Francis Hopkinson Smith

“ If some fair Venetian had loved not wisely but too well, and, clinging to brave Lorenzo’s neck, had slipped down a rope ladder into a closely curtained, muffled-oared gondola, and so over the lagoon to Mestre, the old Frenchman could not only point out to you the very balcony, provided it were a palace balcony and not a fisherman’s window,—he despised the bourgeoisie,—but he could give you every feature of the escapade, from the moment the terror-stricken duenna missed her charge to that of the benediction of the priest in the shadowed isle. ”

“ A moment more and you shoot alongside the Molo and the water-steps of the Piazzetta. An old man steadies your boat while you alight. You bid Espero good-night and mingle with the throng. What a transition from the stillness of the dark lagoon!
The open space is crowded with idlers walking in pairs or groups. The flambeaux of gas-jets are ablaze. From behind the towering Campanile in the great Piazza comes a burst of music from the King’s Band. Farther down the Riva, beyond the Ponte Paglia, is heard the sound of another band. Everywhere are color and light and music. ”

“ Upon leaving Mestre—the last station—you smell the salt air of the Adriatic through the open car window. Instantly your hopes revive. Craning your head far out, you catch a glimpse of a long, low, monotonous bridge, and away off in the purple haze, the dreary outline of a distant city. You sink back into your seat exhausted. Yes, you knew it all the time. The whole thing is a swindle and a sham!
“All out for Venice,” says the guard, in French.
Half a dozen porters—well-dressed, civil-spoken porters, flat-capped and numbered—seize your traps and help you from the train. You look up. ”

“ The great plaza is still perfect in all its proportions and in all that made up its beauty and splendor. The Campanile still raises its head, glistening in the morning light. High over all still flash and swoop the pigeons of Venice—the pigeons of Dandolo—now black as cinders, now flakes of gold in the yellow light. The doors of the sacred church are still open; the people pass in and out. Under the marble arcades, where the soldiers of the army of France stacked their arms, to-day sit hundreds of free Venetians, with their wives and sweethearts, sipping their ices and coffee ”

“ The pencil and the palette must lend their touch when one would picture the wide sweep of her piazzas, the abandon of her gardens, the charm of her canal and street life, the happy indolence of her people, the faded sumptuousness of her homes.
If I have given to Venice a prominent place among the cities of the earth it is because in this selfish, materialistic, money-getting age, it is a joy to live, if only for a day, where a song is more prized than a soldo; where the poorest pauper laughingly shares his scanty crust ”

“ There is a gate with a broken door, and a neglected garden trampled down by many feet, a half-ruined wall with fig-trees and oleanders peeping over from the garden next door, a row of ragged, straggling trees lining the water’s edge, and more big fish and crab baskets scattered all about,—baskets big as feather-beds,—and festoons of nets hung to the branches of the trees or thrown over the patched-up fences,—every conceivable and inconceivable kind of fishing plunder that could litter up the premises of a pescatore of the lagoon. ”

“ There is another Venice outside; a Venice of life and joyousness and stir. The sun going down; the caffès under the arcades of the King’s Palace and of the Procuratie Vecchie are filling up. There is hardly an empty table at Florian’s. The pigeons, too, are coming home to roost, and are nestling under the eaves of the great buildings and settling on the carvings of San Marco. The flower girls, in gay costumes, are making shops of the marble benches next the Campanile, assorting roses and pinks, and arranging their boutonnières for the night’s sale. ”

“ This gondola-landing of the Piazza, the most important of the cab-stands in Venice, is the stepping-stone—a wet and ooze-covered stone—to the heart of the city. Really the heart, for the very life of every canal, campo, and street, courses through it in unending flow all the livelong day and night, from the earliest blush of dawn to the earliest blush of dawn again; no one ever seems to go to bed in Venice. ”

“ A night when San Giorgio stands on tip-toe, Narcissus-like, to drink in his own beauty mirrored in the silent sea; when the angel crowning the Campanile sleeps with folded wings, lost in the countless stars; when the line of the city from across the wide lagoons is but a string of lights buoying golden chains that sink into the depths; when the air is a breath of heaven, and every sound that vibrates across the never-ending wave is the music of another world.
No pen can give this beauty, no brush its color, no tongue its delight. ”

“ Now and then a figure will come down to the water’s edge and sit upon some marble steps, gazing seaward. There is nothing to be seen,—no passing ship, no returning boat. It is only the night!
Away up the canal, Guglielmo, the famous singer, once a gondolier, is filling the night with music, a throng of boats almost bridging the canal, following him from place to place, Luigi, the primo, in the lead,—the occupants hanging on every note that falls from his lips. ”

“ Long after the Professor left the garden, I sat looking about me, noting the broken walls overhung with matted vines, and the little lizards darting in and out. Then I strolled on and entered the doorway of the old château, and looked long and steadily at the ruined balcony, half buried in a tangle of roses, the shadows of their waving blossoms splashing the weather-stained marble; and thence to the apartment above, where these same blossoms thrust themselves far into its gloom, as if they too would search for the vision of loveliness [83] that had vanished. ”

