Virgil and the Romans. Bordering upon this we found a whole hill-side
honeycombed with _columbaria_. Then came the long sulphurous gallery
leading to the hot spring in which eggs are boiled for your instruction.
Each of these visitations has its fee, so that the pilgrimage, even if
made on foot, would be a costly one. Cuma next claimed us. A long, dark
gallery leads to the cave of the Cumaean Sibyl, described by Virgil. But
the presence of water here makes it necessary for visitors to sit upon
the shoulders of two or three shaggy and uncleanly-looking sprites. We
stoutly decline this adventure, and are afterwards sorry. From this
neighborhood was taken the Cumaean collection, which figures at the
_Museo Nazionale_, presented by the Prince of Carignano. Somewhere in
the course of this crowded and heated day, a dinner was slidden in,
which gave our labor a brief interval of rest and refreshment. It
consisted mostly of dirt, in various forms, flavored with cheese,
garlic, and a variety of savors equally choice. To facilitate its
consumption, we drank a sour-sweet fluid, called white Capri. I found
none of the Italian wines joyous. Despite their want of body, they give
one's nerves a decided shake.
Well, I have narrated all that took place on the day set apart for Baja.
Its results may be prosaically summed up as heat, haste, and headache,
with a confused vision of the past and a most fragmentary sense of the
present.
CAPRI.
I have a fresh chapter of torment for a new Dante, if such an one could
be induced to apply to me. I will not expatiate, nor exhale any
Francesca episodes, any "_Lasciate ogni spiranza!_" I will be succinct
and business-like, furnishing the outlines from which some more
leisurely artist, better paid and employed, shall do his hell-painting.
We leave enchanting Naples,--tear ourselves from our hotel, whose very
impositions grow dear to us; the precious window, too, which shows the
bay and Capri, and close at hand the boats, the fish-market, and the
chairs on which the populace sit at eventide to eat oysters and drink
mineral water. A small boat takes us to a very small steamer, on whose
deck we pay ten francs each to a stout young man, in appearance much
like a southern poor Buckra, who departs in another small boat as soon
as he has plundered us. The voyage to Capri is cool and reasonably
smooth. A pleasant chance companion, bound to the same port, beguiles
the time for us. We exchange our intellectual small wares with a certain
good will, which remains the best part of the bargain. When quite near
the island, the small steamer pauses, and lowers a boat in which we
descend to view the famous Blue Grotto. At the entrance, we are warned
to stoop as low as possible. We do so, and still the entrance seems
dangerous. With some scratching and pushing, however, the boat goes
through, and the lovers of blue feast their eyes with the tender color.
The water is ultramarine, and the roof sapphire. The place seems a toy
of nature--a forced detention of a single ray of the spectrum. Dyes
change with the fashion; the blue of our youth does not color our
daughter's silks and ribbons. The purples of ten years ago cannot be met
with to-day. But this blue is constant, and therefore perfect.
Our enjoyment of it, however, is marred by an old beast in human form
who rushes at us, and insists upon being paid two francs for diving. He
promises us that he will show us wondrous things--that he will fill the
azure cave with silver sparkles. Wearied with his screeching, and a
little deluded by his promises, we weakly offer him a franc and a half;
whereupon he throws off some superfluous clothing, and softly glides
into the deep, without so much as a single sparkle. He certainly
presents an odd appearance; his weird legs look as if twisted out of
silver; his back is dark upon the water. But the refreshing bath he
takes is so little worth thirty sous to us that we feel tempted to
harpoon him as he dodges about, sure that, if pierced, he can shed
nothing more solid than humbug. On our return to the steamer we pay two
francs each for this melancholy expedition, and presently make the
little harbor of Capri.
