AN UNFREQUENTED CANAL
For us Bohemia had lost its romance. We felt that we had been green, grass-green, and that (to use a vulgarism) the gilt was off the gingerbread. The room was becoming stuffy; the Bohemians were noisy and dishonest; and the waiters, no longer toney, were dirty. So we paid our own bill and "King Charles's," and left the Panada and romance for the open air.
In the piazza the band was playing the popular music that one knows so well from the barrel organs. Instinctively one thought of London, Soho, and performing monkeys. But this impression was swept away when I saw the picture that presented itself before me in St. Mark's. What an extraordinary change had come over the piazza since dinner! A swarm of locusts might have settled upon Venice—a dark, seething mass, clustering round the walls of St. Mark's and filling up every inch of space. They were pilgrims from Russia, thousands of them—men, women, and children—on their way to Rome—poor peasants who had saved up for this pilgrimage during their whole lifetime, sleeping the sleep of the righteous, their bodies pressed close against the holy walls of St. Mark's as though for sympathy. It was a dark-coloured crowd, all dressed in black, with big capes and long boots and little astrachan caps,—a strong silhouette of black against the brilliant background of St. Mark's. It was a marvellous picture, and pathetic. These peasants seemed to be waiting for a greater, deeper joy, when they would be transformed to new creatures and fly back to their native land on the wings of a beautiful faith. The moon herself shone down upon them caressingly, lighting up many a weary, travel-worn face, turning their sombre hues to silvers, and greens, and violets. St. Mark's, with this dark mass of people at her base, seemed almost flippant by contrast.
ST. MARK'S BASIN
This was a night of contrasts! The dirt and filth of the little restaurant, with its noisy Bohemians: and then the quiet night, a clear, bright, silvery blue night such as one only sees in Venice; the weary pilgrims and the sumptuous cathedral; the dainty lightness and gracefulness of St. Mark's and the broad, simple, strong tower rearing her head into the sky—the Campanile, now, alas! no more than a memory. It was a picture such as you see but once in a lifetime. This building of precious stones, one of the most beautiful in the world, so rich with gold and mosaic, jewels, marbles, and lapis lazuli, that even in the cold blue light of the moon and a few dim gas-lamps it seemed to be dancing and sparkling with colour,—this, and the sleeping peasants in their rags—what a contrast!
Then, again, what a contrast suddenly to turn from these dark groups to the jewellers' shops and the huge windows full of glittering Venetian glass! To see the gaily-dressed crowds sipping their coffee outside Florian's famous café that had never been closed during three hundred years! Here was nothing but brightness and gaiety. An excellent band played in the middle of the piazza. Smartly-dressed young men and military officers in pale blue uniform strolled about the square, quite conscious that they were being regarded favourably by girls and their mothers sitting at the coffee-tables. Florian's was an ideal place for the artist. It was never shut. It was quite the fashionable thing to drink coffee there after dinner, and one had the chance of talking to one's friends and acquaintances. Fascinating fruits were brought round to us—grapes, and figs, and almonds dipped in caramel sugar and stuck on to sticks. The men smoked cigars as long as those smoked in Burma. So capacious were they that they put them on little stoves in the way a woman heats her curling-tongs, and by the time they had drunk their coffee the cigars were probably alight.
When the band had stopped playing we went to Bauer's to drink beer. And so ended a typical day in the life of an artist in that most fascinating city on the waters.