LIFE IN THE STREETS
T
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.
And the walking, strange to say, in this city anchored miles out at sea, with nearly every street paved with ripples, is particularly good. Of course, one must know the way,—the way out of the broad Campo, down the narrow slit of a street between tall houses; the way over the slender bridges, along stone foot-walks, hardly a yard wide, bracketed to some palace wall overhanging the water, or the way down a flight of steps dipping into a doorway and so under and through a greater house held up by stone columns, and on into the open again.
But when you do know all these twists and turns and crookednesses, you are surprised to find that you can walk all over Venice andnever wet the sole of your shoe, nor even soil it, for that matter.
If you stand on the Iron Bridge spanning the Grand Canal,—the only dry-shod connection between the new part of Venice which lies along the Zattere, and the old section about San Marco and the Piazza,—you will find it crowded all day with hundreds of pedestrians passing to and fro. Some of them have come from away down near the Arsenal, walked the whole length of the Riva, rounded the Campanile, crossed the Piazza, and then twisted themselves through a tangle of these same little byways and about church corners and down dark cellars,—sotto porticos, the street labels call them,—until they have reached the Campo of San Stefano and the Iron Bridge. And it is so, too, at the Rialto, the only other bridge, but one, crossing the Grand Canal, except that the stream of idlers has here a different current and poorer clothes are seen. Many of these streets are wide enough for a company of soldiers to walk abreast, and many are so narrow that when two fruit venders pass with their baskets, one of them steps into a doorway.
And the people one meets in these twists and turns,—the people who live in the bigand little streets,—who eat, sleep, and are merry, and who, in the warm summer days and nights, seem to have no other homes! My dear friend Luigi is one of these vagrant Bohemians, and so is Vittorio, and little Appo, with shoulders like a stone Hercules and quite as hard, and so, also, are Antonio and the rest. When Luigi wants his breakfast he eats it from a scrap of paper held on the palm of his hand, upon which is puddled and heaped a little mound of thick soup or brownragoutmade offulpe, or perhaps shreds of fish. He will eat this as he walks, stopping to talk to every fellow-tramp he meets, each one of whom dips in his thumb and forefinger with a pinch-of-snuff movement quite in keeping with the ancient custom and equally as courteous. Every other poverty-strickencavalièreof the Riva, as soon as he has loaded down his own palm with a similar greasy mess from the earthen dish simmering over a charcoal fire,—the open-air caffè of the poor,—expects that the next friend passing will do the same. When night comes they each select some particularly soft slab of marble on one of the seats in the shadow of the Campanile, or some bricked recess behind San Marco, stuff their hats under their cheeks, and drop into oblivion,only waking to life when the sun touches the gilded angel of San Giorgio. And not only Luigi and his fellow-tramps,—delightful fellows every one of them, and dear particular friends of mine,—but hundreds of others of every class and condition of royal, irredeemable, irresponsible, never-ending poverty.
And as to making merry! You should sit down somewhere and watch these millionnaires of leisure kill the lazy, dreamy, happy-go-lucky hours with a volley of chaff hurled at some stroller, some novice from the country back of Mestre in for a day’s holiday; or with a combined, good-natured taunt at a peasant from the fruit gardens of Malamocco, gaping at the wonders of the Piazza; or in heated argument each with the other—argument only ending in cigarettes andvino. Or listen to their songs—songs started perhaps by some one roused out of a sound sleep, who stretches himself into shape with a burst of melody that runs like fire in tangled grass, until the whole Campo is ablaze:Il Trovatore, and snatches fromMartaandPuritani, or some fisherman’s chorus that the lagoons have listened to for centuries. You never hear any new songs. All the operas of the outside world, German, French,and English, might be sung and played under their noses and into their ears for a lifetime, and they would have none of them.
Then the street venders! The man who stops at some water-steps to wash and arrange on a flat basket the handful of little silver fish, which he sells for a copper coin no larger than one of their fins. And the candy man with teetering scales; and the girl selling the bright red handkerchiefs, blue suspenders, gorgeous neckties, and pearl buttons strung on white cards.
And, too, the grave, dignified, utterly useless, and highly ornamentalgendarmes, always in pairs,—never stopping a moment, and always with the same mournful strut,—like dual clog-dancers stepping in unison. In many years’ experience of Venetian life, I have never yet seen one of these silver-laced, cockaded, red-striped-pantalooned guardians of the peace lay his hand upon any mortal soul. Never, even at night, when the ragged wharf-rats from the shipyards prowl about the Piazza, sneaking under the tables, pouncing upon the burnt ends of cigarettes and cigars, and all in sight of these pillars of the state—never, with all these opportunities, even when in their eagerness these ragamuffins crawl almost between their legs.