And here the promised Hell begins. The way to it, remember, is always
pleasant. No sooner does our boat touch the land than a nest of human
rattlesnakes begins to coil and hiss about us, each trying to carry us
off, each pouring into our ears discordant, rapid jargon. "My donkey,
siora." "And mine." "And mine." "How much will you give?" "Will you go
up to Tiberio?" But all this with more repetition and less music than a
chorus of Handel's or an aria of Sebastian Bach. "My donkey," flourish;
"My do-n-onkey," high soprano variation; "My donkey," good grumbling
contralto. "How much?" "How much?" "How much?" "How much?" shriek all in
chorus. And you, the unhappy star in this hell opera, begin with
uncertain utterance--"Let me see, good people. One at a time. What is
just I will pay"--the _motivo_ also repeated; chorus renewed--"Money;"
"Three francs;" "Four francs;" "Five francs;" "A _bottiglia_;" "A _buona
mano_." A _buona mano_? Good hand--would one could administer it in the
right way, in the right place! By this time each of you occupies the
warm saddle of a donkey, and at one P. M., less twenty, the thermometer
at 90 Fahrenheit or more, and being warned to reach the steamer by three
P. M., at latest, the punishment of all your past, and most of your
future sins begins.
_Facile descensus Averni._ Yes; but the _ascensus_? To climb so high
after Tiberio, who went so low! For this is the ruined palace of
Tiberius Caesar himself, which you go to seek and see, if possible. He
still plagues the world, as he would have wished to do. Your expedition
in search of his stony vestiges is a long network of torment, spun by
you, the donkey, and the donkey-driver, undisguised Apollo standing by
to weld the golden chains by which you suffer. As often as you seem to
approach the object, a new _detour_ leads you at a zigzag from the
straight direction. But this is little. At every turn in the road a
beggar, in some variety, addresses you. Now a deformed wretch shows you
his twisted limbs, and shrieks, "_co cosa, siora_." Now, a
wholesome-looking mother, with a small child, asks a contribution to the
wants of "_questa creatura_" Now, a grandam, with blackened face and
bleached hair, hobbles after you. Children oppress you with flowers,
women with oranges,--all in view of the largest _quid_ for the smallest
_quo_. You grow afraid to look in a pretty face or return a civil nod,
lest the eternal signal of beggary should make itself manifest. And such
women and children!--every one a picture. Such intense eyes, such
sun-ripened complexions! I take note of them, handsome devils that they
are, all foreordained as a part of my fiery probation. For all this time
I am making a steep ascent. Sometimes the donkey takes me up a flight of
stone steps, clutching at each with an uncertain quiver, but stimulated
by the nasal "n--a--a--a," which follows him from the woman who by turns
coaxes and threatens him. Now we clamber along a narrow ledge, whose
height causes my dizzy head to swim; there is nothing but special
providence between me and perdition. A little girl, six years of age,
pulls my donkey by the head; a dignified matron behind me holds the
whip. The little girl leads carelessly, and I quake and grow hot and
cold with terror; but it is of no use. The matron will not take the
rein; her office is to flog, and she will do nought else. And the
sun?--the sun works his miracles upon us until we wish ourselves as well
off as the Niobides, who, at least, look cool. Finally, after an hour of
jolting, roasting, quivering, and general exasperation, we reach the
top. Here we are passively lifted from our donkeys; we mechanically
follow our guide through a white-washed wine-shop into a small outer
space, with a low wall around it, over which we are invited to look down
some hundreds of feet into the sea. This is called the Leap of Tiberio:
from this height, says the barefooted old vagabond who guides us, he
pitched his victims into the deep. The descent here is as straight as
the wall of a house. Farther on, we find some very fragmentary ruins, in
the usual Roman style. Among them is a good mosaic pavement, with some
vaults and broken columns. A sloping way is shown us, carefully paved,
and with a groove on either side. Into this, say they, fitted the wheels
of a certain chariot, in which guests were invited to seat themselves.
The chariot, guided by two cords, then started to go down to the sea.
But at a certain moment the vehicle was arrested by a sudden shock.
Those within it were precipitated into the water, after which the cords
comfortably drew the chariot back.
I have never heard any of the evidence upon which is based the modern
rehabilitation of Tiberius and Nero. I have, however, found in the
stately Tacitus, and even in gossipy Suetonius, a shudder of horror
accompanying the narration of their deeds. The world has seen cruelty in
all ages, and sees it still; but I cannot believe that the average
standard of humanity can justly be lowered so far as to make the acts of
Tiberius simply rigorous, those of Nero a little arbitrary. Mr. Carlyle,
in dealing with the French revolution, reprobates the hysterical style
of reviewing painful events; but in the history of Rome under the Caesars
we hear too plainly the sobs and shrieks of the victims to be satisfied
with the modern philosophizing which would deprive them of our
compassion. Man is naturally cruel; superstition makes him more so. A
genuine religion alone softens his ferocious instincts, and places the
centre of action and obligation elsewhere than in his own pleasure or
personal advantage. Man is also compassionate; but without the
systematic formation of morals, his weak compassion will not compensate
the ardor of his self-assertion, which may involve all crimes. Luxury
exaggerates cruelty, because it intensifies the action of the selfish
interests, and loosens the rein of restraint--its objects and the
objects of morals being incompatible. The most cruel characters have
been those presenting this admixture of luxury and ferocity. The silken
noose gives finer and more atrocious death than the iron sword.
