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NAPLES—8 P.M. TO 9 P.M. · Around the Clock in Europe : A Travel Sequence

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Section eight of Around the Clock in Europe a Travel Sequence. This is a
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LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information
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or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox dot org. Read by Chuck Lavazzi stage
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left, dot oorg. Around the Clock in Europe a Travel Sequence by Charles
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Fishhowell, Naples, eight pm two nine pm. Drifting lazily of a summer
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evening over the Bay of Naples in a brown old fishing felucca, with a
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friendly ancient boatman for companion, careless of time or direction. The night winds
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saw the moon clear, indolent boating parties, enjoyous relaxation, all about,
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languorous plaintive songs of Italy near and far away, Vesuvius glorious and mysterious in
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the purple offing, and the gray old city touched with silver beaming down from
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all of her crescent hill sides. Here, indeed, is the stuff of
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which day dreams are compounded. Chimes in shadowy Belfries take soft musical notice of
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the hour, and my thoughts recede with those fading echoes and portrace the bright
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and pleasant stages that have led me this evening into an environment of such charm
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and romance. Thus, then it was two hours ago, as I loaded
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along the crowded Via Carajolo on the bay front and watch Neapolitan fashion take the
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air, I again encountered my old man of the sea at his landing place.
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Swarthy, wrinkled Luigi of the hoop earrings and faded blue tripe trousers rolled
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to the knees. Little was he bothering his grizzled head over the frivolity that
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fluttered above him, And yet it was, in fact a charming show.
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Old Luigi makes a mistake, in my opinion, in ignoring the elegant pasagatam
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for afternoon promenading on the Craziolo is something that most of Naples will do more
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than lift its head to see. Besides, what an attractive setting it has.
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The boasted park, the Villa Nozionale arrays the western front in a pleasant
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old woods of broad and shady trees, along the water side of which stretches
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the handsome boulevard of the Craziolo. The distinguishing mark is thus supplied to divide
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society between the carriage set who hector it here and along the villa's winding drives,
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and those lesser lights who venture to raise their heads secure from snubs in
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the promenade, utting spaces under the trees and before the cafes and bandstand with
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the latter, as the elders salute friends, renew acquaintances, and exchange civilities
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with jubilant exclamations, delighted shrugs, and storms of exultant gestures. The younger
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men in flannel suits and foppish canes flirt desperately by twirling their waxed little mustaches,
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and the snappy eyed signorinas respond in kind by a subtle and discreet use
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of the fan. The contemplative promenader will stroll along the cool statute lined allais,
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issuing forth from time to time to enjoy the brisk music of the band.
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The hardened idler will take a mean delight in penetrating the retired and romantic
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retreats in the neighborhood of the pestime Fountain, and thus arousing whole coveys of
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indignant lovers who have regarded this region as peculiarly their own from time immemorial.
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In the event of threatened reprisals. The disturber can seek sanctuary in the renowned
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aquarium just at hand, and there spend his time to better advantage in contemplating
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octopi and sensitive plants at all sorts of astonishing fishes. But the real show,
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of course, is a voteure with a clatter and dash along they come
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the genus delay, with straw hats cocked rakishly, shouting loudly to their horses
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and sawing desperately on the reins. Young beauties in the latest word of Milliner
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and Modiste, loll back in handsome victorias, reveling in the sensation they are
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creating, and with great black eyes flashing in curious contrast to the studied placidity
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of their quiet faces. Consequential senators down from Rome, fat merchants trying to
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appear at ease, and all the usual remnants of the fashionable route. On
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the wide sidewalks, the promenaders proceed leisurely and with more good humored democracy.
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Prim little girls with governesses, romping schoolboys in caps of all colors, black
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robed students, long haired artisti, and priests by the score, strolling sedately
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and gesturing earnestly with dark, nervous hands. To all this brave parade.
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Luigi turns a blind eye and a deaf ear, but he always manages to
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see me. I have noticed this afternoon. This program was the attractive one
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of a sail down to the cape of Posilipo for a fish dinner at a
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rustic little ustranti with a table to be spread under a chestnut tree on a
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weathered stone terrace at the water's edge, where the spray from an occasional wavetop
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could spatter the cloth and I might fleck the ashes of my cigar straight down
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into the bay. This old fellow can interest anyone, I believe when he
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wrinkles up into his insinuating and enthusiastic grin and plays that trump card. And
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after dinner, if the signor I wish, we can drift about the bay
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or sail over toward Caprill and Torrento. Naturally, this is my cue to
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enter into the road. I go off, come hat, coat, collar
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and tie, and up go sleeves to the shoulder. I am allowed the
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tiller, and the genial old fisherman stretches at his ease beside the slanting mast
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and lights a long black will stemmed hirut now for comfort and romance and all
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the delights of buchanan Read's inspired vision. I heed not if my rippling skiff
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floats swift or slow, from cliff to cliff with dreamful eyes. My spirit
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lies under the walls of paradise the Bay of Naples, from all garish distractions.
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Our little boat bore us in rippling leisure along the picturesque Magdalena front and
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under the long, villa dotted heights of the Posilippo hillside, whose shadows crept
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slowly out on the waters as Apollo drove his flaming chariot beyond the ridge to
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seek the dread Sibyl of Cumei. Nature has always been partial to her gay,
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irresponsible Naples, and this afternoon she seemed resolved to outdo herself in clothing
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it with charm and beauty. Under the setting sun, the entire sky over
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Posilippo became a gorgeous riot of crimson and gold, and the opposite Vesuvian shore
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basked with indolent, oriental listlessness in a brilliant deluge that penetrated the deepest recesses
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of its vineyards and fruited terraces through this magic realm of richest color. We
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floated lightly, silently, responsive to the varying phases of the calm and glorious
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sunset hour, in deepest content. Why hand I trail within the shadow of
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the Sale? The region to which we lifted our eyes is one of veritable
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poet worship. How incredible to think that on this hill side Lucullus has lived,
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and Horace strolled, and Virgil mused over his deathless verse. Look again,
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and under a clump of gnarled old trees one sees the latter's venerated tomb.
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Over these waters came the pious Aeneas, with his Trojan galleys to question
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the Kumean sybyl. And since the age of Fable, what fleets of carthage
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have passed round Cape Messino? What barks of savage pirates, What brazen triremes
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of Rome, What armadas of Spain and navies of all the world? It
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staggers the mind to attempt to recall the scenes of war and pillage that have
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been enacted under the frowning brows of these storied hills during the last three thousand
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years. The wonderful Sale was all too brief, and almost before I was
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aware the goal was at hand, and I stepped ashore at the restaurante approved
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of Luigi, and entered upon the promised joys. It was all as he
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had predicted, with possibly the exception of a few details he had discreetly neglected
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to warn me against that it required four determined efforts and a threat of police
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to get the proper change. When I came to settle a bill is really
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no jarring memory at all. It is the usual experience with the forgetful Neapolitan
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restaurant keeper. And what are foreigners for anyway? And was it not worth
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something extra to have dined face to face with this glittering bay, with the
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pen arama of Naples on one hand and a sunset over Cape Messano on the
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other. So, with many boughs and mutual civilities, I parted with the
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zealous Boniface and rejoined the waiting fore Luca. A light shove and the shadows
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of the terrace fell behind us, and we were out again on the bay.
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Such are the alluring stages, among others, that may bring one eventually
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to an evening's moonlight sail at Naples. Just now, the bells rang eight,
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Luigi grows sentimental again. He declines my cigars, stretches at his ease,
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and produces another quilled specimen of government monopoly, such as when at home
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he lights at the end of a smoldering rope dangling in a tobacco shop of
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the Mercanto. In the gathering gloom, one sees little now of the trellised
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paths of Posilipo, the white marble villas with their balconies and terraces, or
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the brilliant clustering roses gay against the glossy green of groves of lemons and oranges.
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In the darkness of the firs. Each cavern and grotto of this legend
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haunted headland disappears, and one can barely make out the wave washed rock of
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Virgil. At the farthest extremity, where the Neapolitans will tell you the poet
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was wont to practice his enchantments. The ruddy sky pales over the mouth of
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Everitus and the alesion fields, and Apollo abandons us to Diana, and the
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broad flecking of the lights of par Therapy. We swing a wide circle in
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the offing between us and the distant rim of waterfront lamps. Hundreds of light
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craft are ily floating. Romantic, leisure loving Naples has dined and taken to
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the water to cheer its heart with laughter and song. Like glow worms,
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the lights of the little boat's lift and sway with the movement of the waves.
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While seaward, the drifting torches of fishermen flare in search of Puruti di
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mare. Like an aged beauty, Naples is at her best by night,
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when the ravages of time are concealed. Lights glitter brightly along the shoreline from
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Pusilipo to Sorrento, and all over the hillsides and even beyond sant Alimo and
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the low white priorie of San Martino, the palace crowned heights of Capolo di
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Monte, where the paper chases of early spring afford so much diversion to the
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young gallants of the court. Popular restaurants up the hillsides are marked by groups
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of colored lights. A thick spangle of lamps proclaims the progress of some neighborhood
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vesta. The moon is full, the sky brilliant with enormous stars. In
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the distance, the curling smoke of Vesuvius glows with a sultry red or fades
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fitfully into gloomy tones as suits that imperious will which three score of eruptions have
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rendered absolute. But as all the world knows, this aged beauty of a
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city that lights up so well by night is far from plain by day.
