“_A Sorosis Lark._”
WHEN we left Naples in January the snow lay whitely upon the scarred
poll of Vesuvius. Yet, as we drove to the station, we were beset by
boys and girls running between the wheels of our carriage and ducking
under the horses’ heads, clamorously offering bouquets of roses,
violets and camellias that had blossomed in the open gardens. To save
the bones, for which they showed no regard, each of us loaded herself
with an immense bunch of flowers she was tempted, a dozen times before
night, to throw out of the car-window. I counted ten japonicas in
mine—white, creamy, and delicate pink—and I paid the black-eyed vender
fifty centimes, ten cents, for all.
We ran down to the sea-shore again in April, the laughing, fecund
April, that rioted over the Campagna the day we went to Tusculum.
Caput was detained in Rome, and I acted as chaperone to five of the
brightest, merriest American girls that ever set off upon a pleasure
trip. “A Sorosis Lark,” one named it, while another was inquisitive as
to the kinship of this bird to Athené’s owl.
We took the railway from Naples to Pompeii. Used as we were to the
odd jumble of old and new forced upon our notice on all public
lines of travel in the Old World, it yet gave us a queer thrill to
hear the station at Pompeii called out in the mechanical sing-song
that announces our arrival at “Richmond” or “Jersey City.” No. 27
was already engaged, much to our regret, but he recognized us, and
introduced his comrade, No. 18, who, he guaranteed, “would give
us satisfaction.” A jolly, kindly old fellow we found him to be,
more garrulous than his friend, but so staid and respectable that,
when I grew tired, I committed the four younger ladies to his
guardianship, and sat me down in company with my dear, and for so long,
fellow-traveller, Miss M——, upon the top step of the Temple of Jupiter
to rest, promising to rejoin the party at the house of Glaucus.
We spread our shawls upon the marble to make the seat safe and
comfortable, and when the voices of guide and girls were lost in
the distance, had, to all appearance, the exhumed city for our own.
Vesuvius was slightly restless at this date. The night before, we had
rushed out upon the balcony of the hotel parlor at a warning cry, and
seen the canopy of smoke above the mountain blood-red with reflections
from the crater. Now, as we watched the destroyer, fast bulging volumes
of vapor, white and gray, rose against the blue heavens. We pictured,
by their help, the Cimmerian gloom of the night-in-day that rained
ashes and scalding water upon fair and populous Pompeii. Night of
eighteen centuries to temple, mart and dwelling, leaving, when the
morning came, the bleached skeleton we now looked upon. “The City of
the Dead!” repeated Sir Walter Scott, over and again, as he surveyed
the disinterred ruins. Life seems absolutely suspended within its
gates. While we sat there, we heard neither twittering bird nor chirp
of insect. Even the lithe green lizards that frisk over and in other
ruined walls, shun these, blasted by the hot showers,—out of mind for
forty generations of living men.
We must have rested thus, and chatted softly of these things, for fully
half an hour, when a large party, appearing suddenly in the echoless
silence, from behind the walls of a neighboring court-yard, stared
curiously at us, and we remembered that our being there without a guide
was an infringement of rules. The custodian of the strangers assumed,
politely, that we had lost our way, and when we named our rendezvous,
directed us how to get thither by the shortest route. We were properly
grateful, and when his back was turned, chose our own way and time for
doing as we pleased. Were we not _habitués_ of Pompeii—friends of older
inhabitants than he dreamed of in his round?
We were too early, after all, for the rest, although long after the
hour agreed upon for the meeting. While Miss M—— sallied forth on a
private exploration of the vicinity, I sat in the shadow of the wall
upon the step of the peristyle once adorned by Nydia’s flower-borders,
and re-read the description of the scene between her and Glaucus
when, upon this very spot, he told the blind girl of his love for the
Neapolitan, summoning her from her graceful task of “sprinkling the
thirsting plants which seemed to brighten at her approach.” He had
bidden her seek him in the _triclinum_ over there—“the chamber of Leda”
when she had gathered the flowers he would send to Ione. Here, too, she
gave him the philtre that was to win his love, and robbed him of his
senses.
The laggards rejoined us before I had become impatient. Gay, fresh
voices put phantoms and musing to flight. All were in high good humor.
Their guide had allowed them to loiter and investigate to their heart’s
content, and presented each with a bit of seasoned soap eighteen
hundred years old, which, by the way, we tried that night and proved by
the “lathering” to be saponaceous and of good quality. He had dashed
their complacency by remarking, without the remotest suspicion that
he was uttering dispraise, that he always recognized Americans by
their nasal articulation, but reinstated himself in their favor and
themselves, also, by expressing surprise and delight that all four
could converse fluently in his native tongue. We extended our ramble
beyond the Villa of Diomed into the Street of Tombs—the Via Appia—that,
in former times, extended, without a break, all the way to Rome.
