PALAZZO PISANI
One's first impressions are always those which one remembers longest, and one's first impressions of Venice are surpassingly beautiful. In the train, arriving, you catch glimpses of flashes of light in the darkness, more strangely fantastic than anything you could imagine; you traverse a long causeway stretching over the lagoon; you see the water on either side of you, jet black, stretching on indefinitely; the train seems to float on air; you cannot see the bridge—nothing but sky and water. You arrive at a large terminal station, and step into the gondola which is to take you into Venice. Into most cities one arrives in a whirl and shriek of engines amid smoke and bustle; but Venice is different. One arrives in a gondola. The water is of a clear pale green; the banks are scrubby grass and mud. One watches the silver prow of the gondola as it shoots forward, the sea air blowing keen and salt. You realise that you are in a wide canal, and that there are buildings on either side of you, looming up white and gaunt, with here and there a lantern glimmering at their base. It is strange to see a city rising thus out of the sea. Venice seems double: one sees it in the substance and in the reflections on the water.
After gliding along for some time you turn up narrow water lanes, devious and branching, running by low stonework, very complicated in their turnings. There are doors with water creeping up their steps, striped posts looking like spectres, and arches everywhere. Strange figures, like phantoms in a dream, appear in the gloom; black gondolas, like funeral biers, lie silently at the base of the houses; and the water laps dully at the steps. The silence of the waterways is deathlike after the rush and noise of a long journey; each shape that passes looks ghostly in the dim light; it is like a city of eternal sleep, a city of death. What a perfect background it would make for melodrama or for tragedy! No crime or intrigue could be too terrible to happen within those unfathomable shadows! A brigand might pass within that heavy half-opened oak door silently and unnoticed. A corpse with a stiletto buried in its breast might be gliding by in that black gondola. One would be quite surprised and somewhat shocked on lifting the felce to discover a fat and florid tradesman returning from supper with a friend. Venice is not a fitting background for such a sordid everyday scene. She is much better suited to the romances of Maturin, Lewis, and Ann Radcliffe; to the Great Bandit, the stories of the Three Inquisitors, the Council of Ten, masked spies, and pitfalls.
THE SALUTE AT SUNSET
In the daytime one recognises Venice as the Venice of Canaletto, of Bonington, and of Wild. There is that same vague, luminous atmosphere, full of rays and mists; the coming and going of gondolas or galiots; the landing-place of the Piazzetta, with its Gothic lanterns ornamented by figures of the saints, fixed on poles and sunk into the sea; the vermilion façade of the Ducal Palace, lozenged with white and rose marble, its massive pillars supporting a gallery of small columns. With all this one has been familiar through the pictures of the masters whom I have mentioned; but the real Venice is still more beautiful, still more wonderful, still more fantastic.
If you climb up on any height and look down upon the lagoon, you will see a sight never to be forgotten. You will imagine that it is a dream which has taken shape, a vision of fairy-land. The sea is dotted with craft of all kinds. There is a continuous movement of boats—gondolas, sailing vessels, and steam-boats pouring forth volumes of black smoke and making a disturbance on the peaceful lagoon. The water is limpid, the light radiant; a row of stakes on the lagoon marks the channels which are navigable for ships. There is the island of San Giorgio, with its red steeple, its white basilica, surrounded by a girdle of boats, and looking like a sheet of burnished silver. There is the Giudecca, a maritime suburb of Venice, turning towards the city a row of houses and towards the sea a belt of gardens; it has two churches, Santa Maria and the Redentore. There is San Clemate, at the back of the Giudecca, a place of penitence and of detention for priests under discipline; Poreglia, where the vessels are quarantined; and the little island of St. Peter, almost invisible in the distance. The only black cupola is that of St. Simeon the Less. Those of the other churches are silvery. The clouds and the islands seem to mingle one with the other, and are as baffling as the mirage in a desert. On a fine day in Venice there is a certain brilliant crystalline clearness sharpening every outline; every tower and dome stands out sharp and clear against the sky, making the colours burn. There is colour everywhere: even the islands in the distance are blue and distinct. There is colour in the groups that saunter by, in the sapphire water, and in the cloudless heavens. The air is warm and still; the streets are full of people, walking and loitering at the doors of the shops; sunbeams dance on the rippling water; spring is everywhere. As evening comes on the colours grow richer and deeper; scarlet clouds float across the amber sky; the canal takes on the hues of the upper air, and is a rippling mass of liquid topaz and molten gold, in rapid succession changing from gold to orange, and from orange to deepest crimson. In the soft hazy light, against the rose tone of the sky, the cupolas of the islands and the palaces seem to float, shimmering with the hues of mother-of-pearl, mysterious, dream-like, not like solid stone. The soft lap of the water breaks the silence; the vaporous mists float upwards. Across the light drifts a line of fishing boats, their great brown sails set. A streak of flame-colour strikes on the windows of Venice, a flush of orange and rose. Then in a second the sun is gone, and a brief space of doubt ensues, when day hangs trembling in the balance; then night settles on the lagoon. A hundred bells ring out over the city, clashing and clamouring together in one brazen peal. Soon the peal subsides. The evening breeze springs up mild and sweet from the sea, and the soft and mellow cry of "Stali! Ah Stali!" is heard everywhere. It is the hour when all that is poor and unlovely melts into ethereal beauty. The water is a deep blue-black, save for rippling trails of light from the lamps, which shine like golden stars from the prows of the gondolas. The moon rises, nearly full, and is veiled by hazy clouds; the outlines of the bell towers of the palaces are pale and delicate in the soft light. The stillness of the water streets is soothing, and the prattle of the city falls gently on the ears.
No matter how prosaic or how unimpressionable one may be, one soon grows into sympathy with the atmosphere of Venice. It is almost impossible to avoid becoming sentimental as one floats in one's gondola at night, with the twinkling stars above and the twinkling splashes below. One almost unconsciously builds romances round the palaces tottering to decay. Venice is always ready to charm and allure you. It is hard to believe that somewhere there is a working, active, busy life going on. But indeed no one in Venice seems to be in earnest. It is as if the present time does not count, as if it were but an echo of what passed long years ago. People work without aim or energy, and when they suffer it seems as if they were but mumming. A sweetness and a docility steal into one's soul, and one feels that one can do nothing but drift on for ever in this pleasant idleness. Harsh voices become modulated; cross-grained, querulous natures are sweetened; even the flat-faced, spectacled tourists, when they step from the railway station into a gondola and glide into the mystic water city, alive with a myriad glistening lights, develop unconsciously, and despite themselves, into delightful people.