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Then appears the charm and distinction of the original way she has of parting her
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hair, as it were, with the great dividing rocky ridge that runs downward
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from Capodimonte to Saint Elmo and then on to Pizzo Falcone. Rock of the
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Falcon, she even secures a coquettish touch in the projecting point, like an
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antique necklace pendant at the center of her double crescented shore, where juts a
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low reef, and at itsan rests the ancient blackened Costello de l Ovo on
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a magically supported egg, they say, the accredited theater of so many extravagant
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adventures. And by day she looks down in indolent content to the half closed
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eyes of ten thousand windows, and surveys a glorious sea of milky blue,
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brimming tawny curving beaches crowned with white villas, in luxuriant groves and vineyards,
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expanding in turquoise about soft headlands and dim precipices, and bearing on its smooth,
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RESTful bosom in the far faint offing magical islands of pink and pearl that
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seem no more than tinted clouds. A shoal of skiffs hangs under the black
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hull of a belated lighter, whose rails are crowded with new arrivals, delighted
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act so picturesque and enthusiastic a reception, and whose silver falls merrily into the
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inverted umbrellas of the boys and girls who are singing and dancing in the little
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boats by the light of flaming torches. Very shortly these visitors will learn that
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the interest they excite a Neapolitans is to be measured very strictly in terms of
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ready cash. Secretly, they will be despised. There is no smile hid
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rapacity comparable with that encountered here. The incoming steamer has not yet warped into
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her berth. Before the neapolitan has begun his campaign for money. Beggars crawl
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out on the pier, flaunting their hideous deformities and wailing for solty and insulting
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cabmen lie in ambush at the gates. At no other port does a foreigner
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disembark with so much embarrassment. He goes ashore feeling like a lamb marked for
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the shearing, and lives to fulfill the expectation with humiliating dispatch. It has
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to be admitted, on the other hand, that the customs officers occasionally catch
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strange flashes of transmarine interests that must puzzle them not a little. As an
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instance, the first person to land from the steamer I was on was the
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young American an athlete in desperate quest of the latest daily paper, and bent,
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as we presumed, upon securing instant word of some matter of great and
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immediate importance. He succeeded, But what was our astonishment to behold him a
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minute later leap and shout for joy, and announce to everyone about him that
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Princeton had again won the Yale Baseball Series had remained the college champions. Naples
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tonight is vibrant with song, faithful to her ancient myth of the nymph Parthenope,
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whose sweet singing long lured men to destruction until Ulysses withstood it, and
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the chagrined goddess cast herself into the sea and perished, and her body floated
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to these shores. Parthenope's children here do not destroy people by their singing now,
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but rather delight and revitalize them. Mandolins and guitars are throbbing softly on
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every hand, and the old famili songs of Naples fill the air. Traviata,
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Trovatore and the Cavalia reign prime favorites. To be sure, there is
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no escaping the linked sweetness of the wailing Santaaluccia, nor the notion of perpetual
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and hilarious youth conveyed in the ubiquitous Funiculi funicula. In marshall staccato as of
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old Margarita, the lovelorn seamstress is jestingly warned against Salvatore margari E Pezzoa Salvatore,
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and the skittish Frangaysee recites for the millionth time the discouraging experience of the
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giddy young peddler who undertook to barter his pretty pins from Paris in exchange for
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kisses that would only bring a farthing for five. In Paradise, more than
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one singer is deploring the heartless coquetry of La Bella Sorrentina, while as many
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more appear amorously to the charming Maria with promises of beds of rose leaves ah
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mariemari quanta smolna caue per do berte. We take an esthetic interest in the
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Polyachian ravings of Canillo, and grieve for the little frozen hands of La boem
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while, but we have contrast. All the peace and serenity of moonlight comes
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to us in the chaste, stately measures of the pensive Lunnon serenades seem twice
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serenades when breathed in the soft list sime dialect of Naples. There is no
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tiring of the impassioned refrain of Soleomeo mana tu sole chici belogne, oh solemillo
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don frontete. And what sufficient word can be said of the lovely as seraata
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daan rolls. It is impossible not to rejoice with these soulful tenors in that
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the glittering moonbeams look like silver pieces flung down among the roses by the preezes,
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or to respond to the plaintive intensity of the appealing cry. And what
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sufficient word can be said of the lovely a serinata de rose. It is
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impossible not to rejoice with these soulful tenors and that quote the glinting moonbeams look
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like silver pieces flung down among the roses by the breezes, or to respond
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to the plaintive intensity of the appealing cry or rosa mea siketavata skita della cuquesta
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seranat like old ulysses. The swift little Feluca soon stops its ears to these
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fascinating distractions and bears Luigi and Me off into the purple darkness. The prison
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capped rock of Nisida drops astern, with all its august memories of Brugus and
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his devoted Portia, and its repugnant ones of Queen Johanna the very Bad and
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King Robert the very Good. In the moonlit path. The distant cliffs of
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Procida, Isle of Romance and Beauty loom afar. But we distinguish no faintest
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echo of the bewildering Tarantella music that has danced there in its perfection. What
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a different spectacle its observers are enjoying from the stale, perfunctory performances of the
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Sorrento hotels, which the jurists see at two dollars ahead. For the Tarantella
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well done is the intensest and most expressive of dances. All the emotions of
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the lover and his coquettish sweetheart are aptly portrayed. The dances rebuffs, encouragements,
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slights, and final triumph. The Prochida dance is a revelation when rendered
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out of sheer delight Conomore. As the Italians say, an occasional faint light
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marks dissolute Rome's favorite place of revelry by Yeah the Magnificent. In its heyday,
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every house, as we read, was a palace, and it has
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been said that every woman who entered it a penelope, came out a helen.
