Part 12 (2/2)

To the mere enjoyment of good victuals, with squabbles intervening, may be superadded the perception of fas.h.i.+onable life, as it goes on in these regions. When your eyes have taken the standard of light of the Piazza, you recognize in some of the groups about you persons whom you have seen, either in the balcony or in the gondola. Here are two young women whom I saw emerge from a narrow pa.s.sage, this evening, rowed by a fine-looking servant, who stood bareheaded, and one other. They have diamond earrings, fas.h.i.+onable bonnets, and dresses dripping from a baptism of beads. One by one a group of young men, probably of the first water, forms about them. One of the ladies is handsome and quiet, the other plain and voluble. The latter becomes perforce the prominent figure in what goes on, which indeed amounts to nothing worth repeating.

These were on my right. On my left soon appeared a lady of a certain age, with ”world” written in large letters all over her countenance. She chaperons a daughter, got up with hair _a l'Anglaise_, whose pantomimic countenance suggests that she has been drilled by an English governess with _papa_, _prunes_, _prism_, or some equivalent gymnastic. When addressed, she looks down into her fan, and rolls her eyes as if she saw her face in it. And lady friends come up: ”Ah, marchesa! ah, signora contessa!” and the young bloods, hat in hand. So here we are, really, on the borders of high life, without intending it. And the baroness introduces a female relative--_una sorella maritata_--who has been handsome, and whose smile seems accustomed to fold the cloak of her beauty around the poverty of her character. And there is coffee, and there come ices. The ladies sip and gossip, the beaux come and go, talking of intended _villeggiaturas_; for the greatest social ill.u.s.tration for an Italian is that of travel. A third group immediately in front of us shows a young lady in an advanced stage of ambition, attired in a conspicuous tone, accompanied by quieter female relatives and a young boy. She regards with envious eyes the two popular a.s.sociations on my right and left. She is dying to be noticed, and does not know how to manage it. And while I take note of these and other vanities, beggars whine for pence, or insist upon carrying off our superfluous bread or cake, for which, indeed, we must pay; but they eat the bread before your eyes with such evident relish that you are satisfied.

By and by this palls upon you. You have seen and heard enough. The society to which you belong is over the water. Here your heart finds no place; and from the crowd of strangers even your lodging and quiet bed seem a refuge. So you settle with Florian's _garcon_, close your account with all beggars for the night, wander to the Piazzetta, and cry, ”Bastiano!” and he of the mysterious intelligence sooner or later responds. You give a penny to the crab,--the man who superfluously holds the boat while you get in,--and are at home after a brief dream of smooth motion under a starry sky. And in this way end all midsummer days in Venice. Not so smooth, however, is your climbing of three flights of stone stairs in the dark, with thumping and b.u.mping. But you are up at last, and Gianetta--the shrewd maid--receives you with a candle-end.

Frugal orders for breakfast, and to rest, with the cherubs of the mantel-piece watching over you.

For over the said mantel-piece, two fair, fat babes, modelled in flat-relief, playfully contended for the mastery, their laughing faces near together, their swinging heels wide apart, as the festoon required.

Elsewhere in the same relief were arabesques with birds and flowers.

This bedroom of ours has been a room of state in its day. A pa.s.sage-way and dressing-room have been taken from its stately proportions, and still it remains very s.p.a.cious for our pretensions. Our _salon_ is larger still, and largely mirrored. Two of its windows give upon a leafy garden, whose tree-tops lie nearer to us than to their owners. Its furniture has been hastily thrown together, and is mostly composed of odds and ends. But one of its pieces moves our admiration. It is a toilet table, enclosing a complete set of utensils in the finest Venetian gla.s.s--basins, ewers, toilet bottles and gla.s.ses, and the little boxes for soap and powder, all cut after the finest pattern. This toilet was made for a royal personage, a queen of something, whose effects somehow seem to have been sold at auction in these parts.

Another relic of her we discover in a bureau entirely incrusted with mother-of-pearl, an article that makes one's mouth water, if one has any mouth, which all men, like all horses, have not. The doors which divide our sitting from our sleeping room are at once objects of wonder and of fear to us. Their size is monstrous, and each of them hangs, or rather clings, by the upper hinge, the lower being dismounted. These doors are left all day at a conciliatory angle between closing and opening. We fear their falling on our heads whenever we approach them. We hear vaguely of some one who shall come to put them in order; but he never appears. Our own veteran, arriving at last, sets this right in as summary a manner as he has dealt with other nuisances. For the veteran, worn with travel, does arrive from Greece one morning, rowing up to our palace just as we have stepped from it to meet our gondola. He has a tale to tell like the wanderings of Ulysses. But between this event and those that precede it, the diary shows the following important entry:--

