XVII
HAPS AND HAPPENINGS
Beau Rivage, Venice, May 25th.
As we first saw Venice from the train, across a stretch of green marsh, its domes, spires, churches, and bridges seemed to rise out of the water just as you see them in Turner's pictures, with such an atmosphere as that great artist knew how to paint, veiling the delicate ethereal beauty of this bride of the sea. We were aroused from our rapt contemplation of the scene before us by the bustle and commotion of the arrival of the train and questions about luggage, hotels, and the proper fees to be given to the men who pushed our gondola off from the landing. If ever trunks are endurable it is when, as in Venice, one glides away with them in a gondola over summer seas.
There was some sort of a celebration last night, something special, I mean, for Venice must always appear more or less en fête. When we stepped into a gondola after dinner, the many boats with their gay pennons of all colors and the skiffs with their rich brown and yellow sails made the Grand Canal appear like a carnival of nations. And what a background for a carnival is the Canalazzo, as the Venetians call it, with its long vista of palaces, their pali painted in various colors, the Dogana surmounted by its curious weathercock, Fortune, aptly typifying the vicissitudes of Venice, Santa Maria della Salute glowing in the evening light with the shades of a bride rose, San Giorgio of a deep red, the Doge's Palace with its long, low water-front, the Bridge of Sighs spanning the dark canal that lies between a palace and a prison, and out on the open Piazzetta the two huge granite pillars which we see in so many pictures! One of these pillars is surmounted by the statue of St. Theodore, an ancient and now deposed patron saint of Venice, the other by the Lion of St. Mark, eager, watchful, dominant, clearly defined against the blue of the sky—for here the twilight lasts long, and far into the night the sky is of an exquisite, translucent blue such as one usually sees far north, much farther north than Venice. This is a part of the atmospheric charm, which makes it as impossible to describe this city of pearl and opaline tints and golden and crimson glows as it is to put the colors of a sunset on paper. Later the moon rose, and we floated over a silver sea, while strains of music, the cries of the gondoliers, and the songs of pleasure-parties were wafted to us across the water. Zelphine's eyes shone with rapturous delight; the excitement of the stimulating air and the beauty of the scene sent the red blood to Angela's cheeks until they flushed to as deep a rose as under the fire of the Count de B.'s most extravagant compliments, and I—well, I have no idea of how I looked, I only know that I felt as if every craving for beauty that I had known in all my life was satisfied entirely.
Miss Morris, who had already experienced her first thrills of delight "upon such a night as this," watched us in silence and we were thus spared the distraction of voluble enthusiasm; of deep, restrained enthusiasm there was quite enough for one gondola.
May 27th.
We are lodged in a pleasant, airy hotel on the Grand Canal where it begins to widen out toward the sea, and opposite the Island of San Giorgio Maggiore. This hotel is not absolutely in the canal, like most of the houses of this "water-logged town," as some Western traveller dubbed it, but has a strip of pavement in front, just enough dry land to make us realize that we still belong to the earth. On general principles I should say that the Venetians never sleep, for over the stone flagging between our hotel and the Canalazzo people are tramping all night, laughing, chatting, and singing. And we, in sympathy with them, sit by the windows for hours, feeling that the nights are too radiantly beautiful to be devoted to so prosaic a business as sleeping, which, as Angela remarks, "can be done in any old place." The child has so considerately refrained from having "the time of her life" in Italy and from measuring things generally by "galores," that we occasionally allow her to indulge in an innocent bit of slang.
May 28th.
