by Mark Twain
CHAPTER XLIX
[Hanged with a Golden Rope]
One lingers about the Cathedral a good deal, in Venice. There is astrong fascination about it--partly because it is so old, and partlybecause it is so ugly. Too many of the world's famous buildings fail ofone chief virtue--harmony; they are made up of a methodless mixtureof the ugly and the beautiful; this is bad; it is confusing, it isunrestful. One has a sense of uneasiness, of distress, without knowingwhy. But one is calm before St. Mark's, one is calm within it, onewould be calm on top of it, calm in the cellar; for its details aremasterfully ugly, no misplaced and impertinent beauties are intrudedanywhere; and the consequent result is a grand harmonious whole, ofsoothing, entrancing, tranquilizing, soul-satisfying ugliness. One'sadmiration of a perfect thing always grows, never declines; and this isthe surest evidence to him that it _is_ perfect. St. Mark's is perfect.To me it soon grew to be so nobly, so augustly ugly, that it wasdifficult to stay away from it, even for a little while. Every timeits squat domes disappeared from my view, I had a despondent feeling;whenever they reappeared, I felt an honest rapture--I have not known anyhappier hours than those I daily spent in front of Florian's,looking across the Great Square at it. Propped on its long row of lowthick-legged columns, its back knobbed with domes, it seemed like a vastwarty bug taking a meditative walk.
St. Mark's is not the oldest building in the world, of course, but itseems the oldest, and looks the oldest--especially inside.
When the ancient mosaics in its walls become damaged, they are repairedbut not altered; the grotesque old pattern is preserved. Antiquity hasa charm of its own, and to smarten it up would only damage it. One dayI was sitting on a red marble bench in the vestibule looking up at anancient piece of apprentice-work, in mosaic, illustrative of the commandto "multiply and replenish the earth." The Cathedral itself had seemedvery old; but this picture was illustrating a period in history whichmade the building seem young by comparison. But I presently found anantique which was older than either the battered Cathedral or the dateassigned to the piece of history; it was a spiral-shaped fossil as largeas the crown of a hat; it was embedded in the marble bench, and hadbeen sat upon by tourists until it was worn smooth. Contrasted with theinconceivable antiquity of this modest fossil, those other things wereflippantly modern--jejune--mere matters of day-before-yesterday. Thesense of the oldness of the Cathedral vanished away under the influenceof this truly venerable presence.
St. Mark's is monumental; it is an imperishable remembrancer of theprofound and simple piety of the Middle Ages. Whoever could ravish acolumn from a pagan temple, did it and contributed his swag to thisChristian one. So this fane is upheld by several hundred acquisitionsprocured in that peculiar way. In our day it would be immoral to go onthe highway to get bricks for a church, but it was no sin in the oldtimes. St. Mark's was itself the victim of a curious robbery once. Thething is set down in the history of Venice, but it might be smuggledinto the Arabian Nights and not seem out of place there:
Nearly four hundred and fifty years ago, a Candian named Stammato, inthe suite of a prince of the house of Este, was allowed to view theriches of St. Mark's. His sinful eye was dazzled and he hid himselfbehind an altar, with an evil purpose in his heart, but a priestdiscovered him and turned him out. Afterward he got in again--by falsekeys, this time. He went there, night after night, and worked hard andpatiently, all alone, overcoming difficulty after difficulty with histoil, and at last succeeded in removing a great brick of the marblepaneling which walled the lower part of the treasury; this block hefixed so that he could take it out and put it in at will. Afterthat, for weeks, he spent all his midnights in his magnificent mine,inspecting it in security, gloating over its marvels at his leisure, andalways slipping back to his obscure lodgings before dawn, with aduke's ransom under his cloak. He did not need to grab, haphazard, andrun--there was no hurry. He could make deliberate and well-consideredselections; he could consult his esthetic tastes. One comprehends howundisturbed he was, and how safe from any danger of interruption,when it is stated that he even carried off a unicorn's horn--a merecuriosity--which would not pass through the egress entire, but had tobe sawn in two--a bit of work which cost him hours of tedious labor. Hecontinued to store up his treasures at home until his occupation lostthe charm of novelty and became monotonous; then he ceased from it,contented. Well he might be; for his collection, raised to modernvalues, represented nearly fifty million dollars!