Yes, once! Then I took a hand myself, and against the written law of Venice too. It was at Florian’s, on the very edge of the sea of tables, quite out to the promenade line. I was enjoying a glass ofHofbrau, the stars overhead, the music of the King’s band filling the soft summer night. Suddenly a bust of Don Quixote, about the size of my beer-mug, was laid on the table before me, and a pair of black eyes from under a Spanish boina peered into my own.
“Cinque lire, Signore.”
It was Alessandro, the boy sculptor.
I had met him the day before, in front of Salviati’s. He was carrying into the great glass-maker’s shop, for shipment over the sea, a bust made of wet clay. A hurried sojourner, a foreigner, of course, by an awkward turn of his heel had upset the little sculptor, bust and all, pasting the aristocratic features of Don Quixote to the sidewalk in a way that made that work of art resemble more the droppings from a mortar-hod than the counterfeit presentment of Cervantes’ hero. Instantly a crowd gathered, and a commiserating one. When I drew near enough to see into the face of the boy, it was wreathed in a broad smile. He was squatting flat on the stone flagging, hard atwork on the damaged bust, assuring the offendingsignoreall the while that it was sheer nonsense to make such profuse apologies—it would be all right in a few minutes; and while I looked on, in all less than ten minutes, the deft fingers of the little fellow had readjusted with marvellous dexterity the crumpled mass, straightening the neck, rebuilding the face, and restoring the haughty dignity of the nobledon. Then he picked himself up, and with a bow and a laugh went on his way rejoicing. A boy of any other nationality, by the bye, would have filled the air with his cries until a policeman had taught him manners, or a hat lined with pennies had healed his sorrows.
So when Alessandro looked up into my face I felt more like sharing my table with him than driving him away—even to the ordering of another beer and a chair. Was he not a brother artist, and though poor and with a very slender hold on fame and fortune, had art any dividing lines?
Not so the gentlemen with the cocked hats! What! Peddling without the King’s license, or with it, for that matter, at Florian’s, within sound of the King’s band, the eyes of all Venice upon them! Never! So they made a grab for Alessandro, who turnedhis innocent young face up into theirs,—he was only two days from Milan and unused to their ways,—and, finding that they were really in earnest, clung to me like a frightened kitten.
It, of course, became instantly a matter of professional pride with me. Allow a sculptor of renown and parts, not to say genius, to be dragged off to prison under the pretence that he was breaking the law by selling his wares, when really he was only exhibiting to a brother artist an evidence of his handiwork, etc., etc.! It was a narrow escape, and I am afraid the bystanders, as well as the frozen images of the law, lost all respect for my truthfulness,—but it sufficed.
On my way home that night this waif of the streets told me that since he had been ten years old—he was then only seventeen—he had troubadoured it through Europe, even as far as Spain, his only support being his spatula and a lump of clay. With these he could conjure a breakfast out of the head waiter of a caffè in exchange for his portrait in clay, or a lodging in some cheap hotel for a like payment to the proprietor. He is still tramping the streets of Venice, his little wooden board filled with Madonnas, Spanish matadors, and Don Quixotes. Now he hasmoney in the bank and the striped-pantalooned guardians of the peace let him alone.
And the girls!
Not the better class, with mothers and duennas dogging every footstep, but the girls who wander two and two up and down the Riva, their arms intertwined; not forgetting the bright-eyedsignorinathat I once waylaid in a by-street. (Don’t start! Espero helped.) I wanted a figure to lean over a crumbling wall in a half-finished sketch, and sent Espero to catch one. Such a vision of beauty! Such a wealth of purple—grape purple—black hair; such luminous black eyes, real gazelle’s, soft and velvety; so exquisitely graceful; so charming and naïve; so unkempt,—so ragged,—so entirely unlaundered, unscrubbed, and slovenly!
But you must look twice at a Venetian beauty. You may miss her good points otherwise. You think at first sight that she is only the last half of my description, until you follow the flowing lines under the cheap, shabby shawl and skirt, and study the face.
This one opened her big eyes wide in astonishment at Espero, listened attentively, consented gracefully, and then sprang after him into the gondola, which carried her off bodily to my sketching ground. Truly onetouch of the brush, with a paperliraneatly folded around the handle, is very apt to make all Venice, especially stray amateur models, your kin.
But this is true of all the people in the streets. Every Venetian, for that matter, is a born model. You can call from under your umbrella to any passer-by, anybody who is not on a quick run for the doctor, and he or she will stand stock still and fix himself or herself in any position you may wish, and stay fixed by the hour.
And the gossip that goes on all day! 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 thetraghetto, lolling over the unusedfelsi; 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.
Then thedolce far nienteair that pervades these streets! Nobody in a hurry. Nobody breaking his neck to catch a boat off for the Lido; there will be another in an hour,and if, by any combination of cool awnings, warm wine, and another idler for company, this later boat should get away without this one passenger, why worry?—to-morrow will do.
