"But the gondolas, Giacomo, where were they?"
"In the little canals, madama, and so closely packed that one could walk a long way on them in some places and never see the water. It was a sad, sad sight,—so many good Venetian boats idle, and those foreign 'puffers' full of people! And so Tuesday passed; and that evening no songs were heard, no stories told, and every gondolier in Venice was as sad as if his mother lay dead."
"Were there no quarrels, Giacomo? Did not the women tell the gondoliers that they were wrong?"
"The women, signora, were firmer than the men. They hated the vaporetti and cursed them. But on Wednesday, as had been thought, the trouble increased. At every traghetto the Syndic posted a mild appeal to the boatmen, and bade them remember what pride Venice had in her gondoliers. It persuaded them and flattered them as if they were naughty children, and invited them to meet the town council. They went; but only talk came of it. The gondoliers demanded the dismissal of the steamers; the council refused, and the meeting dissolved quietly.
"But what a confusion there was! You know, madama, that everybody goes on All Soul's Day to San Michele to lay a wreath on the family graves. Not to do this would make them unhappy all the year. And how to do it on this day was the question; for not one gondolier in all Venice was tempted, not even by the offer of twenty times his usual fare.
"Every boat of every sort that was not a gondola passed and repassed many times to the cemetery and back; and all were full. No doubt the boatmen made a good day's wage; but the gondoliers had never seen, not even in the carnival, anything so ridiculous; and that evening when they described to each other the boats and the rowers they had seen, and acted out all these absurdities, you would have thought them the merriest souls alive."
"But were they so, Giacomo?"
"No, indeed, signora: they were miserable. They could not sleep, or if they did they dreamed that they were rowing over the lagoons, and only woke in wretchedness to find it was not true."
"And on Thursday what happened?"
"The gondoliers then took an advocate, and sent him to the Syndic to plead their cause. But the Syndic would not listen; he would only deal with the gondoliers themselves, and he began to be severe and to talk of many steamboats running everywhere; and the gondoliers were told of 'launches' that could thread the smallest canals better than gondolas! Alas! signora, what could be done if this were true?