Was it in ostentatious display of their family mausoleums, or in
callous contempt of natural loves and human griefs, or, from a desire
to honor the _manes_ of the departed, and remind the living of their
mortality, that the traveler to these ancient cities entered them
between a double file of the dead? Was there recognition, however
vague, of the great fact that, through Death we gain Life?
We were to spend the night at Castellamare, and having, through a
provoking blunder for which we could only blame ourselves, missed the
five o’clock train, were obliged to remain in the Pompeii station
until nine. We had lunched at the restaurant—and a villainous lunch
it was—and being hungry and weary, and out of patience with our
stupidity, would have been held excusable by charitable people had
we been slightly cross. I record that we were not, as an additional
proof of the Tapleyish turn of the feminine disposition. I take no
credit to myself. I was tired beyond the ability to complain. Laid
upon a bench, cushioned by the spare wraps of the party, my head in
Prima’s lap, I beheld in admiration I lacked energy to express, the
unflagging good-humor of my charges; the “small, sweet courtesies” that
made harmless play of badinage and repartee. They called up a boy of
ten, the son of the station-master, from his hiding-place behind the
door communicating with the family apartments, and talked to him of
his life and likings. He was civil, but not clean—a shrewd, knavish
sprite, judging from his physiognomy, but a fond brother to the little
sister who soon crept after him. She wore a single garment that had,
probably, never been whole or neat in her existence of two years. Even
“our girls” could not pet her. But they spoke to her kindly as she
planted herself before them on her two naked feet, her neck encircled
by her brother’s arm, and gave her _bon-bons_. The boy bade her say,
“_Grazie!_” and supplemented her lisp with “Tank ’oo!” and “Goot
morning!”—his whole stock of English.
The four hours passed at last, and we quitted the dim waiting-room for
pitchy darkness and pouring rain outside. At Castellamare, we were set
down upon an open platform. The clouds were falling upon us in sheets;
the wind caught savagely at our light sun-umbrellas, our only defence
against the storm. The pavement was ankle-deep in water, and it was
ten o’clock at night. We had been recommended to go to Miss Baker’s
excellent _pension_ on the hill, but it was a full mile away, and we
were wet in an instant. In the dismayed confusion, nobody knew just
how it happened, or who first spoke the word of doom, but we packed
ourselves and dripping garments into carriages and were driven to the
Hôtel Royale. The land-lady—or housekeeper—stationed in the vestibule,
took in our plight and her advantage at one fell glance. She met us
with a feline smile, and we were hers.
“My mother is not well. We must have a room, with a fire, for her, _at
once_. And not too high up!” said Prima, breathlessly, not waiting to
mop her wet face and hair.
Felina smiled more widely; jingled her keys and studied the red rosette
of a slipper she put forward for that purpose.
“I have rooms—certainly.”
“Let us see them—please! This lady must not stand here in her wet
clothes!” cried all in one voice.
“Here” was a lofty passage whose stone floor was swept by draughts of
damp air.
“She will catch her death of cold!” subjoined Prima, frantic.
Felina put out another slipper; assured herself that the rosette was
upon it, also. “I have rooms. One large. Two small. On third floor.”
I will not prolong the scene. We stood where we were, in opposition
to our entreaties to be allowed to enter the _salle_, while the
negotiation was pending, until we agreed to take her three rooms,
unseen, at her prices. Extortionate we knew them to be and said as much
to Felina’s face, eliciting a tigerish expansion of the thin lips,
and—“As Mesdames like. I have said I have three rooms. One large. Two
small.”
Up one hundred (counted) stone stairs we trudged, to a barn of a room,
the sea breaking and the winds screaming against the outer walls. There
we learned that neither fire nor hot supper was to be our portion that
night, and that for meals served in bed-chambers an extra sum must be
paid.
“But you said we could not have supper down-stairs at this hour! We
have had no dinner. To say nothing of being wet to the skin. Cannot you
send up a bowl of hot soup?”
Of course the plea dashed vainly against her smile.
“But,” a touch of disdain for my weakness mingling with it, as she saw
the girls wrap me in dry blankets pulled from the bed, lay me upon the
sofa, and chafe my feet—“Madame can have a cup of tea should she desire
it.”
A very grand butler brought up the tea-equipage at eleven o’clock.
Spread upon a broad platter were as many slices of pale, cold mutton
as there were starving guests. A roll apiece was in the bread-tray.
