The Strand Magazine/Volume 4/Issue 22/Antonello, the Gondolier
From the German of Freiherr Gaudy.
T is just half a century since I closed the eyes of my good father—the best of comrades, the fondest of husbands, the most honest Venetian of his time. Ah, if you had known my father, you would have acknowledged him the hardiest, boldest fellow in the Republic, the cleverest mandolin-player, the best singer of Tasso, the smartest gondolier whose oars ever lashed to foam the waters of the Canalazzo. All this must be my excuse for rescuing from the oblivion of the fleeting years the fragment of his life I now relate.
My father felt his end approaching. With closed eyes he lay on a couch stuffed with maize-straw, a rosary in his wrinkled hands, and his pale lips moving in silent prayer. A death-like stillness filled the room, broken only by the sobs of wife and children. The rays of the evening sun burst through the vine-espalier that grew round our home; and over the face of the dying passed now patches of rosy light, and now the shadows of the broad leaves. Presently he opened the large, black, deeply-sunken eyes once more, looked slowly round as if to make sure that we were all there, and then began wearily and with difficulty to speak.
"For years, now," he said, "I have been wanting to make you the confidants of a strange, almost incredible, event which happened to me in my youth. I put it off from day to day, for one reason or another—but I put it off too long. Now, I know not whether the time that is left me suffices for the telling of this long-guarded secret. Listen, however—but first swear on this dying hand that no word of the secret shall pass your lips till fifty years have gone. The heir of a great and powerful family has been involved in the destiny of so humble a man as myself—and the Tribunal of the Inquisition was compelled to intervene. An unguarded word may expose you to the vengeance of an undisciplined and powerful nobility, or to the severity of the legal authorities. Swear, therefore, a silence of fifty years!"
We obeyed the last command of our father: we laid our hands in his, and pronounced the binding oath. We have kept it faithfully—my mother and sisters till their death; I, the last surviving, till the period assigned has expired, and the time arrived when I have to fear neither the vengeance of the nobles nor the tyranny of the Council of Ten; but to the point.
"It was at three o'clock on a sultry summer afternoon"—began my father—"that I sat myself down at the base of the granite pillar which supports the saintly Teodoro, and stretched my lazy limbs on the stone slabs below it. I fell to counting, with sleepy eyes, the pillars of the Doge's Palace, up and down, then down and up; miscounted them, and tried again—feeling my eyelids becoming heavier with each number I told. The footsteps of the guard holding watch under the colonnade fell ever duller and fainter on my ears. Now and then one of the pigeons from the Place of St. Mark whirred past over my head, hastening to seek refuge from the glowing heat under the eaves of the church. It was so still, that I could hear the little wavelets as they broke against the bows of the gondolas. All the world was having its siesta, and I was in a good way to follow suit, when the shout, 'Hi! Antonello, up there! A league's row on the canal!' startled me out of my doze.
"All the world was having its siesta."
"The shout proceeded from Count Orazio Memmo—the most amiable good-for-nothing in all Venice. Three-and-twenty years old, tall and slim, a well-cut pale face, with the blackest and most brilliant eyes in the world; as clever as daring, as rich as generous, a bold gamester, a passionate worshipper of women—such was my patron.
"Mistrustful of the gondoliers of his uncle, the Councillor, in whom, not without ground, he suspected spies on his goings and comings, the young gallant needed on his adventures a quick-witted, fearless fellow, a silent, perfectly reliable assistant—and in me he had found his man. Ah, when I think of those old wild times, those brilliant Carnivals, those nightly revelries and serenades, those mysterious rendezvous in the gardens of the Giudecca! Fathers and lovers cursed Orazio Memmo worse than the Grand Turk, and many a handful of silver coin has poured into my cap when my swift gondola has distanced the enraged pursuer, and I have landed the happy lover, undiscovered, on the marble steps of the Casa Memmo.
"Quick as thought did I spring to my legs at the sound of the well-known voice, then loosed the chain from the stake, and when his Excellency had seated himself on the luxurious cushions, pushed off vigorously from the land.
