Gondola days

by Francis Hopkinson Smith

Once in a while a good Bohemian discovers some out-of-the-way place up a canal or through a twisted calle that delights him with its cuisine, its cellar, or its cosiness, and forever after he preëmpts it as his caffè. I know half a dozen such discoveries—one somewhere near San Giorgio degli Schiavoni, where the men play bowls in a long, narrow alley, under wide-spreading trees, cramped up between high buildings; and another, off the Merceria, where the officers smoke and lounge; and still another, quite my own—the Caffè Calcina. This last is on the Rio San Vio, and looks out on the Giudecca, just below San Rosario. You would never suspect it of being a caffè at all, until you had dodged under the little roof of the porch to escape the heat, and opening the side door found yourself in a small, plainly furnished room with little marble-top tables, each decorated with a Siamese-twin salt-cellar holding a pinch of salt and of pepper. Even then it is a very common sort of caffè, and not at all the place you would care to breakfast in twice; that is, not until you had followed the demure waiter through a narrow passage and out into a square patio splashed with yellow-green light and cooled by overlacing vines. Then you realize that this same square patch of ground is one of the few restful spots of the wide earth.

It is all open to the sky except for a great arbor of grape leaves covering the whole area, beneath which, on the cool, moist ground, stand half a dozen little tables covered with snow-white cloths. At one side is a shelter, from behind which come certain mysterious noises of fries and broils. All about are big, green-painted boxes of japonicas, while at one end the oleanders thrust their top branches through the overhanging leaves of the arbor, waving their blossoms defiantly in the blazing sun. Beneath this grateful shelter you sit and loaf and invite your soul, and your best friend, too, if he happens to be that sort of a man.

After having congratulated yourself on your discovery and having become a daily habitué of the delightful patio, you find that you have really discovered the Grand Canal or the Rialto bridge. To your great surprise, the Caffè Calcina has been the favorite resort of good Bohemians for nearly a century. You learn that Turner painted his sunset sketches from its upper windows, and that dozens of more modern English painters have lived in the rooms above; that Whistler and Rico and scores of others have broken bread and had toothsome omelets under its vines; and, more precious than all, that Ruskin and Browning have shared many a bottle of honest Chianti with these same oleanders above their heads, and this, too, in the years when the Sage of Brantwood was teaching the world to love his Venice, and the great poet was singing songs that will last as long as the language.

ON THE HOTEL STEPS

IF you drink your early coffee as I do, in the garden under the oleanders, overlooking the water-landing of the hotel, and linger long enough over your fruit, you will conclude before many days that a large part of the life of Venice can be seen from the hotel steps. You may behold the great row of gondolas at the traghetto near by, ranged side by side, awaiting their turn, and here and there, tied to the spiles outside the line, the more fortunate boats whose owners serve some sight-seer by the week, or some native padrone by the month, and are thus free of the daily routine of the traghetto, and free, too, from our old friend Joseph’s summoning voice.

You will be delighted at the good-humor and good-fellowship which animate this group of gondoliers; their ringing songs and hearty laughter; their constant care of the boats, their daily sponging and polishing; and now and then, I regret to say, your ears will be assailed by a quarrel, so fierce, so loud, and so full of vindictive energy, that you will start from your seat in instant expectation of the gleam of a stiletto, until by long experience you learn how harmless are both the bark and bite of a gondolier, and how necessary as a safety-valve, to accused and accuser as well, is the unlimited air-space of the Grand Canal.

You will also come into closer contact with Joseph, prince among porters, and patron saint of this Traghetto of Santa Salute. There is another Saint, of course, shaded by its trellised vines, framed in tawdry gilt, protected from the weather by a wooden hood, and lighted at night by a dim lamp hanging before it—but, for all that, Joseph is supreme as protector, refuge, and friend.

Joseph, indeed, is more than this. He is the patron saint and father confessor of every wayfarer, of whatever tongue. Should a copper-colored gentleman mount the steps of the hotel landing, attired in calico trousers, a short jacket of pea-green silk, and six yards of bath toweling about his head, Joseph instantly addresses him in broken Hindostanee, sending his rattan chairs and paper boxes to a room overlooking the shady court, and placing a boy on the rug outside, ready to spring when the copper-colored gentleman claps his hands. Does another distinguished foreigner descend from the gondola, attended by two valets with a block-tin trunk, half a score of hat-boxes, bags, and bundles, four umbrellas, and a dozen sticks, Joseph at once accosts him in most excellent English, and has ordered a green-painted tub rolled into his room before he has had time to reach the door of his apartment. If another equally distinguished traveler steps on the marble slab, wearing a Bond Street ulster, a slouch hat, and a ready-made summer suit, with yellow shoes, and carrying an Alpine staff (so useful in Venice) branded with illegible letters chasing each other spirally up and down the wooden handle, Joseph takes his measure at a glance. He knows it is his first trip “en Cook,” and that he will want the earth, and instantly decides that so far as concerns himself he shall have it, including a small, round, convenient little portable which he immediately places behind the door to save the marble hearth. So with the titled Frenchman, wife, maid, and canary bird; the haughty Austrian, his sword in a buckskin bag; the stolid German with the stout helpmate and one satchel, or the Spaniard with two friends and no baggage at all.

Joseph knows them all—their conditions, wants, economics, meannesses, escapades, and subterfuges. Does he not remember how you haggled over the price of your room, and the row you made when your shoes were mixed up with the old gentleman’s on the floor above? Does he not open the door in the small hours, when you slink in, the bell sounding like a tocsin at your touch? Is he not rubbing his eyes and carrying the candle that lights you down to the corridor door, the only exit from the hotel after midnight, when you had hoped to escape by the garden, and dare not look up at the balcony above?