A canine hunger was upon us. Our teeth chattered with cold and
nervousness. We chafed under the knowledge of being cheated, outwitted,
outraged. Yet when the _supper_ was set out upon the round table
wheeled up to my couch, and we recognized in it the climax of our woes,
we shouted with laughter until the waiter grinned in sympathy.
Then—we made a night of it—for two hours. We drained tea-pot and
kettle, and would have chewed the tea-leaves had any strength remained
in them; drank all the blue milk, and ate every lump of sugar; left
not a crumb of roll or meat to tell the tale of the abuse of hotel
and _padrona_ with which we seasoned their dryness. We told stories;
held discussions, historical, philosophical, and theological; laughed
handsomely at each other’s _bon-mots_, and were secretly vain of our
own,—wrapped, all the while, from head to heels in shawls, blankets,
and bedspreads, the girls with pillows under their feet to avoid the
chill of the flooring. The destined occupants of the small rooms kissed
us “Good night,” at last. Prima—still fuming, poor child! and marveling
audibly what report she should make to him whose latest words were an
exhortation “upon no account to let Mamma take cold,”—tucked me up
in one of the single beds, and pinned the flimsy curtains together.
They swayed and billowed in the gusts rushing between the joints of
the casements. The surf-roar was deafening; the wash of the waves so
distinct and sibilant, I fancied sometimes I heard it gurgling over
the floor. It was futile to think of sleep, but, after the fatigue
and excitement of the day, I watched out the hours between our late
bed-time and the dawn, not unhappily.
Castellamare is the ancient Stabiæ—or, more correctly speaking—it
occupied the site of that ill-starred town destroyed by the earthquake
that forced from Vesuvius ashes and boiling water-spouts upon Pompeii.
Here perished the elder Pliny, suffocated by the mephitic vapors of the
eruption. By morning the storm had exhausted itself. From my windows
I looked down upon the spot where Pliny died, and over a sea of the
matchless blue no one will believe in who sees the Bay of Naples in
pictures only. Overhead, a sky whose serenity had in it no reminiscence
of last night’s rage, bowed over the smiling earth.
We paid for our supper,—a franc for each bit of pallid mutton;
half-a-franc for each roll, and as much for every cup of tea; for
“service”—two francs each;—for lodgings, five francs for each hard
bed, and at the like rate for the stale eggs, burnt toast, and thick
chocolate that formed our breakfast. Then, heedless of Felina’s
representations that “strangers were always cheated in the town,” we
sent out an Italian-speaking committee of two, who hired a carriage
and horses at half the sum for which she offered hers, and were off
for Sorrento. The drive between the two towns is justly noted for its
beauty and variety. The play of prismatic lights upon the sea was
exquisitely lovely: Capri was a great amethyst; Ischia and Procida
milk-opals in the softly-colored distance, while on, above and below
the ridge along which ran the carriage-road, lay Fairy Land—the
Delectable Mountains—Heaven come down to earth! Mulberry trees looped
together for long miles by swaying vines laden with young grapes;
orange and fig-orchards in full bearing; olive-groves, silvery-gray
after the rain; all manner of flowering trees, shrubs, and plants;
lordly castles upon the high hills; vine-draped cottages nestling
in vales and hollows; ravines, dark with green shadows, that let us
catch only stray glimpses of flashing torrents and cascades, spanned
by bridges built by Augustus or Marcus Aurelius; under our wheels
a road of firmest rock, without rut or pebble; between us and the
steeps on the verge of which we drove—breast-high parapets adding to
our enjoyment of the wonderful scene the quietness of perfect security
against the chance of mishap—these were some of the features of the
seven most beautiful miles in Southern Europe. The sea-breeze was
fresh, not rude, the sky speckless, but the heat temperate.
If we had sought a thorough contrast to the experiences of the previous
evening, we could not have attained our end more triumphantly than
by pitching our moving tent during our stay in Sorrento at the Hotel
Tramontana. It includes under its stretch of roofs the house of Tasso,
where he dwelt with his widowed sister, from June, 1577, until the
summer of the ensuing year,—retirement which purchased bodily health
and peace of mind, that had not been his in court and palace. The
situation of the hotel is picturesque, the balconies overhanging the
beach, and the seaward outlook is enchanting. All the appointments—not
excepting landlady and housekeeper—were admirable—and the terms less
exorbitant than Felina’s lowest charges. It was while guests here, and
in obedience to information rendered by the hospitable proprietor, that
we made our memorable and only raid upon an orange-orchard. Italian
oranges, let me say, _en passant_, are, in their perfection and at
the most favorable season, inferior in richness and sweetness to our
Havana and Florida fruit. The sourest I ever tasted were bought in
Rome, and warranted “_dolce_.” Single oranges, and oranges in twos and
threes, we had eaten from the trees in the garden of the Tramontana
Hotel. Oranges by the quantity—as we had vowed to behold and pluck
them—were to be had somewhere for the picking. In our character as
independent Sorosis larks, we pined for these and liberty—to gather at
our will. I have forgotten the name lettered upon the gate-posts at
which our _cocchière_ set us down. “Villa” Something or Somebody. We
saw no buildings whatsoever, going no further into the estate than the
orchard of orange and lemon-trees in luxuriant fruitage, and smaller,
sturdier trees, that had borne, earlier in the season, the aromatic
dwarf-orange, or _mandarino_.
