  Venice ALL IS NOT LOST Cynthia was sleepy when she stumbled into the station at Genoa. She hadn’t been too sure that the hotel keeper would wake her in time to get the train for Venice. So all night long she had dozed fitfully, waking to sit And it must have been because her eyes were still blurred with sleep that she took the rapide instead of the express for Venice. They were standing directly opposite each other, and both of them had “Venezia” in letters a foot high along the carriages. An Italian rapide does not necessarily move with great rapidity. By the best of expresses it is a long day’s journey across the width of Italy and by the time she had discovered, “What time do we get to Venezia,” she begged. “Venezia ... Venezia. ...” “Si...si...si...si...si,” hissed the beaming conductor as he punched her ticket. “Yes, but what time? Tempo? Tempo?” she pleaded. The conductor shook his head and shrugged. Probably mad, this pretty signorina. But he had no English, and what did she in third class, in that expensive dress of real silk, with leather shoes upon her feet, a hat, and a suitcase also of veritable leather? He gave it up and sauntered down the crowded aisle between the wooden benches to examine the biglietto of a wizened little great-grandmother traveling, with six great-grandchildren, to Milan. Cynthia grinned and settled philosophically against the frame of the open window. Ten hours was a pretty long time, and it would be more than that now in this poky old train, but anyway it was an adventure and all part of Third class had been almost a necessity, this Italian trip hadn’t been allowed for in her original budget, but Cynthia had found third class in France so much more fun than second ... and of course even the Italians say that no one but rich, rich Americans and officials who travel on passes ever go by first. This was the coolest carriage too, since the always open windows let in floods of air and sunlight along with the floods of dust, and the hard wooden benches were pleasantly free of the small insect life almost universally inhabiting the upholstery of first and second coaches. But third class in Italy! The young man at Cooks who had sold her her ticket had almost expired to hear of an Anglo-Saxon traveling in so unorthodox a fashion. No one ... no one ever traveled third class in Italy! Cynthia surveyed the coach and chuckled again. Further down the aisle, two lovely little Sisters Then there was the old great grandmother and her boisterous brood. Beside them she tended a hen in her apron, a hen that seemed very content to sleep and to cluck drowsily in the warm depths of that blue lap. The littlest bambino was not more than a year old, sleeping with bobbing head on the shoulder of the oldest sister. He had the most beautiful hands, tapering, with tiny dimples and wee pink nails, which fell into enchanting poses. Cynthia sketched happily. People came and went from every tiny station The sun grew warmer, the paper beneath her hand sticky with perspiration. Somewhere along the line a few lire purchased a sandwich of garlic-flavored sausage between thick slices of warm bread, a bottle of warmish water and a bunch of sweet, very juicy green grapes. After lunch she curled in her corner and slept. When she awoke the car was nearly empty and they were clattering and banging through the light of midafternoon. Hills were purple beyond hot haze and vineyards, white with dust, spread for miles and miles on either side the track. Cynthia sighed and got up to walk the length of the car and back again. Where were they now, she wondered? When they stopped with a clatter and bang at the next station she hopped out to look at the map hung on the station wall. Keeping one careful eye on the train lest it slide out and leave The little horn tooted its warning and Cynthia fled back to her seat. What to do, what to do? Thank goodness, nobody would be at all worried or put out by this fool mistake of hers. Nancy, back in Brittany by now, and Mrs. Brewster were the only people that knew about her trains and her plans. Mother had insisted when Cynthia first left America that she keep in touch, close touch, with some one person in Europe, and she had been awfully faithful about that. She had even written Nancy what train she was taking from Genoa ... and now, Cynthia grinned ... look at the darn thing! By five o’clock she was ravenous and very weary. From former experience she knew that she could hop off almost any place that the train might stop and continue next day