Leaving thus behind us that great Past which at other times holds us with its wondrous power, we find full compensation in the Venice that still lives; and of this Venice the best part is the water class (if one may use this term), the robust, frank, joyous survival of the old Republic, bubbling and growing into the new Italy of our day.
A good gondolier, like our Giacomo, is a treasure,—the sort of man that helps one to respect the human race and forget how many of another sort one has seen. If you allow him to feel himself to be a part of your life, he will identify himself with your interests, sympathize in your joys and sorrows, and tell you all his own. We must admit, however, that there is another kind, and that a bad gondolier is like a certain little girl whom we all know,—from bad he rapidly goes to horrid.
As Giacomo makes us his confidant,—I had almost said confessor,—we find the gondolier's life to be a happy one, in spite of its surface seeming of hardship and poverty. They see the sun whenever it shines, and breathe the fresh air; their exercise develops a fine physique; polenta, bread, and wine are delicious with the sauce of a good appetite; and being a most conservative race, they desire only to be what their ancestors were in past centuries. They go rarely to church. Custom is their religion, and at each traghetto there is an image of the Virgin ready to grant their prayers; and all their good or ill is promptly referred to "Our Blessed Madonna."
A country-flitting for a few days in the summer, with half a dozen or more companions, and their little suppers in the winter content them for amusements, while an extra treat of theatre or opera makes them supremely happy. And on festal days who sees more than the gondolier? If a rowing-match occurs, with what excitement does he defend his favorite champion! Curiously enough, each contrada, or district, has its own customs and festivals, even its own dialect to some extent; and while each one knows intimately the affairs of his own contrada, outside that quarter he knows little, and little is known of him. All this has Giacomo taught us; and we admire his honest face as he touches his cap and asks the artist where we are to go.
"Are any large vessels lying off the Riva, Giacomo?"
"Si, signor" (another touch of the cap), "an Austrian Lloyd came in last evening."
"Then let as lie in her shade awhile."
Coming to our vantage-ground, where even the extra canopy on our gondola could not have sufficiently lessened the heat of the sun, we prepare for a long stay.
The water is magnificent. The sands on the Lido have been stirred by the wind, and the opaque green sea is mottled with yellow stains. The fishing-boats are always fascinating, and claim our first attention; some are already at their anchorage near the public gardens, unloading the "catch" of the night; others, still some distance out, are tacking and crossing each other's bows in a confusing fashion, led by a procession coming nearer in; the many-hued sails with their curious designs—full-blown roses, stars or crescent moons, hearts blood-red and pierced by arrows—absorb our attention as imperatively as when we first saw them long years ago; and our artist still puts them on his canvas as eagerly as if he had not done it a hundred times before, and others of his sort a hundred thousand. "New every morning and fresh every evening" can be repeated in Venice with rare truthfulness.