"The boat may have been gliding gently over the water for about a half-hour. Inaudibly fell the oar into the green waves—but there was no hurry, and my patron had no aim but to dream away an hour in dolce far niente. Presently, however, a foreign gondola rushed up with hasty strokes of the oars behind us, and then shot quickly past. The deck was covered with a silver carpet streaked in red, and the heavy silk tassels that hung from the gunwales trailed along the surface of the water. The two rowers were clothed in a rich stuff of the same design. In front of the cabin sat on a brocaded cushion a Moorish boy, with a broad golden neck-band, a dagger hanging from glittering chains by his side, and balancing on his fist a shrill, rainbow-coloured parrot. The Venetian blinds were drawn up on both sides, and the eye could penetrate into the interior of the boat as she flew past.
"With a skilful throw, she cast a lily into our cabin."
"On the cushions reclined a divinely beautiful woman. A closely-fitting, gold-embroidered over-garment enveloped her dainty figure, and wide, open pantaloons of Eastern cut fell over her little slippers prettily worked in flowers. The long golden hair descended from the snowy whiteness of the brow, and fell in curly waves upon the shoulders and bosom. But how can I describe to you the sorcery of that lovely countenance, the moist glance of those black eyes, the smile that played around those pomegranate lips? As the foreign boat floated past our own, the lady put down the long-necked guitar, on whose golden strings her fingers had been dallying, and, with a skilful throw, cast a lily into our cabin, calling out at the same time a few foreign-sounding words. The rowers at once began to ply their oars lustily, and in the twinkling of an eye were a hundred yards in front.
"'Follow, follow, Antonello!' cried the patrician—'twenty sequins are thine if we overtake her, if we discover the home of this angelic stranger.'
"'You may rely upon me, Excellenza; so long as the oar does not break, and my arm retains its strength, the beautiful heathen shall not escape us.'
"And now to keep my word—to maintain my hard-won fame. Swift as the flight of doves fled the stranger before us, and like a bloodthirsty falcon we followed up behind. On the left they turned into one of the side streets, and there seemed to slacken their speed as if to make sure that we had not lost their track, as if they wished to be followed—and then once more started in wild haste through large and small canals—right and left, and then straight forward—past San Nicolo—till at last both the gondolas were rocking on the waters of the lagoon that lies on the road to Fusina.
"Still onwards fled the enchanting boat. Sometimes it was as if a shooting star was before us, so gloriously did the sun stream down on the glittering deck, and I was obliged to close my eyes to shut out the glare, and cease for a moment to row. Then the Count would urge me on to still greater efforts, and I would fall on my knee, and drive the oar deep into the water till the foam swirled high to the iron-comb of the figurehead.
"From out of the pursued gondola sounded now and then the sharp cry of the parrot, and then again the notes of a lute, to which the Moorish boy answered with the rattle of the tambourine, and at intervals the bewitching, enticing voice of the Eastern. She sang:—
Where arcades of oleander,
Purple in the gloaming show,
Where in founts marmorean wander,
Fish that gold and silvern glow;
Where nightingales
Sigh out their wails,
To love-sick maidens murm'ring low—
There, there,
Shalt thou with me my secret share.
Where the darts from Phoebus' quiver
Never pierce the myrtle groves,
Where by many a lonely river
Birds trill out their happy loves;
Where the gushing
Streamlet rushing
Through the starlit dingle roves—
There, there,
Shalt thou with me my secret share.
Orazio Memmo, one of the cleverest improvisers of his time, seized my zither, and answered at once:—
Where thou leadest I will follow,
Sweet enigma, after thee;
Heed I not if joy or sorrow
The guerdon of my quest shall be—
Yet on the strand,
Enchantress, land,
And if thy heart incline to me—
There, there,
Shall I with thee thy secret share.
"We were approaching nearer and nearer to the strange gondola. Our bow cut anew the waves before the track of theirs had disappeared on the water, and the foam that followed her was like a silver cord which she had thrown out to drag us, like prisoners, behind her. Thus we ran into the Brenta Canal, flew past the sumptuous villas and pleasure houses of the rich Venetians, and stopped before a high marble portal, through the gilt bars of which we could look into a spacious garden laid out with princely magnificence.
"Slowly she turned her face."
