us acquainted. So one day when he found a member of each of these +unfriendly families on the neutral ground of the grand _sala_, he +introduced them. They had, happily, the piano-forte between them, and I +flatter myself that the insulting coldness and indifference with which +they received each other’s names carried to our landlord’s bosom a +dismay never before felt by a good-natured and well-meaning man. + +The piano-forte which I have mentioned belonged to the landlord, who was +fond of music and of all fine and beautiful things; and now and then +he gave a musical _soirée_, which was attended, more or less +surreptitiously, by the young people of his acquaintance. I do not +think he was always quite candid in giving his invitations, for on one +occasion a certain count, who had taken refuge from the glare of the +_sala_ in our parlor for the purpose of concealing the very loud-plaided +pantaloons he wore, explained pathetically that he had no idea it was +a party, and that he had been so long out of society, for patriotic +reasons, that he had no longer a dress suit. But to us they were very +delightful entertainments, no less from the great variety of character +they afforded than from the really charming and excellent music which +the different amateurs made; for we had airs from all the famous operas, +and the instrumentation was by a gifted young composer. Besides, the +gayety seemed to recall in some degree the old, brilliant life of +the palace, and at least showed us how well it was adapted to social +magnificence and display. + +We enjoyed our whole year in Palazzo Giustiniani, though some of the +days were too long and some too short, as everywhere. From heat we +hardly suffered at all, so perfectly did the vast and lofty rooms answer +to the purpose of their builders in this respect. A current of sea air +drew through to the painter’s garden by day; and by night there was +scarcely a mosquito of the myriads that infested some parts of Venice. +In winter it was not so well. Then we shuffled about in wadded gowns and +boots lined with sheep-skin,--the woolly side in, as in the song. The +passage of the _sala_, was something to be dreaded, and we shivered +as fleetly through it as we could, and were all the colder for the +deceitful warmth of the colors which the sun cast upon the stone floor +from the window opening on the court. + +I do not remember any one event of our life more exciting than that +attempted burglary of which I have spoken. In a city where the police +gave their best attention to political offenders, there were naturally a +great many rogues, and the Venetian rogues, if not distinguished for the +more heroic crimes, were very skillful in what I may call the _genre_ +branch of robbing rooms through open windows, and committing all kinds +of safe domestic depredations. It was judged best to acquaint Justice +(as they call law in Latin countries) with the attempt upon our +property, and I found her officers housed in a small room of the Doge’s +Palace, clerkly men in velvet skull-caps, driving loath quills over the +rough official paper of those regions. After an exchange of diplomatic +courtesies, the commissary took my statement of the affair down in +writing, pertinent to which were my father’s name, place, and business, +with a full and satisfactory personal history of myself down to the +period of the attempted burglary. This, I said, occurred one morning +about daylight, when I saw the head of the burglar peering above the +window-sill, and the hand of the burglar extended to prey upon my +wardrobe. + +“Excuse me, Signor Console,” interrupted the commissary, “how could you +see him?” + +“Why, there was nothing in the world to prevent me. The window was +open.” + +“The window was open!” gasped the commissary. “Do you mean that you +sleep with your windows open?” + +“Most certainly!” + +“Pardon!” said the commissary, suspiciously. “Do _all_ Americans sleep +with their windows open?” + +“I may venture to say that they all do, in summer,” I answered; “at +least, it’s the general custom.” + +Such a thing as this indulgence in fresh air seemed altogether foreign +to the commissary’s experience; and but for my official dignity, I am +sure that I should have been effectually browbeaten by him. As it was, +he threw himself back in his armchair and stared at me fixedly for some +moments. Then he recovered himself with another “Per-doni!” and, +turning to his clerk, said, “Write down that, _according to the American +custom_, they were sleeping with their windows open.” But I know that +the commissary, for all his politeness, considered this habit a relic +of the times when we Americans all abode in wigwams; and I suppose it +paralyzed his energies in the effort to bring the burglars to justice, +for I have never heard anything of them from that day to this. + +The truth is, it was a very uneventful year; and I am the better +satisfied with it as an average Venetian year on that account. We +sometimes varied the pensive monotony by a short visit to the cities of +the mainland; but we always came back to it willingly, and I think +we unconsciously abhorred any interruption of it. The