From the level of the Bridge of Sighs we tramped
down flights of stone stairs, one flight after another, until we
had passed the hole through which the bodies of state prisoners,
secretly killed at night, were shoved out into waiting gondolas
and had passed also the room where pincers and thumbscrew once did
their hideous work, until we came to a cellar of innermost,
deepermost cells, fashioned out of the solid rock and stretching
along a corridor that was almost as dark as the cells themselves.
Here, so we were told, countless wretched beings, awaiting the
tardy pleasure of the torturer or the headsman, had moldered in
damp and filth and pitchy blackness, knowing day from night only
by the fact that once in twenty-four hours food would be slipped
through a hole in the wall by unseen hands; lying here until
oftentimes death or the cruel mercy of madness came upon them
before the overworked executioner found time to rack their limbs
or lop off their heads.
We were told that two of these cells had been preserved exactly
as they were in the days of the Doges, with no alteration except
that lights had been swung from the ceilings. We could well accept
this statement as the truth, for when the guide led us through a
low doorway and flashed on an electric bulb we saw that the place
where we stood was round like a jug and bare as an empty jug, with
smooth stone walls and rough stone floor; and that it contained
for furniture just two things - a stone bench upon which the captive
might lie or sit and, let into the wall, a great iron ring, to
which his chains were made fast so that he moved always to their
grating accompaniment and the guard listening outside might know
by the telltale clanking whether the entombed man still lived.
There was one other decoration in this hole - a thing more incongruous
even than the modern lighting fixtures; and this stood out in bold
black lettering upon the low-sloped ceiling. A pair of vandals,
a man and wife - no doubt with infinite pains - had smuggled in brush
and marking pot and somehow or other - I suspect by bribing guides
and guards - had found the coveted opportunity of inscribing their
names here in the Doges' black dungeon. With their names they had
written their address too, which was a small town in the Northwest,
and after it the legend: "Send us a postal card."
I imagine that then this couple, having accomplished this feat,
regarded their trip to Europe as being rounded out and complete,
and went home again, satisfied and rejoicing. Send them a postal
card? Somebody should send them a deep-dish poison-pie!
Looking on this desecration my companion and I grew vocal. We
agreed that our national lawgivers who were even then framing an
immigration law with a view to keeping certain people out of this
country, might better be engaged in framing one with a view to
keeping certain people in. Our guide harkened with a quiet little
smile on his face to what we said.
"It cannot have been here long - that writing on the ceiling," he
explained for our benefit." Presently it will be scraped away.
But" - and he shrugged his eloquent Italian shoulders and outspread
his hands fan-fashion - "but what is the use? Others like them will
come and do as they have done. See here and here and here, if
you please!"
He aimed a darting forefinger this way and that, and looking where
he pointed we saw now how the walls were scarred with the scribbled
names of many visitors. I regret exceedingly to have to report
that a majority of these names had an American sound to them.
Indeed, many of the signatures were coupled with the names of towns
and states of the Union. There were quite a few from Canada, too.
What, I ask you, is the wisdom of taking steps to discourage the
cutworm and abate the gypsy-moth when our government permits these
two-legged varmints to go abroad freely and pollute shrines and
wonderplaces with their scratchings, and give the nations over
there a perverted notion of what the real human beings on this
continent are like?
For the tourist who has wearied of picture galleries and battlegrounds
and ruins and abbeys, studying other tourists provides a pleasant
way of passing many an otherwise tedious hour. Certain of the
European countries furnish some interesting types - notably Britain,
which producing a male biped of a lachrymose and cheerless exterior,
who plods solemnly across the Continent wrapped in the plaid mantle
of his own dignity, never speaking an unnecessary word to any person
whatsoever. And Germany: From Germany comes a stolid gentleman,
who, usually, is shaped like a pickle mounted on legs and is so
extensively and convexedly eyeglassed as to give him the appearance
of something that is about to be served sous cloche. Caparisoned
in strange garments, he stalks through France or Italy with an
umbrella under his arm, his nose being buried so deeply in his
guidebook that he has no time to waste upon the scenery or the
people; while some ten paces in the rear, his wife staggers along
in his wake with her skirts dragging in the dust and her arms
pulled half out of their sockets by the weight of the heavy bundles
and bags she is bearing. This person, when traveling, always takes
his wife and much baggage with him. Or, rather, he takes his wife
and she takes the baggage which, by Continental standards, is
regarded as an equal division of burdens.
