NAPLES
When we arrived at Naples a whole legion of porters assailed us. We
took an apartment at the Grand Hôtel, situated on the New Quay. We had
a disagreeable surprise when we awoke next morning; a grey mist veiled
Mount Vesuvius, the sky and sea were of leaden hue, and rain began to
fall, which is very rare in this place. We braved the elements, and went
in the afternoon to try and find out what has become of Schildecker,
one of my most devoted lovers in the blessed days of my girlhood. We
had exhausted every means in our power to discover his whereabouts and
have been all over Naples to find him, but nobody could tell us anything
about him. We called at the Transatlantic Bank where Schildecker had
been employed, but there also nothing had been heard of him for nearly
ten years. We got, however, the address of one of Schildecker’s friends,
who perhaps could say where he was. But Sergy felt tired, and said that
we could make far better use of our time than spending it in search
of Schildecker. I despaired of finding him again, but did not insist,
fearing to displease my husband.
After dinner, we drove to the Circus in a cab drawn by a queer-tempered
horse, who at first would not move, and stood planted with rigid
forelegs, tucked-in tail and ears laid back. Our driver made a great
fuss with the reins and the whip, but his horse would not advance an
inch. Suddenly the stubborn animal changed his mind, swerved aside, and
commenced to rear, plunging rather wildly, and seemed to be in a fair
way to kick himself free of everything. Perceiving the danger, I jumped
out of the carriage, to Sergy’s great horror, and went straight to the
horse’s head and snatched at the bridle, after which the nasty vicious
brute became more manageable and consented to carry us to our destination.
Next morning, while still in bed, I could see the sunrise over Vesuvius,
lighting the smoke which rose from the crater. After a hasty breakfast,
we went for a drive in the outskirts of Naples passing through the
“Pausilippe Grotto,” which is about a mile long; it is supported by
columns and lighted at long intervals by lanterns. The road leading to
Virgil’s tomb passes over the Grotto. We visited also the “Sulfre Grotto”
with sulphur smoke coming out of the Vesuvius and evaporating through
crevices in the Grotto. The “Dog’s Grotto” is full of sulphuric acid.
A dog, serving for experiments, loses consciousness when kept inside
one second, and breathes his last in the lapse of one minute. One of
the ugly little mongrels, upon whom experiments are made, ran before us
wagging his tail, but when the guide wanted to take him in his arms,
the poor little brute began to whine pitifully. We would not have him
tortured on our account, and the guide finding it necessary to show us
another experiment, filled an earthen pot with gas, into which he dipped
a burning torch which was immediately extinguished. We were back at
Naples just in time for dinner. Before going to sleep we had an agreeable
surprise. A troup of wandering singers gave us a serenade beneath our
windows, and sung Russian folk-songs. I was so pleased I could have
kissed them all. Next morning Sergy went out by himself to make inquiries
about Schildecker, and started off to the address of his friend given in
the Bank, and was told that Schildecker had died of consumption ten years
ago. Poor fellow! His death affected me, and I dropped a tear for him.
We devoted the whole of the next day to Pompeii, the long-buried city
at the foot of the great destroyer. Nothing but desolation and silence
around! Walking amid the wrecks, the mystery of the past took possession
of us and the busy lives which animated formerly the deserted town,
rose before us. The cinder-choked streets have preserved their ancient
denominations. The buildings remind me of those of Erzeroum, with a
fountain in the middle of the inner court. The frescoed walls have kept
their original colour, and the sign-boards over the houses and the
indecent bas-reliefs (reminiscences of not over pure-minded antiquity)
are perfectly intact. Here is the grand _Basilique_ the symbol of an
ancient disappeared civilisation and the pagan temples of Venus, Mercury
and Jupiter. A little further, in the quarter of the Gladiators, is the
_Forum_ with the immense tribune in which the people assembled for all
sorts of meetings. In a separate museum curious remains of past ages are
gathered: artistically worked jewels, mosaics and petrified corpses in
almost as fine condition as 1800 years ago in 79 A.D. There is a young
woman lying prostrate on the marble floor; the position of the hands
indicate that she had instinctively tried to protect her face from the
hot ashes when the death-storm broke and Vesuvius blotted out Pompeii.
We saw objects just dug up: coins, vases and pottery. We passed before
bars which looked as if they had just been freshly painted, where wine
had been sold. Here are loaves of bread lying on the counter of a baker’s
shop, transformed into stone and looking as if they had just come out
of the oven. Before the shop, a petrified dog, curled up, seems to be
sleeping.
Our old cicerone, who had lived all his life at the foot of the great
mountain, had worked as guide to Pompeii for fifty-five years. He told us
that there were presently forty guides at Pompeii. When we asked if it
wasn’t dangerous for him to live so near to the volcano, the old guide
replied, with pride, that they were all of them sons of Vesuvius, and had
no need, therefore, to dread it.
