Gondola days

by Francis Hopkinson Smith

And as to making merry! You should sit down somewhere and watch these millionnaires of leisure kill the lazy, dreamy, happy-go-lucky hours with a volley of chaff hurled at some stroller, some novice from the country back of Mestre in for a day’s holiday; or with a combined, good-natured taunt at a peasant from the fruit gardens of Malamocco, gaping at the wonders of the Piazza; or in heated argument each with the other—argument only ending in cigarettes and vino. Or listen to their songs—songs started perhaps by some one roused out of a sound sleep, who stretches himself into shape with a burst of melody that runs like fire in tangled grass, until the whole Campo is ablaze: Il Trovatore, and snatches from Marta and Puritani, or some fisherman’s chorus that the lagoons have listened to for centuries. You never hear any new songs. All the operas of the outside world, German, French, and English, might be sung and played under their noses and into their ears for a lifetime, and they would have none of them.

Then the street venders! The man who stops at some water-steps to wash and arrange on a flat basket the handful of little silver fish, which he sells for a copper coin no larger than one of their fins. And the candy man with teetering scales; and the girl selling the bright red handkerchiefs, blue suspenders, gorgeous neckties, and pearl buttons strung on white cards.

And, too, the grave, dignified, utterly useless, and highly ornamental gendarmes, always in pairs,—never stopping a moment, and always with the same mournful strut,—like dual clog-dancers stepping in unison. In many years’ experience of Venetian life, I have never yet seen one of these silver-laced, cockaded, red-striped-pantalooned guardians of the peace lay his hand upon any mortal soul. Never, even at night, when the ragged wharf-rats from the shipyards prowl about the Piazza, sneaking under the tables, pouncing upon the burnt ends of cigarettes and cigars, and all in sight of these pillars of the state—never, with all these opportunities, even when in their eagerness these ragamuffins crawl almost between their legs.

Yes, once! Then I took a hand myself, and against the written law of Venice too. It was at Florian’s, on the very edge of the sea of tables, quite out to the promenade line. I was enjoying a glass of Hofbrau, the stars overhead, the music of the King’s band filling the soft summer night. Suddenly a bust of Don Quixote, about the size of my beer-mug, was laid on the table before me, and a pair of black eyes from under a Spanish boina peered into my own.

“Cinque lire, Signore.”

It was Alessandro, the boy sculptor.

I had met him the day before, in front of Salviati’s. He was carrying into the great glass-maker’s shop, for shipment over the sea, a bust made of wet clay. A hurried sojourner, a foreigner, of course, by an awkward turn of his heel had upset the little sculptor, bust and all, pasting the aristocratic features of Don Quixote to the sidewalk in a way that made that work of art resemble more the droppings from a mortar-hod than the counterfeit presentment of Cervantes’ hero. Instantly a crowd gathered, and a commiserating one. When I drew near enough to see into the face of the boy, it was wreathed in a broad smile. He was squatting flat on the stone flagging, hard at work on the damaged bust, assuring the offending signore all the while that it was sheer nonsense to make such profuse apologies—it would be all right in a few minutes; and while I looked on, in all less than ten minutes, the deft fingers of the little fellow had readjusted with marvellous dexterity the crumpled mass, straightening the neck, rebuilding the face, and restoring the haughty dignity of the noble don. Then he picked himself up, and with a bow and a laugh went on his way rejoicing. A boy of any other nationality, by the bye, would have filled the air with his cries until a policeman had taught him manners, or a hat lined with pennies had healed his sorrows.

So when Alessandro looked up into my face I felt more like sharing my table with him than driving him away—even to the ordering of another beer and a chair. Was he not a brother artist, and though poor and with a very slender hold on fame and fortune, had art any dividing lines?

Not so the gentlemen with the cocked hats! What! Peddling without the King’s license, or with it, for that matter, at Florian’s, within sound of the King’s band, the eyes of all Venice upon them! Never! So they made a grab for Alessandro, who turned his innocent young face up into theirs,—he was only two days from Milan and unused to their ways,—and, finding that they were really in earnest, clung to me like a frightened kitten.

It, of course, became instantly a matter of professional pride with me. Allow a sculptor of renown and parts, not to say genius, to be dragged off to prison under the pretence that he was breaking the law by selling his wares, when really he was only exhibiting to a brother artist an evidence of his handiwork, etc., etc.! It was a narrow escape, and I am afraid the bystanders, as well as the frozen images of the law, lost all respect for my truthfulness,—but it sufficed.