Gondola

“ Through this salt and sombre plain the gondola and the fishing-boat advance by tortuous channels, seldom more than four or five feet deep, and often so choked with slime that the heavier keels furrow the bottom till their crossing tracts are seen through the clear sea water like the ruts upon a wintry road, and the oar leaves blue gashes upon the ground at every stroke, or is entangled among the thick weed that fringes the banks with the weight of its sullen waves, leaning to and fro upon the uncertain sway of the exhausted tide. ”

“ Thus the gondola glides gently over the waves, the passenger indulges in day-dreams of Venice, and that sort of thing, until all at once he finds that the canoe has ceased gliding, and he looks out and sees his degenerate gondoliers engaged in a struggle to the death with a mud-bank, and stirring up with their setting-poles—for the true gondolier in the American Venice does not paddle, but poles—such an accumulation of unutterable odors, that his very hair stands on end with surprise. ”

“ 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. ”

“ SCENE—The interior of a covered gondola, which is conveying CULCHARD and PODBURY from the Railway Station to the Hotel Dandolo, Venice. The gondola is gliding with a gentle sidelong heave under shadowy bridges of stone and cast-iron, round sharp corners, and past mysterious blank walls, and old scroll-work gateways, which look ghostly in the moonlight. ”

“ The Canal was twinkling with gondola lights, and as they approached the broad arch of the Rialto the crowd became greater, obliging them to pause now and then, while the dip of multitudinous oars made itself heard, a delicious undertone to the shouts and execrations of excited gondoliers. ”

“ You cannot separate the lagoon from the gondola. One completes the other. Without either Venice would be impossible. The gondola alone can wend its way through the intricate water-streets of the Queen of the Adriatic. 196
There is no indication of movement whatever in a gondola. The craft has no springs, no cogs, no jarring wheels or oily machinery, no vibration. Simply one sees the palaces glide by in front of one, and hears the water making a lapping noise under the bows. The gondolier is out of sight. Nothing blocks your view of sea and sky, save the slender steel ferro at the prow. ”

“ From the busy, bustling railway station we were concluded by a Fakena, who brought up our luggage to a gondola lying in the shimmering sea just outside. No cabs or ’bus as at other stations, the gondola seemed to be everywhere. As we stepped into our new found equipage we were entranced, imagination fails to picture a sight so bewitching. Lights in a thousand directions, gondolas passing and repassing as we sweep through the principal waterway, then turn sharp round a corner as our gondolier cries: “Stali priene gai e” as he passes others with most wonderful precision. ”

“ Around the large gondola beneath the balcony had gathered other gondolas bearing languid women who leaned out to listen to the music in attitudes of graceful abandon, as if in fancy they felt themselves sinking into invisible arms. ”

“ Perhaps there is nothing made by man to float upon the waters more graceful in its lines than a gondola. To think of Venice, is to recall these gliding, swan-like, silent craft, that ply upon the innumerable waterways. Like ghosts by night they steal along in the deep shadows of the palaces, impelled by boatmen whose every attitude is a study in lissome grace. To lie in a gondola, while the attendant noiselessly propels the stately skiff with his{32} pliant oar, is to realise romance and the perfection of leisurely locomotion. ”

“ Of the beautiful free stroke with which the gondola, especially when there are two oars, is impelled, you never, in the Venetian scene, grow weary; it is always in the picture, and the large profiled action that lets the standing rowers throw themselves forward to a constant recovery has the double value of being, at the fag-end of greatness, the only energetic note. The people from the hotels are always afloat, and, at the hotel pace, the solitary gondolier (like the solitary horseman of the old- fashioned novel) is, I confess, a somewhat melancholy figure. ”

“ There was always a busy and moving scene in the adjoining piazzetta; swarms of gondolas awaiting your pleasure, under the gay sunlit skies, the gondoliers shouting, "Gon-dola! gon-dola!" in almost ceaseless strain. It is a good plan, when going on an excursion, to carefully select your gondola the night before. After breakfast, you will find it awaiting you handsomely decorated, its owner smartly dressed, Venetian sailor fashion, with blue and silver scarf; and, taking with you a basket of good things in the way of refreshments, away you glide for a day's genuine pleasure. ”

