"
They will be tried as secret agents of the enemy. But resistance is
rare, for an escort of guards pours out from the doorways and calles, if
a stiletto but gleam in the sunlight; and no secret agent may cope with
Venice in promptness of self-defense and ingenuity of prevention.
It is interesting in the campo in these early days, before the effect of
the government's measures for coercing the opinions of the populace is
fully declared.
"I am a good Catholic, most reverend father; I keep the mariegole; every
year I go to confession," protests some sturdy gondolier, who has been
made anxious by his womenfolk. "And many a fare I pay to light the
traghetto of San Nicolo; with an ave for the favor of the Blessed Mother
to confound the scoundrel Castellani, who threw a good Nicolotto over
the Ponte Senza Parapetti, in the last fight; and it cost us oil enough
to light Venice for a year--faith of San Nicolo!--to keep them from
winning at our regatta--_maledetti_!"
For even those gondoliers who kept the mariegole were not precisely
angels, and the part of their creed which they religiously upheld was a
deathless antagonism to the rival faction which won more lamps and
pretty gifts for the patron madonnas of the various traghetti than any
other article of their faith.
Pages:
292
293
294
295
296
297
298
299
300
301
302
303
304
305
306
307
308
309
310
311
312
313
314
315
316