Our days glide by as swiftly as those of the "pilgrim stranger" in the hymn that we used to sing at Sunday School. We spend our mornings in churches or at the Accademia, revelling in the gorgeous canvases of Tintoretto, Titian, Paul Veronese, and Carpaccio. The color in Carpaccio's Presentation of Christ in the Temple is beautiful, and as vivid as if it had been painted yesterday, quite equal to Ghirlandajo's in his Adoration of the Magi, which we saw at the Foundling Hospital in Florence. The Child in Carpaccio's Presentation is a happy, smiling human baby, and the three little angels playing upon musical instruments are charming. The most fascinating of these cherubs, however, are in Giovanni Bellini's Madonnas at the Church of the Redentore and at the Frari. Zelphine has bought a dozen photographs of her favorite cherub in the picture in which the Madonna holds the sleeping Babe upon her lap, while the two darling cherubs play to him on mandolins. The little fellow on the right is not as pretty and chubby as his brother; but to prevent jealousy between the two I have bought some of his pictures for my collection.
Of course we spend many hours in and around St. Mark's, for, like the bride of the Scriptures, this church is beautiful within and without. The day after our arrival, on our way home from the Posta and the Rialto, through the Merceria, a part of Venice in which one may really walk a considerable distance, we suddenly stepped into the Piazza of San Marco, with its fluttering pigeons, its arcades, its Clock-tower, and at the end the marvellous façade of the church, rich in color, its gilded mosaics glittering in the sun and the "glorious team of horses" dashing toward us. Since then, wherever we may be going, we always seem to cross the Square of St. Mark, and by sunlight or twilight or moonlight, or even electric light, by which we saw San Marco last night when we went to Florian's for ices, it is always bewilderingly beautiful. Rich and varied, "gorgeous in the wild, luxurious fancies of the East," is St. Mark's; almost too gorgeous it would be, had not time softened and mellowed its vivid colors, and if its setting were not against a sea and sky of surpassing brilliancy.
Our afternoons and evenings are spent on the water or at the Lido, where we have tea in the garden, or with one of our Philadelphia friends who has a cabin, after the Venetian fashion, on this narrow strip of land that runs out into the ocean. It is hot now at mid-day, and one needs to keep out of the sun between the hours of one and four; but after that there is usually a breeze and always coolness at the Lido.
We spent some hours to-day in the Palazzo Rezzonico, which now belongs to Mr. Robert Barrett Browning. One large room on the second floor is filled with furniture and pictures from the Casa Guidi in Florence, among other things Mrs. Browning's little table upon which she wrote her songs for Italy, and her small, old-fashioned, green leather writing-desk, which looked as if she had left it but yesterday, with pen and paper and some pressed flowers inside. On one side of the room, toward the canal, in a recess in the wall, is a little shrine that the poet's son has placed here in memory of his mother. In gold letters on a white ground are the well-known lines from the tablet upon the Casa Guidi.
The poet Browning spent the last weeks of his life in a suite of rooms on the lower floor of the Palazzo Rezzonico, and here he died, which fact is recorded upon a tablet on the outside wall. We stopped to reread the inscription upon the gray palace wall. A young girl who was with her mother in a gondola quite near was reading aloud in English the Italian words upon the tablet, "Robert Browning died in this house, December 12, 1889," and the impressive and quite untranslatable "Venezia pose." With a questioning look at us she repeated the familiar lines from "De Gustibus":
"Open my heart and you will see,
Graven inside of it, 'Italy,'"
adding, "But I don't see where the poetry comes in."
Although Zelphine, amiable as she is, is quite capable of withering and shrivelling with a glance any one who speaks slightingly of Robert Browning's poetry, she turned to the girl and said quite pleasantly, "No, there are no rhymes or jingles, only the deep thought of a great poet who loved Italy truly."
"Oh," exclaimed the girl, "I did not understand."
"Evidently," said Zelphine, as we rowed out into the Grand Canal, "and for the same reason that Kipling's girl of 'the rag and the bone and the hank of hair' did not understand."
We really should have become used to people who do not understand, we meet so many of them.
Riva San Lorenzo, Verona,Sunday, June 5th.
