Fish is the natural flesh-food of the Venetian, fresh every morning, and at a price for even the poorest. If there is not money enough for a clean slice cut through the girth of a sea-monster, for a broil, less than a soldo will buy a handful of little nondescripts like fat spiders, for soup, or a pint of pebble-like mussels with which to savor a stew.
ON RAINY DAYS
THE wind blows east! All night long the thunder of the surf, breaking along the Lido, has reverberated through the deserted streets and abandoned canals of Venice.
From your window you see the fair goddess of the Dogana, tired out with the whirling winds, clinging in despair to the golden ball—her sail flying westward, her eyes strained in search of the lost sun. You see, too, the shallow lagoons, all ashy pale, crawling and shivering in the keen air, their little waves flying shoreward as if for shelter.
Out beyond San Giorgio, the fishing-boats are tethered to the spiles, their decks swept by fierce dashes of rain, their masts rocking wearily. Nearer in, this side the island, two gondolas with drenched felsi, manned by figures muffled in oilskins, fight every inch of the way to the Molo; they hug in mid-stream the big P. and O. steamer lying sullen and deserted, her landing-ladder hanging useless, the puffs of white steam beaten flat against her red smoke-stacks. Across the deserted canal the domes of the Salute glisten like burnished silver in the white light of the gale, and beyond these, tatters of gray cloud-rack scud in from the sea. Along the quays of the Dogana the stevedores huddle in groups beneath the sheltering arches, watching the half-loaded boats surge and jar in the ground-swell of the incoming sea. In the garden at your very feet lie the bruised blossoms of the oleanders, their storm-beaten branches hanging over the wall, fagged out with the battle of the night. Even the drenched tables under the dripping arbors are strewn with wind-swept leaves, and the overturned chairs are splashed with sand.
All the light, all the color, all the rest and charm and loveliness of Venice, are dead. All the tea-rose, sun-warmed marble, all the soft purples of shifting shadows, all the pearly light of summer cloud and the silver shimmer of the ever-changing, million-tinted sea, are gone. Only cold, gray stone and dull, yellow water, reflecting leaden skies, and black-stained columns and water-soaked steps! Only brown sails, wet, colorless gondolas and disheartened, baffled pigeons! To-day the wind blows east!
When the tide turns flood, the waters of the lagoon, driven by the high wind, begin to rise. Up along the Molo, where the gondolas land their passengers, the gondoliers have taken away their wooden steps. Now the sea is level with the top stone of the pavement, and there are yet two hours to high water. All about the caffès under the Library, the men stand in groups, sheltered from the driving rain by the heavy canvas awnings laid flat against the door columns. Every few minutes some one consults his watch, peering anxiously out to sea. A waiter serving coffee says, in an undertone, that it is twelve years since the women went to San Marco in boats; then the water rose to the sacristy floor.
Under the arcades and between the columns of the Doges’ Palace is packed a dense mass of people, watching the angry, lawless sea. Wagers are freely laid that unless the wind shifts the church itself will be flooded at high water. The gondoliers are making fast their unused felsi, lashing them to the iron lamp-posts. Along the Molo the boats themselves, lashed fore and aft to the slender poles, are rocking restlessly to and fro.
Suddenly a loud cheer breaks from the throng nearest the water’s edge, and a great, surging wave dashes across the flat stone and spreads quickly in widening circles of yellow foam over the marble flagging of the Piazzetta. Then another and another, bubbling between the iron tables and chairs of the caffès, swashing around the bases of the columns, and so on like a mill-race, up and around the Loggietta of the Campanile, and on into the Piazza with a rush. A wild shout goes up from the caffès and arcades. The waiters run quickly hither and thither, heaping up the chairs and tables. The shop-men are closing their shutters and catching up their goods. The windows of the Procuratie are filled with faces overjoyed at the sight. Troops of boys, breechless almost to their suspender buttons, are splashing about in glee. The sea is on the rampage. The bridegroom is in search of the bride. This time the Adriatic has come to wed the city. Another hour with the wind east, and only the altar steps of San Marco will suffice for the ceremony!