Dagonet Abroad

by George R. Sims

Of Pompeii itself what can I say in these pages? I want a whole book to write what I think about it, and then I shall only have said what hundreds have said before me. To wander about that old-world town, rescued from its ashes after centuries of oblivion, is to stand aghast with astonishment at the little progress which civilization has made with the centuries. The Pompeians had probably forgotten far more than we shall ever know. One stands absolutely open-mouthed and with starting eyeballs before the cases in the museum, which contain the Pompeian lady’s rouge-pot, and the Pompeian doctor’s surgical instruments, and the pass-out checks for the Pompeian theatre; and the hair of one’s head stands erect as one comes to a wall in Pompeii, and reads what a rude little Pompeian boy had chalked upon it just seventy-nine years after the birth of our Saviour. They knew how to live and how to enjoy themselves, did those old Pompeians, and the art of making the house beautiful was far more theirs than ours. Beautiful and perfect as works of art as are the relics of that past civilization already recovered, it is almost certain that buried deep down in old Herculaneum are works of far greater beauty and of still higher art. But new towns have risen above the old ruins, and the treasure will now probably never be recovered.

The museum at Pompeii suffers from the best things found in the city having been sent to the Naples Museum. In the Pompeii collection, after the dead Pompeians in glass cases, there is very little to see, but they are wonderful enough to satisfy the greatest curiosity hunter. It gives one a little flutter of excitement to look at a man, perfect in form and feature, lying just as he died on that terrible November day in 79—to see his hands clenched and his teeth set, and the very look of horror on his face that came there as he fell, fleeing from the doomed city—fell to rise no more. And in another case lies a beautiful girl of Pompeii, who died with her arm across her eyes, shutting out the sight of the swift death that was overtaking her. And near her lies a poor little dog who died that day. He still wears the collar and chain that bound him to his kennel and prevented his escape. The poor little Pompeian bow-wow, who lived one thousand eight hundred years ago, lies upon his side, his limbs drawn together in agony, his lips parted just as they were when they gave the last dying whimper of terror and despair. Poor little dog! He will be handed down perhaps for thousands of years yet to come, for the wondering eyes of a new race of human beings to gaze upon. That little dog of A.D. 79 may—— But I mustn’t lose myself in building up a Rider Haggard romance about that dog. He has achieved immortality, and, like a good many four-footed immortals, he paid a good price for the advertisement.

In the Naples Museum the rescued statuary and bronzes and ornaments are very wonderful; but what interested me much more was the bread taken out of the oven where it was recently found. It was put in on the day of the catastrophe, and taken out some years ago. It was new bread then; it is absolutely the stalest bread in existence now, for it is 1,800 years old. After the loaves of bread such minor curiosities as the dessert from a nobleman’s table, a bottle of wine from the cellar of Pliny, and a patent latchkey found in a Pompeian gentleman’s pocket, fail to attract more than passing attention. My only astonishment was that nowhere in the museum could I find any traces of the electric light of Pompeii, and that among the rescued literature exhibited there was not a single copy of the Pompeian daily sporting paper. But when I asked the custodian for these things he took a noble revenge by showing me a challenge from the Jem Smith of Pompeii to fight the Jake Kilrain of another town, and the score of a Pompeian tosspot which had been chalked up behind a tavern door. After this he would be a bold man to deny that people were quite as advanced in their civilization in 79 as they are to-day.

All around Naples there are wonderful ruins and natural curiosities, and, of course, I explored them all. I went to the great sulphur mine of Pozzuoli and sulphured myself, and I went all over the Temple of Serapis in the same place, and thoroughly explored the great amphitheatre in which the famous seafights or Naumachia were held by the Romans. The centre of the amphitheatre was filled with water, and then hundreds of slaves and prisoners rowed in and hacked each other to pieces. It was while exploring the dungeons underground in which the prisoners were kept that a terrible adventure befell us. Our guide was a local old gentleman of about ninety—the real genuine oldest inhabitant in the flesh. He carried a tow torch to light us through the damp, noisome, winding passages that led to the cells below the earth, and just as we got into the darkest dungeon the old gentleman fell down in a fit and his torch went out.

The situation was awful. We had not the slightest idea where we were, and we hadn’t any matches with us. We shouted aloud, but only the mocking echo of our own voices answered us. Just as the old gentleman fell he had told us that we were now in dungeons from which no sound could escape. We groped about in the dark, and tried to find a passage, but only with the result that I found myself in one dark dungeon and Albert Edward got into another, and we could neither of us find our way back to the old gentleman. We gave ourselves up for lost. We had not even the hope which the ancient prisoners had of being dragged out into the arena to make a fight of it. We should perish by inches in the secret dungeons of the great Roman amphitheatre of Pozzuoli. Just as we had abandoned hope, and I was trying to scratch a last message to the world on the wall with the point of my scarf-pin, a distant murmur reached our ears. It grew nearer and nearer. We shouted; on it came. We heard English words spoken by English lips. A guide was bringing another party to the secret dungeons. They entered and found us, and between us we carried the epileptic old gentleman upstairs into the light of day, and got him some cold water and brought him round. But I registered a vow never again to visit dungeons with an elderly gentleman subject to fits, and with a tow torch of limited powers of endurance.

In Naples my principal amusement was buying lottery tickets and going to the theatre. I didn’t get much out of the lottery, but I was vastly amused at the theatre, as I sought out the smaller houses where plays in the Neapolitan dialect, with Pulcinella as the principal comedian, were given. One evening’s entertainment was unique in my experience, and will remain impressed upon my mind while memory maintains a sitting position. I had heard much of the marionettes and puppet-shows, and so one evening I found my way to the Teatro Mercadante, where marionettes were announced to appear in a grand play, entitled ‘The Universal Deluge,’ and in the great ballet of ‘Excelsior.’

