The Miracle of the Images. Welby Thomas Cox, Jr.
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long, the examiners apparently satisfied that the ship wasn't rift with disease the engines began to thud again and the ship took up its passage through the Canale di San Marco which had been interrupted so near the goal. Now the stranger saw it once more, that landing place that takes the breath away, that amazing group of incredible structures the Republic set up to meet the awe struck eye of the approaching seafarer; the airy splendor of the palace and Bridge of Siege, the columns of lion and saint on the shore, the glory of the projecting flank of the fairy temple, the vista of gateway and clock. Looking he thought... that to come to Venice, by the station is like entering a palace by the back door. No one should approach, save by the high seas as he was doing now, this most improbable of cities.
The engines stopped. Gondolas pressed alongside, the landing stairs were let down, customs officials came on board...people went ashore. The stranger ordered a gondola. He meant to take up his abode by the sea and needed to be conveyed with his luggage to the landing stage of the little steamers that ply between the city and Lido. They called down his order to the surface of the water where the gondoliers were quarreling in dialect then came another delay while his trunk was carried down the ladder like stairs. Thus he was forced to endure the importunities of the ghastly young/old man, whose drunken state obscurely urged him to pay the stranger the honor of a formal farewell. "We wish you a very pleasant sojourn," he babbled, bowing and scraping. "Pray keep us in mind. Au revoir, excusez et bon jour, votre Excellance." He drooled, he blinked, he licked the corner of his mouth, and the little imperial bristled on his elderly chin. He put the tips of two fingers to his mouth and said thickly, "Give her our love, will you...here his upper plate fell down on the lower one...the stranger escaped down the stairs into the waiting boat.
Is there anyone but must repress a secret thrill, on arriving in Venice for the first time...or returning after a long absence...and stepping into a Venetian gondola? That singular conveyance, come down unchanged from ballad times, black as nothing else on earth except a coffin...what pictures it calls up of lawless, silent adventures in the plashing night; or even more what visions of death itself, the bier and solemn rites and last soundless voyage! And has anyone remarked that the seat in such a bark, the arm chair lacquered in coffin black and duly black upholstered, is the softest, most luxurious, most relaxing seat in the world...even the stranger remembered it as he let his mighty frame down at the Gondolier's feet. Even the voices of the disgruntled rowers was quieted by a strange stillness of the water-city seemed to take up their voices gently, to disembody and scatter them over the sea.
It was warm here in the harbor. The lukewarm air of the sirocco breathed upon the Stranger, he leaned his massive body among the cushions and gave himself to the yielding element, closing his eyes for the very pleasure in an indulgence as unaccustomed as was sweat. "The trip will be short," he remembered, and wished it might last forever. They gently swayed from the boat with its bustle and clamor of voices.
It grew still and stiller all about. No sound but the splash of the oars, the hollow slap of the wave against the steep, black Halbert-shaped, beak of the vessel, and one sound more-a muttering by fits and starts, expressed as it were by the motion of his arms, from the lips of the gondolier. He was talking to himself, between his teeth. The stranger glanced up and saw to his surprise that the lagoon was widening, his vessel was headed for the open sea. Evidently it would not do to give himself up to sweet far niente; he must see his wishes carried out.
"Sir, you are to take me to the steamboat landing," he demanded, and this time turned his hulk round and looked up into the face of the gondolier as he stood there on his little elevated deck, high against the pale grey sky. The man had an unpleasing, even brutish face, and wore blue clothes like a sailor, with a yellow sash, a shapeless straw hat with the braid torn at the brim perched rakishly on his head. His facial structure, as well as the curling blond moustache under the short snub nose, showed him to be of non-Italian stock. Physically rather undersized, so that one would not have expected him to be very muscular, he pulled vigorously at the oar, putting all his body-weight behind each stroke. Now and then the effort he made curled back his lips and bared white teeth to the gums. He spoke in a decided, almost curt voice, looking out to sea over his fare's head: "The signore is going to the Lido."
The traveler answered, "Yes I am but I only took the gondola to cross over to San Marco. I am using the vaporetto from there."
"But the signore cannot use the vaporetto.""And why not?"
"Because the vaporetto does not take luggage."
It was true. The stranger remembered it. He made no answer. But the man's gruff, overbearing manner, so unlike the usual courtesy of his countrymen towards the stranger, was unacceptable and intolerable. The stranger spoke again: "That is my own affair. I may want to give my luggage in deposit. You will turn around."
No answer. The oar splashed, the wave struck dull against the prow. And the muttering began anew, the gondolier talked to himself, between his teeth.
This was always the way it seemed to happen...a little man unwilling to accept instruction until some weight was exacted...and the stranger was often forced to violence in order to mitigate his situation. What should he do? Alone on the water with this tongued-tied obstinate, uncanny man, he sought to enforce his will. And if only he did not excite himself, how pleasantly he might rest! Had he not previously wished that it might last forever? The wisest thing-and how much the pleasantest-was to let matters take their own course. A spell of indolence was upon him; it came from the chair he sat in-this low, black upholstered arm-chair, so gently rocked at the hands of the despotic boatman in his rear. The thought passed dreamily through the stranger's brain that perhaps he had fallen into the cloches of a criminal; but that would have been the criminal's worst nightmare and would certainly rouse the stranger to action. More annoying was the simpler explanation: that the man was only trying to extort money. A sense of duty, a recollection, as it were, that this ought to be prevented, made him collect himself to say:
"How much do you ask for the trip?"
And the gondolier, gazing out over his head, replied: "The signore will pay?"
There was an established reply to this...the stranger made it, instinctively:
"I will pay nothing whatever if you do not take me where I want to go, and I will feed you to the fish."
"The signore wants to go to Lido?"
"But not with you."
"I am a good rower, signore. I will row you well."
"So much is true, when men begin to speak the truth." And once again the stranger began to relax, knowing the bullet had passed. "That is true, you row me well... even if you intend to roll me as well."
But nothing of the sort happened. Instead, they fell in with company: a boat came alongside and waylaid them, full of men and women singing to guitar and mandolin. They rowed persistently bow for bow with the gondola and filled the silence that had rested on the waters with their lyric love of gain. The stranger tossed money into the hat they passed about. The music stopped at once. They rowed away. And once more the gondolier's mutter became audible as he talked to himself in fits and snatches.
Thus they rowed on, rocked by the wash of a steamer returning citywards. At the landing two municipal officials were walking up and down with their hands behind their backs...in their own pockets and eyes looking toward the lagoon. The stranger was helped to shore by an old man with boat-hook who is a permanent feature of every landing-stage in Venice; he passed along the notes that he felt fairly compensated gondolier and gondola..."Place the luggage on the deck." He ordered, "I will go into the hotel to make certain of the reservation...when I return you will decide if you row or feed the fish."
The stranger returned, his luggage safely on the dock... "He ran away, signore," said the old man, "A bad lot, a man without a license. He is the only gondolier without one...he knew the officials were on the lookout...so signore you have free passage." He held out his hat... The Stranger dropped a few coins and directed that his luggage be brought directly to the Hotel des Bains. The luggage was loaded on a handcart and the Stranger followed them through the avenue, that white blossoming avenue with taverns, booths, and pensions on either side, which runs across the island diagonally to the beach.
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