第15章

The spry girl was all for justice. If she had carelessly or wilfully dropped the pitcher, she would have been willing to suffer the extreme penalty,--the number of saints she called upon to witness this statement was sufficient to prove her honesty,--but under the circumstances she would be blessed if she suffered anything, even the abuse that filled the air. The fritter-woman upbraided the sweetmeat-man, who in return reviled the sausage-vender, who remarked that if Angelo or Peppina had received the sausages at the door, as they should, he would never have been in the house at all; adding a few picturesque generalizations concerning the moral turpitude of Angelo's parents and the vicious nature of their offspring.

The contralto, who was divided in her soul, being betrothed to the sausage-vender, but aunt to the spry girl, sprang into the arena, armed with the soup-ladle, and dispensed injustice on all sides.

The feud now reached its height. There is nothing that the chief participants did not call one another, and no intimation or aspersion concerning the reputation of ancestors to the remotest generation that was not cast in the others' teeth. The spry girl referred to the sausage-vender as a generalissimo of all the fiends, and the compliments concerning the gentle art of cookery which flew between the fritter-woman and the contralto will not bear repetition. I listened breathlessly, hoping to hear one of the party refer to somebody as the figure of a pig (strangely enough the most unforgettable of insults), for each of the combatants held, suspended in air, the weapon of his choice--broken crockery, soup-ladle, rolling-pin, or sausage. Each, I say, flourished the emblem of his craft wildly in the air--and then, with a change of front like that of the celebrated King of France in the Mother Goose rhyme, dropped it swiftly and silently; for at this juncture the Little Genius flew down the broad staircase from her eagle's nest. Her sculptor's smock surmounted her blue cotton gown, and her blond hair was flying in the breeze created by her rapid descent. I wish I could affirm that by her gentle dignity and serene self-control she awed the company into silence, or that there was a holy dignity about her that held them spellbound; but such, unhappily, is not the case. It was her pet blue pitcher that had been broken--the pitcher that was to serve as just the right bit of colour at the evening's feast. She took command of the situation in a masterly manner--a manner that had American energy and decision as its foundation and Italian fluency as its superstructure. She questioned the virtue of no one's ancestors, cast no shadow of doubt on the legitimacy of any one's posterity, called no one by the name of any four-footed beast or crawling, venomous thing, yet she somehow brought order out of chaos. Her language (for which she would have been fined thirty days in her native land) charmed and enthralled the Venetians by its delicacy, reserve, and restraint, and they dispersed pleasantly. The sausage-vender wished good appetite to the cook,--she had need of it, Heaven knows, and we had more,--while the spry girl embraced the fritter-woman ardently, begging her to come in again soon and make a longer visit.

VIII

CASA ROSA, June 10

I am saying all my good-byes--to Angelo and the gondola; to the greedy pigeons of San Marco, so heavy in the crop that they can scarcely waddle on their little red feet; to the bees and birds and flowers and trees of the beautiful garden behind the casa; to the Little Genius and her eagle's nest on the house-top; to "the city that is always just putting out to sea." It has been a month of enchantment, and although rather expensive, it is pleasant to think that the padrona's mortgage is nearly paid.

It is a saint's day, and to-night there will be a fiesta. Coming home to our island, we shall hear the laughter and the song floating out from the wine shops and the caffes; we shall see the lighted barges with their musicians; we shall thrill with the cries of "Viva Italia! viva el Re!" The moon will rise above the white palaces; their innumerable lights will be reflected in the glassy surface of the Grand Canal. We shall feel for the last time "the quick silent passing" of the only Venetian cab.

"How light we move, how softly! Ah, Were life but as the gondola!"

To-morrow we shall be rowed against the current to Padua. We shall see Malcontenta and its ruined villa: Oriago and Mira and the campanile of Dolo. Venice will lie behind us, but she will never be forgotten. Many a time on such a night as this we shall say with other wandering Venetians:-"O Venezia benedetta!

Non ti voglio piu lasciar!"