Thursday, Aug. 1.--To Malamocco this A. M., with three rowers--our own, and two others, who received one florin between them. The row, both in going and returning, was delightful. Arrived at Malamocco, the men demanded one franc for breakfast, and disappeared within the shades of the Osteria. This is a small settlement at the very entrance of the lagoons. It was strongly fortified by the Austrians. The heat, however, did not permit us to inspect the fortifications. We saw little of interest, but visited the church and a peasant's house. One of the daughters was engaged in stringing beads for sale. The beads were in a tray, and she plunged into them a bunch of wire needles some six inches in length, each carrying its slender thread. The merchant, she said, came weekly to bring the beads, and to take away those ready strung for the market. ”To earn a penny, signora,” said the mother, a substantial-looking person, wearing large gold earrings. The houses here looked very comfortable for people of the plain sort. The men seemed to be mostly away, whether engaged in fis.h.i.+ng, or following the sea to foreign parts. On our way back we stopped at San Clementi, an ancient church upon a little island, now undergoing repairs. Within the church we found a marble tabernacle with solid walls, built behind the high altar. It may have been forty feet in length by twenty in breadth, and twelve or more feet in height. A ma.s.sive door of bronze gave entrance to this huge strong-box, which was formerly used as a prison for refractory priests. We found the interior divided into two compartments. The larger of these was fitted up as a chapel; the smaller had served as the cell of confinement. The altar was erected at the part.i.tion which separated the two, and a grating inserted behind the altar figure allowed the prisoner the benefit of the religious services carried on in the chapel.

The dreariness of this little prison can scarcely be described. No light had it, unless that of a lamp was allowed. A church within a church, and within the inner church a place of torment! This arrangement seemed to violate even the Catholic immunity of sanctuary. Think of the unfortunate shut up within on a feast day, when faint sounds of outward jubilee might penetrate the marble walls, and heighten his pain by its contrast with the general joyous thrill of life. Think of the cheerless ma.s.s or vespers vouchsafed to him,--no friendly face, no brother voice, to sweeten wors.h.i.+p. And if he continued recalcitrant, how convenient was this isolation for the final disposition to be made of him! _De profundis clamavit_, doubtless, and the church did not know that G.o.d could hear him.

The diary does not record our second visit to the Armenian convent, which took place in these days. I do not even find in its irregular columns any mention of a franc which I am sure I paid to the porter, and which, I faintly hope, has been put to my credit elsewhere. Despite this absence of _pieces justificatives_, the visit still remains so freshly in my memory that I may venture to speak of it. The elder neophyte not having been with us before in Venice, the convent was new ground to her.

We who had already seen it felt much more at home on the occasion of our second visit than of our first. For Padre Giacomo had answered our invasion by a friendly call; and did we not now know him to be a most genial and hospitable person? Had we not, moreover, made ourselves familiar with his religion, on our late voyage, by frequent converse with two priests of his profession? Did I not possess Father Michel's views concerning the _demonio_, as well as his version of the Book of Job? And of Pere Isaak did I not know the polished, uncommunicative side which covered his intimate convictions, whatever they may have been? The Armenian ladies, too,--had they not made me free of the guild? One of them had shown me her prayer-book. The other, being but fifteen years of age, had no prayer-book. So, with an a.s.sured step, we entered the sacred parlor, and demanded news of Padre Giacomo, and of his monkey. And the father came, smiling a little better than before, but with a sweet Oriental gravity. And he showed us again the library, and hall, and chapel, with the refectory, from whose cruel pulpit one brother is set to read while the others feast. We saw again the printing presses, worked by hand. And in the sacristy he commanded two of the younger brethren to bring the chiefest embroidered garments, reserved for high occasions, judging of us unjustly by our s.e.x. And these satin and velvet wonders were, indeed, embossed with lambs, and birds, and flowers, in needlework of silver and gold, and of various colors, meet for the necks of them that divide the spoil. And we saw also a very fine mummy, as black, and dried, and wizened, as any old Pharaoh could be. A splendid bead covering lay over him, in open rows of blue and white, with hieroglyphic-looking men in black and yellow. This covering had been lately cleaned and repaired at the gla.s.s-works of Murano, as Padre Giacomo recounted with pride. He showed us in the old part of the work some curious double beads, which Venice itself, he said, was unable to imitate. The colors were as fresh and clear as if the mummy had clothed himself from the last fancy fair, with a description of afghan well suited to the Egyptian climate.

Having done justice to this human preserve, the padre now regaled us with a preparation of rose leaves embalmed in sugar. He also bestowed upon us one of the convent publications, a tolerable copy of verses composed on the spot itself by the late Louis of Bavaria, celebrating its calm and retirement. I myself could have responded to the royal _suspiria_ with one distich.

”Here no people comes to beg thee, Here no Lola comes to plague thee.”

As we pa.s.sed from the building to the garden, the wicked monkey, chained and lying in wait, sprang at my hat, and, s.n.a.t.c.hing my lilac veil, bore it off with a flying leap of animal grace and malice. Padre Giacomo anxiously apologized for his pet's misconduct, which was certainly surprising. But the monkey's education, as every one knows, is dependent, not upon precept, but upon example, and Padre Giacomo's example, to the monkey, was only a negative. We parted from our cloistered friend, sincerely desiring, if not hoping, to see him again.

