The delicate purple bells of the vine upon the trellis stirred in the
evening breeze, making a shimmer of perfume and color about her, like a
suggestion of an aureole; and in the arbor, as in one of those homely
shrines which everywhere make part of the Venetian life, she seemed
aloof as some ideal of an earlier Christian age from the restless,
voluble group upon the tiny quay.
There were _facchini_--those doers of nondescript smallest services,
quarreling amiably to pass the time, springing forward for custom as the
gondolas neared the steps; _gransieri_--the licensed traghetto beggars,
ragged and picturesque, pushing past with their long, crooked poles,
under pretence of drawing the gondolas to shore; one or two women from
the islands, filling the moments with swift, declamatory speech until
the gondola of Giambattista or of Jacopo should close the colloquy; an
older peasant, tranquilly kneeling to the Madonna of the traghetto, amid
the clatter, while steaming greasy odors from her housewifely basket of
Venetian dainties mount slowly, like some travesty of incense, and cloud
the humble shrine.
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