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As we go by the Cemetery of San Michele, Piero the gondolier and Giovanna improve us with a little solemn pleasantry. "It is a small place," says Piero, "but there is room enough for all Venice in it." "It is true," assents Giovanna, "and here we poor folks become landholders at last."
"Heaven send all its blessings on your head!" cried a gondolier. "Pharaoh will now revoke his commands," said the Duchess, while the commotion in the pit was calming down. "Moses will overwhelm him, even on his throne, by declaring the death of every first-born son in Egypt, singing that strain of vengeance which augurs thunders from heaven, while above it the Hebrew clarions ring out.
To the padrone, the skilled physician who owed to him his education, was still, first and foremost, the son of his old gondolier, in whom, when a bright boy of fifteen, a week in hospital with a broken arm had aroused a consuming ambition to be a doctor. The education, the profession, seemed to the Colonel perhaps because it was primarily due to him, accidental and extraneous.
It is interesting in the campo in these early days, before the effect of the government's measures for coercing the opinions of the populace is fully declared. "I am a good Catholic, most reverend father; I keep the mariegole; every year I go to confession," protests some sturdy gondolier, who has been made anxious by his womenfolk.
Zorzi's face expressed the utmost astonishment. "Are you quite sure that it is Jacopo Contarini?" he asked, as if unable to believe what she said. "Is it likely that I should be mistaken? My brother was with him this afternoon at the palace, our gondolier heard them talking on the stairs as they came down. He told Nella, and she has just told me.
Each bit of wall narrates a story; every house is a palace; at each stroke of the oars the gondolier mentions a name which was as well known in the times of the Crusades as it is to-day; and this continues both to left and right for a distance of more than half a league.
There drifted presently into sight from around the little promontory that hid the village a blue and white boat with yellow lateen sails. She was propelled gondolier fashion, for the wind was a mere breath, by a picturesque youth in a suit of dark blue with white sash and flaring collar the hand of the girl on the wall was here visible also.
"Had she been, Signore, she is long since beyond the power of the Republic." "Shortly after thy father fell under the displeasure of the state, thou quittedst thy business of a gondolier?" "Signore, I did." "Thou art accused, Jacopo, of having laid aside the oar for the stiletto?" "Signore, I am."
he sang in the low, slow chant of the familiar folk-song, the rhythm blending perfectly with the movement of the boat in which these two were faring. His voice was pleasanter in singing, and song is almost a needful expression of the content of motion in Venice the necessary complement of life to the gondolier, a song might mean nothing more.
It was a refuge for many exiled potentates and pretenders; the gondolier pointed out on the Grand Canal the palaces of the Count of Chambord, the Duchess of Parma, and the Infante of Spain; and one met these fallen princes in the squares and streets, bowing with distinct courtesy to any that chose to salute them.
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