V
CASA ROSA, _May_ 22
I am like the schoolgirl who wrote home from Venice: “I am sitting on theedge of the Grand Canal drinking it all in, and life never seemed half sofull before.” Was ever the city so beautiful as last night on thearrival of foreign royalty? It was a memorable display and unique in itspeculiar beauty. The palaces that line the canal were bright with flags;windows and water-steps were thronged, the broad centre of the stream wasleft empty. Presently, round the bend below the Rialto, swept into viewa double line of gondolas—long, low, gleaming with every hue of brilliantcolour, most of them with ten, some with twelve, gondoliers inresplendent liveries, red, blue, green, white, orange, all bending overtheir oars with the precision of machinery and the grace of absolutemastery of their craft. In the middle, between two lines, came one smalland beautifully modelled gondola, rowed by four men in red and black,while on the white silk cushions in the stern sat the Prince andPrincess. There was no splash of oar or rattle of rowlock; swiftly,silently, with an air of stately power and pride, the lovely pageantcame, passed, and disappeared under the shining evening sky and thegathering shadows of “the dim, rich city.” I never saw, or expect tosee, anything of its kind so beautiful.
I stay for hours in the gondola, writing my letters or watching thethousand and one sights of the streets, for I often allow Salemina andthe Little Genius to tread their way through the highways and byways ofVenice while I stay behind and observe life from beneath the gratefulshade of the black _felze_.
The women crossing the many little bridges look like the characters inlight opera; the young girls, with their hair bobbed in a round coil, aresometimes bareheaded and sometimes have a lace scarf over their dark,curly locks. A little fan is often in their hands, and one remarks thegraceful way in which the crepe shawl rests upon the women’s shoulders,remembering that it is supposed to take generations to learn to wear ashawl or wield a fan.
My favourite waiting-place is near the Via del Paradiso, just where somescarlet pomegranate blossoms hang out over the old brick walls by thecanal-side, and where one splendid acanthus reminds me that its leavesinspired some of the most beautiful architecture in the world; where,too, the ceaseless chatter of the small boys cleaning crabs withscrubbing-brushes gives my ear a much-needed familiarity with thelanguage.
Now a girl with a red parasol crosses the Ponte del Paradiso, making abrilliant silhouette against the blue sky. She stops to prattle with theman at the bell-shop just at the corner of the little _calle_. There arebeautiful bells standing in rows in the window, one having a border offinely traced crabs and sea-horses at the base; another has a top like aDoge’s cap, while the body of another has a delicately wrought tracery,as if a fish-net had been thrown over it.
Sometimes the children crowd about me as the pigeons in the Piazza SanMarco struggle for the corn flung to them by the tourists. If there areonly three or four, I sometimes compromise with my conscience and givethem something. If one gets a lira put into small coppers, one can givethem a couple of _centesimi_ apiece without feeling that one ispauperizing them, but that one is fostering the begging habit in youngItaly is a more difficult sin to face.
To-day when the boys took off the tattered hats from their bonny littleheads, all black waves and riotous curls, and with disarming dimples andsparkling eyes presented them to me for alms, I looked at them withsmiling admiration, thinking how like Raphael’s cherubs they were, andthen said in my best Italian: “Oh, yes, I see them; they are indeed mostbeautiful hats. I thank you for showing them to me, and I am pleased tosee you courteously take them off to a lady.”
This American pleasantry was passed from mouth to mouth gleefully, and sotruly enjoyed that they seemed to forget they had been denied. They ran,still laughing and chattering, to the wood-carver’s shop near-by and toldhim the story, or so I judged, for he came to his window and smiledbenignly upon me as I sat in the gondola with my writing-pad on my knees.I was pleased at the friendly glance, for he is the hero of a prettylittle romance, and I long to make his acquaintance.
It seems that, some years ago, the Queen, with one lady-in-waiting inattendance, came to his shop quite early in the morning. Both wereplainly dressed in cotton gowns, and neither made any pretensions. Hewas carving something that could not be dropped, a cherub’s face that hadto be finished while his thought of it was fresh. Hurriedly askingpardon, he continued his work, and at end of an hour raised his eyes,breathless and apologetic, to look at his visitors. The taller lady hada familiar appearance. He gazed steadily, and then, to his surprise andembarrassment, recognized the Queen. Far from being offended, sherespected his devotion to his art, and before she left the shop she gavehim a commission for a royal staircase. I am going to ask the LittleGenius to take me to see his work, but, alas! there will be anunsurmountable barrier between us, for I cannot utter in my new Italiananything but the most commonplace and conventional statements.