to navigate now through an icy murk, now amidst a blizzard of wet
snow; but the ship sailed in all safety and even without rolling; the
passengers the steamer was carrying proved to be many, and all of them
people of note; the ship--the famous _Atlantida_--resembled the most
expensive of European hotels, with all conveniences: an all-night
bar, Turkish baths, a newspaper of its own,--and life upon it flowed
in accordance with a most complicated system of regulations: people
got up early, to the sounds of bugles, stridently resounding through
the corridors at that dark hour when day was so slowly and inimically
dawning over the grayish-green desert of waters, ponderously turbulent
in the mist. Putting on their flannel pyjamas, the passengers drank
coffee, chocolate, cocoa; then they got into marble baths, did their
exercises, inducing an appetite and a sense of well-being, performed
their toilet for the day, and went to breakfast. Until eleven one was
supposed to promenade the decks vigorously, inhaling the fresh coolness
of the ocean, or to play at shuffle-board and other games for the sake
of arousing the appetite anew, and, at eleven, to seek sustenance in
bouillon and sandwiches; having refreshed themselves, the passengers
perused their newspaper with gusto and calmly awaited lunch, a meal
still more nourishing and varied than the breakfast. The next two hours
were sacred to repose,--the decks were then encumbered with _chaises
longues_, upon which the travellers reclined, covered up with plaids,
contemplating the cloud-flecked sky and the foaming hummocks flashing
by over the side, or else pleasantly dozing off; at five o’clock,
refreshed and put in good spirits, they were drenched with strong
fragrant tea, served with cookies; at seven they were apprized by bugle
signals of a dinner of nine courses.... And thereupon the gentleman
from San Francisco, in an access of animal spirits, would hurry to his
resplendent _cabine de luxe_, to dress.
In the evening the tiers of the _Atlantida_ gaped through the dusk
as though they were fiery, countless eyes, and a great multitude of
servants worked with especial feverishness in the kitchens, sculleries,
and wine vaults. The ocean, heaving on the other side of the walls, was
awesome; but none gave it a thought, firmly believing it under the sway
of the captain,--a red-haired, man of monstrous bulk and ponderousness,
always seeming sleepy, resembling, in his uniform frock-coat, with its
golden chevrons, an enormous idol; it was only very rarely that he left
his mysterious quarters to appear in public. A siren on the forecastle
howled every minute in hellish sullenness and whined in frenzied
malice, but not many of the diners heard the siren,--it was drowned
by the strains of a splendid stringed orchestra, playing exquisitely
and ceaselessly in the two-tiered hall, decorated with marble, its
floors covered with velvet rugs; festively flooded with the lights of
crystal lustres and gilded _girandoles_, filled to overflowing with
diamond-bedecked ladies in _décoletté_ and men in tuxedos, graceful
waiters and deferent _maitres d’hôtel_,--among whom one, who took
orders for wines exclusively, even walked about with a chain around his
neck, like a lord mayor. A tuxedo and perfect linen made the gentleman
from San Francisco appear very much younger. Spare, not tall, clumsily
but strongly built, groomed until he shone and moderately animated, he
sat in the aureate-pearly refulgence of this palatial room, at a table
with a bottle of amber Johannesberg, with countless goblets, small and
large, of the thinnest glass, with a curly bouquet of curly hyacinths.