“_Tutti finiti!_” said the gardener when we asked for these.
We consoled ourselves by filling our pockets with fruit when we had
eaten all we could. “Could” signifies more than the uninitiated can
believe to a group of American girls knee-deep in soft, lush grasses,
orange-flower scent distilling into the warm air from a thousand tiny
retorts, globes of red-gold hanging thick between them and the sky,
and such exuberance of fun as only glad-hearted American girls can
know, ruling the hour. We had made, in the hearing of our _cocchière_,
a bargain with the proprietor of the Hesperides. We were to eat all
we wanted, and carry away all we could without baskets, and pay him a
franc and a half at the gate on our return. I dare not say how many we
plucked, sucked dry and threw away empty, or how many more we carried
off in the pockets of over-skirts, lower skirts and jackets. We were
in the orchard for an hour, wading through the cool grass, making
critical selections from the loaded boughs and leisurely regalement
upon our spoils, and talking even more nonsense than we had done
during the nocturnal revel over cold, white mutton and weak tea at the
Hôtel Royale. The gardener followed us wherever we moved, eying us as
sourly as if he had lived from childhood upon unripe lemons. At the
gate he broke our contract by demanding two francs and a half for the
damage done his orchard. With (Italian) tears in his eyes he protested
that he had never imagined the possibility of ladies eating so many
oranges, or pockets so enormous; that we had consumed the profits of
his entire crop in one rapacious hour—and so much more to the like
effect that we passed from compassion and repentance to skepticism and
indignation, and called up the _cocchière_ as witness and umpire. He
scratched his head very hard, and listened very gravely to both sides,
before rendering a verdict. Then he hinted gently that, being novices
in the business of orchard-raids, we had possibly overacted our parts;
that our appetites orange-ward _had_ passed the bounds of the Sorrento
imagination, and that American pockets were a trifle larger than those
of his country-people. Naturally, since Americans had so much more to
put into them. But honor was honor, and a bargain a bargain. What if we
were to pay the unconscionable, injured husbandman—whose oranges were
the whole living of himself and family—two francs to compensate for his
losses and out of sheer charity.
We were willing, the husbandman mournfully resigned, and _cocchière_
received _buono mano_ for his amicable adjustment of the difficulty.
We had a real adventure upon the return trip to Naples. Our party
filled a railway carriage with the exception of two seats, one of
which was taken by an elderly German, the other by an Italian officer,
whose bright eyes and bronzed complexion were brighter and darker for
his snowy hair. Ernesto had engaged to meet us at the station at nine
o’clock P.M. We had no apprehension on the score of the proprieties
with so steady and tried a coachman. But we were loaded down with
parcels of Sorrento woodwork, and the streets swarmed with daring
thieves. At a former visit to Naples, as we were driving through the
_Chiaja_, the fashionable thoroughfare of the city, a man had sprung
upon the carriage-step, snatched a gold chain and locket from the neck
of a young lady sitting opposite to me, and made off with his booty
before we could call out to Caput who sat beside the coachman. The
streets were one blaze of lamps, the hour early dusk; a hundred people
must have witnessed the robbery, but nobody interfered.
“We shall have trouble with all these, I am afraid!” remarked I,
looking at the bulky bundles.
“You vill, inteet!” struck in the German, respectfully. “I dit haf to
bay effer so mooch duty on some photograph I did dake from Bompeii to
Naple dis last veek.”
“Duty! in going from one Italian city to another!”
“Duty! and a fery heafy impost it is! Brigand dey are—de Gofferment and
all!”
We had spent so much of our substance—rating available funds as such—in
the ruinously-fascinating shops of Sorrento that the prospect of
duties that might double the sum was no bagatelle. The story sounded
incredible. We appealed to the officer, making frank disclosure of
our purchases and ignorance of custom-house regulations. He was a
handsome man, with a fatherliness of manner in hearkening to our story
that won our confidence. It was true, he stated, that imposts were
levied by one Italian city and province upon the products of another.