He could have gone home much the richest citizen of his country, andit might have been years before the plunder was missed; but he washuman--he could not enjoy his delight alone, he must have somebody totalk about it with. So he exacted a solemn oath from a Candian noblenamed Crioni, then led him to his lodgings and nearly took his breathaway with a sight of his glittering hoard. He detected a look in hisfriend's face which excited his suspicion, and was about to slip astiletto into him when Crioni saved himself by explaining that that lookwas only an expression of supreme and happy astonishment. Stammatomade Crioni a present of one of the state's principal jewels--a hugecarbuncle, which afterward figured in the Ducal cap of state--and thepair parted. Crioni went at once to the palace, denounced the criminal,and handed over the carbuncle as evidence. Stammato was arrested, tried,and condemned, with the old-time Venetian promptness. He was hangedbetween the two great columns in the Piazza--with a gilded rope, out ofcompliment to his love of gold, perhaps. He got no good of his booty atall--it was _all_ recovered.
In Venice we had a luxury which very seldom fell to our lot on thecontinent--a home dinner with a private family. If one could always stopwith private families, when traveling, Europe would have a charm whichit now lacks. As it is, one must live in the hotels, of course, and thatis a sorrowful business. A man accustomed to American food and Americandomestic cookery would not starve to death suddenly in Europe; but Ithink he would gradually waste away, and eventually die.
He would have to do without his accustomed morning meal. That is tooformidable a change altogether; he would necessarily suffer from it. Hecould get the shadow, the sham, the base counterfeit of that meal; butit would do him no good, and money could not buy the reality.
To particularize: the average American's simplest and commonest form ofbreakfast consists of coffee and beefsteak; well, in Europe, coffee isan unknown beverage. You can get what the European hotel-keeper thinksis coffee, but it resembles the real thing as hypocrisy resemblesholiness. It is a feeble, characterless, uninspiring sort of stuff, andalmost as undrinkable as if it had been made in an American hotel. Themilk used for it is what the French call "Christian" milk--milk whichhas been baptized.
After a few months' acquaintance with European "coffee," one's mindweakens, and his faith with it, and he begins to wonder if the richbeverage of home, with its clotted layer of yellow cream on top of it,is not a mere dream, after all, and a thing which never existed.
Next comes the European bread--fair enough, good enough, after afashion, but cold; cold and tough, and unsympathetic; and never anychange, never any variety--always the same tiresome thing.
Next, the butter--the sham and tasteless butter; no salt in it, and madeof goodness knows what.
Then there is the beefsteak. They have it in Europe, but they don't knowhow to cook it. Neither will they cut it right. It comes on the table ina small, round pewter platter. It lies in the center of this platter,in a bordering bed of grease-soaked potatoes; it is the size, shape, andthickness of a man's hand with the thumb and fingers cut off. It is alittle overdone, is rather dry, it tastes pretty insipidly, it rouses noenthusiasm.
Imagine a poor exile contemplating that inert thing; and imagine anangel suddenly sweeping down out of a better land and setting before hima mighty porterhouse steak an inch and a half thick, hot and sputteringfrom the griddle; dusted with a fragrant pepper; enriched withlittle melting bits of butter of the most unimpeachable freshness andgenuineness; the precious juices of the meat trickling out and joiningthe gravy, archipelagoed with mushrooms; a townshi
p or two of tender,yellowish fat gracing an outlying district of this ample county ofbeefsteak; the long white bone which divides the sirloin from thetenderloin still in its place; and imagine that the angel also adds agreat cup of American home-made coffee, with a cream a-froth on top,some real butter, firm and yellow and fresh, some smoking hot-biscuits,a plate of hot buckwheat cakes, with transparent syrup--could wordsdescribe the gratitude of this exile?