days, as they +followed each other, were wonderfully alike, in every respect. For eight +months of summer they were alike in their clear-skied, sweet-breathed +loveliness; in the autumn, there where the melancholy of the falling +leaf could not spread its contagion to the sculptured foliage of Gothic +art, the days were alike in their sentiment of tranquil oblivion and +resignation which was as autumnal as any aspect of woods or fields +could have been; in the winter they were alike in their dreariness and +discomfort. As I remember, we spent by far the greater part of our time +in going to the Piazza, and we were devoted Florianisti, as the Italians +call those that lounge habitually at the Caffè Florian. We went every +evening to the Piazza as a matter of course; if the morning was long, we +went to the Piazza; if we did not know what to do with the afternoon, we +went to the Piazza; if we had friends with us, we went to the Piazza; +if we were alone, we went to the Piazza; and there was no mood or +circumstances in which it did not seem a natural and fitting thing to +go to the Piazza. There were all the prettiest shops; there were all the +finest caffès; there was the incomparable Church of St. Mark; there was +the whole world of Venice. + +Of course, we had other devices besides going to the Piazza; and +sometimes we spent entire weeks in visiting the churches, one after +another, and studying their artistic treasures, down to the smallest +scrap of an old master in their darkest chapel; their history, their +storied tombs, their fictitious associations. Very few churches escaped, +I believe, except such as had been turned into barracks, and were +guarded by an incorruptible Austrian sentinel. For such churches as did +escape, we have a kind of envious longing to this day, and should find +it hard to like anybody who had succeeded better in visiting them. There +is, for example, the church of San Giobbe, the doors of which we haunted +with more patience than that of the titulary saint: now the sacristan +was out; now the church was shut up for repairs; now it was Holy Week +and the pictures were veiled; we had to leave Venice at last without a +sight of San Giobbe’s three Saints by Bordone, and Madonna by Bellini, +which, unseen, outvalue all the other Saints and Madonnas that we looked +at; and I am sure that life can never become so aimless, but we shall +still have the desire of some day going to see the church of San Giobbe. +If we read some famous episode of Venetian history, we made it the +immediate care of our lives to visit the scene of its occurrence; if +Ruskin told us of some recondite beauty of sculpture hid away in +some unthought-of palace court, we invaded that palace at once; if in +entirely purposeless strolls through the city, we came upon anything +that touched the fancy or piqued curiosity, there was no gate or +bar proof against our bribes. What strange old nests of ruin, what +marvellous homes of solitude and dilapidation, did we not wander into! +What boarded-up windows peer through, what gloomy recesses penetrate! +I have lumber enough in my memory stored from such rambles to load the +nightmares of a generation, and stuff for the dreams of a whole people. +Does any gentleman or lady wish to write a romance? Sir or madam, I know +just the mouldy and sunless alley for your villain to stalk his victim +in, the canal in which to plunge his body, the staircase and the hall +for the subsequent wanderings of his ghost; and all these scenes and +localities I will sell at half the cost price; as also, balconies for +flirtation, gondolas for intrigue and elopement, confessionals for the +betrayal of guilty secrets. I have an assortment of bad and beautiful +faces and picturesque attitudes and effective tones of voice; and a +large stock of sympathetic sculptures and furniture and dresses, with +other articles too numerous to mention, all warranted Venetian, and +suitable to every style of romance. Who bids? Nay, I cannot sell, nor +you buy. Each memory, as I hold it up for inspection, loses its subtle +beauty and value, and turns common and poor in my hawker’s fingers. + +Yet I must needs try to fix here the remembrance of two or three +palaces, of which our fancy took the fondest hold, and to which it yet +most fondly clings. It cannot locate them all, and least of all can it +place that vast old palace, somewhere near Cannaregio, which faced upon +a campo, with lofty windows blinded by rough boards, and empty from top +to bottom. It was of the later Renaissance in style, and we imagined +it built in the Republic’s declining years by some ruinous noble, +whose extravagance forbade his posterity to live in it, for it had that +peculiarly forlorn air which belongs to a thing decayed without being +worn out. We entered its coolness and dampness, and wandered up the wide +marble staircase, past the vacant niches of departed statuary, and came +on the third floor to a grand portal which was closed against us by a +barrier of lumber. But this could not hinder us from looking within, and +we were aware that we stood upon the threshold of our ruinous noble’s +great banqueting-hall, where he used to