[34]. Alfred Lord Tennyson.
FEAST OF MADONNA DELL’ ARCO
Naples, justly called the beautiful, appeared to us on another occasion under what might well be termed a miraculous aspect. It was the feast of the Madonna dell’ Arco, When the Neapolitans leave the city to purchase in some neighbouring district rural utensils of husbandry, such as rakes, pitchforks, baskets of various shapes, etc.,
they return at evening into the city with these implements crowned with flowers and decked with coloured ribbons a species of triumphal procession, which formed the subject many years ago for a charming little picture by the Italian painter, “Urvins,” which decorates one of the small rooms in Lord Lansdowne’s splendid collection at Bowood.
But let it not be supposed that the mirthful Neapolitans marched stiffly, or walked sedately into the city at the close of the festival. Oh, no! the whole procession danced into the town with all the varying steps of the tarantella, the men wheeling and circling round the women, and shaking and striking the tambourines above their heads; and on the glorious afternoon in question, the Madonna was propitious, and across the whole city was thrown a rainbow of immense magnitude and brilliant colours, framing with its prismatic arch one of the most glorious pictures that can be imagined, and promising to the happy citizens a fertile and beautiful season.
The arrangement of the hours of the day at Naples during the summer was a source of great amusement to us. The belfry of a neighbouring church tolled the hours, but only as far as six, so that when, according to our English reckoning, it was 7 P.M., the clock struck one, and the hour was called twenty-four.
One more curious experience befell me at Naples—Naples the delight of her citizens, as the old carbonari song says, which strangers are enjoined to see before they die. I slept in a corner room opening into those of my mother and my sister, the two doors being in an angle close to each other, and, of course, always open during the summer months (they were all passage rooms). I had not slept there very long, before I came to the conclusion that my apartment was haunted. Every night there passed through from one door to the other the figure of a woman, so hastily, so softly, that I was only aware of the movement and the scarcely perceptible flutter of a garment. At first I supposed it was my sister, and called out, but received no answer. I said very little—I am not sure, but I believe I kept silence altogether on the subject; the servants would have been terrified, the rest of the family sceptical, so I and my ghost kept our own counsel. I had not the slightest fear, or feeling even bordering on excitement, but I was curious, and determined to test myself whether the vision was a fancy of my own; so I used to look up and think, “Now I shall see it,” but that did not succeed, and afterwards when I was thinking of something else there she was, or rather there she went, her movements being visible to me by the glimmer of outside cafés, etc., which were never extinguished till dawn, and my curtains were closed.
THE PALAZZO CALABRITTI GHOST
My visitor was very faithful, but was not regular in her hours. She never made her presence known by any audible sound, unless the piercing shriek that I heard one night, some hours after I had gone to bed, had any connection with my ghostly friend. I was roused from my slumber by a scream which appeared to me to come from our drawing-room, which was three rooms off from mine. I dashed out of bed and found my sister, who had sat up late, calmly writing letters to England, and she naturally took me for a ghost, as I made my sudden appearance in my night attire.
I sometimes also heard my name called when no one was by, but that was all I ever saw or knew of the ghost of the Palazzo Calabritti. Neither could I in any way account for the apparition, unless the question could be solved by our Neapolitan housemaid saying to me one day: