"Just then the military and customs officers who had loaned their boats to the ferries sent word that they must have them again; and an old gondolier whom all the others respected, took his boat out and began to serve a ferry. Instantly the strike was ended. The gondolas were untied, cleaned, and dressed as for a gala-day. The canals and lagoons were soon alive with them, and we had our Venice back again."
It was the old story. The gondoliers could not be allowed to stand in the way of progress, nor could they lay down the law to Venice. But their simple way of going on a strike, and absolute simplicity in ending it, was almost pathetic; such children did they seem in comparison with strikers and strikes that we know.
By this time midday has come, and our very early breakfast calls for an early luncheon. The artist is so absorbed in his work that it seems almost a sin to disturb him; but in his ardor to-day he has painted so rapidly as quite to satisfy us, and half to content himself,—a true artist rarely does more than this.
After luncheon we try to read; but the many changing sights and sounds are too distracting for anything that requires thought, and when we read a story on the lagoon we are never able to remember whether the lovers married or were separated by a cruel fate. A sentence is well begun, when a deeper shadow puts a new color on everything, and we drop our book to look; the same sentence is half read a second time, when a fruit-boat laden with piles of green and golden melons and luscious peaches comes so near us that Anita calls out to Giacomo to buy what will be needed on the morrow, and we listen to the chattering and bargaining until that is over; the third time that particular sentence is finished, but just then drowsiness overcomes our brain, and we are asleep.
We wake to find our rowers in their places, and the day so far spent that we must decide where we will dine,—at home, at the Lido, or at our favorite trattoria. To-day we favor the Lido, although we are hungry and the dinner is not so good as on the Zattere; but the exquisite outlook at sea and sky, and the mystery of the bit of distant coast, minister to that Venetian appetite of eyes which is never satisfied, and the home coming at night sends us to sleep with such a heavenly vision in our thought.
Landing rather late at Sant' Elisabetta, we have only time for a quick stroll around our favorite promenade, while Giacomo orders our dinner. The fresh sea-breeze is delicious, and the dim blue line of hills above Trieste seems very near in the clear atmosphere; we gather a large bunch of poppies and a dainty nosegay of primroses, and then seek the little osteria.
When we turn our gondola homeward, the afterglow is fading, and the gloaming with its quiet leads the thoughts far, far away. The stars come out, and the rising moon gives just that light that changes all objects into ghostly apparitions. The schooners are phantom-ships; everything that is moving is indistinct and spirit-like, seeming as if suspended and floating in mid-air, until we come nearer to the city and the lights give a new aspect to the evening.
The pyramids of lamps on San Marco are all ablaze. Gondolas are hastening to the Piazzetta. The band is playing, and we know how gay it all is. But to-night we turn into the Grand Canal, where we catch glimpses into lighted rooms with richly ornamented ceilings, while from the overhanging balconies come gay voices and musical laughs, such as are in harmony with the pearly city the moon is now revealing; and the artist recites from Longfellow,—
"White swan of cities, slumbering in thy nest
So wonderfully built among the reeds
Of the lagoon, that fences thee and feeds,
As sayest the old historian and thy guest!
White water-lily, cradled and caressed
By ocean streams, and from the silt and weeds
Lifting thy golden pistils with their seeds,
Thy sun-illumined spires, thy crown and crest!
White phantom city, whose untrodden streets
Are rivers, and whose pavements are the shifting
Shadows of palaces and strips of sky;
I wait to see thee vanish like the fleets
Seen in mirage, or towers of cloud uplifting
In air their unsubstantial masonry."