I think that the (unless vilified) wretch Tiberius built this palace in
fear, and dwelt in it in torment. In its fastnesses he felt himself safe
from the knife of the assassin. In the leisure of its isolation he could
meditate murders with aesthetic deliberation, and hurl his bolts of death
upon the world below, remorseless and unattainable as Jove himself.
Here is an episode of philosophizing in the hell I promised you. But
hell itself would not be complete without the button-bore--the man or
woman who holds you by a theory, and detains you amid life's intensity
to attend the slow circlings of an elaborative brain.
I have now finished Tiberio. The donkeys brought us down with more
danger, more heat, more fear and clatter. Only beggary diminishes, a
little discouraged, in our rear. It seems to have been given out that we
have no small change, as is indeed the fact; so the young and old only
grumble after us enough to keep their hand in. In compensation for this,
however, a new trouble is added, viz., the danger of losing the small
steamboat, which threatens to leave at three P. M., a period by this
time scarce half an hour distant. Yet a bit of bread we must have at the
hotel. It is the former palace of Queen Joanna; but we do not know it at
the moment, and nothing leads us to suspect it. Here two good-natured
English faces make us for the moment at home. A cup of tea,--the English
and American restorative for all fatigues,--a wholesome slice of bread
and butter, a moderate charge, and ten minutes of cool seclusion, make
the Hotel di Tiberio pleasant in our recollection. And then we remount,
and, the little steamer beginning to manoeuvre, our haste and anxiety
become extreme; so we take no more heed of steep or narrow, but the
donkeys and we make one headlong business of it down to the beach, where
we have still to make a secondary embarkation before reaching the
steamer. Here, as we had foreseen, the final crush attends us. The
guide and each of the donkey girls and women insist upon separate
payment. With grim satisfaction I fling a five-franc note for the whole.
It is too much, but the whole island cannot or will not give change for
it. And then ensues much shrieking, expostulation, and gesticulation, in
the midst of which I plunge into the boat, make my bargain with Charon,
and am for the time out of hell. As I looked back, methought I saw
Stefano the guide and the women having it out pretty well with reference
to the undivided fee. Stefano leaped wildly into the sea after me, and
extorted five more _soldi_ from my confusion. Finally, I exhort all good
Christians to beware of Capri, and on no account to throw away a trip
thither, but to undertake the same as a penance, for the mortification
of the flesh and the good of the immortal soul. The island is to-day in
as heathen a condition as Tiberius himself could wish; only from a
golden, it has descended to the perpetual invoking of a copper rain.
That the Beggar's Opera should have been written out of the kingdom of
Naples is a matter of reasonable astonishment to the logically inferring
mind. I could improvise it myself on the spur of the moment, making a
heroine out of the black-eyed woman who drove my animal--black-haired
also, and with a scarlet cotton handkerchief bound around her head in
careless picturesqueness. Gold ear-rings and necklace had she who
screamed and begged so for a penny more than her due. And when I cried
aloud in fear, she replied, "_Non abbia timor--donkey molt' avezzo_;"
which diverted my mind, and caused me to laugh. As we went up and as we
went down, she encountered all her friends and gossips in holiday
attire; for yesterday was _Festa_, and to-day, consequently, is _festa_
also--a saint's day leaving many small arrearages to settle, in the
shape of headache, fight, and so on, so that one does not comfortably
get to work again until the third day. This fact of the antecedent
_festa_ accounted for the unusual amount of good clothes displayed
throughout the island. Our eyes certainly profited by it, and possibly
our purses; for we just remember that one or two groups in velvet
jackets and gold necklaces did not beg.
