Around the clock in Europe

by Charles Fish Howell

And there are twelve black men who strike the hour.”

In the moonlight the sculptured and arcaded old buildings glow like mellow ivory around three sides of it, and it is warmed and vitalized by bustling cafés and brilliant shop windows set with tempting snares of artful jewelry and cunningly wrought glass. Strong and proud the great Campanile towers upward into the clear night, away above the tops of the three tall flag-staffs. The sumptuous Cathedral, in its wealth of glowing color and lavish adornment, makes one think of a vast heap of glittering treasure piled up by returning Venetian pirates in answer to the accustomed question, “What have you brought back for Marco?” One can scarcely take his eyes off its lofty, yawning portals, its gates of bronze, its forest of columns, its sweeping arches glowing in every color of brilliant mosaics, its profusion of creamy sculptures, its canopied saints and statued pinnacles and its great Byzantine domes billowing into the purple sky. On the ancient clock tower of the Merceria the fierce winged lion of St. Mark’s holds a resolute paw on the open Gospels, and the bronze bellringers swing twelve ponderous blows and hang up the hour of midnight on a dial of blue and gold. As they pause at the completion of their labors and look down on the sea of faces turned toward them from the Piazza they seem so nearly galvanized into life that it would scarcely surprise one to hear them shout, “What news of the argosies of Antonio?”

With the sparkling beauty of Venice so irresistible it is a terrible temptation to my companions to hurry straight back to Triest and come over with their battleship and, like dashing naval Lochinvars, force an espousal of this incomparable Bride of the Sea. Vain thought! It is Venice herself who has always done the espousing; fully to possess her it must be on her own conditions of complete surrender.

How inevitable it seems at night that you must take the step; must cry out, once and for all, to fellow voyagers on the Dead Lagoons of Life: “Ho, brothers! No more of the drab and wretched wastes for me! I am for beauty and romance—‘in Venice, all golden, to dream!’ I shall dwell in this enchanted realm of dolce far niente and float with my gondola into the final Sunset. Companions on Life’s waters, ‘Ah, Stalì’!”

PARIS

MIDNIGHT TO 1 A.M.

Like a practiced coquette, Paris, the world’s enchanteresse, reserves for the supreme moments of midnight her rarest resources of gayety and charm. Her last laughs are her best. And decidedly, she is dangerous when laughing. Beyond question, her glowing eyes at midnight are wonderfully sweet and beguiling; and hers is the skill to touch the bright hours with the most delectable couleur de rose. There is satisfaction for each desire. “Would monsieur sup?” The most amazing cuisine in the world awaits your pleasure. “Would monsieur stroll?” The sparkling lights and rustling trees of the fairest of boulevards fairly drag you their way. “Would he drive?” You raise your hand; a fiacre dashes up; and soon the Bois and the Champs-Élysées, cool, scented, dewy, receive you gladly to their enchanting retreats. “Would he join a revel—just a little one?” Cabarets, cafés-chantants, bals publics were designed for no other purpose. “Would he look on at life?” “Garçon vite! Une demi-tasse—une; sur la terrasse!”—and heart could not ask for a madder, merrier, more absorbing spectacle than that which will whirl and surge by the very edge of your little round table. “Eh? Monsieur has a fancy for nature and solitude? Mon Dieu! C’est un original, celui-là! Mais”—and you will find nowhere gardens lovelier than those of the Tuileries, elegant with statues and carpeted with flowers. Thus at every point the charmer wins. What is left but surrender? She seems the very Queen of Heart’s Desire.

Of course, the night side of Paris is her most trivial side. But then visitors have always refused to take her seriously at any time. No matter how many wonderful achievements have been crying out to them all day that this is one of the most extraordinary and advanced communities to be found anywhere on the face of the earth, still they stubbornly cling to the conviction that all is frivolity here and that night is Paris’s supreme period and pleasure seeking her most conspicuous and characteristic rôle. Accustomed to the droll ideas of foreigners, and bothering little about them except to find occasional amusement, Paris shrugs her shoulders in indifference and turns on more lights. Brilliant, charming, and ingenious she creates what she prefers—an atmosphere of gayety and beauty. And the visiting world purrs about her in joy of a fascination it cannot find elsewhere and salves its own patriotism with the conclusion that this is her principal raison d’être.

As a matter of fact, the Parisians are masters of the art of living. As their kitchen is the best, so is their drawing-room and study. All the affairs of every day are handled with ease and grace, with imagination and a kind of poetic skill that adorns even the ugly and commonplace and invests them with attractiveness and charm. The cheery light-heartedness that is a fundamental trait of Parisians converts the life of their streets and parks into scenes delightful either to contemplate or share. Indeed, they often seem to be only grown-up children, so gracefully have they retained the fresh and stimulating enthusiasm of youth—so rueful and pouting over a rainy day; so exuberant over a bright one. And the best of it is that there is an infection to their high spirits that passes into the observer and clears his perception of the folly of worry and depression, and shows him the value and availableness of optimism and good cheer. Such is the glorious influence of a people whose attitude toward life is essentially one of hope and zest.