When coming out from the station of the Circumvesuviana at Torre
Annunziata, as one goes towards the white and flowery cemetery, which
was reported destroyed, but fortunately has not been touched by the
fire, one suddenly sees, quite in front of the gate, at seven or eight
meters from the wall on the left, a large barrier of black or dark gray
stones, and pitch coloured rocks, a rocky irregular barrier closing at
a certain distance the restful home of the dead, and one wonders: Is
this the lava?
Yes, that is the lava. Still, asleep, and dead, it rests now under the
sun, having already become a harmless thing, transformed in an arid
rocky wall, in a mound of ruins, gathered there in confusion, for an
unlimited extension, and going down in an easy slope, like a stair of
stones. That is the lava, and who sees it for the first time, must ask
himself if, in that accumulation of still things, in that ocean of
fused bronze, life has existed, if that mass has not been deposited
there by chance, by the untiring arm of gigantic cyclops, and not by
its own strength, by its powerful and ardent life of fire. And one
smiles almost incredulously, as one would, before a made up spectacle.
One would like to tread over those scories, strike them with one's own
stick and show them all the contempt that naturally springs from one's
souls towards a stone. Stone? Oh no! from the cracks cutting here and
there, immense columns of white smoke, tinted with yellow vapours,
arise ... and if you look more intensely you perceive many, many more.
It is like an immense lighted field, spread all over with smoke,
similar to an early dawn in the month of November. That stone is still
living. Under those masses, fire is still burning. The blood of the
Vulcano beats yet in those stony veins.
The terrible thing appears to you then, in all its majestic and
frightful grandeur, always burning like the flame of the Vestals. And
you understand then more clearly what must have been the terrible
spectacle of this slow fall of living and destructive strength
advancing little by little, gaining inch by inch the fields and the
houses, this invincible strength carrying flames and destruction in its
breast, hearing no control, going where it pleased with the caprice
of a perverted will and bringing desolation and death every where it
has touched. You will well understand, what this rolling red river
must have been in the fatal night, with the black sky shrouded with
sun, crowned with lightnings like a revengeful divinity, this slow and
voracious river, which has swallowed up half a country. You will well
understand, how a picturesque little village can have been destroyed in
its rich lands, in one of its fractions, in its first houses.
A nice white little village, located by a black row of stone girdling
it with mourning after having wrapped it with destruction, and you
will then understand what must have been the panic and terror of
yesterday, and what is to day the serious loss of this place which is
now hardly spoken of, and which to-morrow will be probably forgotten:
of Boscotrecase prisoner of fire, like Brunhilde of the Walkyrian story
and which will never be waked up again from her sleep resembling death.
* * * * *
If you want to go to Boscotrecase, from the cemetery of Torre
Annunziata, you may, avoiding to go down as far as Scafati, ascend
directly the course of the lava and coasting as I have done, three
steps further you see the line of the Circumvesuviana cut for several
meters by the lava, which has run over the rails, falling on the ground
underneath, rails being raised in that place.
Let us go through the fields, the front of the lava is quite wide and
one must take a long turn.
All around the black sleeping mass, the country has remained untouched,
the vines are in bloom and young green twigs hang from them. One step
from the last scories, advanced sentinels of death, little field
daisies, all gold, small stars wreathing the head of the monster, are
waving at the soft, light blowing breeze, while big bloody poppies like
large stains of blood, fill the ground all around.
Half way up over the low walls of the farms, a little house appears at
once before you. It is the first one which has been surrounded by the
lava. In fact the walls peep out of the crags under the rocks where
they are buried. All is in its place, not a shingle is missing from
the roof, not a pane from the windows. Only the inexorable lava closes
it all around.
And I have like the painful sensation of witnessing the agony of a
healthy and good creature, hugged in the arms of a giant who is slowly
suffocating it. Still more houses are to be seen farther on; but some
of them are in ruin, the lava has leant against the walls, has pressed,
has broken some pillars and has opened big cracks in the walls. From a
close window, I suddenly perceive, a thin line of grayish smoke.
The work of the hidden fire is only beginning.
The house is burning little by little. The shutters, the doors, all
wooden things in contact with the lava, are beginning to burn, then it
will be the turn of the beams, of the sustaining arches and the walls;
every thing will be consumed to ashes, and only some ruins will remain.
How long will it take? Who knows? The work of fire is silent and
tenacious like a human vengeance. After an hour's march we abandon
the poor, deserted dwellings, irremessibly condemned, vowed to death,
yonder in the great sea of lava, and we get back in the main road, full
of dust, leading to Boscotrecase.