| Show TOMS TOMB OP OF A ROMANTIC PAST venice no L looser ga living city sat but merely a vt vast museum venetian lif life e I 1 in the large old sense has since come com e to au an end and the essential pres present ent character of the most m melancholy el a n e holy of cities resides simply in i its ts b being e i n g the most beautiful of tombs rays cays scribners nowhere else has the past been laid to rest with such tenderness such a sadness of resignation and remembrance nowhere else is the present so alien so discontinuous so liko like a crowd in a cemetery without garlands for the graves it has no flowers in its hands but as a compensation perhaps and the thing is doubtless more to the point it has money and little red books the everlasting shuffle in the piazza of these irresponsible s visitors is contemporary venetian life everything else is only a reverberation be of that the vast mausoleum has a turnstile at the door and a functionary in a shabby uniform lets you in as per tariff to see how dead it is from this this cold curiosity proceed all the industry the prosperity the vitality of the place the shopkeepers and gondoliers gondo liers the beggars and the models depend upon it for a living they are the custodians and the ushers of the great museum they are even themselves to a certain extent extent the objects on exhibition it is in in the wide vestibule of the square that the polyglot pilgrims gather most densely piazza san marco is like the lobby of the opera in the intervals of the performance the present fortu fortune ne of venice the lamentable difference is most easily measured there and that is why in the alie effort to resist our pessimism we e must turn away both from the purchasers cad c ad from the venders benders of ic orji |