on the same ticket. But for hours they had not passed a decent sized town, just little settlements about the usual tiny church and inn, a few donkeys and a mangy yellow dog or two. Did she dare get Fumbling in the pocket of her silk jacket she found a single lira and on impulse flipped it into the air. It dropped into her lap and she covered it quickly with her hand. “Heads; I’ll get off at the very next stop, no matter if it’s in the middle of a field. Tails; I’ll go on to Venice, no matter how late we get there or how hungry I am,” she said aloud. She uncovered the coin. Heads it was! Cynthia was a little scared. But determined, oh very determined. Resolutely she took down her suitcase from the rack, swung her painting box beside it. Firmly she waited by the open window till the train banged again to a stop beside a little shack that served as a station. The sign read Santa Maria Something-or-other, a name which meant nothing to Cynthia. Sturdily she stepped backward down the three steep steps to the ground, swung her box and suitcase off beside her and turning her back on the poky little train walked toward the gate. “Si, si.” Wonderingly he let her pass. Not until the gate had closed firmly did Cynthia feel sure that she herself wouldn’t turn and race toward the departing train, the train that eventually must reach Venice. When the last shriek of the whistle had died along the echoing hills, when the last smudge of smoke had disappeared against the dazzling light of the sinking sun, Cynthia was plodding almost ankle deep in dust along the wide path that seemed to do duty as the town road. But there was literally no town here. Far off across the plowed fields a sugar white tower reared against the skyline; the village church. Four or five scattered houses with the inevitable grape vine, their whitewashed sides stained verdigris green with arsenic spray, and a tiny inn to which the gateman had directed her. This latter was her objective. Its entrance was beneath a vine covered lattice and its bare dirt floor, its collection of dogs Stumblingly she asked for a room for the night, explained her wish to be called early for the first train for Venice. Yes, signorina, there was a room, but one. The signorina should regard it. It was bare, save for the bed, table and chair and directly above the cafÉ, but clean and cool. Cynthia nodded, did not ask the price and letting her suitcase slide to the floor, ordered water with which to wash. That was easy, one always asked for water. Supper also should be simple, since a traveler was expected to desire food. Cynthia thought of her first night in Paris and felt a little proud of how much more confident she had become since then. What would Chick think of this adventure of hers, she wondered and was glad he needn’t know about it for weeks yet. He’d be sure to scold her for taking such a risk. It proved however to be no risk at all. At supper, a simple meal of spaghetti, a salad and The express from the north, to which Cynthia transferred a half hour beyond the little village, arrived in Venice about nine o’clock. It looked, she thought as she waited in the train corridor, just a little disappointing, only a long, tunnel-like train shed. No canals, no gondolas, no palaces in sight. The burly Italian in front of her swung off with his bags, Cynthia prepared to follow, and stopped stock still, midway of the top step. “Chick!” “Cynthia,” came the excited reply, “Where on earth? ...” “I ... I thought you were in New York, “I thought you were due last night, on the rapide from Genoa,” exclaimed the disgusted Chick. “You wrote that to Nancy you know. And I’ve been meeting trains almost all night. ... It was only by luck I stopped here. I was meeting the express from Genoa on track six ten minutes ago.” He signaled a porter. “This your stuff? All of it?” A hand beneath her elbow, impersonally, kindly, almost as though he were the favorite nephew of a maiden aunt, all concern for her baggage, that she pass the dogana, the local custom house, that she give her ticket to the proper uniformed official. They came out of the stone doorway onto a half dozen steep stone steps. Before them shimmered the canal. So the popular report was true and Venice did have them? “I’ve got a gondola waiting right here ...” he The wide upholstered seat was very comfortable. With surprisingly little fuss they were in the center of the stream, Chick had given the order, his fingers caught hers and held them tight. Good, then they really were still engaged! Cynthia