We had to pass through the vestibule of the modern Hôtel Diomède to enter
the domains of the past, and on our way back we had dinner there. I was
glad to be out of the circle of the dead centuries and back into the
world of living men. I had just read a French novel written by Georges
de Peyrebrune in which the author described the wonderful beauty of
Signorina Sofia Prospezi the daughter of the proprietor of Hôtel Diomède,
and wanted to see if the reputation of her beauty was not exaggerated. It
appeared to be quite true. Signorina Prospezi was beyond question endowed
with great beauty: she was tall, slender, with a pure oval face, finely
chiselled features and luminous velvety, brown eyes, shaded by curling
black lashes. I asked her to give me her photograph, and she begged for
mine in return. Her father was wonderfully amiable and attentive towards
us. Instead of regaling us with diluted wine, which was usually served
to his customers, he ordered the oldest and best wine in his cellars
to be brought to us. Our host evidently meant to be complimentary, and
said that he thought me very much like his wife—who appeared to be a
compatriot of ours—when she was young and beautiful.
On the following day we drove to Castellamare; a succession of villages
lined the way. The tramway took up half the breath of the road,
encumbered with huge waggons drawn by great powerful horses; I felt
rather frightened. On approaching Sorrento we ran against a car drawn
by a horse, a cow and a donkey as well! There was a local feast of
Saint-somebody, I didn’t know who, at Sorrento, and flags were suspended
from house to house across the narrow streets. We passed before the
house which had been inhabited by Torquato Tasso transformed now into
an hotel. Just in front of it stands the statue of the great poet. The
distant sound of low chanting attracted our attention; it grew louder,
and presently, far up the street, we saw a religious procession come
in sight. At the head came a pilgrim holding a high crucifix. Behind
followed a group of curates in white surplices, bearing a large grotto
in which stood the statue of a saint dressed as a Franciscan monk,
surrounded by a number of statuettes representing worshippers kneeling to
him. A number of little girls, arrayed in white, with crowns of roses on
their heads, carried an altar decorated with vases full of paper-flowers,
in the middle of which stood the statue of the Virgin, clad in a rich
brocade dress and a long blue mantle embroidered with silver stars; the
Madonna’s long hair fell in ringlets on her shoulders. A large crowd of
pilgrims came behind. We begged a constable to clear a passage for us
through the throng and gained the high road by a back street. From afar
we saw the lava running down Vesuvius. Our _vetturino_, turning round,
said, “That’s my home,” pointing with his whip to a little village
sheltered beneath the treacherous mountain.
On arriving at Castellamare we were just in time to catch the train
with which we were to return to Naples. We got into the first railway
carriage occupied by an ill-assorted Italian pair, a fat middle-aged lady
and a good-looking young man resembling an opera tenor, and at least a
quarter of a century younger than his companion, who made beside him,
the sharpest contrast, looking very thick and clumsy. She gazed at her
interesting cavalier with an admiration and tenderness in her old eyes,
which was quite ridiculous. The evening being fresh, I closed the window,
to the great displeasure of my voluminous neighbour, who began to grumble
and said to her companion that she was on the point of being suffocated.
“She must certainly feel hot, the fatty!” I exclaimed in Russian very
imprudently, for after I had just made this flattering statement, the
young Italian said to Sergy, in a most natural tone, that his wife, as
it appears, is a compatriot of ours. I felt pretty bad at that moment,
I confess, having got into a terrible scrape. I could have bitten off
my tongue! Unfortunately I always speak first and think afterwards! But
apparently the fat lady didn’t hear my complimentary adverb, as she
amiably entered into conversation, and in a few minutes we felt as if we
had known her for ages. She became very confidential, and by the time the
train reached Naples we were in possession of the entire history of her
life. She told us, with a coquettish glance at her husband, which would
have been very effective thirty years ago, that she had been married five
years, and was feeling perfectly happy, only rather home-sick for Moscow,
her native town. How in the world did she manage to catch that handsome
fellow—who, for his part, certainly didn’t seem to adore his caricature
spouse.
Our great desire was to make the ascent by the Funicular Railway of
Mount Vesuvius, whilst it was in eruption. Our wish was fulfilled on
the following day. It took us three hours to drive in a carriage to the
aerial railway-station. We passed a great number of macaroni factories,
and saw rows of macaroni hanging on strings to dry. The road was most
picturesque, having the blue Mediterranean strewn with white sails on
one side and Vesuvius on the other. At length we reached the foot of
the mountain, its head wrapped in a gloomy wreath of smoke and cloud.
