FullReads

I have known Dort and the little ‘drecht across the way for some fifteen years, five of which have slipped by since I last opened my umbrella along its quaint quays. To my great joy nothing has changed. The old potato boat still lies close to the quay, under the overhanging elms. The same dear old man and his equally dear old wife still make their home beneath its hipped roof. I know, for it is here I lunch, the cargo forming the chief dish, followed by a saucer of stewed currants, a cup of coffee–(more hymns here)–and a loaf of bread from the baker’s. The old Groote Kirk still towers aloft–the highest building in Holland, they say; the lazy, red-sailed luggers drift up and down, their decks gay with potted plants; swiss curtains at the cabin windows, the wife holding the tiller while the man trims the sail. The boys still clatter over the polished cobbles–an aggressive mob when school lets out–and a larger crop, I think, than in the years gone by, and with more noise–my umbrella being the target. Often a spoilt fish or half a last week’s cabbage comes my way, whereupon Bob awakes to instant action with a consequent scattering, the bravest and most agile making faces from behind wharf spiles and corners. Peter used to build a fence of oars around me to keep them off, but Bob takes it out in swearing.

Only once did he silence them. They were full grown, this squad, and had crowded the old man against a tree under which I had backed as shelter from a passing shower. There came a blow straight from the shoulder, a sprawling boy, and Bob was in the midst of them, his right sleeve rolled up, showing a full-rigged ship tattooed in India ink. What poured from him I learned afterward was an account of his many voyages to the Arctic and around the Horn, as the label on his arm proved–an experience which, he shouted, would be utilized in pounding them up into fish bait if they did not take to their heels. After that he always went to sleep with one eye open, the boys keeping awake with two–and out of my way–a result which interested me the more.

If my Luigi was not growing restless in my beloved Venice (it is wonderful how large a portion of the earth I own) I would love to pass the rest of my summer along these gray canals, especially since Bob’s development brings a daily surprise. Only to-day I caught sight of him half hidden in an angle of a wall, surrounded by a group of little tots who were begging him for paper pin-wheels which a vender had stopped to sell, an infinitesimal small coin the size of a cuff button purchasing a dozen or more. When I again looked up from a canvas each tot had a pin-wheel, and later on Bob, that much poorer in pocket, sneaked back and promptly went to sleep.

But even Bob’s future beatification cannot hold me. I yearn for the white, blinding light and breathless lagoons, and all that makes Venice the Queen City of the World.

Luigi meets me inside the station. It takes a soldo to get in, and Luigi has but few of them, but he is always there. His gondola is moored to the landing steps outside–a black swan of a boat, all morocco cushions and silk fringes; the product of a thousand years of tinkering by the most fastidious and luxurious people of ancient or modern times, and still to-day the most comfortable conveyance known to man.’

Hurry up, you who have never known a gondola or a Luigi! A vile-smelling, chuggity-chug is forcing its way up every crooked canal, no matter how narrow. Two Venetian shipyards are hammering away on their hulls or polishing their motors. Soon the cost of production will drop to that of a gondola. Then look out! There are eight thousand machinists in the Arsenal earning but five francs a day, any one of whom can learn to run a motor boat in a week, thus doubling their wages. Worse yet–the world is getting keener every hour for speedy things. I may be wrong–I hope and pray I am–but it seems to me that the handwriting is already on the wall. “This way to the Museo Civico,” it reads–“if you want to find a gondola of twenty-five years ago.” As for the Luigis and the Esperos–they will then have given up the unequal struggle.