chuckled happily. “I can’t ...” she turned to gaze at him ... “can’t get over this Chick. It’s the greatest surprise of my life.” “That was the intention,” Chick grinned back. He had, he told her, arrived in Naples two days ago, had promptly wired Nancy to find Cynthia’s exact address and had been told of the train she would take to Venice. “Neat, very neat!” approved Cynthia. “If I just hadn’t taken a local by mistake. And now where are you taking me?” “Pensione Casa Petrarca?” “Had your breakfast? Good. Then wash and tidy up and we’ll do a bit of sightseeing. After that. ...” Quietly he slipped his hand from hers, slid it into his pocket. “Oh dear, Chick, what’s the matter, what is it?” “I’ve ... that is I seem to have. ...” And with the maddening masculine manner of one blessed with many pockets started fumbling through them all, one after another. “Lost something?” Chick frowned. “Gone. But I hope it’s not lost.” Deliberately he went through the whole lot again while the gondola rocked gently before the steps of the pensione. At last he shrugged. “I came out last night and this morning with a gondolier named Luigi, from the traghetta, that’s a sort of gondola taxi-stand, across the way. If I’ve dropped the thing, it’ll probably be in his gondola. Go on up, will you? I’ll see if I can trace him.” A big airy room with a quaint porcelain stove in the corner. As the door closed behind the A bit of powder, some rouge and she was ready to meet the world again, or at least Venice and Chick. He was waiting for her by the pensione steps. “Know any Italian?” he asked anxiously. “Not much, I’m afraid, Chick.” But, she thought, probably more than he did. “Well, come see if you can make anything out of this jumble of talk. I’m about cuckoo. We’ll walk across, it’s a good chance to see the Rialto bridge.” This was of stone, lined with a shallow, stepped, series of shops on either side, going up, going down till one reached the farther side of the Grand canal. Here Chick pointed out the row of gondolas as the taxi-rank from which he had taken Luigi. Cynthia stammered a few questions, listened “This morning?” asked Chick anxiously. “I guess so.” Cynthia was slightly careless about that. Funny of Chick, not like him to make such a fuss over some silly little souvenir he’d bought. “Come on,” she put a hand on his arm, “let’s go sight-see for a while.” Somewhat reluctantly Chick agreed. Over tiny crooked stone bridges they went, along quays along whose mossy sides the water lapped dark and mysterious, down blind, colorful alleys where small children stuck their heads from windows and yelled shrilly. “Non passaggio ... no passage!” Cynthia adored it all, adored being with Chick again. If he only wouldn’t fuss so, she thought. For he kept looking at his watch, glancing back over his shoulder, until finally she gave it up in despair. No use of sightseeing till Chick recovered his lost property. “How about going back now and having another try at your gondolier?” she suggested. Cynthia, first on one foot and then on the other, for she was getting a little tired, translated to the best of her ability. Chick stuck in a word now and then. “Perdita. ... Lost ... lost.” Was Chick’s gender wrong, or had he really mislaid a blonde? But a few in the group of gondoliers got the idea. Apparently each one had, at one time or another discovered something perdita. From beneath the flea-infested blanket of a gondola was produced a dogs-eared magazine. Cynthia beginning to be amused read the lurid title in flaming vermilion sprawled across its cover. “True Tales of the Wild West.” The date was over a year ago but it had been, undoubtedly, once lost. Other gondoliers left their bobbing craft, passers-by drew closer as Chick’s eagerness held Cynthia nodded silently, not daring to risk speech and watched with dancing eyes while Chick refused, from a second cheerful brigand a musty, torn golash. Cheerful brigand number two was a sheer loss to high pressure salesmanship. Cynthia caught the word “Impermeabile ... waterproof,” as he covered the tear with one big hand. Twisting the rubber inside out he sought to display its amazing suppleness and elasticity while an admiring group applauded both at the golash and the salesman, with ohs and ahs of astonishment. Cynthia was wondering how a single torn rubber had been brought from so many thousand miles to lie forgotten in a Venetian gondola, and also how the gondolier thought Chick, with a foot obviously many sizes larger, was going to use it. But perhaps