give his magnificent _feste da +ballo_. Lustrissimo was long gone with all his guests; but there in the +roof were the amazing frescos of Tiepolo’s school, which had smiled down +on them, as now they smiled on us, great piles of architecture, airy +tops of palaces, swimming in summer sky, and wantoned over by a joyous +populace of divinities of the lovelier sex that had nothing but their +loveliness to clothe them and keep them afloat; the whole grandiose and +superb beyond the effect of words, and luminous with delicious color. +How it all rioted there with its inextinguishable beauty in the solitude +and silence, from day to day, from year to year, while men died, and +systems passed, and nothing remained unchanged but the instincts of +youth and love that inspired it! It was music and wine and wit; it was +so warm and glowing that it made the sunlight cold; and it seemed +ever after a secret of gladness and beauty that the sad old palace was +keeping in its heart against the time to which Venice looks forward when +her splendor and opulence shall be indestructibly renewed. + +There is a ball-room in the Palazzo Pisani, which some of my readers +may have passed through on their way to the studio of the charming +old Prussian painter, Nerlÿ; the frescos of this are dim and faded and +dusty, and impress you with a sense of irreparable decay, but the noble +proportions and the princely air of the place are inalienable, while +the palace stands. Here might have danced that Contarini who, when his +wife’s necklace of pearls fell upon the floor in the way of her partner, +the King of Denmark, advanced and ground it into powder with his foot +that the king might not be troubled to avoid treading on it; and here, +doubtless, many a gorgeous masquerade had been in the long Venetian +carnival; and what passion and intrigue and jealousy, who knows? Now the +palace was let in apartments, and was otherwise a barrack, and in the +great court, steadfast as any of the marble statues, stood the Austrian +sentinel. One of the statues was a figure veiled from head to foot, at +the base of which it was hard not to imagine lovers, masked and hooded, +and forever hurriedly whispering their secrets in the shadow cast in +perpetual moonlight. + +Yet another ball-room in yet another palace opens to memory, but this +is all bright and fresh with recent decoration. In the blue vaulted roof +shine stars of gold; the walls are gay with dainty frescos; a gallery +encircles the whole, and from this drops a light stairway, slim-railed, +and guarded at the foot by torch-bearing statues of swarthy Eastern +girls; through the glass doors at the other side glimmers the green and +red of a garden. It was a place to be young in, to dance in, dream in, +make love in; but it was no more a surprise than the whole palace to +which it belonged, and which there in that tattered and poverty-stricken +old Venice was a vision of untarnished splendor and prosperous fortune. +It was richly furnished throughout all its vast extent, adorned with +every caprice and delight of art, and appointed with every modern +comfort The foot was hushed by costly carpets, the eye was flattered by +a thousand beauties and prettinesses. In the grates the fires were +laid and ready to be lighted; the candles stood upon the mantles; the +toilet-linen was arranged for instant use in the luxurious chambers; but +from basement to roof the palace was a solitude; no guest came there, +no one dwelt there save the custodian; the eccentric lady of whose +possessions it formed a part abode in a little house behind the palace, +and on her door-plate had written her _vanitas vanitatum_ in the +sarcastic inscription, “John Humdrum, Esquire.” + +Of course she was Inglese; and that other lady, who was selling off the +furniture of her palace, and was so amiable a guide to its wonders in +her curious broken English, was Hungarian. Her great pride and joy, +amidst the objects of _vertu_ and the works of art, was a set of +“Punch,” which she made us admire, and which she prized the more because +she had always been allowed to receive it when the government prohibited +it to everybody else. But we were Americans, she said; and had we ever +seen this book? She held up the “The Potiphar Papers,” a volume which +must have been inexpressibly amused and bewildered to find itself there, +in that curious little old lady’s hand. + +Shall I go on and tell of the palace in which our strange friend Padre +L------ dwelt, and the rooms of which he had filled up with the fruits +of his passion for the arts and sciences; the anteroom he had frescoed +to represent a grape-arbor with a multitude of clusters overhead; the +parlor with his oil-paintings on the walls, and the piano and melodeon +arranged so that Padre L------ could play upon them both at once; the +oratory turned forge, and harboring the most alchemic-looking apparatus +of all kinds; the other rooms in which he had stored his inventions +in portable furniture, steam-propulsion, rifled cannon, and perpetual +motion; the attic with the camera by which one could photograh one’s +self,--shall I tell of this, and yet other palaces? I think there is +enough already; and I have begun to doubt somewhat the truth of my +reminiscences, as I advise the reader to do. + +Besides, I feel that the words fail to give all the truth that is in +them; and if I cannot make them serve my purpose as to the palaces, +how should I hope to impart through them my sense of the glory and +loveliness of Venetian art? I could not give the imagination and the +power of Tintoretto as we felt it, nor the serene beauty, the gracious +luxury of Titian, nor the opulence, the worldly magnificence of Paolo +Veronese. There hang their mighty works forever, high above the reach +of any palaverer; they smile their stately welcome from the altars and +palace-walls, upon whoever approaches them in the sincerity and love +of beauty that produced them; and thither you must thus go if you would +know them. Like fragments of dreams, like the fleeting + + + “Images of glimmering dawn,” + +I am from time to time aware, amid the work-day world, of some happiness +from them, some face or form, some drift of a princely robe or ethereal +drapery, some august shape of painted architecture, some un-namable +delight of color; but to describe them more strictly and explicitly, how +should I undertake? + +There was the exhaustion following every form of intense pleasure, in +their contemplation, such a wear of vision and thought, that I could not +call the life we led in looking at them an idle one, even if it had +no result in after times; so I will not say that it was to severer +occupation our minds turned more and more in our growing desire to +return home. For my own part personally I felt keenly the fictitious and +transitory character of official life. I knew that if I had become fit +to serve the government by four years’ residence in Venice, that was +a good reason why the government, according to our admirable system, +should dismiss me, and send some perfectly unqualified person to take my +place; and in my heart also I knew that there was almost nothing for me +to do where I was, and I dreaded the easily formed habit of receiving a +salary for no service performed. I reminded myself that, soon or late, I +must go back to the old fashion of earning money, and that it had better +be sooner than later. Therefore, though for some reasons it was the +saddest and strangest thing in the world to do, I was on the whole +rejoiced when a leave of absence came, and we prepared to quit Venice. + +Never had the city seemed so dream-like and unreal as in this light of +farewell,--this tearful glimmer which our love and regret cast upon it. +As in a maze, we haunted once more and for the last time the scenes +we had known so long, and spent our final, phantasmal evening in the +Piazza; looked, through the moonlight, our mute adieu to islands and +lagoons, to church and tower; and then returned to our own palace, and +stood long upon the balconies that overhung the Grand Canal. There the +future became as incredible and improbable as the past; and if we had +often felt the incongruity of our coming to live in such a place, now, +with tenfold force, we felt the cruel absurdity of proposing to live +anywhere else. We had become part of Venice; and how could such atoms of +her fantastic personality ever mingle with the alien and unsympathetic +world? + +The next morning the whole palace household bestirred itself to +accompany us to the station: the landlord in his best hat and coat, our +noble friend in phenomenal linen, Giulia and her little boy, Bettina +shedding bitter tears over the baby, and Piero, sad but firm, bending +over the oar and driving us swiftly forward. The first turn of the Canal +shut the Palazzo Giustiniani from our lingering gaze, a few more curves +and windings brought us to the station. The tickets were bought, the +baggage was registered; the little oddly assorted company drew itself +up in a line, and received with tears our husky adieux. I feared there +might be a remote purpose in the hearts of the landlord and his retainer +to embrace and kiss me, after the Italian manner, but if there was, by +a final inspiration they spared me the ordeal. Piero turned away to +his gondola; the two other men moved aside; Bettina gave one long, +hungering, devouring hug to the baby; and as we hurried into the +waiting-room, we saw her, as upon a stage, standing without the barrier, +supported and sobbing in the arms of Giulia. + +It was well to be gone, but I cannot say we were glad to be going. + + + + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK VENETIAN LIFE *** + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions will +be renamed. + +Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright +law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, +so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the +United States without permission and without paying copyright +royalties. Special rules, set forth in the General Terms of Use part +of this license, apply to copying and distributing Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic works to protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm +concept and trademark. 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