A GONDOLA RACE
T
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 whitetendaof 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 gondolier does not see me. If he did it would not disturb him; his boat is his home through these soft summer days and nights, and the overhanging sky gives privacy enough. A slender, graceful Venetian girl, her hair parted on one side, a shawl about her shoulders, has just brought him a bundle containing a change of clothing. She sits beside him as he dresses, and I move my chair so that I can catch the expressions of pride and delight that flit across her face while she watches the handsome, broadly-built young fellow. As he stands erect in the gondola, the sunlight flashing from his wet arms, I note the fine lines of his chest, the bronzed neck and throat,and the knotted muscles along the wrist and forearm. When the white shirt with broad yellow collar and sash are adjusted and the toilet is complete, even to the straw hat worn rakishly over one ear, the girl gathers up the discarded suit, glances furtively at me, slips her hand into his for a moment, and then springs ashore, waving her handkerchief as he swings out past the Dogana, the yellow ribbons of his hat flying in the wind.
Joseph, prince among porters, catches my eye and smiles meaningly. Later, when he brings my mail, he explains that the pretty Venetian, Teresa, is the sweetheart of Pietro the yellow-and-white gondolier who serves the English lady at thePalazzo da Mula. Pietro, he tells me, rows in the regatta to-day, and these preparations are in honor of that most important event. He assures me that it will be quite the most interesting of all the regattas of the year, and that I must go early and secure a place near the stake-boat if I want to see anything of the finish. It is part of Joseph’s duty and pleasure to keep you posted on everything that happens in Venice. It would distress him greatly if he thought you could obtain this information from any other source.
While we talk the Professor enters the gardenfrom the side door of the corridor, and takes the vacant seat beside me. He, too, has come to tell me of the regatta. He is bubbling over with excitement, and insists that I shall meet him at the water-steps of the little Piazzetta near theCaffè Veneta Marina, at three o’clock, not a moment later. To-day, he says, I shall see, not the annual regatta,—that great spectacle with the Grand Canal crowded with tourists and sight-seers solidly banked from the water’s edge to the very balconies,—but an old-time contest between the two factions of the gondoliers, the Nicoletti and Castellani; a contest really of and for the Venetians themselves.
The course is to begin at the Lido, running thence to the great flour-mill up the Giudecca, and down again to the stake-boat off the Public Garden. Giuseppe is to row, and Pasquale, both famous oarsmen, and Carlo, the brother of Gaspari, who won the great regatta; better than all, young Pietro, of the Traghetto of Santa Salute.
“Not Pietro of thistraghetto, right here below us?” I asked.
“Yes; he rows with his brother Marco. Look out for him when he comes swinging down the canal. If you have any money to wager, put it on him. Gustavo, my waiter atFlorian’s, says he is bound to win. His colors are yellow and white.”
This last one I knew, for had he not made his toilet, half an hour before, within sight of my table? No wonder Teresa looked proud and happy!
While the Professor is bowing himself backward out of the garden, hat in hand, his white hair and curled mustache glistening in the sun, an oleander blossom in his button-hole, Espero enters, also bareheaded, and begs that the Signore will use Giorgio’s gondola until he can have his own boat, now at the repair-yard next to San Trovaso, scraped and pitched; the grass on her bottom was the width of his hand. By one o’clock she would be launched again. San Trovaso, as the Signore knew, was quite near theCaffè Calcina; would he be permitted to call for him at the caffè after luncheon? As the regatta began at three o’clock there would not be time to return again to the Signore’s lodging and still secure a good place at the stake-boat off the Garden.
No; the illustrious Signore would do nothing of the kind. He would take Giorgio and his gondola for the morning, and then, when the boat was finished, Espero could pick up the Professor at theCaffè VenetaMarinain the afternoon and bring him aboard Giorgio’s boat on his way down the canal.
Giorgio is my stand-by when Espero is away. I often send him to my friends, those whom I love, that they may enjoy the luxury of spending a day with a man who has a score and more of sunshiny summers packed away in his heart, and not a cloud in any one of them. Tagliapietra Giorgio, of the Traghetto of Santa Salute, is his full name and address. Have Joseph call him for you some day, and your Venice will be all the more delightful because of his buoyant strength, his cheeriness, and his courtesy.
So Giorgio and I idle about the lagoon and the Giudecca, watching the flags being hoisted, the bigbarcosbeing laden, and various other preparations for the great event of the afternoon.
After luncheon Giorgio stops at his house to change histendafor the new one with the blue lining, and slips into the white suit just laundered for him. He lives a few canals away from the Calcina, with his mother, his widowed sister and her children, in a small house with a garden all figs and oleanders. His bedroom is next to his mother’s, on the second floor, overlooking the blossoms. There is a shrine above the bureau, decoratedwith paper flowers, and on the walls a scattering of photographs of brother gondoliers, and some trophies of oars and flags. Hanging behind the door are his oilskins for wet weather, and the Tam O’Shanter cap that some former padrone has left him, as a souvenir of the good times they once had together, and which Giorgio wears as a weather signal for a rainy afternoon, although the morning sky may be cloudless. All gondoliers are good weather prophets.