he surmised a sentimental attachment. Chick seemed not to hear. The new distraction was a cabbage, wilted, but unquestionably of more recent vintage than either the galosh or the ancient magazine. Its discoverer had waited for a time outside the magic circle, while firing forth a rapid stream of “Ecco ... ecco ... ecco!” as he held aloft the proffered vegetable. Breaking through at last he encountered the two previous presenters of articles, thus gaining the attention also of the crowd. Which was his downfall. An old woman, black shawl over her head, flattened slippers of magenta felt upon her feet, having heaved her way through by sheer force of language, not only wanted a cabbage, but the cabbage. Perhaps it was the cabbage of her childhood, perhaps she had nursed it from a tiny seedling, this dejected thing. For a moment Close behind the old woman came shouldering two calm carabinieri, just in time it seemed to prevent a general combat. White gloved hands behind them, patent leather hats set squarely above unruffled brows, two identical, magnificent examples of the Venetian police. Tweedledum, it seemed, asked the questions. Tweedledee answered them. Conversely Dum asked and Dee answered. Comparative silence settled upon the circle and Cynthia cautiously removed her hands from her ears. All available witnesses began to present their evidence. As there were perhaps a score in number all acting out their theories in violent pantomime, Cynthia began to wish they weren’t right in the center of it. The one who had taken upon himself the part of the inquirer after lost articles, Chick’s rÔle in fact, was losing things in all directions with wide, dramatic sweeps of his arms. Tweedledum and Tweedledee executed a half turn in perfect unison, raised right hands in The cabbage was bestowed upon its rightful owner who still lingered, voluminous with words, to see what else might happen. The golash returned to the gondolier in whose craft it had originally been found. Cynthia applauded the decision, then translated for Chick’s benefit Tweedledum’s speech: “We’re to go to the police station, Chick. That’ll teach you, young man, not to start riots. And I hope it does!” Behind them an admiring and still unsilenced throng applauded their departure, even followed a short distance along the quay and over the ancient bridge. “My heavens!” fumed Chick, “can’t they understand! I’ve said ‘perdita,’ and ‘piccolo’ till I’m black in the face.” But Cynthia was enjoying herself. The police were speaking again. Cynthia thought she caught the word. ... “Fondere.” Did that mean “found?” The Lost and Found Department perhaps? She made that suggestion to Chick. A few more streets, a bridge or two, a narrow sun-lit way and one of the innumerable palaces which seemed now to be a police station, with the crown and arms of Italy above the door. Beyond this a damp and cheerless room, none too clean and the equivalent of a desk sergeant who drew towards him a large book and set down their names, Chick’s and Cynthia’s, and their pensione. Dum and Dee were doing all the explaining but in Italian far too rapid for Cynthia to follow. It might yet prove that she and Chick had defied municipal authority by starting a barter shop on the quayside, one decaying golash for a wilted cabbage. Tweedledum and Tweedledee had finished, the man at the desk made a gesture. An attendant Frankly uncertain she followed Chick’s slow steps, the attendant close behind, Dum and Dee bringing up in the rear. Then the attendant switched on a light, a series of lights disclosing what might have been a wine cellar. But instead of wine ... Cynthia choked back her laughter and pointed. A bicycle, a shelf of gloves, a regular store of ancient umbrellas and sunshades, piles and piles of books, mostly Baedeckers by their moldy red bindings, boots, odd bits of clothing, a coffeepot, market loads still knotted in capacious handkerchiefs, a coffin, a load of bricks. ... Chick’s face was flaming. “How in the name of goodness can we tell whether it’s here or not!” He turned to Cynthia. “Don’t they have a list of things somewhere, and the times they were found? Tell them it’s small, small. And done up in white paper and a box.” “I know,” Cynthia nodded solemnly. “A pound of butter, Chick dear. Oh Chick, you One of them gave a shrug of disappointment which was echoed by the other. With all these things to choose from, they seemed to say, surely any but the most captious would be satisfied. But they turned to discuss the matter with the