Of our last day in fairest Venice the diary gives this meagre account:--

Sunday, August 4. Early to Piazza, where we encountered the Bishop of Rhode Island. At San Marco's, visited Luccati's beautiful mosaics in the sacristy. The three figures over the door are especially fine--Madonna in the middle, and a saint on either side. A colossal cross adorns the ceiling, and the wall on one side is occupied by figures of twelve prophets; on the other, by the twelve disciples. The cross almost seems to bloom with beautiful devices. Luccati was imprisoned, they say, in the Piombi.

To the Italian Protestant service, held in a good hall in the neighborhood of the Church of San Giovanni e Paolo. The hall was densely crowded. I found no seat, and barely room to stand. The audience seemed a mixed one, so far as worldly position goes, but was entirely respectable in aspect and demeanor, the masculine element largely predominating. Signor Comba, a young man, is quite eloquent and taking.

He delivers himself clearly, and with energy. He criticised at some length the unchristian doctrines of the Romish church--this is part of his work.

The service ended, I pa.s.sed into the Church of San Giovanni e Paolo, and enjoyed my visit unusually. The vivid light of the day and hour made many of the monuments appear new to me. The doges in this, as in other churches, are stowed away on shelves, like mummies. Found a monument to Doge Sterno, dated early in the fifteenth century, and beside it the effigy of a youth designated as Aloysius Trevisano, aet. 23, deeply regretted, and commemorated for his attainments in Greek, Latin, and philosophy. The figure is rec.u.mbent, the face of a high and refined character, with the unmistakable charm of youth impressed upon it. The date is also of the fifteen century. From the church to the sacristy, to take a last look at the two pictures, t.i.tian's Death of St. Peter, martyr, and a fine Madonna of Gian Bellini. The t.i.tian was glorious to-day. It has great life and action. The Dominican in the foreground, who has his arm raised as if appealing to heaven and earth against the barbarous act, seems to have communicated a touch of his pa.s.sion to the two cherubs above, who bear the martyr palm. They are stormy little cherubs, and seem in haste to bring in sight the recompense of so much suffering.

Of the Protestant preaching I will once more and finally say, that it is a genuine missionary work, and commend it to the good wishes and good offices of those whose benefactions do not fear to cross the ocean. May it permanently thrive and prosper.

Of the pictures I can only say, that I doubly congratulate myself on having paid them my last homage before leaving t.i.tian's lovely city.

For, not long after, a cruel fire broke out in or near that sacristy, precious with carvings in wood and marble bas-reliefs; and all the treasures were destroyed, including the two pictures, only temporarily bestowed there, and many square yards of mult.i.tude by Tintoretto, bearing, as usual, his own portrait in a sly corner, representative, no doubt, of his wish to watch the effect of his masterpieces upon humanity at large. The Madonna by Bellini was a charming picture, but the St.

Peter is a loss that concerns the world. The saint, one hopes, has been comfortable in Paradise these many years. But the artist? What Paradise would console him for the burning of one of his _chefs-d'oeuvre_? He would be like Rachel weeping for her children, which reminds me that ideal parentage is of no s.e.x. The artist, the poet, the reformer, are father and mother, all in one.

We left Venice, the diary tells me, on the 5th of August, with what regret we need not say. The same venerable authority records a grave disagreement with the custom-house officers, of whose ministrations we had received no previous warning. So, two very modest pieces of dress goods, delayed in the making, caused me to be branded as a _contrabandista_, with a fine, and record to my discredit. I confess to some indecorous manifestations of displeasure at these circ.u.mstances.

The truth is, forewarned is forearmed. Venice is a free port, and the traveller who leaves her by railroad for the first time may not be aware of the strict account to which he will be held for every little indulgence in Venetian traffic. Now, to have the spoons presented to you in the house, and to be arrested as a thief when you would pa.s.s the door, is a grievous ending to a hospitable beginning. So it came to pa.s.s that I anathematized beautiful Venice as I departed, gathering up the broken fragments of my peace, past diamond cement. But here, in trunk-upsetting Boston, I bethink me, and confess. I was wrong, utterly wrong, O custom-house officers, when I frowned and stormed at you, contending inch by inch and phrase by phrase. You were neither unjust nor uncivil, although I was both. Only I still attest and obsecrate to the fact that I did not intend to smuggle, and entered your jealous domain with no sense of contraband about me. Yet to such wrath did your perquisitions bring me, that the angry thoughts slackened only at Verona, where the tombs of the Scaligers and the rounds of the amphitheatre compelled me to quiet small distempers with great thoughts.

At railroad speed, however, we visited these rare monuments. Can Grande and his horse looked flat and heavy from their eminence. We admired the beautiful iron screen of one of the tombs, hammer-wrought, and flexible as a s.h.i.+rt of mail. And we remembered Dante, paid two francs to the guardian of the enclosure, and drove away. The afternoon's journey whirled us past some strange antique towns, with walls and battlements, and at night we were in Bolsena, Germanice _Bottsen_. And when we asked the hotel maid if she had ever been in Verona, she replied, ”O, no; that is in Italy.” And so we knew that we were not.

FLYING FOOTSTEPS.

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