Every type of Venetian is seen in the Square, save one—­the gondolier.  Never have I seen a gondolier there, day or night:  not because it is too grand for him, but it is off his beat.  When he has done his work he prefers the wine shops of his own sestiere.  No thought of any want of welcome would deter him, for Venice is republic to the core.  In fact one might go farther and say that it is a city of the poor.  Where the poor lived in the great days when the palaces were occupied by the rich, one cannot quite understand, since the palace is the staple building; but there is no doubt as to where they live now:  they live everywhere.  The number of palaces which are wholly occupied by one family must be infinitesimal; the rest are tenements, anything but model buildings, rookeries.  Venice has no aristocratic quarter as other cities have.  The poor establish themselves either in a palace or as near it as possible.

I have referred to the girls in their black shawls or scialli.  They remain in the memory as one of Venice’s most distinguished possessions.  A handsome young private gondolier in white linen with a coloured scarf, bending to the oar and thrusting his boat forward with muscular strokes, is a delight to watch; but he is without mystery.  These girls have grace and mystery too.  They are so foreign, so slender and straight, so sad.  Their faces are capable of animation, but their prevailing expression is melancholy.  Why is this?  Is it because they know how secondary a place woman holds in this city of well-nourished, self-satisfied men?  Is it that they know that a girl’s life is so brief:  one day as supple and active as they are now and the next a crone?  For it is one of the tragedies that the Venetian atmosphere so rapidly ages women.

But in their prime the Venetian girls in the black shawls are distinguished indeed, and there was not a little sagacity in the remark to me by an observer who said that, were they wise, all women would adopt a uniform.  One has often thought this, in London, when a nurse in blue or grey passes refreshingly along a pavement made bizarre by expensive and foolish fashions; one realizes it even more in Venice.

Most of these girls have dark or black hair.  The famous red hair of Venetian women is rarely seen out of pictures.

Round and round goes the chattering contented crowd, while every table at each of the four cafes, Florian’s and the Aurora, the Quadri and the Ortes Rosa, swells the noise.  Now and then the music, or the ordinary murmur of the Square in the long intervals, is broken by the noisy rattle of a descending shop shutter, or the hour is struck by the Merceria clock’s bronze giants; now and then a pigeon crosses the sky and shows luminous where the light strikes its breast; now and then a feather flutters from a window ledge, great bats flit up and down, and the mosquitoes shrill in one’s ear.  It is an entertainment never failing in interest to the observer, and not the least amusing question that one asks oneself is, Where does every one sleep?