The volcano was in full activity at that moment, and a large torrent
of lava was running down the right slope of the Vesuvius. We saw the
Funicular Railway crawling up the steepest part of the cone. We began
to climb a very steep ascent leading to the aerial station, paved
with different-coloured tiles of petrified lava. On each side of our
way rose mountains of black lava. A group of street-singers followed
our carriage singing Neapolitan folk-songs. When we arrived at the
railway-station, standing near the observatory and the carbiniers’
lodge, the carriage-road ended. After having secured our tickets at the
booking-office, we had lunch in the restaurant, and saw from the open
window a funicular car crawling down the mountain. The Funicular Railway
has only two cars, attached to an endless cable, named “Vesuvius” and
“Etna,” one at the top and one at the bottom of the mountain; the one
that comes down pulls the other one up.
After lunch, when we made our way to the Funicular, we were accosted by
a crowd of tattered boys, who proposed to clean our boots, and begged
plaintively for some coins “_Per mangiare macaroni._” We descended into
a sort of dark cave and entered an open railway-carriage in sloping
position, holding only ten passengers sitting in pairs opposite each
other, the back seats on a level with their heads. Two carbiniers
escorted our car. I shuddered when we began the ascent, for it was not
at all comforting to be aware that lava only served as foundation to the
Funicular Railway and might be falling to pieces at any moment. The mount
which only takes a few minutes, seemed a whole century to me. Vesuvius
was throwing great balls of fire all the time, and the smoke coming out
of the volcano spread around us. We had arrived at the highest point
that the waggon could reach and had to leave the Funicular and climb to
the summit of Vesuvius on foot. We walked on very rough ground, steaming
with sulphurous springs. A score of ragged fellows proposed to serve as
guides to us, and said that we must absolutely take two men, each of us,
to push and pull us up, but I announced proudly that I could perfectly
do with one guide only. I hadn’t made the ascent of Mont Blanc for
nothing, I suppose! We walked on a moving soil, consisting of ashes and
pumice-stone, sulphur smoke passed off in vapour from crevices beneath
us; the soil burnt our feet and our shoes filled with lava. The smell
of sulphur nearly choked me. I could not breathe without coughing or
gasping. Our mount became more and more difficult: there was no longer
any path, it was merely like going up a very steep cinder heap; with
each step we sank in it to knee-depth. It was very fatiguing and I had
to seek the aid of three guides; one guide took me by the right arm,
another took me by the left one, and the third pushed vigorously behind.
By the time we arrived at the top my dress was in rags. At last, after
an hour’s toil, we succeeded in reaching the summit of the cone and were
approaching the lip of the crater. At the same time we heard a long
low rumbling, like the sound of the sea when the tide is breaking on a
distant beach. Right below us yawned an enormous pit, whose sides were
gnarled and twisted by the action of terrible heat; we saw the burning
liquid issue from the crater. I managed to get so near that the ashes
fell on my dress. It was a wonderful sight and needs the pen of Dante to
describe the awful impression received when I stood on the brink of the
crater and gazed into the depths of an inferno. The head-guide requested
me not to approach too near its fiery mouth, but I felt it draw me like
a magnet. We could hear the roar of the fire beneath us. We stood there
fascinated when a loud report shook the ground and a shower of hot
cinders fell around us. We felt like being under a war-fire. I never was
in such a fright in all my life and thought our last moment had come. “We
are lost,” I said to myself trembling all over.
Following the command of our guides we fell flat on our faces, at once.
All this happened in the space of a second. A smell of burning wool
spread around us. It was my dress which had caught fire. Next moment we
got up hurriedly and fled in terror to the other end of the cone, as
the direction these rivulets of liquid fire take, depends entirely on
the wind. By some miracle nobody was hurt. We have had evidently a very
narrow escape of our lives. We were now on our way back to the Funicular
Railway. Oh! that descent! We slid down as on skates and reached the
Funicular Station in shoes almost entirely without soles.
The next day we went to visit the “Certosa,” an ancient grey abbey
perched on a high rock, a veritable eagle’s nest. Only six monks are left
now in the monastery, to make the famous “Certosa liqueur.” They gather
the herbs in the mountains and keep the recipe of their liqueur as a
great secret. The convent is now converted into a Museum. Among other
curiosities we were shown a shallop in which Charles the Tenth had landed
in Spain. Looking out from the terrace the whole city of Naples lay
revealed; only the distant splashing of the sea below was heard.