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Through their faded green blinds, no light may be seen in the yellow
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stone houses of neighboring Putiotli, where Paul, Timothy and Luke took refuge in
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the early days of the faith. Stolid pagan Rome had little time for them,
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considering that Kume was just around the headland, with Daedalus landing from his
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flight from Crete, and the frantic Sybil at the very jaws of Ivanus screaming
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her dace Eiri d s Ellah distant Esia appears a huge ghost leaplot mysterious and
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solemn scarce. An outline can be caught of its fabled crag hung castle,
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chambered as the very Nautilus and eloquent of the unhappy Vittoria Colonna. How often
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has Michelangelo climbed with sighs that old stone causeway where now the fishermen mend their
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blackened nets. Ishia never once for devotees, however, and already a quarter
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century has sufficed to dull the horror of that July night when Casamichiola paid its
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quota of three thousand lives to the dread greed of the earthquake. To day
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one lingers undisturbed by such memories. Amidst the pretty whitewashed cottages set in olive
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groves and vineyards, loiters among the picturesque straw plaiters of Loco, or dreams
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to the drowsy tinkle of goat bells in the myrtle and chestnut groves. On
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the slopes of mont Epomeo, shadowy capri Isle of Enchantment lies soft and dim
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off the Sorrento headland. As we swing our little vessel towards the city.
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It seems only a delightful dream that a few mornings ago my Dejenet was served
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on a cool terrace of the Quissiniana there, and that I looked down over
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the coffee urn on olive groves and sloping hillsides green with famous vineyards. With
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joy. I relived the row around its precipitous shores, the eerie swim in
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the elf land of the blue Grotto, the drive down the white, dusty
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road from the lofty perch of on A Capri to the pebbly beaches of Marina
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Grande, before a fascinating, unfolding panorama of verdant lawns, fruited terraces,
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snowy villas, and bold cliffs crowned with fantastic ruins. Senisters Hiberius and his
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unspeakable companions have small place in our permanent memories of Capri. One is more
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apt to recall the charming blue and white virgin in the cool grotto beside the
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old stone stairs, a faint rim of lights on the mainland Marc Sorrento,
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and a patch near the city Costella Mare. And were we nearer, the
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great white hotels would doubtless be found brilliant and musical. Could we but see
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it now? We should find the moonlits statue of Tasso in the little square,
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vastly more tolerable than by day, and this would be a pleasant hour
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to spend on the old green bench, before it absorbed, and stirring thoughts
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of the Jerusalem Me Liberata in the place where its author was born. Monte
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sant Angelo looms above the Costello Mare, specter like in night shadows, and
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the royal ilex groves must be taken on faith. The crested hoopoes crowned of
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King Solomon, have long been asleep on the mountain sides, but Italian fashion
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devoted to its Costello Mare, having idled and rested all day, and the
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Banyi now flirts and dances on the veranded Stabilimentti. An occasional faint breath of
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fragrance recalls the floral luxuriance that is so notable here, the gorgeous scarlet geraniums,
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snowy datchas cactus and aloe festoons of smilax, and the Carmino leanders that
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they call Saint Joseph's nosegay far away to the southeastward, vague and ghostly headlands
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are dimming towards regions of rarest beauty. Amalfi Majori, Titara Salerno. In
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our happy thoughts, the smooth, white cornish road lies like a delicate thread
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along the green mountain sides, those mountains of the blest, whose rounded brows
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home the nightingale, whose shoulders are terraces of fruits of the tropics, and
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whose storied feet rest eternally on white beaches that glisten in the blue waters of
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a matchless bay. A memory, this compounded of pebbly, curving shores sweeping
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around soft, distant headlands, lustrous groves of pomegranates and oranges, picturesque fishing
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hamlets, of little stone houses nestled away in deep, shady inlets, the
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patter and shuffle of barefooted women trotting steadily through the dust under great hampers of
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lemons, sunburned workmen singing homeward through the dusk, the shouts and laughter of
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bare headed fishermen drawing their red bottomed boats up on the shore. And the
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low contented singing of your nepout and coachman, who, as twilight falls,
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looks long and dreamily out to sea, and no longer cracks his whip over
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the weary little barbary ponies that are drawing you up the dusty heights towards the
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cool rose pergola of the Cappuccini visitors reluctantly departing. We'll never forget this land
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where summer sings and never dies, and must ever feel with longfellow sweet.
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The memory is to me of a land beyond the sea, where the waves
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and mountains meet, where amid her molberry trees sits a malfi in the heat,
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bathing ever her white feet in the tideless summer Seas we distinguish Torre Annunciata
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abreast of our speeding boat, by the evil redlands of its swarming fish markets
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and the boisterous shouting of its many children at Mora, and in striking contrast,
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one thinks of grim Pompeii farther inland, dat Chita Morta, hush and
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prostrate in moonlit desolation. At the neighboring Torre del Greco. We can fancy
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the coral fishers, who may not yet have left for the seasons, diving
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off sicily, to be smoking black shirroots along the wharves and planning lively times
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when they market their coral and barbary ponies in November. Certainly, there is
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little to suggest the piece that Shelley found here. Few shores are more dramatic
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than those of this Vesuvian CAMPAIGNA felice rascina hangs gloomily over the entrance to the
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entombed herculaneum, and Portugi lights up but half heartedly abashed that all her royal
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bourbon palaces should now be housing only school boys. About both villages and for
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miles inland, anyone may see the wrath of vesuvious and dismal evidence in twisted
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lava rock, of weird and sinister shapes. But there is a fullness of
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life on these shores tonight. Increasing as our boat advances, individual houses multiply
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into villages, and villages overlap into a solid mass that is Naples east end.