You will be surprised to learn that we have quitted our beloved Venice, and quite suddenly, which is, I believe, the only way that we could have disentangled ourselves from the allurements of that fairy city. In the last week quite a number of our friends arrived from Florence and elsewhere, and there have been afternoon teas at the Lido and at Mrs. Allen's little apartment on the Grand Canal nearly opposite the palace of his superseded majesty, Don Carlos of Spain, water-parties every night, and just as we were stepping into a gondola yesterday morning, en route for Padua, a note was handed to Zelphine containing a charming invitation from Mrs. B., to take tea and spend the afternoon with her at the Palazzino Tasso. She has been at Borca in the Dolomites for a fortnight, and wrote that she would be at home in time to receive us on Monday afternoon. So you see how difficult it was for us to get away from this fascinating place; but having planned to take this little giro with Miss Morris, we set our faces resolutely westward.
We spent a day at Padua, which is on the way to Verona, as there are some frescoes by Mantegna, Titian, Giotto, and Palma Vecchio that Miss Morris was particularly anxious to see. Our visit to the Basilica of St. Anthony of Padua, which with its seven domes is larger than San Marco, was not entirely satisfactory, as a high mass was being celebrated before the altar above which are the Donatello bronzes, and we were obliged to return in the afternoon or give up all thought of seeing those superb reliefs. At the Scuola del Carmine we were abundantly compensated for all other disappointments, as here we found a series of frescoes representing events in the life of the parents of the Blessed Virgin, as realistic in design and as frank in execution as the Giotto paintings in Assisi. We wondered in what fertile brain had originated the pathetic story here represented by Giotto and his pupils. Miss Morris says that she intends to look up the story of Joachim and Anna in the lives of the saints, assuring us that we shall find a continuation of their domestic trials and experiences on the walls of the Brera at Milan. No frescoes except those at Assisi have interested us as much as these, not on account of their beauty, but for their human feeling. These early Paduan masters treated sacred subjects with realistic simplicity and yet with perfect reverence and devotional spirit.
On the piazza of the Cappella San Giorgio is Donatello's fine bronze statue of General Gattamelata. This statue, the Marcus Aurelius in Rome, and the Colleoni in Venice are considered the greatest equestrian statues in the world. Beautiful as is this Gattamelata, which possesses all the spirit and grace of Donatello, it does not compare with the Colleoni. No man of bronze or marble ever sat his horse with the strength and ease with which the grand, dominant figure of the Italian condottiere sits his superb charger and rides out boldly into space. Miss Morris says that we may be pleased to know that Mr. Ruskin quite agreed with us about the Colleoni.
As Verona is only a two hours' ride from Padua, we reached here in time to gain a general view of its fine old sculptured buildings, arches, and bridges, and to see in the glow of sunset Diocletian's famous amphitheatre, which looks almost as large as the Coliseum and is more complete, as its stones have not been carted off so ruthlessly for the building of palaces.
This morning we saw the Casa di Romeo and the balconied home of Giulietta, sorry-looking abodes for youth and beauty such as theirs, although some of the carvings on these old buildings and the exterior frescoes still suggest bygone grandeur. A beautiful outside stairway in the Piazza dei Signori near the Scaliger tombs so charmed Miss Morris that she stopped to sketch it, while we visited the cathedral and several churches.
We are now sitting upon a balcony—the place of all others to sit upon a balcony, even if there is not a Romeo in sight—listening to the song of the rushing Adige which flows beneath us, and looking out upon the mountains beyond. Zelphine and I are writing, while Miss Morris and Angela make water-color sketches of the scene before us, and try to get on their brushes some of the soft, rich shades of brown and yellow that time and the light of the setting sun have given to the ancient palace of the Scaligers and to the fourteenth-century bridge that spans the river a short distance from this hotel. On the terrace beneath our balcony some Italians are dining and chatting gaily. When the lovely sunset glow has quite faded out and the evening light has deepened to twilight, we shall join them and dine al fresco.
To-morrow we take a train for Milan, that is, if the sketches are satisfactory; if not, we may stay here another day.
Hotel de l'Europe, June 7th.
Instead of writing to you from Milan, I am sending you another letter from Venice. A strange thing happened yesterday, or, rather, two strange things have happened. Zelphine came to my room at the Riva San Lorenzo late on Sunday night, her face wearing the anxious look that betokens an uneasy mind.