“ I shall often remember the gondolier's serenades, the beautiful moon and starlight, the gliding about in the gondola in all the romantic parts of Venice, the soft air, the stillness of the night, hearing only the splash of oars, and nothing stirring except perhaps some dark and picturesque figure crossing the bridge, the little Madonna chapel on the banks of the Lido edging the Adriatic, the Piazza of San Marco with the band, and ices outside Florian's, the picturesque Armenians, Greeks, and Moors, and the lovely water-girls with their bigolo, every language sounding in one's ears. ”

“ The dusk had gathered and the stars were coming out. The water was dotted with gondola-lights that twinkled here and there, like detached will-o'-the wisps, the black hulls of the boats not being clearly distinguishable in the shadow. Every gondola was out, excepting the few unlucky ones that were detained for ferry service; for there was to be a festa this evening, and the forestieri,—by which pretty woodsy name the tourist is designated in the most poetic of tongues,—could be counted upon to pay fancy prices. ”

“ THE gondola, like all other cabs, land or water, whether hansom, four-wheeler, sampan, or caïque, is a luxury used only by the hurried and the rich. As no Venetian is ever hurried, and few are rich,—very many of them living in complete ignorance of the exact whereabouts of their next repast,—almost everybody walks. ”

“ You try to take a walk, and you fail, and meantime, as I say, you have come to regard your gondola as a sort of magnified baby's cradle. You have no desire to be rocked to sleep, though you are sufficiently kept awake by the irritation produced, as you gaze across the shallow lagoon, by the attitude of the perpetual gondolier, with his turned-out toes, his protruded chin, his absurdly unscientific stroke. ”

“ Light is breaking in the west. The weather-vane on the Campanile glows and flashes. Now a flood of sunshine bursts forth from a halo of lemon-colored sky. The joyous pigeons glint like flakes of gold. Then [154] a shout comes from the Molo. The sea is falling! The gondolier who has dared the centre of the Piazza springs to his oar, strips off his oilskins, throws them into his boat, and plunges overboard waist-deep, seizing his gondola by the bow. ”

“ TO-DAY I am interested in watching a gondolier make his toilet in a gondola lying at my feet, for the little table holding my coffee stands on a half-round balcony that juts quite over the water-wall, almost touching the white tenda of the boat. From this point of vantage I look down upon his craft, tethered to a huge spile bearing the crown and monogram of the owner of the hotel. One is nobody if not noble, in Venice. ”

“ The six francs a day that you pay him will seem only your own contribution to the support of the gondola; his share being his services. When you have spent half the night at the Lido, he swimming at your side, or have rowed all the way to Torcello, or have heard early mass at San Rosario, away up the Giudecca, he kneeling before you, his hat on the cool pavement next your own, you will begin to lose sight even of the francs, and want to own gondola and all yourself, that you may make him guest and thus discharge somewhat the ever-increasing obligation of hospitality under which he places you. ”

“ In the evening there was to be a Fresco, or procession of gondolas on the great canal, with lanterns and music, in honor of Prince Plomplon, who was at Danieli's hotel. Uncertain whether to engage a gondola or not, I sat in the garden balcony of Barbesi's, immediately over the canal. I saw the gondolas of high society flit by, gay with flags and colored lanterns, the gondoliers in full livery. Their attitude in rowing is singular. They stand slanting forward, so that one almost expects to see them fall on their faces. ”

“ He waved his hand towards a wonderful gondola, with a gesture such as Aladdin's Genie might have used to indicate the magic palace. The glossy black coat of the swan-like thing brought out the full value of the rich gold ornaments. A long piece of drapery trailed into the water behind, and two gondoliers, like bronze statues dressed in dark blue, crimson, and white, stood up tall and erect against a background of golden sea and sky.
They helped us in, hat in hand; and not the Chauffeulier's absence nor the Prince's presence could spoil for me the experience that followed. ”

