This is the third day of sirocco, heavy-clouded, sunless. All the
colour has gone out of Naples; the streets are dusty and stifling. I
long for the mountains and the sea.
To-morrow I shall leave by the Messina boat, which calls at Paola.
It is now more than a twelvemonth since I began to think of Paola,
and an image of the place has grown in my mind. I picture a little
marina; a yellowish little town just above; and behind, rising
grandly, the long range of mountains which guard the shore of
Calabria. Paola has no special interest that I know of, but it is
the nearest point on the coast to Cosenza, which has interest in
abundance; by landing here I make a modestly adventurous beginning
of my ramble in the South. At Paola foreigners are rare; one may
count upon new impressions, and the journey over the hills will be
delightful.
Were I to lend ear to the people with whom I am staying, here in the
Chiatamone, I should either abandon my project altogether or set
forth with dire misgivings. They are Neapolitans of the better
class; that is to say, they have known losses, and talk of their
former happiness, when they lived on the Chiaia and had everything
handsome about them. The head of the family strikes me as a typical
figure; he is an elderly man, with a fine head, a dignified
presence, and a coldly courteous demeanour. By preference he speaks
French, and his favourite subject is Paris. One observes in him
something like disdain for his own country, which in his mind is
associated only with falling fortunes and loss of self-respect. The
cordial Italian note never sounds in his talk. The signora (also a
little ashamed of her own language) excites herself about taxation
- as well she may - and dwells with doleful vivacity on family
troubles. Both are astonished at my eccentricity and hardiness in
undertaking a solitary journey through the wild South. Their
geographical notions are vague; they have barely heard of Cosenza or
of Cotrone, and of Paola not at all; it would as soon occur to them
to set out for Morocco as for Calabria. How shall I get along with
people whose language is a barbarous dialect? Am I aware that the
country is in great part pestilential? - la febbre! Has no one
informed me that in autumn snows descend, and bury everything for
months? It is useless to explain that I only intend to visit places
easily accessible, that I shall travel mostly by railway, and that
if disagreeable weather sets in I shall quickly return northwards.
They look at me dubiously, and ask themselves (I am sure) whether I
have not some more tangible motive than a lover of classical
antiquity. It ends with a compliment to the enterprising spirit of
the English race.
I have purchases to make, business to settle, and I must go hither
and thither about the town. Sirocco, of course, dusks everything to
cheerless grey, but under any sky it is dispiriting to note the
changes in Naples. Lo sventramento (the disembowelling) goes on,
and regions are transformed. It is a good thing, I suppose, that the
broad Corso Umberto I. should cut a way through the old Pendino; but
what a contrast between that native picturesqueness and the
cosmopolitan vulgarity which has usurped its place! "Napoli se ne
va!" I pass the Santa Lucia with downcast eyes, my memories of ten
years ago striving against the dulness of to-day. The harbour,
whence one used to start for Capri, is filled up; the sea has been
driven to a hopeless distance beyond a wilderness of dust-heaps.
They are going to make a long, straight embankment from the Castel
dell'Ovo to the Great Port, and before long the Santa Lucia will be
an ordinary street, shut in among huge houses, with no view at all.
Ah, the nights that one lingered here, watching the crimson glow
upon Vesuvius, tracing the dark line of the Sorrento promontory, or
waiting for moonlight to cast its magic upon floating Capri! The
odours remain; the stalls of sea-fruit are as yet undisturbed, and
the jars of the water-sellers; women still comb and bind each
other's hair by the wayside, and meals are cooked and eaten al
fresco as of old. But one can see these things elsewhere, and Santa
Lucia was unique. It has become squalid. In the grey light of this
sad billowy sky, only its ancient foulness is manifest; there needs
the golden sunlight to bring out a suggestion of its ancient charm.
Has Naples grown less noisy, or does it only seem so to me? The men
with bullock carts are strangely quiet; their shouts have nothing
like the frequency and spirit of former days. In the narrow and
thronged Strada di Chiaia I find little tumult; it used to be
deafening. Ten years ago a foreigner could not walk here without
being assailed by the clamour of cocchieri; nay, he was pursued
from street to street, until the driver had spent every phrase of
importunate invitation; now, one may saunter as one will, with
little disturbance. Down on the Piliero, whither I have been to take
my passage for Paola, I catch but an echo of the jubilant uproar
which used to amaze me. Is Naples really so much quieter? If I had
time I would go out to Fuorigrotta, once, it seemed to me, the
noisiest village on earth, and see if there also I observed a
change. It would not be surprising if the modernization of the city,
together with the state of things throughout Italy, had a subduing
effect upon Neapolitan manners. In one respect the streets are
assuredly less gay. When I first knew Naples one was never,
literally never, out of hearing of a hand-organ; and these organs,
which in general had a peculiarly dulcet note, played the brightest
of melodies; trivial, vulgar if you will, but none the less
melodious, and dear to Naples.
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