The entire family help Giorgio with thetenda—the old mother carrying the side-curtains, warm from her flat-iron, and chubby Beppo, bareheaded and barefooted, bringing up the rear with the little blue streamer that on gala days floats from the gondola’s lamp-socket forward, which on other days is always filled with flowers.
Then we are off, picking our way down the narrow canal, waiting here and there for the bigbarcosto pass, laden with wine or fruit, until we shoot out into the broad waters of the Giudecca.
You see at a glance that Venice is astir. All along the Zattere, on every wood-boat,barco, and barge, on every bridge, balcony, and house-top, abreast the widefondamentafronting the great warehouses, and away downthe edge below the Redentore, the people are swarming like flies. Out on the Giudecca, anchored to the channel spiles, is a double line of boats of every conceivable description, from a toysandoloto a steamer’s barge. These lie stretched out on the water like two great sea-serpents, their heads facing the garden, their tails curving toward the Redentore.
Between these two sea-monsters, with their flashing scales of a thousand umbrellas, is an open roadway of glistening silver.
Giorgio swings across to the salt warehouses above the Dogana and on down and over to the Riva. Then there is a shout ahead, a red and whitetendaveers a point, comes close, backs water, and the Professor springs in.
“Here, Professor, here beside me on the cushions,” I call out. “Draw back the curtains, Giorgio. And, Espero, hurry ahead and secure a place near the stake-boat. We will be there in ten minutes.”
The Professor was a sight to cheer the heart of an amateur yachtsman out for a holiday. He had changed his suit of the morning for a small straw hat trimmed with red, an enormous field-glass with a strap over his shoulder, and a short velvet coat that hadonce done service as a smoking-jacket. His mustachios were waxed into needle points. The occasion had for him all the novelty of the first spring meeting at Longchamps, or a race off Cowes, and he threw himself into its spirit with the gusto of a boy.
“What colors are you flying,mon Capitaine? Blue? Never!” noticing Giorgio’s streamer. “Pasquale’s color is blue, and he will be half a mile astern when Pietro is round the stake-boat.Vive le jaune! Vive Pietro!” and out came a yellow rag—Pietro’s color—bearing a strong resemblance to the fragment of some old silk curtain. It settled at a glance all doubt as to the Professor’s sympathies in the coming contest.
The day was made for a regatta; a cool, crisp, bracing October day; a day of white clouds and turquoise skies, of flurries of soft winds that came romping down the lagoon, turned for a moment in play, and then went scampering out to sea; a day of dazzling sun, of brilliant distances, of clear-cut outlines, black shadows, and flashing lights.
As we neared the Public Garden the crowd grew denser; the cries of the gondoliers were incessant; even Giorgio’s skillful oar was taxed to the utmost to avoid the polluting touch of an underbredsandolo, or the stillgreater calamity of a collision—really an unpardonable sin with a gondolier. Every now and then a chorus of yells, charging every crime in the decalogue, would be hurled at some landsman whose oar “crabbed,” or at some nondescript craft filled with “barbers and cooks,” to quote Giorgio, who in forcing a passage had become hopelessly entangled.
The only clear water-space was the ribbon of silver beginning away up near the Redentore, between the tails of the two sea-monsters, and ending at the stake-boat. Elsewhere, on both sides, from the Riva to San Giorgio, and as far as the wall of the Garden, was a dense floating mass of human beings, cheering, singing, and laughing, waving colors, and calling out the names of their favorites in rapidcrescendo.
The spectacle on land was equally unique. The balustrade of the broad walk of the Public Garden was a huge flower-bed of blossoming hats and fans, spotted with myriads of parasols in full bloom. Bunches of over-ripe boys hung in the trees, or dropped one by one into the arms of gendarmes below. The palaces along the Riva were a broad ribbon of color with a binding of black coats and hats. The wall of San Giorgio fronting the barracks was fringed with the yellow legs andedged with the white fatigue caps of two regiments. Even over the roofs and tower of the church itself specks of sight-seers were spattered here and there, as if the joyous wind in some mad frolic had caught them up in very glee, and as suddenly showered them on cornice, sill, and dome.
Beyond all this, away out on the lagoon, toward the islands, the red-sailed fishing-boats hurried in for the finish, their canvas aflame against the deepening blue. Over all the sunlight danced and blazed and shimmered, gilding and bronzing the roof-jewels of San Marco, flashing from oar blade, brass, andferro, silvering the pigeons whirling deliriously in the intoxicating air, making glad and gay and happy every soul who breathed the breath of this joyous Venetian day.
None of all this was lost upon the Professor. He stood in the bow drinking in the scene, sweeping his glass round like a weather-vane, straining his eyes up the Giudecca to catch the first glimpse of the coming boats, picking out faces under flaunting parasols, and waving aloft his yellow rag when some gondola swept by flying Pietro’s colors, or some boat-load of friends saluted in passing.