"What is the matter, Zelphine?" I asked. "You look as if you were trying to make up your mind." We have long since decided that this is the mental process that is most wearing to the brain of the traveller, and I was not surprised when she said, "Yes, that is the trouble. I have attempted three separate times to answer Emily B.'s note, and I simply cannot do it."
"Oh, I took for granted that you had mailed that note on Saturday evening."
"No, Margaret, I have never written it at all. The truth is, I want to see Mrs. B. so much that I have almost decided to return to Venice to-morrow, instead of going on to Milan."
"That is rather against your principles, Zelphine, you are so much opposed to doubling journeys and retracing steps," I said, trying to appear judicial in my tone, although I was delighted at the idea of returning to Venice, even for an afternoon.
"Yes, I know," said Zelphine, quite penitently, "but I may not soon again have a chance of seeing Emily B. I could meet you in Milan in a day or two."
"No, Zelphine," I said, in the tone of one who confers a distinguished favor, "I will go back to Venice with you. Angela may prefer to stay here, if Miss Morris remains."
"Angela will go with you," said our youngest, opening her door, which was scarcely necessary, as the transom was already open. "There is a blue necklace in one of those fascinating shops up on the piazza near the Clock-tower that I have been regretting ever since we left Venice. I thought it would be an extravagance to buy it, but nothing is extravagant when you want it so much, and when this is the very last chance to get it."
"Nothing," said Zelphine, laughing at Angela's comforting sophistry, "when your father's purse is always ready to honor your demands upon it. But what will Miss Morris say?"
That lady came to her door as if in answer to Zelphine's question, saying, "I have been wishing that I had bought another of the pretty lace collars that they are positively giving away in one of the little shops opposite the Church of San Zaccaria. I shall not return to buy it, but will commission Angela to bring it to Milan for me."
With so many good reasons for returning to Venice, I am sure that you will agree with me in thinking that it would have been flying in the face of Providence and turning our backs upon the gifts of the gods not to have retraced our steps.
I must confess to a positive thrill of delight when I again beheld the shining water-ways of Venice. Even the great warehouses, with their heaps of gorgeous dyes and stuffs, have a picturesqueness of their own; the palaces, no matter how dilapidated they may be, stand out rich and sumptuous in the sunshine; luxuriant vines depend from their balconies and drape the seamed and cracked walls; great barges heavy with their golden freight of fruit and melons go by; and ever on the steps are the children, "those untiring spectators of life." Why those children playing on the very edge of doom do not all come to an untimely end no man knows. The very small children are often fastened by a strap to the arm of the mother or grandmother, who knits placidly while her nursling plays on the steps near the water; but for those little boys who hop in and out of boats and hang over the piers as they gaze into the canals there must be an especially detailed guardian angel—the same, probably, who saved Mr. Cross from instant death when he fell into the Grand Canal. By the way, we are stopping at the Hôtel de l'Europe, where he and George Eliot spent their honeymoon, and where this accident occurred which might have ended so tragically. You may remember that at the time there was some foolish talk about suicide; but we, who stand on these balconies and terraces overhanging the water, realize that drowning and suicidal intent do not need to go hand in hand in Venice.
Our afternoon at the Palazzino Tasso was delightful. We had tea and much pleasant conversation with Mrs. B., in her pretty drawing-room. As she has lived long in Venice, and in consequence of her own literary connections has met most of the writers who have come here, she had many pleasant and amusing recollections to relate of the Storys, Mr. Browning, and many other great folk.
We were afterwards taken into the large garden, where dear old-fashioned pinks and tall annunciation lilies filled the air with delicious fragrance. Mrs. B. generously broke off for us great heads of lily-blooms, which we carried off with us, sweet mementos of an afternoon that was well worth coming back to Venice for.
As we drew near our hotel we noticed on the terrace a portly figure that had a familiar look, as it stood there silhouetted against the façade of the Europe. A strange light shone from Zelphine's eyes; but it was Angela who broke the silence by exclaiming, "That gentleman on the landing really looks like Mr. Leonard!"
