"A night of unrivalled serenity! The stars alone of themselves
illuminated the earth, and the milky-way was silvery. A single avenue,
intertwined with vine-blossoms, led to the magnificent city. Everywhere
one heard people, now near, talking, now distant, singing. Out of dark
chestnut woods, on moonlit hills, the nightingales called to one
another. A poor, sleeping maiden, whom we had taken with us, heard the
melodies even down into her dream, and sang after them; and then, when
she awoke herself therewith, looked round confusedly and with a sweet
smile, with the whole melody and dream still in her breast. On a
slender, light two-wheeled carriage, a wagoner, standing on the pole
and singing, rolled merrily along by. Women were already bearing in the
cool of the hour great baskets full of flowers into the city; in the
distance, as we passed along, whole Paradises of flower-cups sent
their fragrance; and the heart and the bosom drank in at once the
love-draught of the sweet air. The moon had gone up bright as a sun in
the high heaven, and the horizon was gilded with stars; and in the
whole cloudless sky stood the dusky cloud-column of Vesuvius, alone, in
the east.
"Far into the night, after two o'clock, we rolled in and through the
long city of splendor, wherein the living day still bloomed on. Gay
people filled the streets; the balconies sent each other songs; on the
roofs bloomed flowers and trees between lamps, and the little bells of
the hours prolonged the day; and the moon seemed to give warmth. Only
now and then a man lay sleeping between the colonnades, as if he were
taking his siesta. Dian, at home in all such matters, let the carriage
stop on the southern side, toward the sea, and went far into the city,
in order to arrange, through old acquaintances, the passage across to
the island, so that we might have exactly at sundown out on the sea,
the richest view of the stately city, with its bay and its long coasts.
The Ischian girl wrapped herself up in her blue veil, to keep off the
flies, and fell asleep on the black, sandy shore.
"I walked up and down alone; for me there was no night and no house.
The sea slept, the earth seemed awake. In the fleeting glimmer (the
moon was already sinking towards Posilippo) I looked up over this
divine frontier city of the world of waters, over this rising mountain
of palaces, to where the lofty Castle of St. Elmo looks, white, out of
the green foliage. With two arms the earth embraced the lovely sea; on
her right, on Posilippo, she bore blooming vine-hills far out into the
waves, and on the left she held cities, and spanned round its waters
and its ships, and drew them up to her breast. Like a sphinx lay the
jagged Capri darkly on the horizon in the water, and guarded the gates
of the bay. Behind the city the volcano smoked in the ether, and
occasionally sparks played between the stars.
"Now the moon sank down behind the elms of Posilippo,--the city grew
dark,--the din of the night died away,--fishermen disembarked, put out
their torches, and laid themselves down on the bank,--the earth seemed
to sink to sleep, but the sea to wake up. A wind from the coast of
Sorrento ruffled the still waves; more brightly gleamed Sorrento's
sickle with the reflection at once of the moon and of morning, like
silver meadows; the smoke column of Vesuvius had blown away, and from
the fire-mount streamed a long, clear morning redness over the coasts
as over a strange world.
"O, it was the morning twilight, full of youthful omens! Do not
landscape, mountain, coasts, like an echo, speak so many the more
syllables to the soul the farther off they are? How young did I feel
the world and myself, and the whole morning of my life was crowded into
this!
"My friend came; all was arranged; the boatmen had arrived; Agata was
awakened to the joy, and we embarked, just as the dawn kindled the
mountains, and, her sails swelling with the morning breezes, our little
vessel flew out into the sea.
"Before we had yet doubled the promontory of Posilippo, the crater of
Vesuvius threw up its glowing child, the sun, slowly into the sky,
and sea and earth blazed. The half earth-girdles of Naples, with
morning-red palaces, its market-place of fluttering ships, the swarm of
its country-houses on the mountains and up along the shore, and its
green throne of St. Elmo, stood proudly between two mountains, before
the sea.
"When we came round Posilippo, there stood Ischia's Epomeo, like a
giant of the sea, in the distance, girdled about with a wood, and with
bald, white head. Gradually appeared on the immeasurable plain the
islands, one after another, like scattered villages, and wildly pressed
and waded the promontories into the sea. Now, mightier and more alive
than the dried-up, parcelled out, stiff land, the watery kingdom
opened, whose powers all, from the streams and waves even to the drops,
join hands and move in concert. Almighty, and yet gentle element!
grimly thou leapest upon the lands, and swallowest them up, and, with
thy undermining polypus-arms, liest stretching around the whole globe.
But thou reinest the wild streams, and meltest them down into waves;
softly thou playest with thy little children, the islands, and playest
on the hand which hangs out of the light gondola, and sendest out thy
little waves which play before us, then bear us along, and play behind
us.
"When we came along by the little Nisita, where Brutus and Cato once
sought shelter after Cæsar's death; when we passed by the enchanted
Baja and the magic castle where once three Romans determined upon the
division of the world, and before the whole promontory, where the
country-seats of great Romans stood; and when we looked down towards
the mountain of Cuma, behind which Scipio Africanus lived in his
Linternum and died; then did the lofty life of the great ancients take
possession of me, and I said to my friend: 'What men were those!
Scarcely do we learn incidentally in Pliny or Cicero that one of them
has a country-house yonder, or that there is a lovely Naples. Out of
the midst of nature's sea of joys their laurels grow and bear as well
as out of the ice-sea of Germany and England, or out of Arabia's sand.
Alike in wildernesses and in paradises, their mighty hearts beat on.
And for these world-souls there was no dwelling except the world; only
with such souls are emotions worth almost more than actions. A Roman
might here weep nobly for joy! Dian, say, what can a modern man do for
it, that he lives so late after their ruins?'
"Youth and ruins, tottering, crumbling past and eternal fulness of
life, covered the shore of Misenum and the whole far-stretching coast.
On the broken urns of dead gods, on the dismembered temples of Mercury
and Diana, the frolicsome, light wave played, and the eternal sun; old,
lonely bridge-posts in the sea, solitary temple-columns and arches,
spoke, in the luxuriant splendor of life, a sober word; the old, holy
names of the Elysian Fields, of Avernus, of the Dead Sea, lived still
along the coast; ruins of rocks and temples lay in confusion upon the
motley-colored lava; all bloomed and lived; the maidens and the boatmen
sang; the mountains and the islands stood great in the young, fiery
day; dolphins chased sportively along beside us; singing larks went
whirling up in the ether above their narrow islands; and from all ends
of the horizon ships came up and flew down again with arrowy speed. It
was the divine over-fulness and intermingling of the world before me.
Sounding-strings of life were stretched over the string-bridge of
Vesuvius, even to Epomeo.
"Suddenly one peal of thunder passed along through the blue heaven over
the sea. The maiden asked me, 'Why do you grow pale? it is only
Vesuvius.' Then was a god near me; yes, heaven, earth, and sea stood
before me as three divinities. The leaves of life's dream-book were
murmuringly ruffled up by a divine morning-storm; and everywhere I read
our dreams and the interpretations thereof.
"After some time, we came to a long land swallowing up the north, as it
were the foot of a single mountain; it was already the lovely Ischia,
and I went on shore intoxicated with bliss, and then, for the first
time, I thought of the promise that I should there find a sister."