There was something of the Mongol about his yellowish face with clipped
silvery moustache; his large teeth gleamed with gold fillings; his
stalwart, bald head glistened like old ivory. Rich, yet in keeping
with her years, was the dress of his wife,--a big woman, expansive and
calm; elaborate, yet light and diaphanous, with an innocent frankness,
was that of his daughter,--tall, slender, with magnificent hair,
exquisitely dressed, with breath aromatic from violet cachous and with
the tenderest of tiny, rosy pimples about her lips and between her
shoulder blades, just the least bit powdered.... The dinner lasted for
two whole hours, while after dinner there was dancing in the ball room,
during which the men,--the gentleman from San Francisco among their
number, of course,--with their feet cocked up, determined, upon the
basis of the latest political and stock-exchange news, the destinies
of nations, smoking Habana cigars and drinking _liqueurs_ until they
were crimson in the face, seated in the bar, where the waiters were
negroes in red jackets, the whites of their eyes resembling hard boiled
eggs with the shell off. The ocean, with a dull roar, was moiling in
black mountains on the other side of the wall; the snow-gale whistled
mightily through the sodden rigging; the whole steamer quivered as it
mastered both the gale and the mountains, sundering to either side,
as though with a plough, their shifting masses, that again and again
boiled up and reared high, with tails of foam; the siren, stifled by
the fog, was moaning with a deathly anguish; the lookouts up in their
crow’s-nest froze from the cold and grew dazed from straining their
attention beyond their strength. Like to the grim and sultry depths of
the infernal regions, like to their ultimate, their ninth circle, was
the womb of the steamer, below the water line,--that womb where dully
gurgled the gigantic furnaces, devouring with their incandescent maws
mountains of hard coal, cast into them by men stripped to the waist,
purple from the flames, and with smarting, filthy sweat pouring over
them; whereas here, in the bar, men threw their legs over the arms
of their chairs with never a care, sipping cognac and _liqueurs_,
and were wafted among clouds of spicy smoke as they indulged in
well-turned conversation; in the ball room everything was radiant
with light and warmth and joy; the dancing couples were now awhirl
in waltzes, now twisting in the tango,--and the music insistently,
in some delectably-shameless melancholy, was suppliant always of the
one, always of the same thing.... There was an ambassador among this
brilliant throng,--a lean, modest little old man; there was a great man
of riches,--clean-shaven, lanky, of indeterminate years, and with the
appearance of a prelate, in his dress-coat of an old-fashioned cut;
there was a well-known Spanish writer; there was a world-celebrated
beauty, already just the very least trifle faded and of an unenviable
morality; there was an exquisite couple in love with each other, whom
all watched with curiosity and whose happiness was unconcealed: _he_
danced only with _her_; sang--and with great ability--only to _her_
accompaniment; and everything they did was carried out so charmingly,
that the captain was the only one who knew that this pair was hired
by Lloyd’s to play at love for a good figure, and that they had been
sailing for a long time, now on one ship, now on another.
At Gibraltar everybody was gladdened by the sun,--it seemed to be early
spring; a new passenger, whose person aroused the general interest,
made his appearance on board the _Atlantida_,--he was the hereditary
prince of a certain Asiatic kingdom, travelling incognito; a little man
who somehow seemed to be all made of wood, even though he was alert
in his movements; broad of face, with narrow eyes, in gold-rimmed
spectacles; a trifle unpleasant through the fact that his skin showed
through his coarse black moustache like that of a cadaver; on the
whole, however, he was charming, unpretentious, and modest. On the
Mediterranean Sea there was a whiff of winter again; the billows ran
high, and were as multi-coloured as the tail of a peacock; they had
snowy-white crests, lashed up--although the sun was sparkling brightly
and the sky was perfectly clear--by a _tramontana_, a chill northern
wind from beyond the mountains, that was joyously and madly rushing
to meet the ship.... Then, on the second day, the sky began to pale,
the horizon became covered with mist, land was nearing; Ischia, Capri
appeared; through the binoculars Naples--lumps of sugar strewn at the
foot of some dove-coloured mass--could be seen; while over it and this
dove-coloured thing were visible the ridges of distant mountains,
vaguely glimmering with the dead whiteness of snows. There was a great
number of people on deck; many of the ladies and gentlemen had already