But all of this is a superfluous after-digression, as I am really, in my
narrative, already on board of the little steamer, with the charitable
waves between me and the brigand Caprians. A pleasant sail--not so
smooth but that it made the Italian passengers ill--brought us to
Sorrento. Here our trunk was hoisted on the head of a stout fellow, all
the small fry of the harbor squabbling for our minor luggage. We climbed
a long, steep flight of stone steps, walked through a shady orange
garden, and came out upon a cool terrace fronting the sea, with the
Rispoli Hotel behind it. Here we were to stay; our bargain was soon
made, with the divine prospect thrown in. Our room was on the ground
floor, behind a shallow arcade paved with majolica. Shaking off the dust
of travel, and ranging our few effects in the rather narrow quarters, we
at once took possession of the prospect, and regulated ourselves
accordingly.
SORRENTO.
Ugh! after the roasting, hurried day at Capri, how delicious was the
first morning's rest at Sorrento! The coral merchant came and went. We
did not allow him to trouble us. They offered us the hotel asses; we did
not engage them. The blue sea, the purple mountains, the green, rustling
orange groves,--these were enough for us, pieced with the writing of
these ragged notes, and a little dipping into our Horace, who, it must
be confessed, goes lamely without a dictionary. A day of lights and
shadows, of sunshine and silence, of pains caressed, and fatigues whose
healing was sweeter than fresh repose. And we dreamed of novels that we
could write beneath this romance-forging sun, and how the commonplace
men and women about us should take grandiose shapes of good and ill, and
figure as ideals, no longer as atoms. We would forsake our scholastic
anatomy, and make studies of real life, with color and action. For this,
as we know, we should need at least six months of freedom, which perhaps
the remnant of our mortal lives does not offer. Meantime we sit and
dream. Each sees the content of the landscape reflected in the other's
eyes. We sit just within our room, the little writing-table half within,
half without the window, that reaches to the ground. The soft breeze
flutters our pages to and fro. We scold it caressingly, as one reproves
the overplay of a gracious child. With the exception of an occasional
straggling visitor, the whole terrace is ours. Now and then we forsake
the writing-table, rush to the railing that borders the terrace, and
take a good look up and down, to assure ourselves that what we see is
real, and founded on terra firma. Here our wearied nerves shall bathe in
seas of heavenly rest. As to our suffering finances, too,--if one word
is not too often profaned for us to profane it, we will quote Horace's
"mox reficit rates quassas,"
not
"indociles pauperiem pati"
Here our rapture will cost nothing. We will feed our eyes. The sea and
sky shall wear sapphires and diamonds for us. Our shabbiness will be the
aesthetic complement to their splendors. Do you not remember the figures
in brown or olive green that always lurk in the corners of pictures in
whose centre the Madonna, or some saint, is glorified? They also serve,
who only stand and wait in the shadow. So will we do now. We will lie
forgotten in the corner of this splendid picture, while our time and our
remaining credit equalize themselves a little. The days in Naples
considerably outran our estimate; the days here must make up for it. And
we want nothing; and all is delightful.
It is true, we do not carry out those good intentions quite literally.
Who ever does? But we adhere to our proposed outline of rigid economy
with only an occasional break. We soon begin to take note of small
temptations that lie about the streets. Here we see the little
neck-ribbons that are so cheap and pretty. A handful of them twisted
around the neck of Economy give her something of a choke. Further on in
our days and walks, a sound of saws in motion arrests our attention;
while a sign and tempting show-case urge us at least to _look_ at the
far-famed Sorrento woodwork. We enter; we set the tenth clause of the
Decalogue at nought, coveting wildly. Brackets, tea, glove, and cash
boxes are displayed there for our overthrow; watch-cases, on a new
principle, all either brave with mosaic, or smooth and shining in the
simple beauty of the olive wood. Something of all this we snatched and
fled. We took far too little for our wishes, rather too much for our
means. Silk stockings we did resist by that simplest and best of
measures--not entering the shops in which they were pressingly
advertised. The very passing of those shops gave us, however, vague
dreams of swimming about in silken movements; how grateful in a world of
heat! But the line has to be drawn somewhere, and we draw it here.
