Water boulevard

The Colonel and the driver walked over to the Venice side of the road and looked across the lagoon that was whipped by the strong, cold wind from the mountains that sharpened all the outlines of buildings so that they were geometrically clear.

“That’s Torcello directly opposite us,” the Colonel pointed. “That’s where the people lived that were driven off from the mainland by the Visigoths. They built that church you see there with the square tower. There were thirty thousand people who lived there once and built that church to honour their Lord and to worship him. Then, after they built it, the mouth of the Sile River silted up or a big flood changed it, and all that land we came through just now got flooded and started to breed mosquitoes and malaria hit them.

He stopped. “Am I boring you, Jackson?”

“No, sir. I had no idea who pioneered Venice.”

“It was the boys from Torcello. They were very tough and had very good taste in building. They came from a little place up the coast, called Caorle. But they drew on all the people from the towns and farms behind when the Visigoths over-ran them.

But by that time, they were trading so far to the east that the architecture is pretty Byzantine for my taste. They never built any better than at the start there in Torcello. That’s Torcello there.”

It was, indeed.

“St Mark’s square is where the pigeons are and where they have that big cathedral that looks sort of like a moving picture palace, isn’t it?”

“Right, Jackson. You’re on the ball. If that’s the way you look at it. Now you look beyond Torcello and you will see the lovely campanile on Burano that has damn near as much list on it as the leaning tower of Pisa. That Burano is a very overpopulated little island where the women make wonderful lace, and the men make bambinis and work day-times in the glass factories in that next island you see on beyond with the other campanile, which is Murano. They make wonderful glass day-times for the rich of all the world, and then they come home on the little vaporetto and make bambinis. Not everyone passes every night with his wife though. They hunt ducks nights too, with big punt guns, out along the edge of the marshes on this lagoon you’re looking across now. All night long on a moonlight night you hear the shots.” He paused.

“Now when you look past Murano you see Venice. That’s my town. There’s plenty more I could show you, but I think we probably ought to roll now. But take one good look at it. This is where you can see how it all happened. But nobody ever looks at it from here.”

“It’s a beautiful view. Thank you, sir.”

“O.K.”,’ the Colonel said. “Let’s roll.”

Can there be anyone who has not had to overcome a fleeting sense of dread, a secret shudder of uneasiness on stepping for the first time or after a long interval of years into a Venetian gondola? How strange a vehicle it is,  coming down unchanged from times of old romance, and so characteristically black, the way no other thing is black except a coffin -a vehicle evoking lawless adventures in the plashing stillness of night, and still more strongly evoking death itself the bier, the dark obsequies, the last silent journey! And has it been observed that the seat of such a chair with its coffin-black lacquer and dull black upholstery, is the softest, the most voluptuous, most enervating seat in the world? 

Aschenbuch became aware of this when he had settled down feet, sitting opposite his luggage, which was neatly bled at the pow. The oarsmen were still quarrelling; raucously, unintelligibly, igibly, with threatening gestures. But in the peculiar silence of this city of water their voices seemed to be softly absorbed, to become bodiless, dissipated above the sea. It was sultry here in the harbor. As the warm breath of the sirocco touched him, as he leaned back on cushions over the yielding element, the traveler closed his eyes in the enjoyment of this lassitude as sweet as it was unaccustomed. It will be a short ride, he thought; if only it could last forever! In a gently swaying motion he felt himself gliding away from the crowd and the confusion of voices.

How still it was growing all around him! There was nothing to be heard except the plashing of the oar, the dull slap of the wave against the boat’s prow where it rose up steep and black and armed at its tip like a halberd, and a third sound also: that of a voice speaking and murmuring -it was the gondolier, whispering and muttering to himself between his teeth, in intermittent grunts pressed out of him by the labour of his arms. Aschenbach looked up and noticed with some consternation that the lagoon was widening round him and that his gondola was heading out to sea. It was thus evident that he must not relax too completely, but give some attention to the proper execution of his instructions.

‘Well! To the vaporetto stop!’ he said, half turning round. The muttering ceased, but no answer came.

“I said to the vaporetto stop!” he repeated, turning round completely and looking up into the face of the gondolier, who was standing behind him on his raised deck, towering between him and the pale sky. He was a man of displeasing, indeed brutal appearance, wearing blue seaman’s clothes, with a yellow scarf round his waist and a shapeless, already fraying straw hat tilted rakishly on his head. To judge by the cast of his face and the blond curling moustache under his snub nose, he was quite evidently not of Italian origin. Although rather slightly built, so that one would not have thought him particularly well suited to his job, he plied his soar with great energy, putting his whole body into every stroke. Occasionally the effort made him retract his lips and bare his white teeth. With his reddish eyebrows knitted, he stared right over his passenger’s head as he answered peremptorily, almost insolently:

‘You are going to the Lido.’ Aschenbach replied:

‘Of course. But I only engaged this gondola to row me across to San Marco. I wish to take the vaporetto.’