"The stranger stepped out. By San Marco! a queenly form with witching grace in every movement. Slowly she turned her face, lighted with the sweetest smile, once more toward my master; from the soft, black, gazelle-like eyes gleamed on him a friendly light, and then she moved forward from the spot. The little Moor, holding a gaudy sunshade over the head of his mistress, and the chattering bird on his fist, followed close at her heels. The gates flew open, shut clashing behind them; the pair then slowly approached the castle through a lane formed of laurels and myrtles, and vanished.
"'Beautiful as a dream!' cried Signor Memmo, rousing himself from his bewilderment; and 'to whom does the garden, the castle, belong?'
"'I do not know at all, Excellenza; I see them to-day for the first time; and yet this is the Brenta Canal—a thousand times have I rowed over it; I know every gate, every villa, every bush—but, by San Antonio, never have I seen a stone of this castle before. Ah, Illustrissimo, take my word for it, all is not as it should be here! It is the delusion of the devil, nothing more. Utter but one "paternoster," and the whole phantasm will vanish like a streak of mist. Have you not heard of vampires? You have only to ask the Grecian and Illyrian boatmen, and they will tell you how the wraiths of these child-murderers appear as young and beautiful women, and fill with love the brains of the young men, and suck out their hearts' blood as they slumber. And such a vampire is the Eastern princess there I will take the sacrament to it! Take my advice, Excellenza. Let us return, and that as quickly as possible. Here we stand on unholy ground.'
"I looked round now for the strange gondola; she had vanished completely, as though swallowed by the Brenta. I pointed this out to my master; he called me superstitious and a simpleton. I began to repeat an 'ave,' but the castle refused to vanish, and remained before my eyes a substantial and obstinate fact. Black cypresses looked with elongated necks over the wall, and fig-trees stretched gnarled branches like fingers towards us, as if to beckon us in. Glittering lizards crept up the parapets and looked at us with sparkling, spiteful eyes. On the cornices stood hideous figures in marble of the most repulsive ugliness—goat-footed satyrs that made faces at us, little hunchbacked creatures with three-cornered hats, crinolined dames with horses' heads, dragons, griffins, monsters with grins and leers and distortions that only diabolus could invent. Among the hateful masks walked a peacock with a long trailing tail, its blue neck shimmering in the sun.
"'How to get into the garden?' murmured Count Orazio, staring dreamily before him. 'The gate might be scaled—a bold spring, and———'
"'What are you thinking of, Excellentissimo?' said I, warningly. 'For the Madonna's sake, give up the thought. Your body and soul are alike at stake. Believe me, the devil walketh about like a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour.'
"My warning sounded in deaf ears. He had already sprung from the gondola, when a wicket opened, and an old Moor stepped before him with a deep curtsey; he brought a request from his mistress, the Signora Smeralda, for the honour of a visit in her garden. In vain did I hold back the blinded and intoxicated patrician by his black silk mantle; in vain did I try to excuse myself from following him; he rushed through the gate, dragging me with him, while the old slave remained to guard our gondola.
"Strange flowers, never seen before, such as can only be supposed to grow in the pleasure gardens of the Great Mogul himself, nodded drowsily to us as we passed. Rainbow-coloured birds flew from branch to branch, twittering, singing, shouting with almost human voice, like a chorus of happy, chattering maidens. Once an ugly, long-tailed monkey swung himself down from a tree before us, holding on with his tail to a branch; grinned spitefully at us, and then hurried off once more into the wilderness of foliage. From one of the side alleys stepped a purple-coloured stork, as gravely as a major-domo, before us, swayed his long neck hither and thither, as if bowing to us, and then walked forward as our guide, ever and anon looking round to see if we followed. For my part, I followed as in a dream, resisting, and yet drawn forward as by some inexplicable magic.
"Presently we stood before an immense, strange-looking tree, with broad shining leaves hung thick with silvery bell-shaped blossoms. In the shade of its branches lay costly Persian carpets and cushions of crimson velvet embroidered in pearls, and on them the heathen Princess, surrounded by a bevy of beauteous maidens, was reclining with the utmost grace. The little Moor stood at her head, fanning her with a broad fan of bright peacock's feathers. The red stork, which had hitherto walked before us, now stood still, opened wide his legs, drove his long beak into the earth, and so, slightly raising its wings for cushions, formed a three-legged easy chair on which Count Orazio, at a sign from the lady, sat down.