Suddenly there came down on the shifting wind, from far up the Giudecca, a sound likethe distant baying of a pack of hounds, and as suddenly died away. Then the roar of a thousand throats, caught up by a thousand more about us, broke on the air, as a boatman, perched on a masthead, waved his hat.
“Here they come!VivaPietro!VivaPasquale!—Castellani!—Nicoletti!—Pietro!”
The dense mass rose and fell in undulations, like a great carpet being shaken, its colors tossing in the sunlight. Between the thicket offerros, away down the silver ribbon, my eye caught two little specks of yellow capping two white figures. Behind these, almost in line, were two similar dots of blue; farther away other dots, hardly distinguishable, on the horizon line.
The gale became a tempest—the roar was deafening; women waved their shawls in the air; men, swinging their hats, shouted themselves hoarse. The yellow specks developed into handkerchiefs bound to the heads of Pietro and his brother Marco; the blues were those of Pasquale and his mate.
Then, as we strain our eyes, the two tails of the sea-monster twist and clash together, closing in upon the string of rowers as they disappear in the dip behind San Giorgio, only to reappear in full sight, Pietro half a length ahead, straining every sinew, his superb armsswinging like a flail, his lithe body swaying in splendid, springing curves, the water rushing from his oar blade, his brother bending aft in perfect rhythm.
“Pietro!Pietro!” came the cry, shrill and clear, drowning all other sounds, and a great field of yellow burst into flower all over the lagoon, from San Giorgio to the Garden. The people went wild. If before there had been only a tempest, now there was a cyclone. The waves of blue and yellow surged alternately above the heads of the throng as Pasquale or Pietro gained or lost a foot. The Professor grew red and pale by turns, his voice broken to a whisper with continued cheering, the yellow rag streaming above his head, all the blood of his ancestors blazing in his face.
The contesting boats surged closer. You could now see the rise and fall of Pietro’s superb chest, the steel-like grip of his hands, and could outline the curves of his thighs and back. The ends of the yellow handkerchief, bound close about his head, were flying in the wind. His stroke was long and sweeping, his full weight on the oar; Pasquale’s stroke was short and quick, like the thrust of a spur.
Now they are abreast. Pietro’s eyes areblazing—Pasquale’s teeth are set. Both crews are doing their utmost. The yells are demoniac. Even the women are beside themselves with excitement.
Suddenly, when within five hundred yards of the goal, Pasquale turns his head to his mate; there is an answering cry, and then, as if some unseen power had lent its strength, Pasquale’s boat shoots half a length ahead, slackens, falls back, gains again, now an inch, now a foot, now clear of Pietro’s bow, and on, on, lashing the water, surging forward, springing with every gain, cheered by a thousand throats, past the red tower of San Giorgio, past the channel of spiles off the Garden, past the red buoy near the great warship,—one quick, sustained, blistering stroke,—until the judge’s flag drops from his hand, and the great race is won.
“A true knight, a gentleman every inch of him,” called out the Professor, forgetting that he had staked all hissoldion Pietro. “Fairly won, Pasquale.”
In the whirl of the victory, I had forgotten Pietro, my gondolier of the morning. The poor fellow was sitting in the bow of his boat, his head in his hands, wiping his forehead and throat, the tears streaming down his cheeks. His brother sat beside him. In thegladness and disappointment of the hour, no one of the crowd around him seemed to think of the hero of five minutes before. Not so Giorgio, who was beside himself with grief over Pietro’s defeat, and who had not taken his eyes from his face. In an instant more he sprang forward, calling out, “No! no!Brava Pietro!” Espero joining in as if with a common impulse, and both forcing their gondolas close to Pietro’s.
A moment more and Giorgio was over the rail of Pietro’s boat, patting his back, stroking his head, comforting him as you would think only a woman could—but then you do not know Giorgio. Pietro lifted up his face and looked into Giorgio’s eyes with an expression so woe-begone, and full of such intense suffering, that Giorgio instinctively flung his arm around the great, splendid fellow’s neck. Then came a few broken words, a tender caressing stroke of Giorgio’s hand, a drawing of Pietro’s head down on his breast as if it had been a girl’s, and then, still comforting him—telling him over and over again how superbly he had rowed, how the next time he would win, how he had made a grand second—
Giorgio bent his head—and kissed him.
When Pietro, a moment later, pulled himselftogether and stood erect in his boat, with eyes still wet, the look on his face was as firm and determined as ever.
Nobody laughed. It did not shock the crowd; nobody thought Giorgio unmanly or foolish, or Pietro silly or effeminate. The infernal Anglo-Saxon custom of always wearing a mask of reserve, if your heart breaks, has never reached these people.
As for the Professor, who looked on quietly, I think—yes, I am quite sure—that a little jewel of a tear squeezed itself up through his punctilious, precise, ever exact and courteous body, and glistened long enough on his eyelids to wet their lashes. Then the bright sun and the joyous wind caught it away. Dear old relic of a by-gone time! How gentle a heart beats under your well-brushed, threadbare coat!