that last day in venice we went, i remember, to the lido. nothing happened, but i don't like leaving it out, because it was the last day, and the next best thing to lingering in venice is lingering on it. we went in a steamboat, under protest from poppa, who said it might as well be coney island until we got there, when he admitted points of difference, and agreed that if people had to come all the way out in gondolas, certain existing enterprises might as well go out of business. the steamer was full of venetians, and we saw that they were charming, though momma wishes it to be understood that the modern portia wears her bodice cut rather too low in the neck and gazes much too softly at the modern bassanio. poppa and i thought it mere amiability that scorned to conceal itself, but momma referred to it otherwise, admitting, however, that she found it fascinating to watch.
we seemed to disembark at a restaurant permanent among flowing waters, so prominent was this feature of the island, but it had only a roof, and presently we noticed a little grass and some bushes as well. the verdure had quite a novel look, and we decided to discourage the casual person who wished to sell us strange and uncertified shell fish from a basket for immediate consumption, and follow it up.
dicky was of opinion that we might arrive at the vegetable gardens of venice, but in this we were disappointed. we came instead to a street-car, and half a mile of arbour, and all the venetians pleasurably preparing to take carriage exercise. the horses seemed to like the idea of giving it to them, they were quite light-hearted, one of them actually pawed. they were the only horses in venice, they felt their dignity and their responsibility in a way foreign to animals in the public service, anywhere else in the world. personally we would have preferred to walk to the other end of the arbour, but it would have seemed a slight, and, as the senator said, we weren't in venice to hurt anybody's feelings that belonged there. it would have been extravagant too, since the steamboat ticket included the drive at the end. so we struggled anxiously for good places, and proceeded to the other side with much circumstance, enjoying ourselves as hard as possible. dicky said he never had such a good time; but that was because he had exhausted venice and his patience, and was going on to verona next day.
the arbour and the grass and the street-car track ended sharply and all together at a raised wooden walk that led across the sand to a pavilion hanging over the adriatic, and here we sat and watched other venetians disporting themselves in the water below. they were glorious creatures, and they disported themselves nobly, keeping so well in view of the pavilion and such a steady eye upon the spectators that poppa had an impulsive desire to feed them with macaroons. he decided not to; you never could tell, he said, what might be considered a liberty by foreigners; but he had a hard struggle with the temptation, the aquatic accomplishments we saw were so deserving of reward. i had the misfortune to lose a little pink rose overboard, as it were, and dicky looked seriously annoyed when an amphibious young venetian caught it between his lips. i don't know why; he was one of the most attractive on view, but i have often noticed turkish tendencies in dicky where his country-women are concerned. we came away almost immediately after, so that rose will bloom in my memory, until i forget about it, among romances that might have been.
strolling back, we bought a venetian secret for a sou or two, a beautiful little secret, i wonder who first found it out. a picturesque and fishy smelling person in a soft felt hat sold it to us—a pair of tiny dainty dried sea-horses, "mère" and "père" he called them. and there, all in the curving poise of their little heads and the twist of their little tails, was revealed half the art of venice, and we saw how the first glass worker came to be told to make a sea green dragon climbing over an amber yellow bowl, and where the gondola borrowed its grace. they moved us to unanimous enthusiasm, and we utterly refused to let dicky put one in his button-hole.
it is looking back upon venice, too, that i see the paternal figure of the senator nourishing the people with octopuses. this may seem improbable, but it is strictly true. they were small octopuses, not nearly large enough to kill anybody while they were alive, though boiled and pickled they looked very deadly. pink in colour, they stood in a barrel near the entrance, i remember, of jesurum's, and attracted the senator's inquiring eye. when the guide said they were for human consumption poppa looked at him suspiciously and offered him one. he ate it with a promptness and artistic despatch that fascinated us all, gathering it up by its limp long legs and taking bites out of it, as if it were an apple. a one-eyed man who hooked pausing gondolas up to the slippery steps offered to show how it should be done, and other performers, all skilled, seemed to rise from the stones of the pavement. poppa invited them all, by pantomime, to walk up and have an octopus, and when the crowd began to gather from the side alleys, and the enthusiasm grew too promiscuous, he bought the barrel outright and watched the carnival from the middle of the canal. he often speaks of his enjoyment of the venetian octopus, eaten in cold blood, without pepper, salt, or vinegar; and the effect, when i am not there, is awe-stricken.
next morning we took a gondola for the station, and slipped through the gold and opal silence of the dawn on the canals away from venice. no one was up but the sun, who did as he liked with the fa?ades and the bridges in the water, and made strange lovelinesses in narrow darkling places, and showed us things in the calli that we did not know were in the world. the senator was really depressing until he gradually lightened his spirits by working out a scheme for a direct line of steamships between venice and new york, to be based on an agreement with the venetian municipality as to garments of legitimate gaiety for the gondoliers, the re-nomination of an annual doge, who should be compelled to wear his robes whenever he went out of doors, and the yearly resurrection of the ancient ceremony of marrying venice to the adriatic, during the months of july and august, when the tide of tourist traffic sets across the atlantic. "we should get every school ma'am in the union, to begin with," said poppa confidently, and by the time we reached verona he had floated the company, launched the first ship, arrived in venice with full orchestral accompaniment, and dined the imitation doge—if he couldn't get umberto and crispi—upon clam chowder and canvas-backs to the solemn strains of hail columbia played up and down the grand canal. "if it could be worked," said poppa as we descended upon the platform, "i'd like to have the pope telephone us a blessing on the banquet."
