Now see the look of wounded pride that overspreads his face, the dazed, almost stunned expression, followed by a slight touch of indignation. “Shentleman, conseeder ze honor of my house. Eef I sharge you dree hundredt francs for sometings only for feefty, it ees for myselluf I am zorry. Eet ees not posseeble zat you know ze honorable standing of my house.”
Then, if you are wise, you throw down your card with the name of your hotel—and stroll up the street, gazing into the shop windows and pricing in a careless way every other thing suspended outside any other door, or puckered up inside any other window.
In ten minutes after you have turned the corner he has interviewed the porter of your hotel—not Joseph of the Britannia; Joseph never lets one of this kind mount the hotel steps unless his ticket is punched with your permission. In five minutes Ananias has learned the very hour of the day you have to leave Venice, and is thereafter familiar with every bundle of stuffs offered by any other dealer that is sent to your apartment. When you pass his shop the next day he bows with dignity, but never leaves his doorway. If you have the moral courage to ignore him, even up to the last morning of your departure, when your trunks are packed and under the porter’s charge for registering, you will meet Ananias in the corridor with the altar-cloth under his arm, and his bill for fifty francs in his pocket. If not, and you really want his stuffs and he finds it out, then cable for a new letter-of-credit.
At night, especially festa nights, these Venetian streets are even more unique than in the day. There is, perhaps, a festa at the Frari, or at Santa Maria del Zobenigo. The Campo in front of the church is ablaze with strings of lanterns hung over the heads of the people, or fastened to long brackets reaching out from the windows. There are clusters of candles, too, socketed in triangles of wood, and flaring torches, fastened to a mushroom growth of booths that have sprung up since morning, where are sold hot waffles cooked on open-air griddles, and ladles full of soup filled with sea horrors,—spider-like things with crawly legs. Each booth is decorated with huge brass plaques, repoussèd in designs of the Lion of St. Mark, and of the Saint himself. The cook tells you that he helped hammer them into shape during the long nights of the preceding winter; that there is nothing so beautiful, and that for a few lire you can add these specimens of domestic bric-à-brac to your collection at home. He is right; hung against a bit of old tapestry, nothing is more decorative than one of these rude reproductions of the older Venetian brass. And nothing more honest. Every indentation shows the touch of the artist’s hammer.
In honor of the festa everybody in the vicinity lends a hand to the decorations. On the walls of the houses fronting the small square, especially on the wall of the wine-shop, are often hung the family portraits of some neighbor who has public spirit enough to add a touch of color to the general enjoyment. My friend, Pasquale D’ Este, who is gastaldo at the traghetto of Zobenigo, pointed out to me, on one of these nights, a portrait of his own ancestor, surprising me with the information that his predecessors had been gondoliers for two hundred years.
While the festa lasts the people surge back and forth, crowding about the booths, buying knick-knacks at the portable shops. All are good-natured and courteous, and each one delighted over a spectacle so simple and so crude, the wonder is, when one thinks how often a festa occurs in Venice, that even a handful of people can be gathered together to enjoy it.
Besides all these varying phases of street merry-making, there are always to be found in the thoroughfares of Venice during the year, some outward indications that mark important days in the almanac—calendar days that neither celebrate historical events nor mark religious festivals. You always know, for instance, when St. Mark’s day comes, in April, as every girl you meet wears a rose tucked in her hair out of deference to the ancient custom, not as a sign of the religious character of the day, but to show to the passer-by that she has a sweetheart. Before Christmas, too, if in the absence of holly berries and greens you should have forgotten the calendar day, the peddler of eels and of nut candy and apple sauce would remind you of it; for, in accordance with the ancient custom, dating back to the Republic, every family in Venice, rich or poor, the night before Christmas, has the same supper,—eels, a nut candy called mandorlato, and a dish of apple sauce with fruits and mustard. This is why the peddlers in Venice are calling out all day at the top of their lungs, “Mandorlato! Mostarda!” while the eel and mustard trade springs into an activity unknown for a year. On other saints’ days the street peddlers sell a red paste made of tomatoes and chestnut flour, moulded into cakes.
Last are the caffès! In winter, of course, the habitués of these Venetian lounging places are crowded into small, stuffy rooms; but in the warmer months everybody is in the street. Not only do Florian’s and the more important caffès of the rich spread their cloths under the open sky, but every other caffè on the Riva,—the Oriental, the Veneta Marina, and the rest—push their tables quite out to the danger-line patrolled by the two cocked-hat guardians of the peace. In and out between these checkerboards of good cheer, the peddlers of sweets, candies, and fruit strung on broom-straws, ply their trade, while the flower girls pin tuberoses or a bunch of carnations to your coat, and the ever-present and persistent guide waylays customers for the next day’s sightseeing. Once or twice a week there is also a band playing in front of one of these principal caffès, either the Government band or some private orchestra.
On these nights the people come in from all over Venice, standing in a solid mass, men, women, and children, listening in perfect silence to the strains of music that float over the otherwise silent street. There is nothing in Europe quite like this bareheaded, attentive, absorbed crowd of Venetians, enjoying every note that falls on their ears. There is no gathering so silent, so orderly, so well-bred. The jewelled occupants of many an opera box could take lessons in good manners from these denizens of the tenements,—fishermen, bead stringers, lace makers—who gather here from behind the Ship Yard and in the tangle of streets below San Giorgio della Schiavoni. There is no jostling or pushing, with each one trying to get a better place. Many of the women carry their babies, the men caring for the larger children. All are judges of good music, and all are willing to stand perfectly still by the hour, so that they themselves may hear and let others hear too.