Leaving the carriage on the high-road, they walked down to the sea under a fine rain, their feet sinking in the moist sand. A damp mist hung over the deserted landscape. Nisida, the convicts’ isle, stood out before them, black on the pale horizon. Round it, the sea was dark and turbid, as if all the livid horrors from the bottom had floated to its surface: further on towards Baia, it shone with frigid whiteness. The Trattoria of Bagnoli, behind them, had all its windows closed; the covered terrace was bare and empty, its yellow walls were stained by the damp. Further back still spread the grey plain of Bagnoli, where the soldiers go through their exercise, and Neapolitan duellists settle their disputes.
“It is like a northern landscape,” she said, clinging to the arm of her companion. “It is not Brittany, for Brittany has bare rocks and terrible peaks. Neither is it Holland, for the Scheldt is white, and fair and placid, veiled in a milky mist. It is Denmark, with Hamlet gazing at the grey Baltic, with thoughtful eyes that betray his madness.”
He listened to her, only conscious of the music of the voice that re-echoed in his innermost being. The fine, close rain poured down upon them until they were drenched, but neither of them perceived it.
“Have you ever been here, Andrea, when the landscape was blue?”
“Oh, yes—look over there, behind those closed shutters. I once fought a duel in a big room in the inn.”
“Oh! my love, with whom?”
“With Cicillo Cantelmo, a friend of mine.”
“For whom?”
“... for a woman.”
An embarrassing silence ensued.