It May Be You Are Bound For The
Rialto; Or For The Bridge Of Sighs, Which Is Chiefly Distinguished
From All The Other Bridges By Being The Only Covered One In The
Lot; Or For The House Of The Lady Desdemona.
The lady Desdemona
never lived there or anywhere else, but the house where she would
have lived, had she lived, is on exhibition daily from nine to
five, admission one lira.
Or perchance you want to visit one of
the ducal palaces that are so numerous in Venice. These palaces
are still tenanted by the descendants of the original proprietors;
one family has perhaps been living in one palace three or four
hundred years. But now the family inhabits the top floor, doing
light housekeeping up there, and the lower floor, where the art
treasures, the tapestries and the family relics are, is in charge
of a caretaker, who collects at the door and then leads you through.
Having given the boatman explicit directions you settle back in
your cushion seat to enjoy the trip. You marvel how he, standing
at the stern, with his single oar fitted into a shallow notch of
his steering post, propels the craft so swiftly and guides it so
surely by those short, twisting strokes of his. Really, you
reflect, it is rowing by shorthand. You are feasting your eyes
on the wonderful color effects and the groupings that so enthuse
the artist, and which he generally manages to botch and boggle
when he seeks to commit them to canvas; and betweenwhiles you are
wondering why all the despondent cats in Venice should have picked
out the Grand Canal as the most suitable place in which to commit
suicide, when - bump! - your gondola swings up against the landing
piles in front of a glass factory and the entire force of helpers
rush out and seize you by your arms - or by your legs, if handier
- and try to drag you inside, while the affable and accommodating
gondolier boosts you from behind. You fight them off, declaring
passionately that you are not in the market for colored glass at
this time. The hired hands protest; and the gondolier, cheated
out of his commission, sorrows greatly, but obeys your command to
move on. At least he pretends to obey it; but a minute later he
brings you up broadside at the water-level doors of a shop dealing
in antiques, known appropriately as antichitas, or at a mosaic
shop or a curio shop. If ever you do succeed in reaching your
destination it is by the exercise of much profanity and great
firmness of will.
The most insistent and pesky shopkeepers of all are those who hive
in the ground floors of the professedly converted palaces that
face on three sides of the Square of Saint Mark's. You dare not
hesitate for the smallest fractional part of a second in front of
a shop here. Lurking inside the open door is a husky puller-in;
and he dashes out and grabs hold of you and will not let go, begging
you in spaghettified English to come in and examine his unapproachable
assortment of bargains.
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