One day it became plain even to our reluctance that we could not stay
in Naples forever, and the next morning we took the train for Rome.
The Villa Reale put on its most alluring charm to him that ran down
before breakfast to thrid once more its pathways bordered with palms
and fountains and statues; the bay beside it purpled and twinkled in
the light that made silver of the fishermen's sails; far away rose
Vesuvius with his nightcap of mist still hanging about his shoulders;
all around rang and rattled Naples. The city was never so fair before,
nor could ever have been so hard to leave; and at the last moment
the landlord of the Hotel Washington must needs add a supreme pang by
developing into a poet, and presenting me with a copy of a comedy
he had written. The reader who has received at parting from the
gentlemanly proprietor of one of our palatial hotels his "Ode on the
Steam Elevator," will conceive of the shame and regret with which I
thought of having upbraided our landlord about our rooms, of having
stickled at small preliminaries concerning our contract for board, and
for having altogether treated him as one of the uninspired. Let me do
him the tardy justice to say that he keeps, after the Stella d'Oro at
Ferrara, the best hotel in Italy, and that his comedy was really very
sprightly. It is no small thing to know how to keep a hotel, as we
know, and a poet who does it ought to have a double acclaim.
Nobody who cares to travel with decency and comfort can take the
second-class cars on the road between Naples and Rome, though these
are perfectly good everywhere else in Italy. The Papal city makes her
influence felt for shabbiness and uncleanliness wherever she can, and
her management seems to prevail on this railway. A glance into
the second-class cars reconciled us to the first-class,--which in
themselves were bad,--and we took our places almost contentedly.
The road passed through the wildest country we had seen in Italy; and
presently a rain began to fall and made it drearier than ever. The
land was much grown up with thickets of hazel, and was here and there
sparsely wooded with oaks. Under these, hogs were feeding upon the
acorns, and the wet swine-herds were steaming over fires built at their
roots. In some places the forest was quite dense; in other places it
fell entirely away, and left the rocky hill-sides bare, and solitary
but for the sheep that nibbled at the scanty grass, and the shepherds
that leaned upon their crooks and motionlessly stared at us as we
rushed by. As we drew near Rome, the scenery grew lonelier yet; the
land rose into desolate, sterile, stony heights, without a patch of
verdure on their nakedness, and at last abruptly dropped into the
gloomy expanse of the Campagna.
The towns along the route had little to interest us in their looks,
though at San Germano we caught a glimpse of the famous old convent of
Monte-Cassino, perched aloft on its cliff and looking like a part of
the rock on which it was built. Fancy now loves to climb that steep
acclivity, and wander through the many-volumed library of the ancient
Benedictine retreat, and on the whole finds it less fatiguing and
certainly less expensive than actual ascent and acquaintance with
the monastery would have been. Two Croatian priests, who shared our
compartment of the railway carriage, first drew our notice to the
place, and were enthusiastic about it for many miles after it was
out of sight. What gentle and pleasant men they were, and how hard it
seemed that they should be priests and Croats! They told us all about
the city of Spalato, where they lived, and gave us such a glowing
account of Dalmatian poets and poetry that we began to doubt at last
if the seat of literature were not somewhere on the east coast of the
Adriatic; and I hope we left them the impression that the literary
centre of the world was not a thousand miles from the horse-car office
in Harvard Square.
Here and there repairs were going forward on the railroad, and most
of the laborers were women. They were straight and handsome girls,
and moved with a stately grace under the baskets of earth balanced on
their heads. Brave black eyes they had, such as love to look and to
be looked at; they were not in the least hurried by their work, but
desisted from it to gaze at the passengers whenever the train stopped.
They all wore their beautiful peasant costume,--the square white linen
head-dress falling to the shoulders, the crimson bodice, and the red
scant skirt; and how they contrived to keep themselves so clean at
their work, and to look so spectacular in it all, remains one of the
many Italian mysteries.
Another of these mysteries we beheld in the little beggar-boy at
Isoletta. He stood at the corner of the station quite mute and
motionless during our pause, and made no sign of supplication or
entreaty. He let his looks beg for him. He was perfectly beautiful
and exceedingly picturesque. Where his body was not quite naked, his
jacket and trousers hung in shreds and points; his long hair grew
through the top of his hat, and fell over like a plume. Nobody could
resist him; people ran out of the cars, at the risk of being left
behind, to put coppers into the little dirty hand held languidly out
to receive them. The boy thanked none, smiled on none, but looked
curiously and cautiously at all, with the quick perception and the
illogical conclusions of his class and race. As we started he did not
move, but remained in his attitude of listless tranquillity. As we
glanced back, the mystery of him seemed to be solved for a moment: he
would stand there till he grew up into a graceful, prayerful, pitiless
brigand, and then he would rend from travel the tribute now go freely
given him. But after all, though his future seemed clear, and he
appeared the type of a strange and hardly reclaimable people, he was
not quite a solution of the Neapolitan puzzle.