I fancied, of course, that I was going to a small puppet-show. Imagine my astonishment when I arrived at a real theatre with a real box office, and found that the prices of admission ranged from one lira (equal to a franc) to twenty lire. I paid ten lire for a private box, and on entering the theatre found a huge audience assembled—an audience not of children, but of grown men and women, of well-dressed ladies and gentlemen armed with fans and opera-glasses—just the same kind of audience, in fact, that assembles at the Lyceum, or the Criterion, or the Gaiety. There was an orchestra, too, of twenty performers, and programmes were sold, and when the curtain rose on ‘The Universal Deluge,’ the great grown-up audience settled itself down to enjoy the tragedy enacted by wooden dolls.

When I saw the scene, and Noah and his sons and daughters and the priests came on and conversed, and raised their arms to heaven, and generally conducted themselves in a manner worthy of Sir Henry Irving’s company in ‘Hamlet’ or ‘King Lear,’ I was speechless with surprise. The talking is, of course, done at the wings, but the gestures of the puppets were perfect. There was a little lack of dignity occasionally in the walk off, because the feet sometimes did not quite touch the ground, but the figures being made to appear life-size by the dwarfing and arrangement of the scenery, the illusion was at times simply marvellous. Noah embraced his children; he fell on his knees and raised his hands to heaven; he denounced the wicked, and he gave off long and impressive speeches with such perfect dignity and appropriateness of gesture that he speedily established himself as a great actor in the eyes of the audience. He made his points amid rounds of applause, and at the end of a really magnificent piece of acting he got such a terrific recall that he came on and bowed his acknowledgments. Never did well-trained actor take a call so gracefully as this wooden puppet, and never did trained actor more thoroughly carry his audience away.

The second scene was the day of the Deluge. The skies were stormy and ominous; peals of thunder were heard. Noah made one final appeal to the wicked crowd of dolls, who only mocked him and went off to continue their evil ways. Then Noah knelt down, and, joining his hands, indulged in a short prayer, after which he opened the ark doors, and his sons and daughters, each embracing him, passed in. Then he had a grand exit speech, and walked up the plank into the ark, turning at the door with true stage instinct to give off his exit speech. Then, the human beings having taken their places, the animals commenced to arrive two by two. The animals were wonderful wooden imitations of the real thing, and they walked and pricked their ears and wagged their tails, each species stopping just at the ark door to roar, or to bark, or to neigh, or to crow, or hee-haw, as the case might be. The two donkeys displayed great courage on the eve of such a catastrophe, for they kicked up their heels and relieved the scene with considerable low comedy, retiring at last amid roars of laughter and rounds of applause. Then the serpents wriggled up, and then came the birds. Unfortunately a number of the birds were real ones, and some of them flew into the theatre instead of into the ark. Instantly the huge audience, with true Neapolitan cruelty, set up a yell, and stretched out their hands to capture the frightened little things, and the gallery boys hurled their caps at them, and the crowded house rose and hooted and shouted, and was only satisfied when the poor birds had been caught and killed. After all the animals were in the ark, the door was closed; then a terrible rain descended on the earth—the best rain I have ever seen on the stage. It was so real that I found myself picking up my umbrella in my private box. Now the waters rose rapidly, the ark began to pitch and toss, the wild lightnings flashed, and the audience was hushed to a silence that might be felt. In a moment the wicked were seen climbing to the mountain summits, only to be washed off and carried away. Mothers clung to their children, husbands clutched madly at their drowning wives, and the angry billows were thick with struggling human beings—I beg pardon, struggling with puppets. How all these figures were worked so naturally is a puzzle to me. The action was never jerky or mechanical; it was natural—so natural that the scene became painful. One poor doll mother held her doll baby in her arms and smothered it with kisses as the cruel wave swept them away, and a doll husband perished in agony locked in his young doll wife’s embrace. But safely, amid all the horrors and the cries of the doomed, the brave old ark rode the angry waters, until the dove flew out, and presently returned with an olive-branch. Then the waves were still, day dawned over the scene, and Noah, with the limelight full upon his patriarchal head, knelt at the ark door and returned thanks to Heaven for its mercy to him and his, and then the band played soft, sweet music, and the curtain slowly fell upon ‘The Universal Deluge.’

If this was wonderful, what can I say of the ballet of ‘Excelsior’ which followed? I have seen this famous ballet at San Carlo in Naples, at the Eden in Paris, and at Her Majesty’s in London, but I have never seen it performed with such vigour as by the wooden troop of artists engaged at the Mercadante. The complete ballet was given, with the music, the scenery, the dances, and the various tableaux. The corps de ballet went through the complicated figures with a precision that would have gladdened the heart of Monsieur Jacobi at the Alhambra, and the leading lady, Miss Emma Wood, as she was playfully called in the playbill, won all hearts by the grace and finish of her dancing. She leapt a little higher perhaps than Palladino or Pitteri ever did, and now and then she didn’t trouble to touch the boards with her twinkling little feet; but here, as in the tragedy, the action was excellent, and when, after a magnificent pas seul, Miss Wood was called, she came on and bowed right and left with the most exquisite grace. The dramatic scenes of the ballet were perfectly played, and from start to finish it was thoroughly appreciated by the audience, who remained in the theatre from eight until nearly midnight, applauding and enjoying the really artistic performance of these wooden actors and actresses. When the curtain had descended and we all filed out into the street, it seemed to me that I had at last discovered the secret of true happiness for a dramatic author. It was to live in a country where his plays could be interpreted by puppets. And oh, what a paradise such a land must be to the theatrical manager! No quarrels among the company, no trouble with the leading man, no indisposition of the leading lady, and no salaries to pay, except those of the voices at the wings and the men who work the strings of the puppets from the flies.