"It is Mr. Leonard," I said, as we drew nearer, and thus we recognized him first, although he was waiting there for us. He naturally did not expect to see a gondola full of women bearing tall lily-stalks in their hands, looking for all the world like part of a Venetian pageant. The smile that irradiated Walter Leonard's face, when he finally recognized the three Botticelli ladies as those he had come to seek, was beautiful to behold. The mingling of surprise and delight on Zelphine's face entirely exonerated her from any complicity in this sudden appearance, although Angela and I chaff her unmercifully about her determination to return to see Mrs. B., and ask her if she does not believe more strongly than ever in telepathy. It was a rather curious coincidence, was it not? Yet, to quote a very trite saying, "truth is stranger than fiction."
Villa d'Este, Lake Como, June 15th.
Since my letter of June 7th, telling you of Mr. Leonard's sudden arrival in Venice, I have not sent you a line, not even an announcement of the engagement which of course soon followed. How or when the important affair was settled I know not. I can only tell you that the happy pair came to me with shining faces and asked for my blessing, which I freely gave. Angela has so far withheld her approval of the match, and is evidently very jealous of the "suitor," as she is pleased to call Mr. Leonard. She had begun to look upon Zelphine as her particular property, and Mr. Leonard's attempts to propitiate this unrelenting goddess are really quite pathetic. He offers her flowers every time that he brings them to Zelphine, and then, as he is far too polite to overlook my claims as chaperon-in-chief, I come in for my share of votive offerings.
Zelphine is so pleased with her own estate that she wishes to see all her friends equally happy. When Angela is pale or tired, she looks at her compassionately, and whispers to me that she is evidently regretting the Count de B. If Angela regrets any one, it is not the Count. She has long and frequent letters from Ludovico, from which she reads me choice bits, and there is always a message for me. Angela and I are naturally thrown very much upon our own resources, and the last days in Venice would have been rather dull for her had they not been enlivened by a number of entertainments given by our friends there in honor of the fidanzati. At one particularly charming afternoon tea, at the Lido, Angela was so much admired by a young Italian that I should have had another Count de B. affair on my hands had we not left Venice soon after. Zelphine and Walter Leonard would have been satisfied to stay on indefinitely, spending their afternoons and evenings floating about in gondolas and their mornings in the shops buying presents for the children at home, whom the mamma elect has already adopted with enthusiasm. We were, however, fairly driven away from Venice last week by the heat and the mosquitoes, which are said to be unusually venomous this year. We have noticed that in whatever place we happen to be stopping, the disagreeables are always unusual.
Having spent most of the beautiful springtime in cities, we concluded to come directly to this pretty place on Lake Como, from whence we can make day-trips to Milan, which is only a little over an hour from here. The Villa d'Este, once a royal villa, now a delightfully comfortable hotel, was for some years the home of the discarded wife of "the most elegant gentleman in Europe." The entrance-hall and stairways are handsome and imposing, and the rooms spacious and airy. We breakfast in the salle de conversation and dine in a great banqueting-hall. The grounds of the villa are quite extensive, and during her residence here Queen Caroline interested herself in improving them in every way, so Dr. A. tells me, for, to add to our pleasure, my "Doctor Antonio" from San Remo is spending the month of June here. He knows every inch of this beautiful region and promises us many excursions in his motor car.
Picturesque as is the view of the lake and mountains from the front piazza and terrace, the part of the grounds that we most enjoy is the hillside behind the house, which abounds in mountain streams and cascades over which rustic bridges have been thrown, and where many wildwood paths lead to vine-covered pavilions, temples of love and temples of fame, these latter adorned with busts of distinguished men—all so odd and foreign, and so different from our idea of pleasure-grounds!
