ON THE HOTEL STEPS
I
IF you drink your early coffee as I do, in the garden under the oleanders, overlooking the water-landing of the hotel, and linger long enough over your fruit, you will conclude before many days that a large part of the life of Venice can be seen from the hotel steps. You may behold the great row of gondolas at thetraghettonear by, ranged side by side, awaiting their turn, and here and there, tied to the spiles outside the line, the more fortunate boats whose owners serve some sight-seer by the week, or some native padrone by the month, and are thus free of the daily routine of thetraghetto, and free, too, from our old friend Joseph’s summoning voice.
You will be delighted at the good-humor and good-fellowship which animate this group of gondoliers; their ringing songs and hearty laughter; their constant care of the boats, their daily sponging and polishing; and now and then, I regret to say, your ears will be assailed by a quarrel, so fierce, so loud, and so full of vindictive energy, that you will start from your seat in instant expectation of thegleam of a stiletto, until by long experience you learn how harmless are both the bark and bite of a gondolier, and how necessary as a safety-valve, to accused and accuser as well, is the unlimited air-space of the Grand Canal.
You will also come into closer contact with Joseph, prince among porters, and patron saint of this Traghetto of Santa Salute. There is another Saint, of course, shaded by its trellised vines, framed in tawdry gilt, protected from the weather by a wooden hood, and lighted at night by a dim lamp hanging before it—but, for all that, Joseph is supreme as protector, refuge, and friend.
Joseph, indeed, is more than this. He is the patron saint and father confessor of every wayfarer, of whatever tongue. Should a copper-colored gentleman mount the steps of the hotel landing, attired in calico trousers, a short jacket of pea-green silk, and six yards of bath toweling about his head, Joseph instantly addresses him in broken Hindostanee, sending his rattan chairs and paper boxes to a room overlooking the shady court, and placing a boy on the rug outside, ready to spring when the copper-colored gentleman claps his hands. Does another distinguished foreigner descend from the gondola, attended by twovalets with a block-tin trunk, half a score of hat-boxes, bags, and bundles, four umbrellas, and a dozen sticks, Joseph at once accosts him in most excellent English, and has ordered a green-painted tub rolled into his room before he has had time to reach the door of his apartment. If another equally distinguished traveler steps on the marble slab, wearing a Bond Street ulster, a slouch hat, and a ready-made summer suit, with yellow shoes, and carrying an Alpine staff (so useful in Venice) branded with illegible letters chasing each other spirally up and down the wooden handle, Joseph takes his measure at a glance. He knows it is his first trip “en Cook,” and that he will want the earth, and instantly decides that so far as concerns himself he shall have it, including a small, round, convenient little portable which he immediately places behind the door to save the marble hearth. So with the titled Frenchman, wife, maid, and canary bird; the haughty Austrian, his sword in a buckskin bag; the stolid German with the stout helpmate and one satchel, or the Spaniard with two friends and no baggage at all.
Joseph knows them all—their conditions, wants, economics, meannesses, escapades, and subterfuges. Does he not remember howyou haggled over the price of your room, and the row you made when your shoes were mixed up with the old gentleman’s on the floor above? Does he not open the door in the small hours, when you slink in, the bell sounding like a tocsin at your touch? Is he not rubbing his eyes and carrying the candle that lights you down to the corridor door, the only exit from the hotel after midnight, when you had hoped to escape by the garden, and dare not look up at the balcony above?
Here also you will often meet the Professor. Indeed, he is breakfasting with me in this same garden this very morning. It is the first time I have seen him since the memorable day of the regatta, when Pasquale won the prize and the old fellow lost hissoldi.
He has laid aside his outing costume—the short jacket, beribboned hat, and huge field-glass—and is gracing my table clothed in what he is pleased to call his “garb of tuition,” worn to-day because of a pupil who expects him at nine o’clock; “a horrid old German woman from Prague,” he calls her. This garb is the same old frock-coat of many summers, the well-ironed silk hat, and the limp glove dangling from his hand or laid like a crumpled leaf on the cloth beside him. The coat, held snug to the waist by a single button,always bulges out over the chest, the two frogs serving as pockets. From these depths, near the waist-line, the Professor now and then drags up a great silk handkerchief, either red or black as the week’s wash may permit, for I have never known of his owning more than two!
To-day, below the bulge of this too large handkerchief swells yet another enlargement, to which my guest, tapping it significantly with his finger-tips, refers in a most mysterious way as “a very great secret,” but without unbosoming to me either its cause or its mystery. When the cigarettes are lighted he drops his hand deep into his one-buttoned coat, unloads the handkerchief, and takes out a little volume bound in vellum, a book he had promised me for weeks. This solves the mystery and effaces the bulge.