“ This quality of the picturesque saturates Venice. You find it in her stately structures; in her spacious Piazza, with its noble Campanile, clock tower, and façade of San Marco; in her tapering towers, deep-wrought bronze, and creamy marble; in her cluster of butterfly sails on far-off, wide horizons; in her opalescent dawns, flaming sunsets, and star-lit summer nights. You find it in the gatherings about her countless bridges spanning dark water-ways; in the ever-changing color of crowded markets; in lazy gardens lolling over broken walls ”

“ The crowds, too, come every day,—the same people, I think. Yet he is not the only painter in the streets. You will find them all over Venice. Some under their umbrellas, the more knowing under short gondola-sails rigged like an awning, under which they crawl out of the blazing heat. I am one of the more knowing.
The average citizen, as I have said, almost always walks. When there are no bridges across the Grand Canal he must of course rely on the gondola. Not the luxurious gondola with curtains and silk-fringed cushions, but a gondola half worn-out and now used as a ferryboat at the traghetto. ”

“ Espero has breathed her air always, and hundreds of nights have come and gone for him; yet as he stands bareheaded behind you, his oar slowly moving, you can hear him communing with himself as he whispers, “Bella notte, bella notte,” just as some other devotee would tell his beads in unconscious prayer. It is the spirit of idolatry born of her never-ending beauty, that marks the marvellous power which Venice wields over human hearts, compelling them, no matter how dull and leaden, to reverence and to love. ”

“ This is the Dogana of the lagoon, and every basket, crate, and box must be inspected and counted by the official in the flat cap with the tarnished gilt band, who commands this box of a boat, for each individual peach, plum, and pear must help pay its share of the public debt.
This floating custom-house is one of many beads, strung at intervals a mile apart, completely encircling Venice. It is safe to say that nothing that crows, bleats, or clucks, nothing that feeds, clothes, or is eaten, ever breaks through this charmed circle without leaving some portion of its value behind. ”

“ Some time when you are out on the canal, or up the Giudecca, you might get a fish freshly broiled from a passing cook-boat serving the watermen—a sort of floating kitchen for those who are too poor for a fire of their own—but never meat.
Giorgio serves you as daintily as would a woman; unfolding the cheese, splitting the rolls, parting the melon into crescents, flecking off each seed with his knife: and last, the coffee from the little copper coffee-pot, and the thin cakes of sugar, in the thick, unbreakable, dumpy little cups. ”

“ In the morning the great sweep of dazzling pavement is a blaze of white light, spotted with moving dots of color. These dots carry gay-colored parasols and fans, or shield their eyes with aprons, hugging, as they scurry along, the half-shadows of a bridge-rail or caffè awning. Here and there, farther down along the Riva, are larger dots—fruit-sellers crouching under huge umbrellas, or groups of gondoliers under improvised awnings of sailcloth and boat oars. ”

“ Soon you will begin to realize that despite your belongings—wealth to this gondolier beyond his wildest dreams—he in reality is the richer of the two. He has inherited all this glory of palace, sea, and sky, from the day of his birth, and can live in it every hour in the year, with no fast-ebbing letter-of-credit nor near-approaching sailing day to sadden his soul or poison the cup of his pleasure. ”

“ All Venetian basements are damp; it is their normal condition. If the water runs in, it will run out again. They have known this Old Sea King for centuries, and they know every whim in his head. As long as the Murazzi hold—the great stone dykes breasting the Adriatic outside the lagoons—Venice is safe. To-morrow the blessed sun will shine again, and the warm air will dry up the last vestige of the night’s frolic. ”

“ Really, if you but knew it, almost every palace hides a garden nestling beneath its balconies, and every high wall hems in a wealth of green, studded with broken statues, quaint arbors festooned with purple grapes, and white walks bordered by ancient box; while every roof that falls beneath a window is made a hanging garden of potted plants and swinging vines.
BEYOND SAN ROSARIO
Step from your gondola into some open archway. A door beyond leads you to a court paved with marble flags and centred by a well with carved marble curb, yellow stained with age. ”

“ Once or twice a week there is also a band playing in front of one of these principal caffès, either the Government band or some private orchestra.
On these nights the people come in from all over Venice, standing in a solid mass, men, women, and children, listening in perfect silence to the strains of music that float over the otherwise silent street. There is nothing in Europe quite like this bareheaded, attentive, absorbed crowd of Venetians, enjoying every note that falls on their ears. There is no gathering so silent, so orderly, so well-bred. ”

“ Presently a tall, finely formed gondolier in dark blue, with a red sash, whirls the ferro of his boat close to the landing-steps, and a graceful, dignified woman, past middle life, but still showing traces of great beauty, steps in, and sinks upon the soft cushions.
The Professor rises like a grand duke receiving a princess, brings one arm to a salute, places the other over his heart, and makes a bow that carries the conviction of profound respect and loyalty in its every curve. ”