put on short, light fur coats, with the fur outside; Chinese boys,
never contradictory and never speaking above a whisper, bow-legged
striplings with pitch-black queues reaching to their heels and with
eye-lashes as long and thick as those of young girls, were already
dragging, little by little, sundry plaids, canes, and portmanteaux and
grips of alligator hide toward the companion-ways.... The daughter of
the gentleman from San Francisco was standing beside the prince, who
had been, through a fortuitous circumstance, presented to her yesterday
evening, and she pretended to be looking intently into the distance, in
a direction he was pointing out to her, telling, explaining something
or other to her, hurriedly and quietly. On account of his height he
seemed a boy by contrast with others,--he was queer and not at all
prepossessing of person, with his spectacles, his derby, his English
great coat, while his scanty moustache looked just as if it were of
horse-hair, and the swarthy, thin skin seemed to be drawn tightly over
his face, and somehow had the appearance of being lacquered,--but
the young girl was listening to him, without understanding, in
her agitation, what he was saying; her heart was thumping from an
incomprehensible rapture before his presence and from pride that he was
speaking with her, and not some other; everything about him that was
different from others,--his lean hands, his clear skin, under which
flowed the ancient blood of kings, even his altogether unpretentious,
yet somehow distinctively neat, European dress,--everything held a
secret, inexplicable charm, evoked a feeling of amorousness. As for
the gentleman from San Francisco himself,--he, in a high silk hat,
in gray spats over patent-leather shoes, kept on glancing at the
famous beauty, who was standing beside him,--a tall blonde of striking
figure, her eyes were painted in the latest Parisian fashion; she was
holding a diminutive, hunched-up, mangy lap dog on a silver chain and
was chattering to it without cease. And the daughter, in some vague
embarrassment, tried not to notice her father.
Like all Americans of means, he was very generous on his travels, and,
like all of them, believed in the full sincerity and good-will of
those who brought him food and drink with such solicitude, who served
him from morn till night, forestalling his least wish; of those who
guarded his cleanliness and rest, lugged his things around, summoned
porters for him, delivered his trunks to hotels. Thus had it been
everywhere, thus had it been on the ship, and thus was it to be in
Naples as well. Naples grew, and drew nearer; the musicians, the brass
of their instruments flashing, had already clustered upon the deck, and
suddenly deafened everybody with the triumphant strains of a march;
the gigantic captain, in his full dress uniform, appeared upon his
stage, and, like a condescending heathen god, waved his hand amiably
to the passengers,--and to the gentleman from San Francisco it seemed
that it was for him alone that the march so beloved by proud America
was thundering, that it was he whom the captain was felicitating
upon a safe arrival. And every other passenger felt similarly about
himself--or herself. And when the _Atlantida_ did finally enter the
harbour, had heaved to at the wharf with her many-tiered mass, black
with people, and the gang-planks clattered down,--what a multitude of
porters and their helpers in caps with gold braid, what a multitude
of different _commissionaires_, whistling gamins, and strapping
ragamuffins with packets of coloured postal cards in their hands, made
a rush toward the gentleman from San Francisco, with offers of their
services! And he smiled, with a kindly contemptuousness, at these
ragamuffins, as he went toward the automobile of precisely that hotel
where there was a possibility of the prince’s stopping as well, and
drawled through his teeth, now in English, now in Italian:
“Go away![*] _Via!_”
[*] English in the original. The same applies to the other phrases in
this story marked with asterisks. _Trans._
Life at Naples at once assumed its wonted, ordered current: in the
early morning, breakfast in the sombre dining room with its damp
draught from windows opening on some sort of a stony little garden;
the sky was usually overcast, holding out but little promise, and
there was the usual crowd of guides at the door of the vestibule;
then came the first smiles of a warm, rosy sun; there was, from the
high hanging balcony, a view of Vesuvius, enveloped to its foot by
radiant morning mists, and of silver-and-pearl eddies on the surface
of the Bay, and of the delicate contour of Capri against the horizon;
one could see tiny burros, harnessed in twos to little carts, running
down below over the quay, sticky with mire, and detachments of
diminutive soldiers, marching off to somewhere or other to lively and
exhilarating music. Next came the procession to the waiting automobile
and the slow progress through populous, narrow, and damp corridors
of streets, between tall, many-windowed houses; the inspection of
lifelessly-clean museums, evenly and pleasantly, yet bleakly, lit,
seemingly illuminated by snow; or of cool churches, smelling of wax,
which everywhere and always contain the same things: a majestic portal,
screened by a heavy curtain of leather, and inside,--silence, empty
vastness, unobtrusive little flames of a seven-branched candle-stick
glowing redly in the distant depths, on an altar bedecked with laces;
a solitary old woman among the dark wooden pews; slippery tombstones
underfoot; and somebody’s _Descent from the Cross_,--inevitably a
celebrated one. At one o’clock there was luncheon upon the mountain
of San Martino, where, toward noon, gathered not a few people of the
very first quality, and where the daughter of the gentleman from San
Francisco had once almost fainted away for joy, because she thought she
saw the prince sitting in the hall, although she already knew through
the newspapers that he had left for a temporary stay at Rome. At five
came tea at the hotel, in the showy salon, so cosy with its rugs and
flaming fireplaces; and after that it was already time to get ready for
dinner,--and once more came the mighty, compelling reverberation of the
gong through all the stories; once more the processions in Indian file
of ladies in _décoletté_, rustling in their silks upon the staircases
and reflected in all the mirrors; once more the palatial dining room,
widely and hospitably opened, and the red jackets of the musicians upon
their platform, and the black cluster of waiters about the _maitre
d’hôtel_, who, with a skill out of the ordinary, was ladling some sort
of a thick, roseate soup into plates.... The dinners, as everywhere
else, were the crowning glory of each day; the guests dressed for them
as for a rout, and these dinners were so abundant in edibles, and
wines, and mineral waters, and sweets, and fruits, that toward eleven
o’clock at night the chambermaids were distributing through all the
corridors rubber bags with hot water to warm sundry stomachs.
However, the December of that year proved to be not altogether a
successful one for Naples; the porters grew confused when one talked
with them of the weather, and merely shrugged their shoulders guiltily,
muttering that they could not recall such another year,--although it
was not the first year that they had been forced to mutter this, and to
urge in extenuation that “something terrible is happening everywhere”;
there were unheard of storms and torrents of rain on the Riviera; there
was snow in Athens; Etna was also all snowed over and was aglow of
nights; tourists were fleeing from Palermo in all directions, escaping
from the cold. The morning sun deceived the Neapolitans every day that
winter: toward noon the sky became gray and a fine rain began falling,
but growing heavier and colder all the time; at such times the palms
near the entrance of the hotel glistened as though they were of tin,
the town seemed especially dirty and cramped, the museums exceedingly
alike; the cigar stumps of the corpulent cabmen, whose rubber-coats
flapped in the wind like wings, seemed to have an insufferable stench,
while the energetic snapping of their whips over their scrawny-necked
nags was patently false; the footgear of the _signori_ sweeping the
rails of the tramways seemed horrible; the women, splashing through the
mud, their black-haired heads bared to the rain, appeared hideously
short-legged; as for the dampness, and the stench of putrid fish
from the sea foaming at the quay,--they were a matter of course. The
gentleman and the lady from San Francisco began quarreling in the
morning; their daughter either walked about pale, with a headache, or,
coming to life again, went into raptures over everything, and was, at
such times both charming and beautiful: beautiful were those tender and
complex emotions which had been awakened within her by meeting that
homely man through whose veins flowed uncommon blood; for, after all
is said and done, perhaps it is of no real importance just what it is,
precisely, that awakens a maiden’s soul,--whether it be money, or fame,
or illustrious ancestry....
Everybody affirmed that things were entirely different in Sorrento,
in Capri,--there it was both warmer and sunnier, and the lemons were
in blossom, and the customs were more honest, and the wine was more
natural. And so the family from San Francisco determined to set out
with all its trunks to Capri, and, after seeing it all, after treading
the stones where the palace of Tiberius had once stood, after visiting
the faery-like caverns of the Azure Grotto, and hearing the bag-pipers
of Abruzzi, who for a whole month preceding Christmas wander over the
island and sing the praises of the Virgin Mary, they meant to settle in
Sorrento.