"Lost in gazing at the fair Smeralda, the Count had sat down speechless before her, while she, calling for her lute, discoursed sweet music; I had stood beside his tripodal chair torn by many feelings, when the young Moor with a cunningly-worked golden goblet full of a dark-red foaming wine stepped up to my master. 'Drink not of this brew of hell, Signor!' I whispered, and at the same time felt myself embraced by the white arm of a lovely little witch who offered me a similar draught.
"My first instinct was to spurn from me the beautiful little elf, to dash away the magic draught—but the wine gave out so sweet an aroma, sparkled so enticingly, so brightly, within the golden walls! The eyes of the elf glanced so entreatingly at me, her arms wound themselves so tenderly about me—ah, the spirit truly was willing, but the flesh was weak!
"Only one sip, thought I, only the wetting of the tip of my tongue—that will hardly cost me my neck. And then I sipped, I tasted, I sucked, I gulped down the liquid to the very last drop—then I fell on the neck of the pretty temptress, and on looking round saw my master on his knees before the seductive Smeralda. I touched with my own the lips of my charmer—my senses whirled in a transport of delight when, breathless from out the bushes rushed the negro boy, crying: 'Fly! Fly! All is lost! Porporinazzo, our gracious master, is coming! He raves in his rage!'
"Ah, the warning voice had come too late; scarcely had it sounded when a short, globular creature, of the form and colour of a dark-red apple, rolled up to Smeralda and her inamorato. On close observation there might certainly be discovered some indications, at the extremities of the creature, of the existence of limbs, which you might or might not take to be head, arms, and legs; but of the depressions and bumps at the north pole of this globe, to construct in fancy eyes, nose, and mouth, required a quite special faculty of which I was not the master.
"'Is this the thanks, serpent, for the trust reposed in you?' shrieked Porporinazzo to the pale Smeralda. 'Is this the reward of my true and constant love? You stoop to this unbelieving dog; and me, me, Don Porporinazzo, the Grand Master of the Wardrobe of the Sultan, thou desertest! Ha, by Mahomet's sacred cat, this cries aloud for bloody vengeance! Slaves, approach!'
"Six negroes, with diabolical physiognomies, with arms and sabres bare, started from the hedges, seized Orazio and myself, and tied our hands behind our backs. In vain did the Count plead his inviolability as a Venetian noble; in vain did he threaten with the wrath of the Doge and of the Senate. The little Grand Master made a sign with his little arm—a flash, a sabre-stroke—and our two heads were rolling on the ground!
"My fair one had long ago fled behind the myrtle hedge, and Signora Smeralda had taken the stereotype step of ladies in desperate circumstances—she had fainted. The tyrant Porporinazzo, proud of his bloody deed, had now retired once more into the palace. I could see all, for my head was lying on the ground, with its nose turned skywards. Once or twice I made convulsive efforts with my arms to catch it, and fix it on my trunk again but my hands clutched only empty air, and sank, nerveless, down. No words can describe my condition; only those who have found themselves in a like position, and felt their heads at so unreasonable a distance from their bodies, can at all appreciate my emotions at that moment.
"The spherical Grand Master of the Wardrobe had scarcely turned his back, when Smeralda awoke out of her faint, burst into a flood of tears, and despairingly wrung her hands. At the same time my fugitive loved one emerged from her hiding place, but lost no time in meaningless commonplaces, urging on her mistress to make the best of the precious moments.
"'For heaven's sake, Signora,' she said, 'send for a doctor, the cleverest there is to be had. Quick! With every second the blood grows colder and colder. In five minutes it will be too late. The magic doctor, Bartolinetto, of Padua, would be just the man—only quick, quick! Send Don Flamingo to Padua—for on his activity and fidelity we can safely rely.'
"'Happy thought, Libella,' answered the Princess; 'call the Don.'
"She clapped her hands thrice. The great red stork strode quickly up, and at a few whispered words from the elf, nodded as if in assent, and flew crowing into the air.
