"Every boat of every sort that was not a gondola passed and repassed many times to the cemetery and back; and all were full. No doubt the boatmen made a good day's wage; but the gondoliers had never seen, not even in the carnival, anything so ridiculous; and that evening when they described to each other the boats and the rowers they had seen, and acted out all these absurdities, you would have thought them the merriest souls alive." "But were they so, Giacomo?" "No, indeed, signora: they were miserable. They could not sleep, or if they did they dreamed that they were rowing {22} over the lagoons, and only woke in wretchedness to find it was not true." "And on Thursday what happened?" "The gondoliers then took an advocate, and sent him to the Syndic to plead their cause. But the Syndic would not listen; he would only deal with the gondoliers themselves, and he began to be severe and to talk of many steamboats running everywhere; and the gondoliers were told of 'launches' that could thread the smallest canals _better than gondolas_! Alas! signora, what could be done if this were true? "Just then the military and customs officers who had loaned their boats to the ferries sent word that they must have them again; and an old gondolier whom all the others respected, took his boat out and began to serve a ferry. Instantly the strike was ended. The gondolas were untied, cleaned, and dressed as for a gala-day. The canals and lagoons were soon alive with them, and we had our Venice back again." It was the old story. The gondoliers could not be allowed to stand in the way of progress, nor could they lay down the law to Venice. But their simple way of going on a strike, and absolute simplicity in ending it, was almost pathetic; such children did they seem in comparison with strikers and strikes that we know. By this time midday has come, and our very early breakfast calls for an early luncheon. The artist is so absorbed in his work that it seems almost a sin to disturb him; but in his ardor to-day he has painted so rapidly as quite to satisfy us, and half to content himself,--a true artist rarely does more than this. After luncheon we try to read; but the many changing sights and sounds are too distracting for anything that requires thought, and when we read a story on the lagoon we are never able to remember whether the lovers married {23} or were separated by a cruel fate. A sentence is well begun, when a deeper shadow puts a new color on everything, and we drop our book to look; the same sentence is half read a second time, when a fruit-boat laden with piles of green and golden melons and luscious peaches comes so near us that Anita calls out to Giacomo to buy what will be needed on the morrow, and we listen to the chattering and bargaining until that is over; the third time that particular sentence is finished, but just then drowsiness overcomes our brain, and we are asleep.