Equally true that it was a relic of less enlightened days when union
of the different states under one government was a dream, even of
wise patriots. He advised us to conceal as many of our parcels under
our cloaks as we could, to avoid notice and a scene at the gate of
the station. Should we be stopped, he would represent the case in its
proper aspect, and do what he could to help us.
“Although”—with a smile—“custom-house officials do not relish
interference from any quarter.”
He spoke French fluently, but the conversation that succeeded was in
his own tongue. He was a gentleman, intelligent and social, with the
gentle, winning courtesy of speech and demeanor that characterizes
the well-bred Italian, infinitely more pleasing than the polished
hollowness of the Frenchman of equal rank. As we were running into the
station he asked permission to carry a large portfolio one of us had
bought. His short, military cloak, clasped at the throat, and falling
over one arm, hid it entirely.
“And yours?” he turned to Miss M——, whose possessions were most
conspicuous of all.
“Tell him,” she said to Prima, in her pleasant, even tones, “that I
will hide nothing. I have been all over the Continent with all sorts
of things known as contraband in my satchel and trunks, and have never
paid a cent of duty. Nobody troubles me. They see that I am an American
who speaks no language but her own, therefore is perfectly honest. They
would let me pass if I were made of Sorrento wood, carved and inlaid in
the most expensive style. You will see! I bear a charmed life.”
I went through the gate first. There was room but for one at a time.
“_Le panier_,” an officer touched my little basket of oranges.
I opened it.
“You can pass.”
Miss M—— was next. Serene as a May morning in her native Virginia,
bending her head slightly and courteously to the myrmidons of the
law, as she walked between them, loaded up to the chin with flat,
round and irregular packages concerning whose contents there was not a
possibility of mistake—she was the impersonation of a conscience void
of offence to this or any other government. The officials were alive in
a second.
“Sorrento!” ejaculated one, and in French, requested her to step back
into the custom-house office.
“I don’t speak French,” said the delinquent, smiling calmly, and passed
right on.
Six of them buzzed after, and around her, like so many bees, letting
the rest of the party walk unchallenged through the gate.
“I don’t speak Italian!” she observed, with a pitying smile, at their
grimacing and posturing. “Not a word! I am sorry I cannot understand
you. I am an American!”
Still walking forward, her parcels clasped in her arms.
We laughed. We could not help it. But it was unwise, for the men
grew angry as well as vociferous, dancing around their prisoner in a
transport of enraged perplexity that put a new face upon the affair.
Prima went to the rescue of her undismayed friend. She assured the
officers that the lady was really ignorant of their language, and
willing to do what was just and right. Calming down, they yet declared
that she, and, indeed, all of us, must go into the office, give an
account of ourselves, and pay duty upon such contraband articles as
we had with us. It might be a form, but it was the law. Where was
our gray-haired officer all this while? We had not seen him since he
assisted us to alight from the carriage, the precious portfolio held
cleverly under his left arm. Now, casting anxious eyes upon the crowd
gathering about our devoted band, we looked vainly for the silvery head
and military cap, for the gleam of the gold lace upon his one uncovered
shoulder. It was plain that he had deserted us at the first note of
alarm.
“And my beautiful portfolio!” gasped the late owner thereof.
We were at the gate, Miss M—— the only composed one of the humbled
“larks,” the curious throng pressing nearer and closer, when down into
their ranks charged a flying figure, careless that the streaming cloak
revealed the Sorrento folio—waving a paper in his hand. The officers
raised their caps; fell away from us and ordered off the gaping
bystanders.
“I am most sorry,” said our deliverer, breathless with haste. “But when
I saw the men stop you, I went into the Custom-House to obtain a pass
in due form from the chief.”
Prima has it to this day. It certified that the contents of our parcels
were “_articles de luxe_” for our personal use, and ordered that we
should be suffered to proceed upon our way unmolested.
“It was the shortest way, and the safest,” pursued our self-constituted
escort, walking with us to the carriage. “But allow me to express my
sorrow that you were subjected to even a momentary annoyance.”
He handed us into our carriage; regretted that his return that night
to Castellamare would prevent him from being of further service to us
during our stay in Naples, smiled and disclaimed when we thanked him
warmly for his kindness, and uncovered his dear old head as we drove
away.
Miss M—— sank back with a long sobbing breath, the first indication of
agitation she had displayed since the arrest at the gate:
“I shall love the sight of the Italian uniform as long as I live!” she
averred, with heartfelt emphasis.
“So said”—and so _do_—“all of us!”