A donkey excursion pleasantly varies our experience in Sorrento. Do you
know how much a donkey ride means in Sorrento? It does not mean a
perpetual jolt, and horrible inter-asinicidal contest between the ass
who carries the stick and the ass who carries you. The donkeys of
Sorrento are fat and well-liking: smooth and gray are the pair that come
for us, comfortable as to the saddle and the bridle. And our
donkey-driver is a handsome youth, with a bold, frank countenance, and
the ripest olive and vermilion complexion. His walk is graceful and
robust; he knows every one he meets, and has his bit of fun with sundry
of the groups who pass us. These consist of men and women bearing on
their heads large flat baskets filled with cocoons, or in their hands
bundles of the same; girls leading mules, or carrying household burdens;
soldiers, beggars, Neapolitan princes, the syndic of Sorrento, and other
varieties of the species vaguely called human. He takes us up a steep
and rough ascent to the telegraph station. There are many bad bits in
the road; he is but one, and the donkeys are two; but he has such a
clever way, at critical moments, of holding on to the head of the second
donkey in conjunction with the tail of the first, that he gets the two
cowardly riders through many difficulties and more fears. Once on level
ground, the donkeys amble along delightfully. So pleasant is the whole
in remembrance, that, sitting here, at an interval of many miles in
distance, and ten days in time, we feel a sincere twinge in remembering
that we gave him only a franc for himself, paying by agreement two
francs for either donkey. Forgive us, beauteous and generous Gaetano,
and do not curse us in _aggio_ and _saggio_, the open-mouthed _patois_
of your country.
FLORENCE.
A week is little for the grandeurs of Florence, much for the discomforts
of its summer weather. The last week of May, which we passed there,
mistook itself for June, and governed itself accordingly. We went out as
early as human weakness, unsubdued by special discipline, permitted. We
struggled with church, gallery, painting, sculpture, and antiquities.
We breathlessly read sensible books, guides, and catalogues, in the
little intervals of our sight-seeing. We dropped at night, worn and
greedy for slumber; and the day died, and made no sign.
A hot week, but a happy one. To be overcome in a good cause is glorious,
and our failure, we trust, was quantitative, not qualitative. Good
friends helped us, took away all little troubles and responsibilities;
took us about in carriages of dignity and ease, and landed us before
royal, imperial works of art. With all their aid and cherishing,
Florence was too many for us. So, of her garment of splendors, we were
able only to catch at and hold fast a shred here and there, and whether
these fragments are worth weaving into a chapter at all, will better
appear when we shall have made the experiment of so combining them.
Our first view of her was by night; when, wearied with a day's shaking,
a hot and a long one, we tumbled out of railroad car into arms of
philanthropic friend, who received us and our bundles, selected our
luggage, conquered our porter and hackman, pointed to various
interesting quadrangles of lamps, and said, "This is Florence." But we
had seen such things before, and gave little heed--our thought machinery
being quite run down for lack of fuel. The aspect which we first truly
perceived, and still remember, was that of a clean and friendly
interior, a tea-table set, a good lamp bright with American _petrolio_
(O shade of Downer!), and, behind an alcove, the dim, inviting
perspective of a comfortable bed, which seemed to say, "Come hither,
weary ones. I have waited long enough, and so have you."
PALAZZO PITTI.
The second aspect of Florence was the Pitti Palace, brown and massive;
and the bridges numerously spanning the bright river; and the gay, busy
streets, shady in lengths and sunny only in patches; the picturesque
_melange_ of business and of leisure, artisans, country people, English
travellers and dressed-up Americans; the jeweller's bridge, displaying
ropes of pearls and flashes of diamonds, with endless knottings and
perplexities of gold and mosaic; alabaster shops, reading-rooms,
book-stores, fashions, cabinets of antiquities--all leading to a welcome
retirement within the walls of the Palazzo Pitti.
Well content was the Medici to live in it, ill content to exchange it,
even for the promised threshold of Paradise. A good little sermon here
suggests itself, of which the text was preached long ago, "For where
your treasure is, there will your heart be also." And Medici's
investments had been large in Pitti, and trifling in Paradise; hence the
difficulty of realizing in the latter. Within the Pitti Palace are
things that astonish the world, and have a right to do so, as have all
the original results of art. The paintings are all--so to speak--set on
doors that open into new avenues of thought and speculation for mankind.
The ideal world, of which the real is but a poor assertion, has, in
these glimpses, its truest portraiture. Their use and dignity have also
limits which the luxury and enthusiasm of mankind transgress. But
indispensable were they in the world's humanization and civilization:
that is enough to say of them.