II
LA GIUDECCA, _May_ 15, CASA ROSA.
Not for a moment have we regretted leaving our crowded, conventionalhotel in Venice proper, for these rooms in a house on the Giudecca. Thevery vision of Miss Celia Van Tyck sitting on a balcony surrounded by agroup of friends from the various Boston suburbs, the vision of MissCelia Van Tyck melting into delicious distance with every movement of ourgondola, even this was sufficient for Salemina’s happiness and mine, hadit been accompanied by no more tangible joys.
This island, hardly ten minutes by gondola from the Piazza of San Marco,was the summer resort of the Doges, you will remember, and there theybuilt their pleasure-houses, with charming gardens at the back—gardensthe confines of which stretched to the Laguna Viva. Our Casa Rosa is oneof the few old _palazzi_ left, for many of them have been turned intogranaries.
We should never have found this romantic dwelling by ourselves; theLittle Genius brought us here. The Little Genius is Miss Ecks, whodraws, and paints, and carves, and models in clay, preaching andpractising the brotherhood of man and the sisterhood of woman in theintervals; Miss Ecks, who is the custodian of all the talents and most ofthe virtues, and the invincible foe of sordid common sense and financialprosperity. Miss Ecks met us by chance in the Piazza and breathlesslyexplained that she was searching for paying guests to be domiciled underthe roof of Numero Sessanta, Giudecca. She thought we should enjoyliving there, or at least she did very much, and she had tried it for twoyears; but our enjoyment was not the special point in question. The realreason and desire for our immediate removal was that the padrona mightpay off a vexatious and encumbering mortgage which gave great anxiety toeverybody concerned, besides interfering seriously with her own creativework.
“You must come this very day,” exclaimed Miss Ecks. “The Madonna knowsthat we do not desire boarders, but you are amiable and considerate, aswell as financially sound and kind, and will do admirably. PadronaAngela is very unhappy, and I cannot model satisfactorily until the houseis on a good paying basis and she is putting money in the bank toward thepayment of the mortgage. You can order your own meals, entertain as youlike, and live precisely as if you were in your own home.”
The Little Genius is small, but powerful, with a style of oratorysomewhat illogical, but always convincing at the moment. There were agood many trifling objections to our leaving Miss Van Tyck and the hotel,but we scarcely remembered them until we and our luggage were skimmingacross the space of water that divides Venice from our own island.
We explored the cool, wide, fragrant spaces of the old _casa_, with itsouter walls of faded, broken stucco, all harmonized to a pinkish yellowby the suns and winds of the bygone centuries. We admired its loftyceilings, its lovely carvings and frescoes, its decrepit but beautifulfurniture, and then we mounted to the top, where the Little Genius has asort of eagle’s eyrie, a floor to herself under the eaves, from thewindows of which she sees the sunlight glimmering on the blue water byday, and the lights of her adored Venice glittering by night. The wallsare hung with fragments of marble and wax and stucco and clay; here abeautiful foot, or hand, or dimple-cleft chin; there an exquisitelyornate façade, a miniature campanile, or a model of some ancient_palazzo_ or _chiesa_.
The little bedroom off at one side is draped in coarse white cotton, andis simple enough for a nun. Not a suggestion there of the fripperies ofa fine lady’s toilet, but, in their stead, heads of cherubs, wings ofangels, slender bell-towers, friezes of acanthus leaves,—beauty of lineand form everywhere, and not a hint of colour save in the riotous bunchesof poppies and oleanders that lie on the broad window-seats or standupright in great blue jars.
Here the Little Genius lives, like the hermit crab that she callsherself; here she dwells apart from kith and kin, her mind and heart andmiracle-working hands taken captive by the charms of the siren city ofthe world.
When we had explored Casa Rosa from turret to foundation stone we wentinto the garden at the rear of the house—a garden of flowers andgrape-vines, of vegetables and fruit-trees, of birds and bee-hives, afull acre of sweet summer sounds and odours, stretching to the lagoon,which sparkled and shimmered under the blue Italian skies. The gardencompleted our subjugation, and here we stay until we are removed byforce, or until the padrona’s mortgage is paid unto the last penny, whenI feel that the Little Genius will hang a banner on the outer ramparts, abanner bearing the relentless inscription: “No paying guests allowed onthese premises until further notice.”
Our domestics are unique and interesting. Rosalia, the cook, is agraceful person with brown eyes, wavy hair, and long lashes, and when sheis coaxing her charcoal fire with a primitive fan of cock’s feathers, hercheeks as pink as oleanders, the Little Genius leads us to the kitchendoor and bids us gaze at her beauty. We are suitably enthralled at themoment, but we suffer an inevitable reaction when the meal is served, andsometimes long for a plain cook.