All over Venice it is the same. The men sit in rows on the stone benches. The girls idle in the doorways, their hands in their laps. The members of the open-air club lounge over the bridges or lie sprawled on the shadow-side of the steps. Up in the fishing quarter, between naps in his doorway, some weather-beaten old salt may, perhaps, have a sudden spasm of energy over a crab-basket that must be hoisted up, or lowered down, or scrubbed with a broom. But there is sure to be a lull in his energy, and before you fairly miss his toiling figure he is asleep in his boat. When hissignorawakes him into life again with a piece of toasted pumpkin,—his luncheon, like the Professor’s, is eaten wherever he happens to be,—he may have another spasm of activity, but the chances are that he will relapse into oblivion again.
NARROW SLITS OF CANALSNARROW SLITS OF CANALS
NARROW SLITS OF CANALS
NARROW SLITS OF CANALS
Even about the Piazza, the centre of the city’s life, every free seat that is shady is occupied. So, too, are the bases of the flag-poles in front of the Loggietta and behind the Campanile. Only when something outof the common moves into the open space—like the painter with the canvas ten feet long and six feet high—do thesehabituésleave their seats or forsake the shelter of the arcades and stand in solemn circle. This particular painter occupies the centre of a square bounded by four chairs and some yards of connecting white ribbon,—the chairs turned in so that nobody can sit on them. He has been here for many seasons. He comes every afternoon at five and paints for an hour. 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 thetraghetto. These shuttles of travel run back and forth all day and all night (there are over thirtytraghettiin Venice), the fare being some infinitesimally smallbit of copper. Once across, the Venetian goes on about his way, dry-shod again. For longer distances, say from the railroad station to the Piazza, the Public Garden, or the Lido, he boards one of the little steamers that scurry up and down the Grand Canal or the Giudecca and the waters of some of the lagoons—really the only energetic things in Venice. Then another bit of copper coin, this time the size of a cuff-button, and he is whirled away and landed at the end of a dock lined with more seats for the weary, and every shaded space full.
Another feature of these streets is thebric-à-bracdealer. He has many of the characteristics of his equally shrewd brethren along Cheapside and the Bowery. One in particular,—he is always on the sidewalk in front of his shop. The Professor insists that these men are the curse of Venice; that they rob poor and rich alike,—the poor of their heirlooms at one-tenth their value, the rich of their gold by reselling this booty at twenty times its worth. I never take the Professor seriously about these things. His own personal patronage must be very limited, and I suspect, too, that in the earlier years of his exile, some of his own belongings—an old clock, perhaps, or a pair of pastebuckles, or some other relic of better days—were saved from the pawnshop only to be swallowed up by some shark down a back street.
But there is one particular Ananias, a smug, persuasive, clean-shaven specimen of his craft, who really answers to the Professor’s epithet. He haunts a narrow crack of a street leading from the Campo San Moisè to the Piazza. This crevice of a lane is the main thoroughfare between the two great sections of Venice. Not only the Venetians themselves, but, as it is the short cut to San Marco, many of the strangers from the larger hotels—the Britannia, the Grand, the Bauer-Grünwald, and others—pass through it night and day.
Here this wily spider weaves his web for foreign flies, retreating with his victim into his hole—a little shop, dark as a pocket—whenever he has his fangs completely fastened upon the fly’s wallet. The bait is, perhaps, a church lamp, or an altar-cloth spotted with candle-grease. There are three metres in the cloth, with six spots of grease to the metre. You are a stranger and do not know that the silk factory at the corner furnished the cloth the week before for five francs a metre, Ananias the grease, and hiswife the needle that sewed it together. Now hear him!
“No, nod modern; seexteenth century. Vrom a vary olt church in Padua. Zat von you saw on ze Beazzi yesterday vas modern and vary often, but I assure you, shentleman, zat zees ees antique and more seldom. Ant for dree hundredt francs eet ees re-diklous. I bay myselluf dree hundredt an’ feefty francs, only ze beesiness is so bad, and eet ees de first dime zat I speak wis you, I vould not sell eet for fife hundredt.”
You begin by offering him fifty francs.
“Two hundredtand feefty francs!” he answers, without a muscle in his face changing; “no, shentleman, it vould be eemposseeble to—”
“No, fifty,” you cry out.
Now see the look of wounded pride that overspreads his face, the dazed, almost stunned expression, followed by a slight touch of indignation. “Shentleman, conseeder ze honor of my house. Eef I sharge you dree hundredt francs for sometings only for feefty, it ees for myselluf I am zorry. Eet ees not posseeble zat you know ze honorable standing of my house.”
Then, if you are wise, you throw down your card with the name of your hotel—andstroll up the street, gazing into the shop windows and pricing in a careless way every other thing suspended outside any other door, or puckered up inside any other window.