"Four pairs of eyes gazed now with anxious expectancy towards heaven. A horrid pause, during which the fair ladies dared not, and the Count and I could not, breathe, ensued. But before you could say a 'paternoster' there was once more a rushing noise high in the air, and the mighty bird stormed down, holding Doctor Bartolinetto, like a halfpenny doll, in his beak, and placed him, a little thin brown man, neat and well dressed, though a little out of breath, upon the ground.
"A glance sufficed to make the learned man acquainted with the state of affairs. He felt our pulse, then drew from his pocket the famous Perlimpimpino powder, his own infallible discovery, and turned up his coat sleeves. He was grumbling all the time at the indelicacy of his being interrupted in the middle of a lecture and dragged forcibly out of his college, to the scandal of his audience, and loudly bemoaned the derangement of his powdered wig, which had somewhat suffered in his aerial journey; then he seized my head by the nose, sprinkled some of the Perlimpimpino powder on the neck, dabbed it on to the defective part, took Orazio's head, did the same with that—we sneezed three times with some emphasis, sprang blithely up, shook ourselves, sneezed once more—the cure was complete!
"The fair ones flew joyfully to our arms; on my cheek burned the kiss of the beautiful Smeralda, while Libella hugged the Count—but to kiss, to tear away from the embrace, to utter a startled cry, was the work of an instant. Dreadful mistake! The doctor in his hurry had stuck my head on Orazio's shoulders, and that of the noble on the trunk of the poor gondolier!
"On recovering from the first shock at the discovery we turned to vent our wrath on the doctor. The nobleman promised him a hundred lashes, and I threatened still worse things, unless he restored to each his own, Poor Bartolinetto shrugged his shoulders till they reached his ears, made the most profuse apologies, and sought to pacify us with the sophism that 'after all, a head was a head.' But everyone felt the hollowness of the plea; Smeralda called him 'a wretched old quack,' Libella threatened to make for his eyes. His reproaches of ingratitude were unheeded, his suggestion of a fee was rejected with scornful laughter. At a sign from Libella, he was again seized by the stork, and carried back thus ignominiously to Padua.
"After all, a head was a head."
"We now directed our rage against each other. Our imprecations and threats would soon have developed into actual violence, had not each feared to do a part of himself some injury while belabouring his antagonist. Which was now Orazio, which Antonello? Which noble man, and which gondolier? My old head pleaded its new and noble body as the most important half, maintaining that the hull of a ship alone determined its class, the flag which might happen to be hoisted at its stern being a mere secondary detail. My opponent, on the other hand, compared himself to a column in which the capital is the sole feature determining to what order it is to belong. The two fair ladies tried to settle our dispute—but they were themselves soon hopelessly confused, and ended by advising us to return to Venice and lay our case before the magistrates.
"Coldly we bid them farewell and departed. Antonello-Orazio, or the peasant head on the noble trunk, threw himself in a lazy and distinguished way on the cushions, and haughtily commanded Orazio-Antonello to row back. The latter was compelled to obey, for his plebeian arms alone could ply the oars and guide the helm—but he gnashed his teeth, and swore to take dreadful vengeance for this insult; and so we rowed back the grandee with the coarse red gondolier's cap sitting on the cushions, and laughing to scorn the proud peasant in the bows with his feathered hat and faultlessly dainty wig.
"We landed at the piazzetta. Negligently I drew out the purse which I found in my new clothes, and tossed the rower a coin.
"'Give me back my money!' he cried; 'give me my rings, my watch, my head!'
"'Silence, wretched slave,' I cried; 'darest thou lay hands on my inviolate person? Help, help, against this crack-brained gondolier!'
"'Help, help,' he exclaimed, against this insolent boatman!'
"A crowd had by this time assembled, some taking my part and some his. The Doge, who was just then walking up and down the colonnade of his palace, heard the scandal, and ordered us to be placed in the inner dungeon of the Inquisition, and brought up for trial the same evening.
"Silence, wretched slave."
