Another shout comes from the Piazzetta. There is a great waving of hands and hats. Windows are thrown open everywhere. The pigeons sweep in circles; never in the memory of their oldest inhabitant has there been such a sight. In the excitement of the hour a crippled beggar slips from a bench and is half-drowned on the sidewalk.
Another and a louder roar, and a gondola rowed by a man in tarpaulins floats past the Campanile, moves majestically up the flood, and grounds on the lower steps of San Marco. The boys plunge in and push, the women laugh and clap their hands.
From the steps of the arcade of the Library, men with bared thighs are carrying the shop-girls to the entrance of the Merceria under the clock tower. Some of the women are venturing alone, their shoes and stockings held above their heads. Farther down, near the corner column of the Doges’ Palace, a big woman, her feet and ankles straight out, is breaking the back of a little man who struggles along hip-deep, followed by the laughter of the whole Piazzetta.
In the campo fronting the church of San Moisè, a little square hemmed around by high buildings, the sea, having overflowed the sewers, is spurting small geysers through the cracks in the pavement; thumping and pounding a nest of gondolas moored under the bridge.
Out on the Piazzetta a group of men, barelegged and bareheaded, are constructing a wooden bridge from the higher steps of the arcade of the Library to the equally high steps surrounding the base of the column of Saint Theodore, and so on to the corner column of the Doges’ Palace. They are led by a young fellow wearing a discarded fatigue-cap, his trousers tied around his ankles. The only dry spot about him is the lighted end of a cigarette. This is Vittorio—up from the Via Garibaldi—out on a lark. He and his fellows—Luigi and the rest—have splashed along the Riva with all the gusto of a pack of boys reveling in an October snow. They have been soaking wet since daylight, and propose to remain so until it stops raining. The building of the bridge was an inspiration of Vittorio, and in five minutes every loose plank about the traghetto is caught up and thrown together, until a perilous staging is erected. Upon this Luigi dances and pirouettes to prove its absolute stability. When it topples over with the second passenger, carrying with it a fat priest in purple robe and shovel hat, who is late for the service and must reach the Riva, Luigi roars with laughter, stands his Reverence on his feet, and, before he can protest, has hoisted him aback and plunged knee-deep into the flood.
The crowd yell and cheer, Vittorio holding his sides with laughter, until the dry flagging of the palace opposite is reached, and the reverend gentleman, all smiles and benedictions, glides like a turtle down Luigi’s back.
But the tramps from the Via Garibaldi are not satisfied. Luigi and Vittorio and little stumpy Appo, who can carry a sack of salt as easily as a pail of water, now fall into line, offering their broad backs for other passengers, Vittorio taking up a collection in his hat, the others wading about, pouncing down upon derelict oars, barrels, bits of plank, and the débris of the wrecked bridge. When no more soldi for ferry-tolls are forthcoming, and no more Venetians, male or female, can be found reckless or hurried enough to intrust their precious bodies to Luigi’s shoulders, the gang falls to work on a fresh bridge. This Vittorio has discovered hidden away in the recesses of the Library cellars, where it has lain since the last time the Old Man of the Sea came bounding over the Molo wall. There are saw-horses for support, and long planks with rusty irons fastened to each end, and braces, and cross-pieces. All these are put up, and the bridge made entirely practicable, within half an hour. Then the people cross and recross, while the silent gendarmes look on with good-natured and lazy indifference. One very grateful passenger drops a few soldi into Vittorio’s water-soaked fatigue-cap. Another, less generous, pushes him to one side, crowding some luckless fellow, who jumps overboard up to his knees to save himself from total immersion, the girls screaming with assumed fright, Vittorio coaxing and pleading, and Luigi laughing louder than ever.
At this moment a steamboat from the Lido attempts to make fast to her wharf, some hundreds of feet down the Molo. As the landing-planks are afloat and the whole dock awash, the women and children under the awnings of the after-deck, although within ten feet of the solid stone wall, are as much at sea as if they were off the Lido. Vittorio and his mates take in the situation at a glance, and are alongside in an instant. Within five minutes a plank is lashed to a wharf-pile, a rope bridge is constructed, and Vittorio begins passing the children along, one by one, dropping them over Luigi’s shoulders, who stands knee-deep on the dock. Then the women are picked up bodily, the men follow astride the shoulders of the others, and the impatient boat moves off to her next landing-place up the Giudecca.
By this time hundreds of people from all over the city are pouring into the Piazza, despite the driving rain and gusts of wind. They move in a solid mass along the higher arcades of the Library and the Palace. They crawl upon the steps of the columns and the sockets of the flag-staffs; they cling to the rail and pavement of the Loggietta—wherever a footing can be gained above the water-line. To a Venetian nothing is so fascinating as a spectacle of any kind, but it has been many a day since the Old Man of the Sea played the principal rôle himself!
There is no weeping or wailing about wet cellars and damp basements, no anxiety over damaged furniture and water-soaked carpets. All Venetian basements are damp; it is their normal condition. If the water runs in, it will run out again. They have known this Old Sea King for centuries, and they know every whim in his head. As long as the Murazzi hold—the great stone dykes breasting the Adriatic outside the lagoons—Venice is safe. To-morrow the blessed sun will shine again, and the warm air will dry up the last vestige of the night’s frolic.