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As may be imagined, the traghetti vary greatly in the amount and quality of their custom. By far the best are those in the neighbourhood of the hotels upon the Grand Canal. At any one of these a gondolier during the season is sure of picking up some foreigner or other who will pay him handsomely for comparatively light service. A traghetto on the Giudecca, on the contrary, depends upon Venetian traffic. The work is more monotonous, and the pay is reduced to its tariffed minimum. So far as I can gather, an industrious gondolier, with a good boat, belonging to a good traghetto, may make as much as ten or fifteen francs in a single day. But this cannot be relied on. They therefore prefer a fixed appointment with a private family, for which they receive by tariff five francs a day, or by arrangement for long periods perhaps four francs a day, with certain perquisites and small advantages. It is great luck to get such an engagement for the winter. The heaviest anxieties which beset a gondolier are then disposed of. Having entered private service, they are not allowed to ply their trade on the traghetto, except by stipulation with their masters. Then they may take their place one night out of every six in the rank and file. The gondoliers have two proverbs, which show how desirable it is, while taking a fixed engagement, to keep their hold on the traghetto. One is to this effect: il traghetto è un buon padrone. The other satirises the meanness of the poverty-stricken Venetian nobility: pompa di servitù, misera insegna. When they combine the traghetto with private service, the municipality insists on their retaining the number painted on their gondola; and against this their employers frequently object. It is therefore a great point for a gondolier to make such an arrangement with his master as will leave him free to show his number. The reason for this regulation is obvious. Gondoliers are known more by their numbers and their traghetti than their names. They tell me that though there are upwards of a thousand registered in Venice, each man of the trade knows the whole confraternity by face and number. Taking all things into consideration, I think four francs a day the whole year round are very good earnings for a gondolier. On this he will marry and rear a family, and put a little money by. A young unmarried man, working at two and a half or three francs a day, is proportionately well-to-do. If he is economical, he ought upon these wages to save enough in two or three years to buy himself a gondola. A boy from fifteen to nineteen is called a mezz' uomo, and gets about one franc a day. A new gondola with all its fittings is worth about a thousand francs. It does not last in good condition more than six or seven years. At the end of that time the hull will fetch eighty francs. A new hull can be had for three hundred francs. The old fittings brass sea-horses or cavalli, steel prow or ferro, covered cabin or felze, cushions and leather-covered back-board or stramazetto, maybe transferred to it. When a man wants to start a gondola, he will begin by buying one already half past service a gondola da traghetto or di mezza et
"You will be attacking the wrong man. The marchese is no better than he should be, but he is perfectly galant' uomo, and would throw no sort of difficulty in your way. But you are crediting him with too much zeal. He has many irons in the fire, as we say; and, after all, Miss Virginia is not the only wench in the world." "Per Bacco," said Virginia, "that's true."
Listen to his own description of himself in one of the popular canzonetti sung about the streets by wandering musicians to the accompaniment of a violin and guitar: "Ma per altro son uomo ingegnoso, Non possiedo, ma sono padrone; Vendo l' acqua con spirto e limone Finche dura d' estate il calor. "Ho an capello di paglia, ma bello!
At the same time I sang several of the modern fermatas, which rush up and down and hum like a well-spun peg-top, striking a few villanous chords by way of accompaniment Krespel laughed outrageously and screamed, "Ha! ha! methinks I hear our German-Italians or our Italian-Germans struggling with an aria from Pucitta, or Portogallo, or some other Maestro di capella, or rather schiavo d'un primo uomo."
The Italians say, La speranza è il sogno d'an uomo svegliato. Was Willis also dreaming with his eyes open? Might not the wish be father to the thought, and the thought produce the fancy? There is only one other supposition to be hazarded could it be possible, in spite of all his researches, that Willis did see what he maintained with so much pertinacity he had seen?
She does not sing as well as she acts, and is the wife of a violin-player at the opera. Her name is Masci. The opera was the "Clemenza di Tito." Seconda donna not ugly on the stage, young, but nothing superior. Primo uomo, un musico, Cicognani, a fine voice, and a beautiful cantabile. The other two musici young and passable. Ballerino primo good, but an ugly dog.
"Nay, he could not fail his Venice for a festa that doth him such honor; Messer San Marco è galant uomo! But how then, Tonio, thou hast a sposalizio of thine own with thy string of coral and thy fazzoletto fit for a Signorina: the bells will be chiming for thee to-morrow?" "Basta, basta!"
"To be sure, but I come from the village this side of San Sebastiano, and my second cousin Ricardo is his uomo d'affare his overseer. It is a very great position of trust which Ricardo occupies, for I must tell you that he attends to the leasing of the entire estate during the Conte's absence in France, or wherever it is he draws those marvelous pictures. Ricardo collects the rents."
"Che sempre l' uomo in cui pensier rampoglia Sovra pensier, da se dilunga il segno, Perche la foga l' un dell' altro insolla." "For always he in whom one thought buds forth Out of another farther puts the goal. For each has only force to mar the other."
"Pleurez, pleurez, mes yeux, et fondez vous en eau, La moitie de ma vie a mis l'autre au tombeau." "Il pover uomo che non sen' era accorto, Andava combattendo, ed era morto." See his account of the siege of Gibraltar. Life of Hyder Ali Khan, vol. ii. p. 231. See the advice of Cleomenes to Crius. It is said that the waters of the Garonne are famed for a similar virtue. The stomach.
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