‘You not take the vaporetto, signore’

‘And why not?’

‘Because the vaporetto does not carry luggage.’ 

That was correct, as Aschenbach now remembered. He was silent. But the man’s abrupt, presumptuous manner, so uncharacteristic of the way foreigners were usually treated in this country, struck him as unacceptable. He said:

‘That is my affair. I may wish to deposit my luggage. Will you kindly  turn round.’

There was silence. The oar plashed, the dull slap of the water against the bow continued, and the talking and muttering began again: the gondolier was talking to himself between his teeth.

What was to be done? Alone on the sea with this st uncannily resolute fellow, the traveller could see I compelling him to obey his instructions. And in any case, how luxurious a rest he might have here if he simply accepted the situation!  Had he not wished the trip were longer, wished it to last forever? It was wisest to let things take their course, and above all it was very agreeable to do so. A magic spell of  indolence seemed to emanate from his seat, from his low black-upholstered armchair, so softly rocked of the high-handed gondolier behind him. The thought that he had perhaps fallen into the hands of a criminal floated dreamily across Auchenbach’s mind-powerless to stir him to any active plan of self-defence. There was the more annoying possibility that the whole thing was simply a device for extorting money from him. A kind of pride or a sense of duty, a recollection, so to speak, that there are precautions to be taken against such things, impelled him to make one further effort. He asked: 

‘What is your charge for the trip?’

‘And looking straight over his head, the gondolier answered: ‘You will pay, signore.’

The proscribed retort to this was clear enough. Aschenbach answered mechanically:  

‘I shall pay nothing, absolutely nothing, if you take me where I do not want to go.’ 

‘The signore wants to go to the Lido.’

‘But, not with you.’

‘I can row you well’

‘True enough, thought Aschenbach, relaxing. True enough, you will row me well. Even if you are after my cash and dispatch me to the House of Hades with a blow of your oar from behind, you will have rowed me well.   

April 21th

Today we visit Venice on a gondola; this will allow us to see the whole picture. 

Venice is the pearl of Italy; I have seen nothing of  comparable beauty. I know of only one city that comes close -but by far- and only for its architecture: it’s Oxford. In the whole peninsula, nothing can be compared to it. Thinking of the dirty streets in Rome and Naples, thinking of the dry, narrow streets of Florence and Siena, and then looking at those marble palaces, those marble bridges, those marble churches, that superb embroidery of columns, balconies and windows, Gothic, Moorish, Byzantine cornices, and the universal presence of moving, glistening water, one wonders why we didn’t come here right away, why we wasted two months in other cities, why we did not spend all of our time in Venice.

We plan to settle there, we swear we will come back;  for the first time, a city is admired not only with the mind, but with the heart and the senses […]. We feel ready to be happy; we tell ourselves that life is beautiful. All we need to do is to just open our eyes: the gondola slides with an insensible movement; we lie down and let ourselves go completely, mind and body. A moist and soft air caresses the cheeks.

The Grand Canal unfolds its curves between two rows of palaces, each built separately and for itself, which have unwittingly assembled their diversities to embellish it. Most of them date back to the Middle Ages with their ogival windows crowned with trefoils, latticework balconies of finials and rosettes. A rich Gothic fantasy flourishes in their marble lacework without ever falling into sadness or ugliness; other palaces, from the Renaissance, stage their three superimposed rows of antique columns. Porphyry and serpentine encrust their precious and polished stone above the doors. Several facades are pink or mottled with soft tints, and their arabesques resemble the lattices that the wave draws on fine sand. Time has put its grayish and melted livery on all these old forms, and the morning light laughs deliciously in the great spreading water.

The canal turns, and Santa Maria della Salute shows up with its domes, its heaps of sculptures, and a pediment laden with statues: the church rises from the water like rich marine vegetation, like a splendid and strange whitish blanching coral. Further down, on another island, San Giorgio Maggiore, all rounded and bristling, like a pompous shell of mother-of-pearl. 

We set off again with our eyes turned to San Marco basilica, its campanile, its square, its ducal palace. There is probably no second gem in the world like this one.

The frequent gondola trips towards the Lido constituted my chief enjoyment during practically the whole of my stay in Venice. It was more especially on our homeward journeys at sunset that I was always overpowered by unique impressions. During the first part of our stay in the September of that year we saw on one of these occasions the marvellous apparition of the great comet, which at that time was at its highest brilliancy, and was generally said to portend an imminent catastrophe. The singing of a popular choral society, trained by an official of the Venetian arsenal, seemed like a real lagoon idyll. They generally sang only three-part naturally harmonised folk-songs. 

It was new to me not to hear the higher voice rise above the compass of the alto, that is to say, without touching the soprano, thereby imparting to the sound of the chorus a manly youthfulness hitherto unknown to me. On fine evenings they glided down the Grand Canal in a large illuminated gondola, stopping before a few palaces as if to serenade (when requested and paid for so doing, be it understood), and generally attracted a number of other gondolas in their wake. 