attendant. Lights began to go out, indication that this particular exhibition was over, Finish. But apparently more was to follow. Chick might yet discover his pound of butter. As they returned to the main room the attendant departed and polite gestures demanded that Chick and Cynthia should take chairs and wait. An air of expectancy hung above the little room. Obviously the choicest gem of the collection, something too valuable to be left with the other articles had been sent for. “Do you think they’ve sent to the bank?” asked Cynthia. Chick brightened at the suggestion, brightened Chick nearly dropped the basket. Cynthia, nearly helpless with laughter, had fallen into a chair and, with face buried in her handkerchief, could only indulge in what Dum and Dee must surely have considered tears of uncontrolled joy at this return of her lost property. Sympathetic murmurs, croonings of consolation echoed about the room. Even the rather hard faced woman was touched. Chick stood stupidly staring. “No, no, no, no, no!” Like a popgun, Cynthia shot out violent negatives. And at last she had made it clear. Almost with joy the woman received back the cherished rooster from Chick’s relieved embrace. Almost haughtily they were shown to the door, sent, with an air of extreme disapproval, upon their way. Outside in the sunlight Cynthia was almost surprised to find it was the same day, and Chick pulled down his coat, let out a great puff of a sigh. After that first burst of laughter Cynthia had managed to get control of herself, but she wasn’t sure how long this would last. She must get somewhere, anywhere, and have it all out with Chick. Meekly she took his arm, let him lead her along the quay, through small streets toward the Piazza San Marco. She glanced upward. Chick was being very masculine, very In silence they traversed the small streets. Well, if Chick was going to be stuffy! ... But he couldn’t be, he simply couldn’t be. And whose beastly old bundle was it anyway? She didn’t go about leaving things in gondolas. Florio’s, on the Piazza San Marco. A small green iron table, two small twisted iron chairs and an attentive waiter in a white apron. Chick’s eyes consulted Cynthia, then ordered two lemonades. They came. In silence Cynthia sipped hers, bit her lips, gulped and regarded fixedly a stupid, pink toed pigeon who was strutting, with puffed out chest before the lovely little faun colored lady of his choice. Sideways out of her eyes Cynthia caught a glimpse of Chick, then turned to face him. His face was red but in his eyes was now a glimmer of understanding, one might almost say mirth. Cynthia dared a slight, tremulous giggle, forerunner of the gale to come. Then. ... “Oh Chick, Chick, if you could have seen yourself with that silly rooster. ... And the cabbage ... and Tweedledum ...!” The tide had risen now, all bars were down. For ten minutes the gale raged backwards and forwards then, weak and helpless Cynthia begged for another lemonade, wiped the tears from her eyes and subsided into comparative sanity. Their laughter together had relieved her in many ways. It was going to be all right now, she and Chick still thought alike, could still find amusement in the same things, and the doubts of the morning were all swept away. “But Chick,” doggedly she returned to the old question. “Now it’s all over, you can tell me, can’t you? What was in that package?” Chick wasn’t going to be stuffy about it any more. He grinned this time, but shook his head. “If we don’t find it today I’ll really tell you. Not yet, though.” “Cross your heart?” From the corner of the square a big bell began a slow solemn booming and as though it was a signal, hundreds, thousands of pigeons rose against the deep blue of the Venetian sky and the sunlit columns opposite. Glinting silvery, Across the square, giving access to the Merceria, the Way of the Merchants, was the clock tower. As the great painted face recorded noon two giant moors slowly struck a bronze bell with big hammers, marking the hour. “Lovely!” murmured Cynthia. “Oh Chick, I wish ... I wish we didn’t have to go back, ever. I wish we could stay on, in one of those sweet old palaces. ...” “Like Othello and Desdemona?” “No ...,” slowly. “She got smothered, didn’t she? I guess I wouldn’t care for that.” “New York will be fun too,” hazarded Chick. “And with all the advertisement you’ve had, young lady; your magazine covers on every newstand, month after month.” Chick’s suggestion was: lunch at the Danieli, which was the swankiest hotel in Venice, and, he