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We pick our way among the clustering boats at around long piers with little
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lighthouses at their ends, and presently Luigi abandons his shroute, stands up by
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the mast and shouts shrill and mysterious hails, and shortly up we come to
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our landing at a flight of dripping stone steps at the tetrademillion Villa de Popolo,
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seagate, the noisiest, dirtiest, most crowded, and so a most
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characteristic section of all Naples. A passing of silver from me from Luigi,
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a twisted smile, and a regretful polrepolso the last I fear that I shall
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ever hear from him, and I take leave of my amiable companion for the
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sputtering lights and exciting diversions of the swarming carmine Gate and Mercato, from the
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tide wash Costel d'lovo, to the prison heights of sant Elmo and the charming
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cloisters of San Martino, and from the huts of the Margalena fishermen. Too
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far beyond where I am standing on the eastern front of the city, all
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Naples is sparkling with lights and humming with an intense and multi faced tumult.
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Lucifer falling from paradise must have experienced some such contrast as those who exchange the
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serene evening beauty of the Bay of Naples for the odors, uproar and confusion
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of the Mercato, but does not the same run see Naples and die,
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and to miss visiting so characteristic a district by night is almost to fail to
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see Naples at all, though it may perhaps appear at first glance to assure
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thee and die. The Key of Santa Lucia is the only other section that
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even attempts to rival this in preserving, unimpaired the best traditions of Neapolitan uproar
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and picturesque squalor. And it must be remembered that one's interest in this city
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is like that felt for a pretty bright and amiable child, who is at
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the same time a very ragged and dirty one. Life, as it is
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found in the Mercato, is exuberance in extenso the most complete conception possible of
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a much ado about nothing. It is an irrelevant tumult in which matter of
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fact in consequences are expressed with an incredibly disproportionate use of shoulders, fingers,
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and lungs. An inquiry as to the time of day is attended with a
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violence of gesticulation adequate to convey the emotions of Othello slaying Desdemona. An observation
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on the weather involves a pounding of the table and a wild flourish of arms,
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like the expiring agony of an octopus. Even work itself seems half lay
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in its accompaniment of romantic posturing, eloquent and profuse gestures, and continual overbubbling
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of merriment, quarrels and song. All this is of the very essence of
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the mercato, hopelessly tattered and unkempt, artlessly unconscious of its picturesque rags,
31:44
and altogether so frankly frowsy and disheveled as to become upon the whole positively charming.
31:52
No one equals the Neapolitan, and, expressing the full force of the
31:56
Scotch proverb little gear, the less care in appearance, the mercado is a
32:01
rabbit warren of tortuous chasms, lined with dowdy structures in every advanced stage of
32:08
decrepitude. Even slumbering churches of Spanish barogue rather add to than detract from this
32:15
event. No money is squandered on upkeep. The cost of initial construction is
32:20
here like an author's definitive edition. Final little cramped balconies, innocent of paint,
32:27
blink under the flapping of reed made shades. Shop signs are illegible from
32:31
dirt and discolouration, and the weathered house fronts shed scales of plaster as snakes
32:37
dew skins. The very skies are overcast with clouds of other people's laundry.
32:43
Dead walls flame with lurid Theatre posters, unless warned off by the post nobil
32:49
sign, the familiar a viatata la ficione cheap theaters are completely covered with life
32:55
size paintings illustrating scenes from the play for the week. Lottery signs abound.
33:01
Certain window placards, by their very insistence, eventually become familiar and homelike,
33:07
as, for instance, the first floor to let the omnipresent si looka Apartamento
33:14
grande uno primo, for which one comes in time to look as for a
33:20
face from home. Religion contributes a garish and tawdry decorative feature in the gaudy
33:27
little shrines on street corners and house fronts, where in a sort of shadow
33:30
box covered with glass candles, sputter before painted saints. The government monopolies salt
33:37
and tobacco. The Siamese twins up Italy are inseparable with their everlasting salle A
33:43
Tobacci signs, and dwell together everywhere on a common and friendly footing like the
33:49
owls, snakes, and prairie dogs. In Kansas, curiosity fairly plunges a
33:53
man into so promising a field and adventures stalks. At his elbow, he
33:59
finds the narrow, squaid streets brimming with a restless, noisy, nervous swarm.
34:04
Picturesque qualities are brought out in the play of feeble street lamps and the
34:08
dejected, half hearted lights of dingy cavernous shops and eating places. A combilphot
34:15
costume for men appears to be limited to trousers and shirt, with the latter
34:21
worn open to the belt. The women affect toiletrees of a general dirty disarray,
34:25
which their laudable interest in the life around frequently leads them absent mindedly to
34:30
arrange in the quasi retirement of the doorways, the front sill itself being reserved
34:37
for the popular diversion of combing the hair of their spawn of half naked children.
34:42
Two traverse an alley, it avoids stepping on some rollicking youngster. In
34:45
pouriest nuturalibus is vigorous exercise of the value of a calisthenic drill. Still,
34:52
it is possible to escape the babies, but scarcely the fakirs and bakers.
