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Page 79
But the Senator's joy in Venice found other means of expressing itself.
One was an active and disinterested appeal to the gondoliers to be a
little less modern in their costume. He approached this subject through
the guide with every gondolier in turn, and the smiling impassiveness
with which his suggestions were received still causes him wonder and
disgust. "I presume," he remonstrated, "you think you earn your living
because tourists have got to get from the Accademia to St. Mark's, and
from St. Mark's to the Bridge of Sighs, but that's only a quarter of the
reason. The other three-quarters is because they like to be rowed there
in gondolas by the gondoliers they've read about, and the gondoliers
they've read about wore proper gondoliering clothes--they didn't look
like East River loafers."
"They are poor men, these _gondolieri_," remarked the guide. "They
cannot afford."
"I am not an infant, my friend. I'm a business man from Chicago. It's a
business proposition. Put your gondoliers into the styles they wore when
Andrea Dandolo went looting Constantinople, and you'll double your
tourist traffic in five years. Twice as many people wanting gondolas,
wanting guides, wanting hotel accommodation, buying your coloured glass
and lace flounces--why, Great Scott! it would pay the city to do the
thing at the public expense. Then you could pass a by-law forbidding
gondoliering to be done in any style later than the fifteenth century.
Pay you over and over again."
Poppa was in earnest, he wanted it done. He was only dissuaded from
taking more active measures to make his idea public by the fact that he
couldn't stay to put it through. He was told, of course, how the plain
black gondola came to be enforced through the extravagance of the nobles
who ruined themselves to have splendid ones, and how the Venetians
scrupled to depart from a historic mandate, but he considered this a
feeble argument, probably perpetuated by somebody who enjoyed a monopoly
in supplying Venice with black paint. "Circumstances alter cases," he
declared. "If that old Doge knew that the P. and O. was going to run
direct between Venice and Bombay every fortnight this year, he'd tell
you to turn out your gondolas silver-gilt!"
Nevertheless, as I say, the Senator's views were coldly received, with
one exception. A highly picturesque and intelligent gondolier, whom the
guide sought to convert to a sense of the anachronism of his clothes in
connection with his calling, promised that if we would give him a
definite engagement for next day, he would appear suitably clad. The
following morning he awaited us with honest pride in his Sunday apparel,
which included violently checked trousers, a hard felt hat, and a large
pink tie. The Senator paid him hurriedly and handsomely and dismissed
him with as little injury to his feelings as was possible under the
circumstances. "Tell him," said poppa to the guide, "to go home and take
off those pants. And tell him, do you understand, to _rush_!"
That same day, in the afternoon, I remember, when we were disembarking
for an ice at Florian's, momma directed our attention to two gentlemen
in an approaching gondola. "There's something about that man," she said
impressively, "I mean the one in the duster, that belongs to the reign
of Louis Philippe."
"There is," I responded; "we saw him last in the Petit Trianon. It's
Mr. Pabbley and Mr. Hinkson. Two more Transatlantic fellow-travellers.
Senator, when we meet them shall we greet them?"
The Senator had a moment of self-expostulation.
"Well, no," he said, "I guess not. I don't suppose we need feel obliged
to keep up the acquaintance of _every_ American we come across in
Europe. It would take us all our time. But I'd like to ask him what use
he finds for a duster in Venice."
"How I wish the Misses Bingham could hear you," I thought, but one
should never annoy one's parents unnecessarily, so I kept my reflections
to myself.
CHAPTER XX.
That last day in Venice we went, I remember, to the Lido. Nothing
happened, but I don't like leaving it out, because it was the last day,
and the next best thing to lingering in Venice is lingering on it. We
went in a steamboat, under protest from poppa, who said it might as well
be Coney Island until we got there, when he admitted points of
difference, and agreed that if people had to come all the way out in
gondolas, certain existing enterprises might as well go out of business.
The steamer was full of Venetians, and we saw that they were charming,
though momma wishes it to be understood that the modern Portia wears her
bodice cut rather too low in the neck and gazes much too softly at the
modern Bassanio. Poppa and I thought it mere amiability that scorned to
conceal itself, but momma referred to it otherwise, admitting, however,
that she found it fascinating to watch.
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