the lagoon, far across to some lonely shingle-bank, where they could bathe
quite alone, the gondola remaining on the inner side of the reef.
Then Giovanni got another gondolier to help him, because it was a long
way and he sweated terrifically in the sun. Giovanni was very nice:
affectionate, as the Italians are, and quite passionless. The Italians are
not passionate: passion has deep reserves. They are easily moved, and often
affectionate, but they rarely have any abiding passion of any sort.
So Giovanni was already devoted to his ladies, as he had been devoted
to cargoes of ladies in the past. He was perfectly ready to prostitute
himself to them, if they wanted hint: he secretly hoped they would want him.
They would give him a handsome present, and it would come in very handy, as
he was just going to be married. He told them about his marriage, and they
were suitably interested.
He thought this trip to some lonely bank across the lagoon probably
meant business: business being l'amore, love. So he got a mate to help him,
for it was a long way; and after all, they were two ladies. Two ladies, two
mackerels! Good arithmetic! Beautiful ladies, too! He was justly proud of
them. And though it was the Signora who paid him and gave him orders, he
rather hoped it would be the young milady who would select hint for l'amore.
She would give more money too.
The mate he brought was called Daniele. He was not a regular gondolier,
so he had none of the cadger and prostitute about him. He was a sandola man,
a sandola being a big boat that brings in fruit and produce from the
islands.
Daniele was beautiful, tall and well-shapen, with a light round head of
little, close, pale-blond curls, and a good-looking man's face, a little
like a lion, and long-distance blue eyes. He was not effusive, loquacious,
and bibulous like Giovanni. He was silent and he rowed with a strength and
ease as if he were alone on the water. The ladies were ladies, remote from
him. He did not even look at them. He looked ahead.
He was a real man, a little angry when Giovanni drank too much wine and
rowed awkwardly, with effusive shoves of the great oar. He was a man as
Mellors was a man, unprostituted. Connie pitied the wife of the
easily-overflowing Giovanni. But Daniele's wife would be one of those sweet
Venetian women of the people whom one still sees, modest and flower-like in
the back of that labyrinth of a town.
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