Gondola days

by Francis Hopkinson Smith

THE FRUIT MARKET ABOVE THE RIALTO

After the inhabitants have pounced upon these heaps and mounds and pyramids of baskets and crates, and have carried them away, the market is swept and scoured as clean as a china plate, not even a peach-pit being left to tell the tale of the morning. Then this greater market shrinks into the smaller one, the little fruit market of the Rialto, which is never closed, day or night.

This little market, or, rather, the broad street forming its area,—broad for this part of Venice,—is always piled high with the products of orchard, vineyard, and garden, shaded all day by huge awnings, so closely stretched that only the sharpest and most lance-like of sunbeams can cut their way into the coolness below. At night the market is lighted by flaring torches illumining the whole surrounding campo.

As for the other smaller stands and shops about the city, they are no less permanent fixtures, and keep equally bad hours. No matter how late you stroll down the Zattere or elbow your way along the Merceria, when every other place is closed, you will come upon a blazing lamp lighting up a heap of luscious fruit, in its season the comfort and sustenance of Venice.

Then there are the other markets—the wood market of the Giudecca, the fish market below the Rialto bridge, and the shops and stalls scattered throughout the city.

The wood market, a double row of boats moored in mid-stream and stretching up the broad waterway, is behind the Salute and the salt warehouses: great, heavy, Dutch-bowed boats, with anchor chains hanging from the open mouths of dolphins carved on the planking; long, sharp bowsprits, painted red, and great overhanging green rudder-sweeps swaying a rudder half as large as a barn door. Aft there is always an awning stretched to the mainmast, under which lies the captain, generally sound asleep.

When you board one of these floating wood-yards, and, rousing the Signor Capitano, beg permission to spread your sketch-awning on the forward deck out of everybody’s way, you will not only get the best point of view from which to paint the exquisite domes and towers of the beautiful Santa Maria della Salute, but, if you sit all day at work, with the deck wet and cool beneath your feet, and listen to the barter and sale going on around, you will become familiar with the workings of the market itself. You will find all these boats loaded under and above deck with sticks of wood cut about the size of an axe-handle, tied in bundles that can be tucked under one’s arm. These are sold over the ship’s side to the peddlers, who boat them off to their shops ashore. All day long these hucksters come and go, some for a boat-load, some for a hundred bundles, some for only one. When the purchase is important, and the count reaches, say, an even hundred, there is always a squabble over the tally. The captain, of course, counts, and so does the mate, and so does the buyer. As soon as the controversy reaches the point where there is nothing left but to brain the captain with one of his own fagots, he gives in, and throws an extra bundle into the boat, however honest may have been the count before. The instantaneous good-humor developed all around at the concession is only possible among a people who quarrel as easily as they sing.

Wood is really almost the only fuel in Venice. Coal is too costly, and the means of utilizing it too complicated. What is wanted is a handful of embers over which to boil a pot of coffee or warm a soup, a little fire at a time, and as little as possible, for, unlike many another commodity, fuel is a bugbear of economy to the Venetian. He rarely worries over his rent; it is his wood-bill that keeps him awake nights.

Above the fruit market near the Rialto is the new fish market, a modern horror of cast iron and ribbed glass. (Oh, if the polluting touch of so-called modern progress could only be kept away from this rarest of cities!) Here are piled and hung and spread out the endless varieties of fish and sea foods from the lagoons and the deep waters beyond; great halibut, with bellies of Japanese porcelain, millions of minnows, like heaps of wet opals with shavings of pearl, crabs, fulpe, mussels, and the spoils of the marshes. Outside, along the canal, are ranged the market boats, with their noses flattened against the stone quay, their sails clewed up, freeing the decks, the crews bending under huge baskets.