Adjoining the grounds of the Villa d'Este are those of the Villa Maximilian, which was the home of the unfortunate Archduke Maximilian and his wife during the early and happy years of their married life. The estate now belongs to a wealthy Milanese gentleman, who has had the good taste to make few changes in the house and gardens. This afternoon we all rowed across the lake to the Villa Pliniana on the opposite shore. This really classic spot owes its name to a remarkable spring of water near by, which Pliny speaks of in his letters. To-morrow we expect to make an all-day excursion to Bellagio and Cadenabbia. There are so many attractive resorts on the shores of this lake that we have not yet planned for a day in Milan at the Brera, whose wonders we hope to enjoy in the good company of Miss Morris.
June 17th.
I have a most humiliating confession to make: yesterday, in getting off the boat at this landing, I made a misstep and sprained my ankle. It is not a serious affair, I fancy, "pas grand chose," as Dr. A. says, but it is most vexatious, as we may be obliged to stay here for a fortnight, and we really need a couple of weeks in Paris to get Zelphine's trousseau and make other preparations for the wedding, which is to be in London the second week in July. I think the groom elect is secretly rejoiced over this delay, although openly most sympathetic and considerate, as it gives him a longer time here with Zelphine, and really, if I had looked all over Europe for a fitting scene for an accident, and with a view to lovers, I could not have found a more suitable place than this. Mr. Leonard says that I apologize so abjectly for what is not my fault, but my misfortune, that I remind him of a story that Dr. William H. Furness used to tell of a saintly old lady who frequently and formally apologized to her assembled family for being so long a-dying.
It is inglorious, as Zelphine says, to have had an accident here that I might much more conveniently have had stepping off a ferry-boat in New York or Brooklyn, to which Angela adds, "Yes, it would have been so much more up-to-date to have been thrown from an auto car, and it would certainly have been more dangerous."
I retail these bits of conversation to prove to you that my companions are disposed to be patient and even merry over my misfortune and their delay. And I, aside from the inconvenience, have nothing to complain of. I suffer little pain, under Dr. A.'s skilful treatment, and here I am, laid up in lavender on a sofa, in a room so spacious and elegant that I think it must have been Queen Caroline's boudoir. The walls and ceiling are decorated with Loves and Graces, and the long windows open out upon a balcony from which there is a fine view of the lake and the mountains beyond. I have more books than I could read in a month, sent me by the English people in the house. Zelphine and Angela bring me flowers and fruits, delicious great black cherries and a fruit unknown to us which they call nespole. These last I fear were stolen from Maximilian's garden, as the nespole hang most temptingly over the terraces there.
Dr. A. entertains me with interesting traditions of the neighborhood. This morning he brought me an old French book which gives a history of this villa, which was not, as I had supposed, a former possession of the princely house of Este, one of whose villas we saw at Tivoli. The name seems to have been purely a fancy on the part of the Queen. I am to have some passages translated for my benefit from a recent book written by an Italian upon Queen Caroline and her life at the Villa d'Este.
"A swallow without a nest, which for many years flew from city to city in Europe, Africa, and Asia," this author calls the unhappy Queen, upon which Dr. A. shrugs his shoulders, and says that bad as her husband was, he, for his part, has little admiration for Caroline of Brunswick. I have always entertained the most profound sympathy for this unfortunate lady, and we naturally have animated discussions over her rights and wrongs. I fancy that Signor Clerci is entirely on Dr. A.'s side of the argument, otherwise he would not so cheerfully offer to read me passages about the Queen's life at the Villa d'Este.
June 19th.
Last evening, to our surprise and joy, Mrs. Coxe arrived. She had learned that we were here, and of my accident, from Miss Morris, whom she met in Milan, and came at once, like the good Samaritan that she is, to cheer and comfort me. Now that I have so agreeable a companion, the rest of my party will not hesitate to go to Milan for a day at the Brera.
Mrs. Coxe is a perfect dear, and entertains me immensely; but, with all the blessings that I have been recounting to you, I feel a bit homesick to-night. Am I not unreasonable? The truth is, I shall miss Zelphine sadly if she and Mr. Leonard sail in August and if Angela and I do not return until October. Is there any chance of your getting over to England this summer? You had better come in time for the wedding.