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Cardinal Sarto boarding a gondola on his way to the Conclave in Rome which made him Pope. Photo by Gribayedoff.

Giuseppe Sarto (1835-1914) was elected Pope Pius X on August 4, 1903.

Source:
Outing magazine, vol. LI no. 6, March, 1908, p. 657.

Vance Thompson's Cab Drivers / 52

The Gondolier of Venice / 13 The End of it All

Fior di viola!
La sera mi prometti Roma e Toma,
E la mattina manchi di parola.

One evening I supped in the Trattoria Ferraboschi, which is – as every one knows – in the Calle della Mandola, just off the Street of the Assassins. Having lighted, with some difficulty, one of the long, straw-tubed cigars – so bad that the smoking of them fastens on you like a habit – I set out for the Grand Canal. The music-boats were all ablaze, their lanterns of red and yellow making fanciful lights in the water. Hundreds of gondolas were moored alongside, or drifted to and fro within hearing of the music – this music of Venice, which is agile and sallow and scraggy (and yet in its way fascinating) as an old ballet-dancer. Came a boat-load of chattering, shirt-waisted American girls. They bade their two gondoliers draw ahead of us. The foolish virgins! – they knew not Giuseppe. He threw himself against the oar and in a few moments their high-keyed voices died away behind us. Ahead of us went a gondola, one Nicoletto only at the oar. We gave chase. Soon we were racing side by side. There was one woman in the boat, who called to her gondolier with little cries and laughed. A wild race under the stars, my brothers, out into the lagoon and past the great white yachts and the black steamer home-coming from Trieste, and the little cries of the woman and the laughter that rang out of her.

And then?

That is where your lawless fancy leads you into folly. There was no "and then" – I have always lacked imprudence at critical moments.