Assuredly, it is
public ground which Florian, in the person of his nineteenth-century
representative, thus occupies with his tables and chairs. Probably,
if a Venetian were asked by what right he does so, the question would
seem to him much as if one asked by what right the tide covers the
shallows of the lagoon. It always has been so. It is in the natural
order of things. And how could Venice live without Florian's?
But it is not Florian's alone which is thus a trespasser on the domain
of the public. The other less celebrated caffes do the same thing.
One immediately opposite to Florian's, on the other side of the
piazza--Quadri's--has almost as large a spread of chairs and tables
as Florian himself. But it is a curious instance of the permanence of
habits at Venice, that though at Quadri's the articles supplied are
quite as good, and the prices exactly the same, the fashionable
world never deserts Florian's. The only difference between the
two establishments, except this one of their customers, that is
perceptible to the naked eye, is that at Quadri's beer is served,
while Florian ignores the existence of that plebeian beverage, which
assuredly was never heard of in Venice in the days when he began his
career and formed his habitudes.
I am tempted to endeavor to give the reader some picture of the scene
on the piazza on a night when (as is the case almost every other
evening) a military band is playing in the middle of the open space,
and the cosmopolitan crowd is assembled in force--to describe the
wonderful surroundings of the scene, the charm of the quietude broken
by no sound of hoof or of wheel, the soft and tempered light, the gay
clatter, athwart which comes every fifteen minutes the solemn mellow
tone of the great clock of St.
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