In ten minutes after you have turned the corner he has interviewed the porter of your hotel—not Joseph of the Britannia; Joseph never lets one of this kind mount the hotel steps unless his ticket is punched with your permission. In five minutes Ananias has learned the very hour of the day you have to leave Venice, and is thereafter familiar with every bundle of stuffs offered by any other dealer that is sent to your apartment. When you pass his shop the next day he bows with dignity, but never leaves his doorway. If you have the moral courage to ignore him, even up to the last morning of your departure, when your trunks are packed and under the porter’s charge for registering, you will meet Ananias in the corridor with the altar-cloth under his arm, and his bill for fifty francs in his pocket. If not, and you really want his stuffs and he finds it out, then cable for a new letter-of-credit.
At night, especiallyfestanights, these Venetian streets are even more unique than in the day. There is, perhaps, a festa at theFrari, or atSanta Maria del Zobenigo. TheCampo in front of the church is ablaze with strings of lanterns hung over the heads of the people, or fastened to long brackets reaching out from the windows. There are clusters of candles, too, socketed in triangles of wood, and flaring torches, fastened to a mushroom growth of booths that have sprung up since morning, where are sold hot waffles cooked on open-air griddles, and ladles full of soup filled with sea horrors,—spider-like things with crawly legs. Each booth is decorated with huge brass plaques,repoussèdin designs of the Lion of St. Mark, and of the Saint himself. The cook tells you that he helped hammer them into shape during the long nights of the preceding winter; that there is nothing so beautiful, and that for a fewlireyou can add these specimens of domesticbric-à-bracto your collection at home. He is right; hung against a bit of old tapestry, nothing is more decorative than one of these rude reproductions of the older Venetian brass. And nothing morehonest. Every indentation shows the touch of the artist’s hammer.
In honor of thefestaeverybody in the vicinity lends a hand to the decorations. On the walls of the houses fronting the small square, especially on the wall of the wine-shop,are often hung the family portraits of some neighbor who has public spirit enough to add a touch of color to the general enjoyment. My friend, Pasquale D’ Este, who isgastaldoat thetraghettoof Zobenigo, pointed out to me, on one of these nights, a portrait of his own ancestor, surprising me with the information that his predecessors had been gondoliers for two hundred years.
While thefestalasts the people surge back and forth, crowding about the booths, buying knick-knacks at the portable shops. All are good-natured and courteous, and each one delighted over a spectacle so simple and so crude, the wonder is, when one thinks how often afestaoccurs in Venice, that even a handful of people can be gathered together to enjoy it.
Besides all these varying phases of street merry-making, there are always to be found in the thoroughfares of Venice during the year, some outward indications that mark important days in the almanac—calendar days that neither celebrate historical events nor mark religious festivals. You always know, for instance, when St. Mark’s day comes, in April, as every girl you meet wears a rose tucked in her hair out of deference to the ancient custom, not as a sign of the religiouscharacter of the day, but to show to the passer-by that she has a sweetheart. Before Christmas, too, if in the absence of holly berries and greens you should have forgotten the calendar day, the peddler of eels and of nut candy and apple sauce would remind you of it; for, in accordance with the ancient custom, dating back to the Republic, every family in Venice, rich or poor, the night before Christmas, has the same supper,—eels, a nut candy calledmandorlato, and a dish of apple sauce with fruits and mustard. This is why the peddlers in Venice are calling out all day at the top of their lungs, “Mandorlato! Mostarda!” while the eel and mustard trade springs into an activity unknown for a year. On other saints’ days the street peddlers sell a red paste made of tomatoes and chestnut flour, moulded into cakes.
Last are the caffès! In winter, of course, thehabituésof these Venetian lounging places are crowded into small, stuffy rooms; but in the warmer months everybody is in the street. Not only do Florian’s and the more important caffès of the rich spread their cloths under the open sky, but every other caffè on the Riva,—the Oriental, theVeneta Marina, and the rest—push their tables quite out to the danger-line patrolled by the two cocked-hatguardians of the peace. In and out between these checkerboards of good cheer, the peddlers of sweets, candies, and fruit strung on broom-straws, ply their trade, while the flower girls pin tuberoses or a bunch of carnations to your coat, and the ever-present and persistent guide waylays customers for the next day’s sightseeing. 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. The jewelled occupants of many an opera box could take lessons in good manners from these denizens of the tenements,—fishermen, bead stringers, lace makers—who gather here from behind the Ship Yard and in the tangle of streets belowSan Giorgio della Schiavoni. There is no jostling or pushing, with each one trying to get a better place. Many of the women carry their babies,the men caring for the larger children. All are judges of good music, and all are willing to stand perfectly still by the hour, so that they themselves may hear and let others hear too.