The Front Yard, and Other Italian Stories

by Constance Fenimore Woolson

A CHRISTMAS PARTY

IN 188- the American Consul at Venice was occupying the second story of an old palace on the Grand Canal. It was the story which is called by Italians the piano nobile, or noble floor. Beneath this piano nobile there is a large low ground, or rather water, floor, whose stone pavement, only slightly above the level of the canal outside, is always damp and often wet. At the time of the Consul's residence this water-floor was held by another tenant, a dealer in antiquities, who had partitioned off a shallow space across its broad front for a show-room. As this dealer had the ground-floor, he possessed, of course, the principal entrance of the palace, with its broad marble steps descending into the rippling wavelets of the splendid azure street outside, and with the tall, slender poles, irregularly placed in the water, which bore testimony to the aristocracy of the venerable pile they guarded. One could say that these blue wands, ornamented with heraldic devices, were like the spears of knights; this is what Miss Senter said. Or one could notice their strong resemblance to barbers' poles; and this was what Peter Senter always mentioned.

Peter Senter was the American Consul, and his sister Barbara was the Consuless; for she kept house for her brother, who was a bachelor. And she not only kept house for him, but she assisted him in other ways, owing to her knowledge of Italian. The Consul, a man of fifty-seven, spoke only the language of his native place—Rochester, New York. That he could not understand the speech (gibberish, he called it) of the people with whom he was supposed to hold official relations did not disturb him; he thought it patriotic not to understand. There was a vice-consul, an Italian, who could attend to the business matters; and as for the rest, wasn't Barbara there—Barbara, who could chatter not only in Italian, but in French and German also, with true feminine glibness? (For Peter, in his heart, thought it unmasculine to have a polyglot tongue.) He knew how well his sister could speak, because he had paid her bills during the six years of her education abroad. These bills had been large; of course, therefore, the knowledge must be large as well.

Miss Senter was always chronically annoyed that she and her brother did not possess the state entrance. As the palace was at present divided, the tenants of the noble floor descended by an outside stairway to a large inner court, and from this court opened the second water-door. Their staircase was a graceful construction of white marble, and the court, with the blue sky above, one or two fretted balconies, and a sculptured marble well-curb in the centre, was highly picturesque. But this did not reconcile the American lady to the fact that their door was at the side of the palace; she thought that by right the gondola of the Consul should lie among the heraldic poles on the Grand Canal. But, in spite of right, nothing could be done; the antiquity-dealer held his premises on a long lease. Miss Senter, therefore, disliked the dealer.

Her dislike, however, had not prevented her from paying a visit to his establishment soon after she had taken possession of the high-ceilinged rooms above. For she was curious about the old palace, and wished to see every inch of it; if there had been cellars, she would have gone down to inspect them, and she was fully determined to walk "all over the roof." The dealer's name was Pelham—"Z. Pelham" was inscribed on his sign. How he came by this English title no one but himself could have told. He was supposed to be either a Pole or an Armenian, and he spoke many languages with equal fluency and incorrectness. He appeared to have feeble health, and he always wore large arctic over-shoes; he was short and thin, and the most noticeable expression of his plain, small face was resignation. Z. Pelham conducted the Consuless through the dusky space behind his show-room, a vast, low, open hall with massive squat columns and arches, and the skeletons of two old gondolas decaying in a corner. At the back he opened a small door, and pointed out a flight of stone steps going up steeply in a spiral, enclosed in a circular shaft like a round tower. "It leads to the attic floor. Her Excellency wishes to mount?" he inquired, patiently. For, owing to the wares in which he dealt, he had had a large acquaintance with eccentric characters of all nations.

"Certainly," replied Miss Senter. "Carmela, you can stay below, if you like," she said to the servant who accompanied her.

But no; Carmela also wished to mount. Z. Pelham preceded them, therefore, carrying his small oil-lamp. They went slowly, for the steps were narrow, the spiral sharp. The attic, when they reached it, was a queer, ghostly place; but there was a skylight with a ladder, and the Consuless carried out her intention of traversing the roof, while Mr. Pelham waited calmly, seated on the open scuttle door. Carmela followed her mistress. She gave little cries of admiration; there never were such wonderful ladies anywhere as those of America, she declared. On the way down, the stairs were so much like a corkscrew that Miss Senter, feeling dizzy, was obliged to pause for a moment where there was a landing. "Isn't there a secret chamber?" she demanded of the dealer.

Z. Pelham shook his head. "I have not one found."

"Try again," said Miss Senter, laughing. "I'll make it worth your while, Mr. Pelham."

Z. Pelham surveyed the walls, as if to see where he could have one built. His eye passed over a crack, and, raising his lamp, he showed it to the Consuless. "One time was there a door, opening into the rooms of her Excellency. But it opens not ever now; it is covered on inside."