We are glad to be in Naples again, and in this homelike hotel. Zelphine has met her cousins, and has been making some excursions with them, taking the famous drive to the monastery of Camaldoli and to the Solfatara, a half-extinct volcano which, she says, gives one an even more impressive idea of the Inferno than the Doré illustrations of Dante. Angela corroborated Zelphine's report, saying that it was quite the most unpleasant place she had ever seen, especially as they dropped a poor dog into the crater to try the effects of the sulphur upon his constitution. They pulled him out before he was quite dead; but who except these cruel Neapolitans would so persecute a helpless animal?
I, with my old habit of clinging to the skirts of the things I already know, declined to take that excursion, for the greater pleasure of spending a morning in the National Museum among the Pompeian treasures and another whole day among the ruins of the buried city. It is really much more interesting to examine the relics from Pompeii after one has been there, as one naturally fits the frescoes, furniture, and ornaments into just such rooms as one has seen. Some of the furniture was strangely modern; I noticed a red and gilt bedstead that looked as if it might have belonged to the First French Empire, rather than to the first century A.D. Among the kitchen furnishings were just such colanders, saucepans, and skillets as we use to-day—is there anything really new under this shining sun? The surgical and dental instruments exhibited in one of the cases caused me a genuine thrill of sympathy for those unhappy Pompeians; to have been smothered with hot ashes might really have been more endurable than to have lived at the mercy of those primitive dentists and surgeons!
We leave Naples to-morrow with regret, as we have grown very fond of this beautiful city. I wrote a week since to Ludovico Baldini, and also to the proprietor of a hotel that he recommended to me; but I have heard from neither. Ludovico may be in Florence on some army business, but it is very stupid of the proprietor of the Hotel L. not to answer my letter. We have telegraphed for rooms in a pension on the Via Sistina, which Mrs. Coxe tells us is delightful, and we are thankful to know that they will accommodate us, as Rome is full to overflowing now, all the world going up thither for Easter. When I told my maid that we were going to Rome to-morrow, she clasped her hands in ecstasy, exclaiming, "Bella Roma! Bella Roma!" These Italians have a natural instinct for beauty and a genuine pride in the wonders of their own country, both of which help them to endure the poverty and hardness of their lives, just as some people of your acquaintance and mine are supported through many trials by the uplifting sense of having been born in the purple.
V
BELLA ROMA
Via Sistina, Rome, March 16th.
We felt as if we had accomplished a day's work before we left Naples, this morning, the getting away from these places is so laborious. After our trunks were strapped and ready for the facchini and porters, the feeing of the servants had to be attended to. This was Angela's especial task. She had managed the financial part of our six days' trip so admirably that Zelphine and I have honored her by electing her bursar for the party. She does not seem fully to appreciate the honor we have conferred upon her, but with her usual amiability she is quite willing to do the work.
When the servants all lined up in the dining-room, they made a formidable array. I did not wonder that Angela looked as if she would rather be somewhere else. She was getting through the ordeal very creditably, however, when the padrone appeared upon the scene; very indelicate of him, was it not, to come in just then? This so embarrassed Angela that she was very near giving him the generous tip that she had dedicated to the head waiter. Would he have taken it, think you? Zelphine says that he certainly would, as no hotel-keeper in Italy can withstand the glint of silver. Be this as it may, we are glad that Angela did not persist in her indiscriminate generosity, as our purses are already seriously depleted by the demands made upon them by chambermaids, facchini, head porter, sub-porter, concierge, head waiter and his troop of underlings, each one with an empty hand and an expectant eye. There is, we have learned, a long step between the facchini and the porter, and still another social gradation between the porter and the concierge. The latter is quite an important personage, in a fine uniform, who usually speaks excellent English, French, and often several other languages.
At the station we had to undergo the weighing of our luggage, a weariness to the flesh at all times, but especially trying to-day, as all the world seemed to be en route for Rome. We were detained so long that we barely had time to catch our train. I sometimes wonder if any one ever actually lost one of these slow-moving trains. We travelled second class to-day, "for local color," as Zelphine says. In point of comfort there seems to us little difference between first and second class; the former have stuffy plush coverings on the seats, instead of leather and reps, and somewhat more select company. Our companions were two well-to-do young matrons, an old peasant woman, and three children. The two younger women were inclined to be sociable as far as our common vocabularies permitted, and plied us with questions, which we answered with more or less accuracy according to our ability—it is sometimes difficult to be entirely truthful in a language one does not understand; but Zelphine did most of the talking, having developed considerable facility in speaking French with a fine Italian accent. Confusing as this mongrel dialect might be to an educated Italian, it often stands us in good stead with shopkeepers, maids, cabbies, and facchini, and to-day seemed tolerably intelligible to our compagnons de voyage. Indeed, we became so intimate that one of the women asked Zelphine for her vinaigrette for the "bambino" to smell, the bambino having proved herself to be a poor traveller.