34:58
The fakir has odds and ends of everything to sell and teases for patronage,
35:04
for love of all the saints. One even awaits your youngdle announcement in the
35:07
name of the prophet Thigs. The beggars of corps are worse, crawling across
35:14
your path and dragging themselves after you to display their physical damages, often self
35:19
inflicted, in quest of a soul dough of sympathy. Express compassion in other
35:23
than monetary terms, and you get it back instanter, along with a dazzling
35:28
assortment of vitriolic maledictions. As the visitor's patience gives way under the strain,
35:35
it presently becomes a very pretty question as to whose language is the most horrific,
35:38
his own or the baker's. Women dodge through the streets carrying great bundles
35:45
on their heads, and pause from time to time for friendly greetings with drowsy
35:50
acquaintances tilting out of the upper windows where the laundry hangs. It is from
35:54
these mysterious upper windows that the housewife in the morning lore is a pale with
36:00
a bit of money wrapped in a piece of newspaper and bargains with the leather
36:04
lunged Padulano when he comes loafing along beside his paniard donkey, crying his wares
36:09
in that carrying voice we all admire in our opera singers. Those are the
36:15
hours of trying domestic exaction, when the woman who does not care for water
36:20
in the milk watches the production of the raw material, with the cow standing
36:23
at the doorway or from the frolicsome goat that Nimblius sends every flight of stairs
36:30
to the very portal of the combined kitchen and sleeping room. But just now
36:35
neighbors are shouting conversations in those same upper windows, are calling down to the
36:38
women and girls who go shuffling along on the lava pavement below in wooden sabots
36:45
that look like bath slippers, if indeed one has imagination enough to think of
36:50
bath slippers. In this vicinity, restless activity prevails. The most unnatural things
36:57
are the statues, chiefly because they do not move. One catches glimpses of
37:01
them now and then in the niches of the motley marbled churches, churches of
37:07
memories, grave and gay of Boccaccio's first glimpse of Piametta, or the slaying
37:12
of the young fishermen Tribune Lasianello, whom Salva Torosa delighted to paint. There
37:19
is buying and selling, eating and drinking. There are fruit stands and lemonade
37:22
stalls, and macaroni stores, and dejected little shops with festoons of vegetables pendent
37:29
from the smoky ceilings, over whose home painted counters. Weary women awake custom
37:35
with babies in their arms. A brisk demand prevails for the famous cheese slavery
37:39
biscuit called pizza set with little powdered fish, and those who desire can have
37:45
a slice of devilfish tectacle for a soldo, which the purchaser dips in the
37:50
kettle of hot water and devours on the spot. Should this latter fare disagree
37:54
with anyone, there will be access on the morrow to the miracle working Aberuna.
38:00
The picture of the Virgin in the Church of Saint Mary of the Carmine,
38:04
which every child in Naples nose, was painted by Saint Luke. And
38:07
if that should fail, there is still the liquefying blood of Saint Jedouarius in
38:13
the inner shrine of the cathedral. Happily the senses are more than four,
38:19
and when seeing, smelling, tasting, and feeling fail from overexertion in the
38:23
Mercato, still hearing remains, so that one may study the Sicilian like prattle
38:29
of the Neopolitan in all its ramifications, from a whisper to a shriek.
38:35
The character of the man is expressed along with it, and thus one observes
38:38
that while a Piedmonteese may be steady and industrious, a Venesian gossipy and artistic,
38:45
a Tuscan reserved and frugal, and a Roman proud and lordly, the
38:49
Neopolitan is merry, loquacious, generous, quarrelsome superstitious, and too frequently vicious.
38:58
Thus the mafia flourishes with him, and the camorra, an unbegrudged possession,
39:02
is wholly his own. His vendetta may perhaps be mildly defended on the
39:07
ground that it is at least only a personal affair, and certainly less foolish
39:13
and reprehensible than the perennial jealousy of an entire people, as for example,
39:17
the ancient feud between Florence and Siena, where an inherited antagonism is still devoutly
39:23
cherished, and the old Battle of Muttaperti re fought with fury every morning.
39:29
The Neapolitan had rather spend that time on the lottery, dream his lucky numbers,
39:35
look them up in his dream book, and go to the Saturday afternoon
39:37
drawings with a fresh and stimulating interest in life. It is a nice question
39:44
whether the mercato loves singing best or eating when it can get it at night.
39:49
One inclines to the latter view. There is a prodigious hubbub around all
39:53
the open air cooking stoves, and in every smoky trattoria and family eating place.
40:00
One would scarcely hazard an opinion as to the number of bowls of macaroni,
40:04
quantities of lenta, and whole nations of snails and frogs that are being
40:08
devoured between appreciative gestures and puffs of cigarettes, and washed down unctuously with minestrel
40:15
soup and watery wines. But as all these good people have probably breakfasted solely
40:22
on dry bread and black coffee, no one would think of begrudging them the
40:25
delight they are taking and dining so gaily and at so modest an outlay.
40:30
If stricter economy becomes necessary. Later, they will patronize the charity kitchens where
40:37
soup, vegetables, meat and wine are supplied at cost are Perhaps some friend
40:42
will give them a voucher, and they will be able to get it all
40:45
for nothing. So far as economy is concerned, they know all there is
40:50
to be learned on the subject. Several families of them will live in a
40:53
single room, and when that room is the damp foul cellar, they call
40:58
fondaco is something one does not care to think of a second time. When
41:04
they indulge in streetcar riding, they never neglect to take the middle seats,
41:07
because they are the cheapest. They know all about the market for restaurants,
41:12
scraps and cigar stumps, where quotations are governed by length. Their extraordinary generosity
41:17
to one another in times of distress is almost proverbial. Miserable fascinates and touches
41:23
them, perhaps because it is never very far away from their own doors.