Peppina is the second maid, and as arrant a coquette as lives in allItaly. Her picture has been painted on more than one fisherman’s sail,for it is rumoured that she has been six times betrothed and she is stillunder twenty. The unscrupulous little flirt rids herself of her suitors,after they become a weariness to her, by any means, fair or foul, and hercapricious affections are seldom good for more than three months. Herown loves have no deep roots, but she seems to have the power of arousingin others furious jealousy and rage and a very delirium of pleasure. Sheremains light, gay, joyous, unconcerned, but she shakes her lovers as theVenetian thunderstorms shake the lagoons. Not long ago she tired of herchosen swain, Beppo the gardener, and one morning the padrona’s duckswere found dead. Peppina, her eyes dewy with crocodile tears, told thepadrona that although the suspicion almost rent her faithful heart intwain, she must needs think Beppo the culprit. The local detective, orpolice officer, came and searched the unfortunate Beppo’s humble room,and found no incriminating poison, but did discover a pound or two ofcontraband tobacco, whereupon he was marched off to court, fined eightyfrancs, and jilted by his perfidious lady-love, who speedily transferredher affections. If she had been born in the right class and the rightcentury, Peppina would have made an admirable and brilliant Borgia.
Beppo sent a stinging reproof in verse to Peppina by the new gardener,and the Little Genius read it to us, to show the poetic instinct of thediscarded lover, and how well he had selected his rebuke from the storeof popular verses known to gondoliers and fishermen of Venice:—
“_No te fidar de l’ albaro che piega_, _Ne de la dona quando la te giura_. _La te impromete_, _e po la te denega_; _No te fidar de l’ albaro che piega_.”
(“Trust not the mast that bends. Trust not a woman’s oath; She’ll swear to you, and there it ends, Trust not the mast that bends.”)
Beppo, Salemina, and I were talking together one morning,—just a casualmeeting in the street,—when Peppina passed us. She had a market-basketin each hand, and was in her gayest attire, a fresh crimson rose betweenher teeth being the last and most fetching touch to her toilet. She gavea dainty shrug of her shoulders as she glanced at Beppo’s hanging headand hungry eye, and then with a light laugh hummed, “Trust not the mastthat bends,” the first line of the poem that Beppo had sent her.
“It is better to let her go,” I said to him consolingly.
“_Si_, _madama_; but”—with a profound sigh—“she is very pretty.”
So she is, and although my idea of the fitness of things is somewhatunsettled when Peppina serves our dinner wearing a yoke and sleeves ofcoarse lace with her blue cotton gown, and a bunch of scarlet poppies inher hair, I can do nothing in the way of discipline because Saleminaapproves of her as part of the picture. Instead of trying to developsome moral sense in the little creature, Salemina asked her to alternateroses and oleanders with poppies in her hair, and gave her a coral comband ear-rings on her birthday. Thus does
a warm climate undermine thestrict virtue engendered by Boston east winds.
Francesco—Cecco for short—is general assistant in the kitchen, and a goodgondolier to boot. When our little family is increased by more thanthree guests at dinner, Cecco is pressed into dining-room service, andbecomes under-butler to Peppina. Here he is not at ease. He scrubs histanned face until it shines like San Domingo mahogany, brushes his blackhair until the gloss resembles a varnish, and dons coarse white cottongloves to conceal his work-stained hands and give an air of fashion andelegance to the banquet. His embarrassment is equalled only by hisearnestness and devotion to the dreaded task. Our American guests do notcare what we have upon our bill of fare when they can steal a glance atthe intensely dramatic and impassioned Cecco taking Pina into a corner ofthe dining-room and, seizing her hand, despairingly endeavour to find outhis next duty. Then, with incredibly stiff back, he extends his righthand to the guest, as if the proffered plate held a scorpion instead of atidbit. There is an extra butler to be obtained when the function is asufficiently grand one to warrant the expense, but as he wears carpetslippers and Pina flirts with him from soup to fruit, we find ourselvesno better served on the whole, and prefer Cecco, since he transforms anordinary meal into a beguiling comedy.
“What does it matter, after all?” asks Salemina. “It is not life we areliving, for the moment, but an act of light opera, with the scenes allbeautifully painted, the music charming and melodious, the costumes gayand picturesque. We are occupying exceptionally good seats, and we haveno responsibility whatever: we left it in Boston, where it is probablyrolling itself larger and larger, like a snowball; but who cares?”
“Who cares, indeed?” I echo. We are here not to form our characters orto improve our minds, but to let them relax; and when we see anythingwhich opposses the Byronic ideal of Venice (the use of the concertina asthe national instrument having this tendency), we deliberately close oureyes to it. I have a proper regard for truth in matters of fact likestatistics. I want to know the exact population of a town, the precisetotal of children of school age, the number of acres in the YellowstonePark, and the amount of wheat exported in 1862; but when it comes tothings touching my imagination I resent the intrusion of some laboriouslyexcavated truth, after my point of view is all nicely settled, and mysaints, heroes, and martyrs are all comfortably and picturesquelyarranged in their respective niches or on their proper pedestals.
When the Man of Fact demolishes some pretty fallacy like William Tell andthe apple, he should be required to substitute something equallydelightful and more authentic. But he never does. He is a useful butuninteresting creature, the Man of Fact, and for a travelling companionor a neighbour at dinner give me the Man of Fancy, even if he has not agrain of exact knowledge concealed about his person. It seems to mehighly important that the foundations of Glasgow, Birmingham, Manchester,or Spokane Falls should be rooted in certainty; but Verona, Padua, andVenice—well, in my opinion, they should be rooted in Byron and Ruskin andShakespeare.