The European dinner is better than the European breakfast, but it hasits faults and inferiorities; it does not satisfy. He comes to the tableeager and hungry; he swallows his soup--there is an undefinablelack about it somewhere; thinks the fish is going to be the thing hewants--eats it and isn't sure; thinks the next dish is perhaps the onethat will hit the hungry place--tries it, and is conscious that therewas a something wanting about it, also. And thus he goes on, from dishto dish, like a boy after a butterfly which just misses getting caughtevery time it alights, but somehow doesn't get caught after all; and atthe end the exile and the boy have fared about alike; the one is full,but grievously unsatisfied, the other has had plenty of exercise, plentyof interest, and a fine lot of hopes, but he hasn't got any butterfly.There is here and there an American who will say he can remember risingfrom a European table d'h?te perfectly satisfied; but we must notoverlook the fact that there is also here and there an American who willlie.
The number of dishes is sufficient; but then it is such a monotonousvariety of _unstriking_ dishes. It is an inane dead-level of"fair-to-middling." There is nothing to _accent_ it. Perhaps if theroast of mutton or of beef--a big, generous one--were brought on thetable and carved in full view of the client, that might give the rightsense of earnestness and reality to the thing; but they don't do that,they pass the sliced meat around on a dish, and so you are perfectlycalm, it does not stir you in the least. Now a vast roast turkey,stretched on the broad of his back, with his heels in the air and therich juices oozing from his fat sides ... but I may as well stop there,for they would not know how to cook him. They can't even cook a chickenrespectably; and as for carving it, they do that with a hatchet.
This is about the customary table d'h?te bill in summer:
Soup (characterless).
Fish--sole, salmon, or whiting--usually tolerably good.
Roast--mutton or beef--tasteless--and some last year's potatoes.
A pate, or some other made dish--usually good--"considering."
One vegetable--brought on in state, and all alone--usually insipidlentils, or string-beans, or indifferent asparagus.
Roast chicken, as tasteless as paper.
Lettuce-salad--tolerably good.
Decayed strawberries or cherries.
Sometimes the apricots and figs are fresh, but this is no advantage, asthese fruits are of no account anyway.
The grapes are generally good, and sometimes there is a tolerably goodpeach, by mistake.
The variations of the above bill are trifling. After a fortnight onediscovers that the variations are only apparent, not real; in the thirdweek you get what you had the first, and in the fourth the week you getwhat you had the second. Three or four months of this weary samenesswill kill the robustest appetite.
It has now been many months, at the present writing, since I have hada nourishing meal, but I shall soon have one--a modest, private affair,all to myself. I have selected a few dishes, and made out a little billof fare, which will go home in the steamer that precedes me, and be hotwhen I arrive--as follows:
Radishes. Baked apples, with cream Fried oysters; stewed oysters.Frogs. American coffee, with real cream. American butter. Fried chicken,Southern style. Porter-house steak. Saratoga potatoes. Broiled chicken,American style. Hot biscuits, Southern style. Hot wheat-bread, Southernstyle. Hot buckwheat cakes. American toast. Clear maple syrup. Virginiabacon, broiled. Blue points, on the half shell. Cherry-stone clams. SanFrancisco mussels, steamed. Oyster soup. Clam Soup. PhiladelphiaTerapin soup. Oysters roasted in shell-Northern style. Soft-shell crabs.Connecticut shad. Baltimore perch. Brook trout, from Sierra Nevadas.Lake trout, from Tahoe. Sheep-head and croakers, from New Orleans.Black bass from the Mississippi. American roast beef. Roast turkey,Thanksgiving style. Cranberry sauce. Celery. Roast wild turkey.Woodcock. Canvas-back-duck, from Baltimore. Prairie liens, fromIllinois. Missouri partridges, broiled. 'Possum. Coon. Boston bacon andbeans. Bacon and greens, Southern style. Hominy. Boiled onions. Turnips.Pumpkin. Squash. Asparagus. Butter beans. Sweet potatoes. Lettuce.Succotash. String beans. Mashed potatoes. Catsup. Boiled potatoes, intheir skins. New potatoes, minus the skins. Early rose potatoes, roastedin the ashes, Southern style, served hot. Sliced tomatoes, with sugar orvinegar. Stewed tomatoes. Green corn, cut from the ear and servedwith butter and pepper. Green corn, on the ear. Hot corn-pone, withchitlings, Southern style. Hot hoe-cake, Southern style. Hot egg-bread,Southern style. Hot light-bread, Southern style. Buttermilk. Iced sweetmilk. Apple dumplings, with real cream. Apple pie. Apple fritters. Applepuffs, Southern style. Peach cobbler, Southern style Peach pie. Americanmince pie. Pumpkin pie. Squash pie. All sorts of American pastry.