41:28
One morning I shouldered my wing to the middle of a strangely silent crowd and
41:32
found there a weeping crockery vender, whose entire stock in trade had been demolished
41:37
by some mishap. It meant his temporary ruin, as could be seen from
41:43
the faces of the painfully silent and sympathetic audience. The peddler seemed utterly stunned
41:47
by his misfortune, and lay on the ground with his face in his arms.
41:52
How touching it was to see the little cup that someone had significantly set
41:57
beside him, and to know that every copper piece that fell into it came
42:01
from poverty's very self, and bore the message It's hard, poor fellow,
42:07
We know how hard. But here's a little something. Try again. But
42:13
as Thomas Hardy's peasants say, it is time to go home. Along.
42:17
Emerging from the noisy congestion of the Mercato, the quiet and cool of the
42:22
waterfront is rather more than refreshing. The shipping along the Strada Nuova stands out
42:29
stately and picturesque, silvered toward the moon and black in the dense shadows,
42:34
harbor lights sparkle brightly under the solemn eye of the Molo Lighthouse. The military
42:39
pier points a long black finger warningly toward Vesuvius. Along the Strada del Pilliero,
42:46
one has pleasant choice of viewing. On the left, the animated steamer
42:51
piers and the secure anchorage, where the great ships four Marseilles and the Orient
42:55
tug mildly up their Hawsers are seeing on the right the eastless activity of swarming
43:00
little streets, some glowing in arbors of colored lights in celebration of a neighborhood
43:06
esta, and others observing a milder form of the same noisy program. We
43:10
have just forsaken on the broad Piazza del Munichipio, The massive and heavy towered
43:16
Castello Novo rears a somber and storage front, and further along we pass the
43:23
vast gray bulk of the famous Piatro San Carlo and the lofty crossed arcade of
43:30
the Galeria Umberto Uno, and skirting the corner of the royal palace enter the
43:35
broad and brilliant Piazza del Publichito contrasts again, what a different crowd from that
43:42
of the poor mercato. Here is a groomed and well conducted multitude that has
43:47
come out to enjoy its coffee and its cigarettes as it listens to the band
43:51
in the pavilion on the western side, or the open air melodrama in that
43:55
on the east, And what a change in surroundings. Palaces and splendid churches
44:00
and public buildings. Now solemn effigies of departed kings stare stonily down from niches
44:07
in the moonlight facades. A fringe of dark eyed boys lounges in indolent content
44:13
around the coping of Avaunton. Hundreds of chairs and tables strong the open space,
44:17
and we gladly rest on one of them and experiment with nochera and lemon
44:22
juice, preparatory to a good night's stroll up The Toledo enthusiasm prevails here too.
44:29
Familiar melodies from the old operas are welcomed with storms of applause and shouts
44:34
of bravo orbeasts, whereupon the conductor bows profound gratification and selects the music for
44:39
the next number, with a face glowing with pride. Politeness abounds. The
44:45
air is gracious, with grazier and like expressions of courtesy. Ask a light
44:50
for your cigar, and the Neapolitan raises his hat and thanks you. Supplies
44:54
the match raises his hat and thanks you again, though all the while he
44:59
has been doing the service. Indeed, he seems capable of expressing more civility
45:04
by a touch of the hat than we can by completely doffing hours. One
45:08
looks about and concludes that the women are not particularly pretty, and that good
45:14
dressing is a lost art with them. The men, as a rule,
45:17
impress one more favorably, though they are perversely inclined to spoil their good looks
45:22
by waxing their mustaches to a needle point and trimming their long beards square like
45:28
bow reliefs of Assyrian kings. It is nearly nine o'clock. I settle for
45:32
my drink, leave the usual chantissimi with the bowing waiter, and plunge into
45:37
the Broadway of Naples, the renowned Toledo. Its map name is via a
45:43
Roma, but the Toledo it has been for ages, and as such it
45:46
will remain too many Neapolitans to the end of time. It is busy in
45:52
peculiar street rows of raised awnings into long converging lines dressed the feet of tall,
45:58
dark buildings that are is studded with shallow iron balconies filled with pots of
46:02
flowers. It is comparatively narrow and with sadly straightened sidewalks. But no street
46:09
in Naples is so long or so continually used. If it is followed through
46:15
all its changes of names. It will carry one past the Mouseo and away
46:20
up to the very doors of the summer Palace at Capodimonte. Running due north,
46:23
all the way, shops of all descriptions line it, and it is
46:29
thronged to the overflow of the sidewalks and the hysterical abuse of distracted cabmen in
46:35
the middle of the street. One thinks of Paris when he sees the newspaper
46:38
kiosks and the many bright little stands decked out with fruit and gay trifles.
