Italian Days and Ways. Wharton Anne Hollingsworth
en voiture with the élite of Naples. This afternoon was the time arranged for our drive. A carrozza, a two-horse carriage, was to meet us at a favorite coral shop on the Chiaia, whose exquisite wares draw Angela daily with a glittering eye. Having arranged with Zelphine about this rendezvous, I left her hanging over some Pompeian statuettes in a shop on the Toledo, copies, of course, but very good ones, quite too tempting to be safely dallied with, and made my way to Thomas Cook's office and to several glove shops. When my commissions were finished, I had more than an hour on my hands, so I lingered for some time before the tall monument in the Square of the Martyrs, a memorial to the patriots who perished during several Neapolitan revolutions. This monument has much of the simplicity and strength of the Nelson memorial on Trafalgar Square, having like it four colossal bronze lions at the base. The noble shaft is surmounted by one of Caggiani's graceful figures, a Victory delicately poised as if on tiptoe for a flight.
After gazing long at the beautiful monument, I strolled down the Strada Chiaia to the esplanade with the statues and fountains, a charming place to walk on a cool afternoon. You know my fancy for wandering alone through strange streets and byways. On and on I sauntered, thinking that I might have time to walk as far as the Aquarium before keeping my tryst at the coral shop, and not fully realizing how deserted the place was until I heard a penetrating voice quite close to me speaking rapid and almost unintelligible French, accompanied by the cracking of a whip. "A cabman—I'll pay no attention to him," I said to myself; "he'll be discouraged after a while and leave me." I soon found that I had reckoned without my host: that vociferous, whip-cracking Jehu followed me, dogged my steps, offered me his cab at absurdly low rates, and finally cornered me in a recess of one of the large public buildings. I looked around; there was not a person in sight to help me, only a few beggars on the steps, who would naturally make common cause with the cabman. You will laugh at me, I am sure, but so terrified was I by the creature's language and gestures and whip-cracking that I abjectly stepped into his cab, telling him to drive me for an hour and set me down at the well-known coral shop on the Chiaia at five o'clock, showing him the time on my watch-face. Was I not just a bit like the woman who married a persistent suitor in order to get rid of him? Her troubles probably began then and there; mine certainly did. My cocher, with an irritating expression of triumph on his face, set forth upon a tour of sight-seeing which threatened to be of long duration. We passed from street to street, from building to building, until to my dismay I found that he was driving toward the upper town. I protested, knowing that there would not be time to get back to the Chiaia by five o'clock. Would I like to see San Martino? No, I answered, with decision, I had already been to San Martino; I wished to go back to the Chiaia. Then—for astuteness commend me to a Neapolitan vetturino—that irritating creature became suddenly deaf, dumb, and blind, while his horse went on and on up the heights toward San Martino. Fortunately, the road winds around the hill, and as we reached one of its windings I saw, by a sign, that we were on the Strada Vittorio Emanuele. Hope revived when I began to recognize familiar buildings; we would soon reach our hotel. "Hotel B.! Albergo B.!" I cried, with so much insistence and with gestures so like his own that the creature finally listened to me, the horse slackened its pace slightly, and then, oh joy! the Hotel B. appeared, the concierge at the door. I called to him, he made a peremptory sign to the driver to stop, and I was once again a free woman, standing on my two feet, with solid ground beneath them.
My Jehu now regained the use of his tongue, and unblushingly insisted upon a two hours' fee for the drive of a trifle over an hour which I had been coerced into taking. The sum was not extortionate, according to American ideas, but no one wishes to be cheated, especially with one's eyes wide open. I protested, explained the state of affairs to the concierge, when, to my surprise, he, my ally and champion as I had thought him, deserted me at this critical moment and joined the enemy, saying, "The signorina would do well to pay the vetturino what he asks, as according to the signorina's own watch she has had the cab over an hour."
My humiliation was great when I handed the triumphant cabman his ill-gotten gains, but greater still was my disappointment over the defection of the concierge, whom we have all trusted. It seems, indeed, as if every man's hand is against us in this beautiful city, from the salesman who tries to sell us imperfect coral to the crafty vendor of fruit who slips bad oranges into a paper bag for us, while he tries to distract our attention by sentimental remarks on the weather and the "bella vista."
Rather than trust myself to the mercy of another cabman, I ignominiously made my way down the many steps of the terrace to the street below, where I took a tram to the Chiaia. Angela was seated in the carriage, looking around anxiously, while Zelphine was walking up and down the pavement, both evidently much disturbed, wondering what had detained me.
"There is still time to take the drive," I said, in reply to their eager questions. "I saw a number of carriages coming down by the Square of the Martyrs. Get in, Zelphine, and I will explain my delay as we drive along."
All Naples seemed to be en voiture, this afternoon, and it was pleasant to be making a course with the languid, dark-eyed ladies and their attendant cavaliers, even if we were not intimately associated with them.
This whole morning we spent in the Aquarium, which is down near the sea, a part of the Villa Nazionale. Here we saw all manner of beautiful and hideous creatures of the deep, some exquisitely colored fish from the Mediterranean, living coral, medusæ, crested blubbers, airy and transparent as soap-bubbles, and the wonderful octopus. Angela insisted on seeing these horrible creatures fed, and by the time that important ceremony was over and we had walked through the shaded park enjoying the flowers, which are blooming in profusion everywhere, it was time to go home for our second breakfast.
We went to Posilipo in the steam tram, this afternoon, and were shown the old Roman columbarium on the hillside, popularly known as the Tomb of Virgil. Whether or not the poet was buried there is now disputed by scholars; however, Zelphine says that Virgil certainly wrote his "Georgics" and "Æneid" in his villa near by, and that Petrarch considered this tomb sufficiently important to plant a laurel here. She and I have no patience with the iconoclasts who take so much pleasure in destroying our illusions, and we see no reason why the traveller should not be allowed to weep over this tomb of Virgil, unless, indeed, a more authentic one can be furnished him.
Later we climbed up to the terraced garden that belongs to the Ristorante Promessi Sposi—fancy an inn at home named The Betrothed! Here we had afternoon tea, while our eyes were feasted with the beauties of a gorgeous sunset. Vesuvius, Capri, Ischia, and all the smaller islands of the bay were bathed in heliotrope light, a royal array of purple velvet. Buchanan Read's lines on the Bay of Naples must have been inspired by just such a sea and sky as this. Zelphine evidently had the same thought, for she quoted softly:
"'My soul to-day
Is far away,
Sailing the Vesuvian Bay;
My winged boat,
A bird afloat,
Swims round the purple peaks remote.'"
We should have been in a boat on the purple bay instead of in a tram!
I am finishing this letter rather hurriedly for to-night's mail, as we shall be off to-morrow bright and early for a tour of several days, to Pompeii, La Cava, and Pæstum, returning by the coast drive and stopping at Amalfi and Sorrento. It is the sort of excursion that you would enjoy so much—would you like to be of the party?
IV
AN EXCITING DRIVE
We have spent the day in the streets and houses of Pompeii, living over again in the buried city the thrilling scenes of Lord Lytton's novel. His descriptions are still marvellously accurate, although so much has been unearthed since he wrote "The Last Days of Pompeii" that the ruins as they stand to-day are much more extensive than those pictured by the novelist. The house of Glaucus is called by the guides the House of the Tragic Poet, but the mosaic of the dog, with its inscription, "Cave canem," apparently as perfect as in the days when Glaucus thus whimsically greeted his friends and enemies, serves to identify it.
Lord Lytton was in Naples during the winter of the most important excavations at Pompeii,