During one sleepless night, when I felt impelled to go out on to my balcony in the small hours, I heard for the first time the famous old folk-song of the gondolieri. I seemed to hear the first call, in the stillness of the night, proceeding from the Rialto to about a mile away like a rough lament, and answered in the same tone from a yet further distance in another direction. This melancholy dialogue, which was repeated at longer intervals, affected me so much that I could not fix the very simple musical component parts in my memory. However, on a subsequent occasion I was told that this folk-song was of great poetic interest. As I was returning home late one night on the gloomy canal, the moon appeared suddenly and illuminated the marvellous palaces and the tall figure of my gondolier towering above the stern of the gondola, slowly moving his huge sweep. Suddenly he uttered a deep wail, not unlike the cry of an animal; the cry gradually gained in strength, and formed itself, after a long-drawn ‘Oh!’ into the simple musical exclamation ‘Venezia!’ This was followed by other sounds of which I have no distinct recollection, as I was so much moved at the time. Such were the impressions that to me appeared the most characteristic of Venice during my stay there, and they remained with me until the completion of the second act of Tristan, and possibly even suggested to me the long-drawn wail of the shepherd’s horn at the beginning of the third act. 

My gondola followed the course of the small canals; like the mysterious hand of a Genie leading me through the maze of this oriental city, they seemed, as I advanced, to be carving a road for me through the heart of a crowded quarter which they clove asunder, barely dividing with a slender fissure, arbitrarily carved, the tall houses with their tiny Moorish windows; and, as though the magic guide had been holding a candle in his hand and were lighting the way for me, they kept casting ahead of them a ray of sunlight for which they cleared a path. […]

The sun had barely begun to set when I went to fetch my mother from the Piazzetta.

In this way, the mansions arranged along either bank of the canal made one think of objects of nature, but of a nature which seemed to have created its works with a human imagination. But at the same time (because of the character of the impressions, always urban, which Venice gives us almost in the open sea, upon those waves whose flow and ebb make themselves felt twice daily, and which alternately cover at high tide and uncover at low tide the splendid outside stairs of the palaces), as we should have done in Paris upon the boulevards, in the Champs-Elysées, in the Bois, in any wide thoroughfare that was a fashionable resort, in the powdery evening light, we passed the most beautifully dressed women, almost all foreigners, who, propped luxuriously upon the cushions of their floating vehicle, took their place in the procession, stopped before a palace in which there was a friend whom they wished to see, sent to inquire whether she was at home.

And while, as they waited for the answer, they prepared to leave a card, as they would have done at the door of the Hôtel de Guermantes, they turned to their guide-book to find out the period, the style of the palace, not without being shaken, as though upon the crest of a blue wave, by the thrust of the flashing, prancing water, which took alarm on finding itself pent between the dancing gondola and the slapping marble. And thus any excursion, even when it was only to pay calls or to go shopping, was threefold and unique in this Venice where the simplest social coming and going assumed at the same time the form and the charm of a visit to a museum and a trip on the sea.

The joy of these Nereus sons never forsakes them: clothed by the sun, they are fed by the sea. They do not lie about idly like the lazzaroni in Naples: ever stirring, they are sailors who lack ships and work, but who would still carry on the trade of the world and win the Battle of Lepanto, if the days of Venetian liberty and glory were not past. At six o’clock in the morning, they come to their gondolas, fastened to posts with their prows aground. Then they begin to scrape and wash their barchette at the Traghetti, just as dragoons curry, brush and sponge their horses on picket.

The ticklish sea-horse is restive and refuses to stand still under the movements of its horseman, who draws water in a wooden vessel and pours it over the sides and into the well of the craft. He repeats several times the aspersion, taking care to discard the water from the surface of the sea in order to obtain the cleaner water below. Then he scrubs the oars, polishes the brasses and the glass of the little black deck-house, dusts the cushions and carpets and rubs up the iron head of the prow. This daily routine is not done without a few words of humour or affection addressed, in the pretty Venetian dialect, to the skittish or docile gondola.

When the gondola’s toilet is completed, the gondolier proceeds to make his own. He combs his hair, shakes out his jacket and his blue, red or grey cap, washes his face, feet and hands. His wife, daughter or mistress brings him a bowl containing a mess of vegetables, bread and meat.

The favoured gondolier, with his oar upraised, starts out at the back of his craft, even as Achilles used to fly in former days, or as one of Franconi’s circus-riders gallops to-day on the crupper of a fiery steed. The gondola, shaped like a skate, glides over the water as over ice: “Sia, stati! Sta longo!” that does for the whole day. Then night comes, and the calle will see my gondolier singing and drinking with his zitella, the half-sequin which I leave him, as I go off most certainly to replace Henry V on the throne.