One of the delights of knowing the Professor well is to see him handle a book that he loves. He has a peculiar way of smoothing the sides before opening it, as one would a child’s hand, and of always turning the leaves as though he were afraid of hurting the back, caressing them one by one with his fingers, quite as a bird plumes its feathers. And he is always bringing a new book to light; one of his charming idiosyncrasies is the huntingabout in odd corners for just such odd volumes.
“Out of print now, my dear fellow. You can’t buy it for money. This is the only copy in Venice that I could borrow for love. See the chapters on these very fellows—these gondoliers,” pointing to thetraghetto. “Sometimes, when I hear their quarrels, I wonder if they ever remember that their guild is as old as the days of the Doges, a fossil survival, unique, perhaps, in the history of this or of any other country.”
While the Professor nibbles at the crescents and sips his coffee, pausing now and then to read me passages taken at random from the little volume in his hands, I watch the procession of gondolas from thetraghetto, like a row of cabs taking their turn, as Joseph’s “a una” or “due” rings out over the water. One after another they steal noiselessly up and touch the water-steps, Joseph helping each party into its boat: the German Baroness with the two poodles and a silk parasol; the poor fellow from the Engadine, with the rugs and an extra overcoat, his mother’s arm about him—not many more sunshiny days for him; the bevy of joyous young girls in summer dresses and sailor hats, and the two college boys in white flannels,the chaperone in thenextboat. “Ah, these sweet young Americans, these naïve countrywomen of yours!” whispers the Professor; “how exquisitely bold!” Last, the painter, with his trap and a big canvas, which he lifts in as carefully as if it had a broken rib, and then turns quickly face in; “an old dodge,” you say to yourself; “unfinished, of course!”
Presently a tall, finely formed gondolier in dark blue, with a red sash, whirls theferroof 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. The lady acknowledges it with a gracious bend of her head, and a smile which shows her appreciation of its sincerity.
“An English lady of rank who spends her Octobers here,” says the Professor, when he regains his seat. He had remained standing until the gondola had disappeared—such old-time observances are part of his religion.
“Did you notice her gondolier? That isGiovanni, the famous oarsman. Let me tell you the most delicious story! Oh, the childish simplicity of these men! You would say, would you not, that he was about forty years of age? You saw, too, how broad and big he was? Well,mon ami, not only is he the strongest oarsman in Venice, but he has proved it, for he has won the annual regatta, the great one on the Grand Canal, for five consecutive summers! This, you know, gives him the title of ‘Emperor.’ Now, there is a most charming Signora whom he has served for years,—she always spends her summers here,—whom, I assure you, Giovanni idolizes, and over whom he watches exactly as if she were both his child and his queen. Well, one day last year,” here the Professor’s face cracked into lines of suppressed mirth, “Giovanni asked for a day’s leave, and went over to Mestre to bid good-by to some friendsen routefor Milan. The Brindisi wine—thevina forte—oh, that devilish wine! you know it!—had just reached Mestre. It only comes in September, and lasts but a few weeks. Of course Giovanni must have his grand outing, and three days later Signor Giovanni-the-Strong presented himself again at the door of the apartment of his Signora, sober, but limp as a rag. The Signora, grand dameas she was, refused to see him, sending word by her maid that she would not hear a word from him until the next day. Now, what do you think this great strong fellow did? He went home, threw himself on the bed, turned his face to the wall, and for half the night cried like a baby! Think of it! like a baby! His wife could not get him to eat a mouthful.
“The next day, of course, the Signora forgave him. There was nothing else to be done, for, as she said to me afterwards, ‘What? Venice without Giovanni!Mon Dieu!’”
The Professor throws away the end of his last cigarette and begins gathering up his hat and the one unmated, lonely glove. No living soul ever yet saw him put this on. Sometimes he thrusts in his two fingers, as if fully intending to bury his entire hand, and then you see an expression of doubt and hesitancy cross his face, denoting a change of mind, as he crumples it carelessly, or pushes it into his coat-tail pocket to keep company with its fictitious mate.
At this moment Espero raises his head out of his gondola immediately beneath us. Everything is ready, he says: the sketch trap, extra canvas, fresh siphon of seltzer, ice,fiascoof Chianti, Gorgonzola, all but the rolls,which he will get at the baker’s on our way over to the Giudecca, where I am to work on the sketch begun yesterday.
“Ah, that horrid old German woman from Prague!” sighs the Professor. “If I could only go with you!”