“ Swift as a fish and light as a swan, it skimmed the surface of the Scheldt, and made many a turn through the numerous vessels until it had succeeded in finding an open way down the river. Then the sailors exerted all their strength, as if to show the beautiful young girl what they were capable of in their trade. The gondola, obeying the impulse given it by the oarsmen, bounded forward under each stroke of the oars, and gracefully poised itself on the waves caused by its rapid passage. ”

“ In the morning hours around the wells in the open Campo, where the women fill their copper water-buckets, and the children play by the widening puddles; in the narrow streets beside a shadow-flecked wall; under the vines of the traghetto, lolling over the unused felsi; among the gondoliers at the gondola landings, while their boats lie waiting for patrons; over low walls of narrow slits of canals, to occupants of some window or bridge a hundred feet away. There is always time to talk, in Venice. ”

“ The gliding, easy motion of the gondola expresses the whole situation; and the gondolier who with consummate skill urges his dreamy bark amid the throng and in the tortuous canals for an hour or two, and then sleeps in the sun, is a type of that rest in labor which we do not attain. ”

“ The gondola, as is well known, is a long boat, pointed at both ends, and painted black—furnished in the centre with cushioned seats, all black, over which is erected a kind of cot, with windows, to screen the passengers. One man stands in the fore, another in the back part, rowing with their faces forward, the oar working in a twisting manner on the top of a piece of wood curiously grooved for the purpose. I cannot say that I saw anything very peculiar in the dress of the gondoliers, or indeed in the appearance of any of the people of Venice, excepting the female water-carriers. ”

“ But the gondola never is by itself. It's the centre of everything. It's all Venice and a living creature besides—something like a person's heart. Of course I don't mean the gondolas on the souvenir spoons! ”

“ In the centre was placed a large round of crystal in imitation of a lake, and on this apparently floated a beautiful gondola steered by the figure of a gondolier, both exquisitely wrought in fine Venetian glass. The gondolier was piled high with a cargo of roses; but the wonder of it all was, that the whole design was lit up by electricity. Electric sparkles, like drops of dew, shone on the leaves of the flowers; the gondola was lit from end to end with electric stars, which were reflected with prismatic brilliancy in the crystal below ”

“ Then follow the firm lines of the mouth, the wide brow, strong nose, and iron chin. Add to this a skin bronzed to copper by the sun, a pair of laughing eyes, and an out-pointed mustache, and you have Luigi.
And the air of the man! Only gondoliers, of all serving-men, have this humble fearlessness of manner—a manner which combines the dignity of the patrician with the humility of the servant. It is their calling which marks the difference. Small as is the gondola among all water craft, the gondolier is yet its master, free to come and free to go. ”

“ The shout of the Giustiniani was echoed from gondola to gondola of the waiting throng, from the gondoliers of all the nobles who followed in their wake, from the housetops, the balconies, the fondamenta, mingled with the words of the favorite folk-song:
"Belo zè el mare, e belà la marina!" [6]
[6] Beautiful is the sea, and beautiful the marsh. ”

“ The gondola is built for leisure: one cannot quite imagine it, let us say, in America. It is a historic vessel, with a flavour of sentiment and antiquity about it, built by a leisured people for idleness, not for business or for hurry. ”

“ The word “gondola” uttered by a foreigner in Venice instantly wakes every Venetian to an intense activity of helpfulness. “Gondola? Gondola, signore? Ecco! Ecco, una gondola!” Half a dozen hands pointed. There was, mercifully, a gondola-stand within fifty yards, just round the corner of the Bocca di Piazza. ”

“ You stop for a moment, noting the long, narrow body, blue-black and silver in the morning light, as graceful in its curves as a bird; the white awning amidships draped at sides and back, the softly-yielding, morocco-covered seat, all cushions and silk fringes, and the silken cords curbing quaint lions of polished brass. Beyond and aft stands your gondolier, with easy, graceful swing bending to his oar. You stoop down, part the curtains, and sink into the cushions. Suddenly an air of dignified importance steals over you. Never in your whole life have you been so magnificently carried about. ”