But what is the meaning of the phrase just used, “well knotted”? Let her wear the richest silk ever spun in Italy, and the haughtiest Hungarian hat, with its aigrette of a dove’s wing, your Venetian lady of blue blood is not distinguishable, except by what she has upon her neck. And this is a gold chain, of apparently countless links, beautifully brilliant, with that reddish tinge which has so often been the perplexity of painters, though Titian mastered it, as he did everything else; and falling from the throat is gathered in a coil at the waist, where, the larger and heavier the knot, the higher the patent of social splendor.
Though I am not concerned at present with the aristocracy of the sea-born city, still, if lofty dames will eat little fishes in a market-place, they cannot complain of personalities, should the remark be made that some are dark as ever Giorgione or Carpaccio painted; while others, to borrow the ejaculation of a rapturous wanderer from Paris, who was not really in a rapture, and who, of course, did not mean what he was saying, might be mistaken for the daughters of Aurora, a contrast reminding you of Adam’s two wives in the Talmud.
But madame has finished her gouter, and, once more taking a liberty with my Frenchman, I remark that she “undulates always with an appearance of perfect satisfaction.” She will not be seen here again until the same freak of appetite seizes her. For, as a rule, the lower classes—as, indeed, they do everywhere—have their own neighborhoods to themselves, though in Venice, naturally, owing to the peculiarity of its position, there are subdivisions. The workmen and artificers and traders are quite distinct from the boatmen and fishermen, upon whom they look with contempt, and with whom they were formerly in a state of incessant feud. The former wear red caps and belts; the belts and caps of the latter are entirely either black or blue, the capes having tassels of the same color, which give an Oriental character to a Venetian crowd.
THE CHURCH OF ST. MARK, VENICE
And here a curious point occurs. Your great lady prides herself upon the knot in her gold chain; your fisherman or ferryman wears a scarf round his neck, and the bigger the knot he can tie the prouder he is of himself. Again, the gondoliers have their grades of rank. The lords of the black “water broughams,” as some one very much in want of a smart saying termed them, are in the service of private families, and hold themselves ready for orders like coachmen. The second degree is composed—to carry on the analogy—of the canal cabmen, who live upon chance, upon travellers, and upon Romeos and Juliets, whenever these young persons are engaged in adventure. Lastly, there are the gondoliers with fixed stations and fixed destinations, ferrymen who float to and fro. But they are all very important to Venice. They are the links of its life; for, singularly enough, it has not bridges enough, and in this respect is utterly unlike Amsterdam, with which it is so often and so absurdly compared. If, however, they swear at one another, they swear at the railway in a chorus. It is rarely, in these days, that any good luck befalls them. Now and then, to be sure, a music and singing party, dizzy with the juice of the Dalmatian grape, attempt to wake the echoes of Tasso among the lagoons, or two fond fools, fresh from their nuptials in the north, glide over the moonlit sea, regardless of expense, and look at life through the stars; yet such Jessica evenings are few and far between, and the Venetian gondoliers, seen by daylight, look like anything rather than Fenimore Cooper’s hero, or even a daub in a Canaletti canvas. Still, his ancient art has not deserted him, and he can push his craft along at a wonderful speed.
There is one peculiarity about them which the stranger does not readily understand. They speak as though their language was as limpid as the water on which they live, and made up almost entirely of vowels. You wish to be set ashore at the steps of the “Luna” hotel? Certainly; your gondolier knows the “Una” hotel perfectly well. He has another characteristic, not quite so uncommon: he is an unblushing cheat. His Venetian customers pay him tenpence, when you, being a stranger, must pay him half a crown, which is an Italian method of expressing patriotism, I suppose. Yet he is continually to be found upon his knees before the altar, and has a patron of his own, whom he invokes upon every necessary or unnecessary occasion.