46:45
The shops satisfy any taste and any purse, for it is the common gathering
46:50
ground of Naples. It is vastly diverging. To step aside and take note
46:54
of the varieties of people that troop along this brilliant highway. Unsees jaunty navel
47:00
cadets from Leghorn Street, dandies in white duck and tilted panamas, delivery boys
47:06
in long blue blouses, tattered and bare headed bootblacks with sleeves rolled up in
47:12
business fashion, artisti in greasy coats, minor government officials and spectacles, and
47:17
rusty black trying to be rakish. On four hundred dollars a year sub lieutenants
47:23
with their months thirty dollars in hand off to lose it at cards, and
47:28
some cercolo swarth contadini. The farmer rooms of Italy, having disposed of their
47:35
poultry and their wives straw plating, are here doing the town groups of impoverished
47:40
laborers from nearby estates, lamenting with despairing gestures the impending failure of the olive
47:46
crop and charging it to ghosts and the evil eye vendors of coral and tortoiseshell.
47:52
Resplendent Carabinerian pairs spanning themselves with their picturesque chapeau. Thrifty policeman pursuing street
48:00
peddlers with an eye to a pretentum of the fines, heroic school ma'ams trying
48:07
to forget that their miserable one hundred and fifty dollars per annum is not likely
48:12
to save them from such distress. As d'amicis tells of in his impressive Romanzo
48:16
del Maestro, that odd military rara arvas the Bursolliro, pruning his glossy feathers
48:23
and looking quite equal to a trot to Posilipo and back. Rioting students still
48:30
unreconciled to having been plowed at the recent examinations, or having failed of the
48:35
coveted laure a degree when for coded and nervous they discussed their theses unsuccessfully before
48:42
the jury of examiners. The pompous syndic of some commune priests in black cassocks
48:49
and buzzy, broad brimmed hats, some prefect returning from a many courts dinner
48:54
intent upon political coup when the government's candidates come up for election, and most
49:00
dejected and dangerous of all the unemployed men of education, the spostatti, who
49:06
will haunt government jobs while there is any hope and then turn socialists in Lombardy
49:13
or Camaristi in Naples. All along the way, the soda fountains are sputtering,
49:17
and the American bars bustling bookstores fascinate here as everywhere, and shining leather
49:24
volumes cry out for attension in the names of Da Nuncio d'amichiese Verrega, and
49:31
Forgazzaro, Il trionfo de la mortia lifts its slimy head on every counter,
49:37
side by side with the breezy Neapolitan stories of Signora Sarao I always look curiously,
49:45
but so far unsuccessfully to find a single bookstore window that does not contain
49:50
that national family table ornament. The I promessi sposi of Manzoni, the man
49:55
for whom Verdi composed the immortal Requiem Mass. The Toelato Chide runs northward for
50:00
twenty blocks or so from where we entered. It swings around the marble statue
50:06
of Dante and the Poet's Piazza, and sets south again. At nine o'clock
50:10
it begins to diverge into the Trada di Chiaja, where there is music and
50:15
promenading until midnight. Detecting this hint of the hour, I hail a venerable
50:22
loose jointed cab, and morgon to be taken to my great sepulchel marble floored
50:28
room on the Corso Vittoria Monuel. Now cabs are cheap in Naples after you
50:35
have paid a penalty of extortion for the first few days experience. The real
50:38
expense concerns the tailor as much as the cabman, in wear and tear to
50:44
clothing trying to keep on the seat as you bounce along over these volcanic block
50:49
pavements. This evening, the cabman starts the usual trouble by demanding threefold the
50:55
legal fare, and as we work it down to the teriff rate, he
51:00
insults me pleasantly and volubly, and I try to do as well by him.
51:05
At length we arrive at a quasi satisfactory basis. He shrugs contemptuous acceptance
51:10
of my terms, and I relax to the point of conceding that his ponies
51:15
are only a little worse groomed than the average, and have, as far
51:19
as I can see, all the mountainous brass fixtures prescribed by custom, along
51:24
with the coral horn that will save me from the evil eye. So in
51:30
I clamber there is an infantry volley of whip cracking and a burst of wild
51:35
invective at the obstructing crowd, and my head snaps back with sufficient force to
51:40
keep me quiet to the journey's end. On the pleasant little balcony of my
51:45
room, I dare not linger long tonight. Well, I know the busy
51:50
program of the departure. On the morrow. There will be a hurried stop
51:53
for one last hasty look into the mouseio, with my luggage on the waiting
51:59
cab outside. Then at my urgent papristo, some reckless yahoo will rattle me
52:05
over the stones to the station. I will go down into my pocket again
52:09
in the old familiar way, for a seventy chain, teasing me as an
52:13
additional poor bois to the cabby, and twenty more for the spry old porter,
52:19
who will shoulder my grips into the smoker, And the conductor will blow
52:22
a horn, and the station bell will ring, and the engineer will blow
52:27
a whistle in their rare Italian manner, and the wheels will begin to squeak
52:31
and groan, and I shall be off for Rome. And that is why
52:37
a cigar lacks its usual Sawas on my balcony night, the last I am
52:40
to smoke in good night to this fascinating city. The subdued hum of cheery,
52:46
happy revelry, mingled with music and song, drifts up from the bright
52:52
squares and animated streets. The minutes multiply as I dwell over the varying phases
52:58
of old Vesuvius or Gard, long and lingeringly over the Starlit Bay and all
53:04
the romantic playground of these grown up children, one cannot bring himself to say
53:09
a definite farewell. To this beautiful region of revisitors with a yearning hope of
53:15
returning some other day. He moderates it to a heartfelt good night and a
53:22
tentative till we meet again. Aliveder Ginopoly Benedicite a bon reposal. End of Section eight