Italian Hours | Page 6

with its richness. It is all so quiet and sad and faded and yet all so
brilliant and living. The strange figures in the mosaic pictures, bending

with the curve of niche and vault, stare down through the glowing
dimness; the burnished gold that stands behind them catches the light
on its little uneven cubes. St. Mark's owes nothing of its character to
the beauty of proportion or perspective; there is nothing grandly
balanced or far-arching; there are no long lines nor triumphs of the
perpendicular. The church arches indeed, but arches like a dusky
cavern. Beauty of surface, of tone, of detail, of things near enough to
touch and kneel upon and lean against--it is from this the effect
proceeds. In this sort of beauty the place is incredibly rich, and you
may go there every day and find afresh some lurking pictorial nook. It
is a treasury of bits, as the painters say; and there are usually three or
four of the fraternity with their easels set up in uncertain equilibrium on
the undulating floor. It is not easy to catch the real complexion of St.
Mark's, and these laudable attempts at portraiture are apt to look either
lurid or livid. But if you cannot paint the old loose-looking marble
slabs, the great panels of basalt and jasper, the crucifixes of which the
lonely anguish looks deeper in the vertical light, the tabernacles whose
open doors disclose a dark Byzantine image spotted with dull, crooked
gems--if you cannot paint these things you can at least grow fond of
them. You grow fond even of the old benches of red marble, partly
worn away by the breeches of many generations and attached to the
base of those wide pilasters of which the precious plating, delightful in
its faded brownness, with a faint grey bloom upon it, bulges and yawns
a little with honourable age.
[Illustration: FLAGS AT ST. MARK'S VENICE]
IV
Even at first, when the vexatious sense of the city of the Doges reduced
to earning its living as a curiosity-shop was in its keenness, there was a
great deal of entertainment to be got from lodging on Riva Schiavoni
and looking out at the far-shimmering lagoon. There was entertainment
indeed in simply getting into the place and observing the queer
incidents of a Venetian installation. A great many persons contribute
indirectly to this undertaking, and it is surprising how they spring out at
you during your novitiate to remind you that they are bound up in some

mysterious manner with the constitution of your little establishment. It
was an interesting problem for instance to trace the subtle connection
existing between the niece of the landlady and the occupancy of the
fourth floor. Superficially it was none too visible, as the young lady in
question was a dancer at the Fenice theatre--or when that was closed at
the Rossini-- and might have been supposed absorbed by her
professional duties. It proved necessary, however, that she should hover
about the premises in a velvet jacket and a pair of black kid gloves with
one little white button; as also, that she should apply a thick coating of
powder to her face, which had a charming oval and a sweet weak
expression, like that of most of the Venetian maidens, who, as a general
thing--it was not a peculiarity of the land- lady's niece--are fond of
besmearing themselves with flour. You soon recognise that it is not
only the many-twinkling lagoon you behold from a habitation on the
Riva; you see a little of everything Venetian. Straight across, before my
windows, rose the great pink mass of San Giorgio Maggiore, which has
for an ugly Palladian church a success beyond all reason. It is a success
of position, of colour, of the immense detached Campanile, tipped with
a tall gold angel. I know not whether it is because San Giorgio is so
grandly conspicuous, with a great deal of worn, faded-looking
brickwork; but for many persons the whole place has a kind of
suffusion of rosiness. Asked what may be the leading colour in the
Venetian concert, we should inveterately say Pink, and yet without
remembering after all that this elegant hue occurs very often. It is a
faint, shimmering, airy, watery pink; the bright sea-light seems to flush
with it and the pale whiteish-green of lagoon and canal to drink it in.
There is indeed a great deal of very evident brickwork, which is never
fresh or loud in colour, but always burnt out, as it were, always
exquisitely mild.
Certain little mental pictures rise before the collector of memories at
the simple mention, written or spoken, of the places he has loved.
When I hear, when I see, the magical name I have written above these
pages, it is not