However, the general somnolence permitted me to view in peace the statues and architecture for which the drowsy city is justly renowned, and leaving it to slumber on, I set off at noonday on the last stage of my journey across northern Italy. The phantom range of the Alps had disappeared. Away to the eastward stretched a land as flat and unbroken as the sea which, tossing its drifting sands on a lee shore through the ages, has drawn this coast further and further towards the rising sun. Walking had been easier on the long mountain ascents behind, for a powerful wind from off the Adriatic pressed me back like an unseen hand at my breast. Certain as I had been of reaching Fusiano on the coast before the day was done, twilight found me still plodding on across a barren lowland. With the first twinkling star a faint glow appeared to the left and afar off, giving center to the surrounding darkness. Steadily it grew until it illuminated a distant corner of the firmament, while the wind howled with ever-increasing force across the unpeopled waste.
Night had long since settled down when the lapping of waves announced that I had overtaken the retreating coast-line. A few ramshackle hovels rose up out of the darkness, but still far out over the sea hovered the glow in the sky—no distant conflagration, as I had supposed, but the reflected lights of Venice. Long cherished visions of a cheering meal and a soft couch, before my entrance into the city of the sea, vanished; for there was no inn among the hovels of Fusiano. I took shelter in a shanty down on the beach and awaited patiently the ten-o’clock boat.
By the appointed hour there had gathered enough of a swarthy crowd to fill the tiny steamer that made fast with great difficulty to the crazy wharf. On the open sea the wind was riotous, and our passage took on the aspect of a transatlantic trip in miniature. Now and then a wave spat in the faces of the passengers huddled aft. A ship’s officer jammed his way among us to collect the six-cent tickets. Behind him the officials of the Venice octroi were busily engaged in levying dues on produce from the country. Two poor devils, gaunt as death’s heads, crouched in the waist, guarding between them a bundle of vegetables that could be bought a few centesimi cheaper on the mainland than in the city. The stuff could not have satisfied the normal appetite of one man; yet in spite of their pleadings, the pair were compelled to drop their share of soldi into the official bag.
By and by the toss of the steamer abated somewhat. I pushed to the rail to peer out into the night. Off the port bow appeared a stretch of smooth water in which were reflected the myriad lights of smaller craft and the illuminated windows of a block of houses rising sheer out of the sea. We swung to port. A gondola, weirdly lighted up by torches on bow and poop, glided across our bow. The houses born of the sea took on individuality, a wide canal opened on our left and curved away between other buildings, the splendor of their façades faintly suggested in the light of mooring-post lamp and lantern. It was the Grand Canal. The steamer nosed its way through a fleet of empty gondolas, tied up at a landing stage before a marble column bearing the lion of St. Mark, and the passengers hurried away across the cathedral square to be swallowed up in the night.
In a city of streets and avenues there are certain signs which point the way to the ragged section, but among the winding waterways and arcade bridges of this strange metropolis such indications were lacking. A full two hours I tramped at utter random, on the blisters of the highway from Padua, only to turn up at last in an albergo within a stone’s throw of my landing-place and the Palace of the Doges.
The squares and alleys of Venice are strewn with human wreckage. In the rest of Italy the most penurious wretch may move from place to place in an attempt to ameliorate his condition; but on this marshy island the man unable to scrape together a few soldi for boat or car fare is a prisoner. The captives are little accustomed to sleep within doors. Lodging, obviously, must be high in a city where space is absolutely limited; but there are “joints” where food sells more cheaply than anywhere else on the continent.
On the evening following my arrival, I came upon one of these establishments which rubbed shoulders with the cathedral of St. Mark. Appetite alone certainly could not have enticed me inside, but eager to scrape acquaintance with the submerged tenth—the fraction seems small—of Venice, I crowded my way into the kennel. A lean and hungry multitude surged about the counter. At one end of it was piled a stack of plates; near them stood a box which, to all appearances, had long done service as a coal scuttle, filled to overflowing with twisted and rust-eaten forks and spoons. The room was foggy with the steam that rose from a score of giant kettles containing as many species of stew, soup, and vegetable ragoût.
Each client, conducting himself as if he had been fasting for a week past, snatched a plate from the stack; thrust a paw into the box for a weapon of attack, and dropping a few coppers of most unsanitary aspect into the dish, shoved it with a savage bellow at that one of the kettles the contents of which had taken his fancy. A fogbound server scraped the soldi into the till, poured a ladleful of steaming slop into the outstretched trencher, and the customer fought his way into a dingy back-room.
A Venetian pauper on the Rialto bridge