A terrible calamity has befallen the Island of Ischia. The little town of
Casamicciola, destroyed by a recent tremendous earthquake, is nothing but
a heap of deplorable ruins. Through the awful cataclysm the inhabitants
are deprived of home and bread. In pursuit of strong sensations we wanted
to visit these ruins and embarked on a small steamer which plied from
the Bay of Naples to Ischia. It takes only two hours to cross. There was
not a breath of air and the sea looked like a polished mirror. Whilst we
gazed at the frolics of the dolphins from deck, we passed a man-of-war
that had cast anchor in the Bay, and did not remark that it was a Russian
cruiser. A young chap who sold photographs on board, offered to show
us the ruins of Casamicciola. He could murder enough French to be our
interpreter and we accepted his offer. He told us that he had lost both
his parents and all his belongings in the recent earthquake; the only
object he had found amongst the ruins was his watch. The poor boy had
remained several hours unconscious under the ruins and was just out of
hospital. On approaching Ischia, we stopped before what had formerly
been Casamicciola, a desolate black desert now. The earthquake had in a
few moments changed the prosperous little town into a ruin. Hundreds and
hundreds of homes had entirely gone. Many people were buried beneath the
fallen houses. About two hundred corpses remained under the ruins and
a terrible smell came forth. In fear of infection the inhabitants are
forbidden to dig out the corpses. Another slight earthquake took place
the other day: a rock tumbled down, destroying the remaining houses, and
large crevices have been formed in the mountains all around. The whole
population is in terrible distress. The only inhabitants who escaped
death are those who were working out in the fields at the moment of the
catastrophe, and had fled panic-stricken to the mountains for refuge. We
were told that a Russian couple, living at the Hôtel des Étrangers, had
been saved through their children who were having a fight in the park
belonging to the hotel. Their parents had just come down to set them
apart, when the earth shook, and the whole hotel came down, falling to
pieces. Looking at this bright place and its luxurious vegetation, it
seems to be a perfect paradise on earth, but this beautiful soil opens
treacherously under your feet, transforming everything into a “vale
of tears.” Oh! the irony of the things of this world! And still men
will build up new dwellings again and will not think of the danger of
a repetition of the past catastrophe! An old cab, with a skeleton of a
horse between the shafts, drove us through the demolished streets heaped
up with stones, trunks of trees and plaster, but soon there was no road
at all, and we had to walk amidst a mass of broken stones and woodwork.
We saw women seeking forgotten objects on the threshold of their crumbled
houses, a wreck of broken stones and fallen walls. A young girl sat with
her head buried in her hands, rocking her body to and fro, and kept
wailing “Why, oh, why was I saved!” It was a sorrowful spectacle and my
heart bled for her. Workmen had been sent in haste to build barracks
for the victims of the catastrophe, and huts have been erected in the
vicinity of the ill-fated town. We visited that sordid encampment where
the poor wretches slept on the hard ground, pêle-mêle, like Bohemians. A
troup of carbiniers have just arrived to keep order. We were surrounded
by hundreds of poor starving creatures. Sad-faced women, with tragic
eyes, stood in groups with children of all ages holding to their skirts.
They spread out their hands in a gesture of despair and burst into
lamentations, begging for bread. Sergy gave away nearly all the contents
of his purse. The poor wretches murmured their thanks, pressing kisses
on my hands, against my inclination. In token of gratitude, an old,
toothless granny, wrinkled like a crumpled apple, her hooked nose nearly
in contact with her chin, patted me on the back; being very much afraid
that she meant to kiss my reluctant cheek, I went prudently behind my
husband. My one desire was to get back to Naples, and I breathed freely
when our boat left the shores of Ischia. A group of Neapolitan women,
with red handkerchiefs on their heads, had come out from third class on
our deck to dance the _Tarantella_, to the accompaniment of a band of
strolling musicians. One of the women had been hurt by the earthquake,
and this was her first day out of the hospital.
On approaching Naples, I was delighted to see on the quay a group of
Russian sailors belonging to the man-of-war which had cast anchor in the
bay. I hastened to land, in order to boast of my countrymen before our
fellow passengers. But, O horror! it appeared that the sailors were all
desperately drunk, and looked awful. With bleeding faces, their clothes
all in tatters, they made a disgusting spectacle of themselves. We were
told that they had just had a fight with some Italian sailors who had
cheated them in a tavern where they had been drinking together. Our
compromising compatriots were shouting in Russian, “Give back our money
or we’ll throw you into the water!” It was not a very edifying scene and
made me blush for my country. On our way to the hotel we met another
group of Russian sailors walking in a friendly way—arm-in-arm—with their
Italian comrades, also tolerably drunk and zig-zagging somewhat, their
two feet being hopelessly at variance. There will be a fight between them
ere long, I am sure. Passing by a coral shop, we entered to purchase a
necklace, and made out that the owner of the shop was a fellow-countryman
of ours, living in Naples for the last thirty years. He had been sexton
at the Russian church, and having married the daughter of an Italian
merchant, he had settled down for good in this country. His eldest son
can just speak a few words in Russian, but the younger ones cannot speak
a word of our mother-tongue.
The next day we started back to Russia. I left _La bella Napoli_ with
regret.