Fresh American fruits of all sorts, including strawberries which arenot to be doled out as if they were jewelry, but in a more liberal way.Ice-water--not prepared in the ineffectual goblet, but in the sincereand capable refrigerator.
Americans intending to spend a year or so in European hotels willdo well to copy this bill and carry it along. They will find it anexcellent thing to get up an appetite with, in the dispiriting presenceof the squalid table d'h?te.
Foreigners cannot enjoy our food, I suppose, any more than we canenjoy theirs. It is not strange; for tastes are made, not born. I mightglorify my bill of fare until I was tired; but after all, the Scotchmanwould shake his head and say, "Where's your haggis?" and the Fijianwould sigh and say, "Where's your missionary?"
I have a neat talent in matters pertaining to nourishment. This hasmet with professional recognition. I have often furnished recipes forcook-books. Here are some designs for pies and things, which I recentlyprepared for a friend's projected cook-book, but as I forgot to furnishdiagrams and perspectives, they had to be left out, of course.
RECIPE FOR AN ASH-CAKE
Take a lot of water and add to it a lot of coarse Indian-meal and abouta quarter of a lot of salt. Mix well together, knead into the form ofa "pone," and let the pone stand awhile--not on its edge, but the otherway. Rake away a place among the embers, lay it there, and cover it aninch deep with hot ashes. When it is done, remove it; blow off all theashes but one layer; butter that one and eat.
N.B.--No household should ever be without this talisman. It has beennoticed that tramps never return for another ash-cake.
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RECIPE FOR NEW ENGLISH PIE
To make this excellent breakfast dish, proceed as follows: Take asufficiency of water and a sufficiency of flour, and construct abullet-proof dough. Work this into the form of a disk, with the edgesturned up some three-fourths of an inch. Toughen and kiln-dry in acouple days in a mild but unvarying temperature. Construct a cover forthis redoubt in the same way and of the same material. Fill with steweddried apples; aggravate with cloves, lemon-peel, and slabs of citron;add two portions of New Orleans sugars, then solder on the lid and setin a safe place till it petrifies. Serve cold at breakfast and inviteyour enemy.
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RECIPE FOR GERMAN COFFEE
Take a barrel of water and bring it to a boil; rub a chicory berryagainst a coffee berry, then convey the former into the water. Continuethe boiling and evaporation until the intensity of the flavor and aromaof the coffee and chicory has been diminished to a proper degree; thenset aside to cool. Now unharness the remains of a once cow from theplow, insert them in a hydraulic press, and when you shall have acquireda teaspoon of that pale-blue juice which a German superstition regardsas milk, modify the malignity of its strength in a bucket of tepid waterand ring up the breakfast. Mix the beverage in a cold cup, partakewith moderation, and keep a wet rag arou
nd your head to guard againstover-excitement.
TO CARVE FOWLS IN THE GERMAN FASHION
Use a club, and avoid the joints.