"The Public Prosecutor accused us, not only of the black art itself, but of being disturbers of the public peace and conspirators against the safety of the State. 'What have we come to,' he declaimed, 'when our senators and patricians begin to change their heads as often as their wigs? To lose the head is human. The history of the illustrious Republic is not poor in examples of senators and generals, aye, and Doges too, who have suffered this misfortune—but an exchange of heads, that is, indeed, an unparalleled proceeding! What endless upheavals of the Constitution may not be expected when noble and common blood begins to mingle in the same body? What endless confusion of aristocratic and democratic principles in the same man! A shortsighted leniency in this matter may mean the disruption of the State, the crumbling into atoms of the Republic. I decree therefore the death by beheadal of both the criminals."
"The Secretary of the Inquisition informed us of our doom; at midnight we were to pay the penalty of the little doctor's mistake. Ah, what mortal has ever met a fate like ours? Who is there can boast of being, like us, beheaded twice within the space of four-and-twenty hours?
"He tried to comfort me."
"The keeper of the prison was, as it happened, an old friend of mine, and a second cousin. The unspeakable pickle I was in moved him even to tears, and he tried to comfort me by the assurance that the pain of beheadal was nothing to speak of—a short electric shock—a tickling sensation made piquant with a dash of pain—that was all! But I shook my head sadly, and wept. Of all this I already knew somewhat more than he could tell me. Suddenly a glorious thought struck me. After our miraculous cure, as I now remembered, my fingers, guided either by the directing brain of Orazio or by the old instinct of Antonello, had picked up the remnants of the Perlimpimpino powder left by the doctor. 'Cousin!' I now exclaimed, 'you can save me yet; you can save the Count! Hasten to his cell, remind him of the remains of the powder in his pocket, and learn from him the way to use it, and all will yet be well!' He shook his head incredulously, pressed my hand, and went.
"Sadly passed the minutes away. The horrid doubt oppressed me, whether the powder would exercise its wondrous efficacy in the absence of the doctor; whether the mystic sentences he spoke over it had not everything to do with its power; whether the gaoler could exercise the necessary quickness and accuracy in its use. The lamp that half lit up my low vault burnt darkly and sadly, as if impatiently waiting my departure, so that it, too, might go to sleep. In despair I threw myself on the marble bench and shut my eyes, but the glitter of the dreadful axe shone through my fast-closed eyelids. Then a knock at the door sounded in my ears, and the words: 'Wake up, Antonello, the priest is waiting; take thy beheading, cousin, and afterwards thou mayest sleep till the trump of doom!'
"The memory of what followed—of confession and absolution, of the executioner's block—has completely vanished from my brain. I only know that I sneezed violently, opened my eyes, and found myself once more in my usual dress, lying at the foot of the column under the shadow of the holy Teodoro; that I saw standing at my feet the patrician Orazio Memmo, and that I heard him calling: 'Hi, wake up, Antonello! A league's row on the canal!'
"'Excellenza!' I cried, and you will go again to the enchanted garden of Proporinazzo? And we are both really alive and free, and the confusion with our heads is now happily disposed of?'
"He measured me with his eye, shook his head as if at a loss to understand me, and asked if I was still dreaming, or if the cheap Vincentin wine was muddling my brain. Dejected and silent I loosed the chain and rowed the nobleman up and down. No trace of any strange red and silver gondola could be seen, far or near. Count Orazio dozed away the hour on the water with a composure that seemed inexplicable to me. When we landed, I implored him at least to tell me whether we had no further consequences to fear on the part of the Tribunal; whether he had not saved a pinch or two of the Perlimpimpino powder for future contingencies. But he persisted in pretending surprise and called me a fool; and I then concluded that a stony silence had been imposed on him by the Inquisition, and that he pretended ignorance with design.
"Since that day I have not breathed a word of the incident to any human being; and you, my children, are the first to whom, under the seal of an oath, I entrust it. Had I not, since that day, suffered from a peculiar twitching sensation in the neck, at the place where the double wound was made—especially when the weather changes—I might have taken the whole for a dreadful dream. As it is, however, the plain facts remain, burned in, in vivid colours, on my brain."
With these words my father closed his story, the telling of which had used up all his remaining strength. We sent at once for the priest of San Moise. He came with the holy Viaticum, and anointed the forehead of my father, who soon after breathed out his last sigh. Peace be with the soul of the honest man!