had heard, one of the loveliest of the old Venetian palaces. Then back to the traghetti to see if Luigi had come. Oh, that again! Cynthia made an impatient gesture. Save us from a man with one idea! But she adored the lunch, loved the gracious old palace with its carved, minstrel gallery, its floor of multicolored tiles, its ceiling carved and painted in deep blue and rose and gold. Out into the sunlight again, and the Adriatic shimmering as blue as the ceiling, a pleasant little wind chilled by the snows of the Dalmatian Alps and the white bubble of the Church of the Salute rising across the lagoon. “Shall we ride, or walk?” asked Chick. By the way he said it Cynthia knew he wanted to walk. “We see more on foot, don’t we?” she suggested “See, Chick, isn’t that the loveliest old bracelet? ...” A thick circle, not quite joined, of gold, the two ends which almost touched circled with tiny crowns of blue, blue turquoises. “And oh, Chick, just look at that ring. ...” A lovely old thing of Florentine gold, studded with seed pearls and surrounding a topaz as richly dark as the gold itself. Chick put a hand on her arm and urged her along to the next window which, being full of ancient books and maps was not quite so enthralling. And thank goodness, here was the traghetti. Perhaps they’d find that stupid lost bundle of Chick’s at last. Word must have been passed around for there was someone, Chick exclaimed that it was Luigi, waiting for them, his weathered old face a mass of interweaving laughter wrinkles. Sturdy, stocky, clad in ragged clean shirt, with the uniform black trousers and sash of the public gondolier, Luigi dashed up the short flight of steps, rushed toward them. In his outstretched hand he held a parcel, small, oh very small. Not big enough even for a quarter of a pound of butter. Chick gave a hasty order, grasped Cynthia’s arm and thrust her down the steps, into the Luigi gondola. Then waved a wide gesture down the Grand Canal toward the lagoon beyond. “Buono! ... Buono!” agreed Luigi, nodding vigorously like a porcelain Then she saw the little package in his other hand, glanced up inquiringly and caught the look in his eyes. Her heart skipped a beat, two “Let’s,” said Chick, taking his hand out of hers, “let’s both undo the package. You do want to see what’s in it, don’t you, Cyn?” Cynthia laughed. “Here I’ve been hustled and bustled over half of Venice, in jail and out again ...” she addressed the diminishing houses of candy pink, baby blue, as the gondola struck the wide lagoon and rocked slowly away from the town, “and he asks me, do I want to know what’s in it. Man alive, do you think I’ve got no curiosity?” From behind them came a musical shout. Luigi warning off another gondola. Beyond him, Venice glowed pearl pink in the late light of afternoon, the long paddle made a soft ripple on the blue lagoon. Dark Italian eyes looked over their shoulders, whole heartedly, honestly as curious as Cynthia, and two heads, one brown, one blond bent close together. Cynthia untied the knot, with slim fingers that were cold and loosened the rumpled white paper. A small box of blue stained leather beautifully tooled in gilt. She lifted the lid. On the third finger of her right hand she slipped it. Quaint old green gold, delicately lacy as the collar of a doge, held firmly in its heart a single pink pearl. Chick reached and took the hand in his, slipped off the ring, slid into his palm the little emerald she had worn all summer, and in its place substituted the other. It fitted as though it had been made for her. Perhaps it was. “Just for you, yourself,” he said. “It’s quite old, four or five hundred years they told me. I got it yesterday afternoon in one of those shops you looked at, Cynthia. And I’ve been frantic all day. ... I wanted to tell you, just this way, in a gondola, with just this ring. And I couldn’t, darling, tell you before.” “Chick, it’s the most beautiful, beautiful thing I ever saw in my whole life.” “Isn’t it?” said Chick, but when she glanced up his eyes were not on the ring. “Tomorrow,” he said, “we’ll see the American consul. I understand he’s the marrying guy about here.” Behind them suddenly came a great shout, Transcriber’s Notes: Inconsistent hyphenation, punctuation, spelling, the use of golash and galosh and poster and paster, and placement of the apostrophe in Little One’s Magazine and Little Ones’ Magazine have been retained as printed in the original publication except as follows:
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