Almost before I had time to see how it was done, the pushing crowd sent me spinning through the gate. “Two pounds!” I shouted as I rushed on in my journey toward the book. In a very short time I had reached the last official, dropped ten soldi, gathered up my bread, and left by a gate that opened into an alley.
Perhaps you think it was easy to carry two armfuls of baseball loaves. Take my word for it that it was no simple task. A loaf rolled into the gutter before I had taken a dozen steps. The others tried to squirm out of my grasp. With both hands full, I had to disgrace myself by squatting on the pavement to fill my pockets; and even then I had a hard time keeping them from jumping away from me. People must have taken me for a traveling juggler. I made up my mind that I must either give or throw some of those loaves away.
He who longs to give alms in Italy has not far to look for some one willing to benefit by his kindness. I glanced down the alley, and my eyes fell on a mournful-looking beggar crouched in a gloomy doorway. With a kind-hearted smile, I bestowed upon him enough of my load to enable him to play the American national game until the season closed. The outcast wore a sign marked, “Deaf and dumb.” Either he had picked up the wrong card in hurrying forth to business that morning, or my generous gift surprised him out of his misfortune; for as long as a screeching voice could reach me I was flooded with more blessings than I could possibly have found use for.
I plodded on toward Vincenza. All that day, while I sat in village inns, groups of discouraged-looking men sat scolding against the bakers, and watching me enviously as I soaked my hard-earned loaves in a glass of wine.
When morning broke again, I decided to test the third-class cars of Italy to see if they were more comfortable than walking; so I took the train from Vincenza to Padua. At least, the ticket I purchased bore the name Padua, though the company hardly lived up to the printed agreement thereon. At the end of several hours of slow jolting and bumping, we were set down in the center of a wheat-field. The guard shouted, “Padua!” It seemed to me I had heard somewhere that Padua boasted buildings and streets, like other cities. It was possible that I had not been informed correctly. But I could not rid myself of the idea, and I wandered out through the lonely station to ask the first passer-by how to get to Padua.
“Padova!” he snorted. “Certainly this is Padova! Follow this road for a mile. Just before you come in sight of a white-washed pig-sty, turn to the left, walk straight ahead, and the city cannot escape you.”
I followed his directions, and in due time came to the city gate.
I never saw such a sleepy town. The sun is certainly hot in Italy in the summer months, but I had not expected to find a place where the people slept all the time. The city seemed lost in slumber. The few horses dragged their vehicles after them at a snail’s pace, the drivers nodding on their seats. Many of the shop-keepers had put up their shutters and gone home to rest. Those who had not could with difficulty be aroused from their midday naps to attend to the wants of yawning customers. The very dogs slept in the gutters or under the chairs of their drowsy masters. Even many of the buildings were crumbling away and seemed to be falling asleep like the inhabitants.
However, I had a chance to look at the famous statues and architecture in peace, and, leaving the sleepy city to slumber on, I set off at noonday toward Venice. Away to the eastward stretched land as flat and unbroken as the sea. Walking was not so easy, however, as it had been among the mountains behind, for a powerful wind from the Adriatic Sea pressed me back like an unseen hand at my breast. Although I had been certain that I would reach the coast town, Fusiano, before evening, twilight found me still plodding across barren lowlands. With the first twinkling star a faint glow of light appeared afar off to the left. Steadily it grew until it lighted up a distant corner of the sky, while the wind howled stronger and louder across the unpeopled waste.
Night had long since settled down when the lapping of waves told me that I had reached the coast-line. A few rickety huts rose up out of the darkness; but still far out over the sea hovered that glow in the sky—no distant fire, as I had supposed, but the reflected lights of the island city, Venice. I had long been thinking of the cheering meal and the soft couch that I would have before boarding the steamer that would take me to the city of the sea; but I had to do without them. For there was no inn among the hovels of Fusiano. I took shelter in a shanty down on the beach, and waited patiently for the ten o’clock boat.