On the day of departure,--a most memorable one for the family from San
Francisco!--there was no sun from the early morning. A heavy fog hid
Vesuvius to the very base; this gray fog spread low over the leaden
heaving of the sea that was lost to the eye at a distance of a half a
mile. Capri was entirely invisible,--as though there had never been
such a thing in the world. And the little steamer that set out for it
was so tossed from side to side that the family from San Francisco
was laid prostrate upon the divans in the sorry general cabin of
this tub, their feet wrapped up in plaids, and their eyes closed from
nausea. Mrs. suffered,--so she thought,--more than anybody; she was
overcome by sea-sickness several times; it seemed to her that she was
dying, whereas the stewardess, who always ran up to her with a small
basin,--she had been, for many years, day in and day out, rolling on
these waves, in freezing weather and in torrid, and yet was still
tireless and kind to everybody,--merely laughed. Miss was dreadfully
pale and held a slice of lemon between her teeth; now she could not
have been cheered even by the hope of a chance encounter with the
prince at Sorrento, where he intended to be about Christmas. Mr.,
who was lying on his back, in roomy overcoat and large cap, never
unlocked his jaws all the way over; his face had grown darker and
his moustache whiter, and his head ached dreadfully: during the last
days, thanks to the bad weather, he had been drinking too heavily of
evenings, and had too much admired the “living pictures” in dives of
_recherché_ libertinage. But the rain kept on lashing against the
jarring windows, the water from them running down on the divans; the
wind, howling, bent the masts, and at times, aided by the onslaught
of a wave, careened the little steamer entirely to one side, and then
something in the hold would roll with a rumble. During the stops, at
Castellamare, at Sorrento, things were a trifle more bearable, but
even then the rocking was fearful,--the shore, with all its cliffs,
gardens, _pigin_[15], its pink and white hotels and hazy mountains clad
in curly greenery, swayed up and down as if on a swing; boats bumped up
against the sides of the ship; sailors and steerage passengers were
yelling vehemently; somewhere, as though it had been crushed, a baby
was wailing and smothering; a raw wind was blowing in at the door; and,
from a swaying boat with a flag of the Hotel Royal, a lisping gamin was
screaming, luring travellers: “Kgoya-al! Hôtel Kgoya-al!...” And the
gentleman from San Francisco, feeling that he was an old man,--which
was but proper,--was already thinking with sadness and melancholy
of all these Royals, Splendids, Excelsiors, and of these greedy,
insignificant mannikins, reeking of garlic, that are called Italians.
Once, having opened his eyes and raised himself from the divan, he saw,
underneath the craggy steep of the shore, a cluster of stone hovels,
mouldy through and through, stuck one on top of another near the very
edge of the water, near boats, near all sorts of rags, tins, and
brown nets,--hovels so miserable, that, at the recollection that this
was that very Italy he had come hither to enjoy, he felt despair....
Finally, at twilight, the dark mass of the island began to draw near,
seemingly bored through and through by little red lights near its base;
the wind became softer, warmer, more fragrant; over the abating waves,
as opalescent as black oil, golden pythons flowed from the lanterns on
the wharf.... Then came the sudden rumble of the anchor, and it fell
with a splash into the water; the ferocious yells of the boatmen, vying
with one another, floated in from all quarters,--and at once the heart
grew lighter, the lights in the general cabin shone more brightly, a
desire arose to eat, to drink, to smoke, to be stirring.... Ten minutes
later the family from San Francisco had descended into a large boat;
within fifteen minutes it had set foot upon the stones of the wharf,
and had then got into a bright little railway car and to its buzzing
started the ascent of the slope, amid the stakes of the vineyards,
half-crumbled stone enclosures, and wet, gnarled orange trees, some
of them under coverings of straw,--trees with thick, glossy foliage,
and aglimmer with the orange fruits; all these objects were sliding
downward, past the open windows of the little car, toward the base of
the mountain.... Sweetly smells the earth of Italy after rain, and her
every island has its own, its especial aroma!
[15] Pino-groves. _Trans._