Going towards Somma
While we run at all speed with the elegant automobile a kind friend has lent us towards the other Vesuvian countries not touched by the lava, but about which all kind of sad reports reach us, we hear on all sides the same selfish expressions, the same striking, and wounding words. Where are you going? Where do you wish to go? Are you mad? You cannot go any farther up, there is lava, there are stones, lapillus, ashes! That country is destroyed! The other side is surrounded! You are mad!
But though irritated, annoyed, offended by this superficial and selfish talk, we go on, we advance towards Cercola, Sant'Anastasia, the Madonna dell'Arco, following the tracks of the Royal Automobile, as the king and queen have climbed up there before us, and have already come back. We cannot believe that we may not reach Somma, or that Somma is destroyed; we do not believe that one cannot get to Ottaiano by some means at least, even if this pretty and rich little town is destroyed as people with a half ironical, half resigned smile, tell us, unwilling as they are to go, and give their help. Ah! sure, we poor writers of human troubles can do but very little, but we want to see this sorrow with our own eyes, we want to relate it that it might touch the heart of people to heroism and pity, and we want to relate it just as it is, just as it exists, by personally witnessing everything, as we have always done.
On this road that goes to Somma, other people have passed an hour ago, and we also want to go over it all, even through ashes and lapillus, over the stones, just as we can, by carriage, on foot, any-way. As we advance we begin to see all over the country around us, something like a mantle of snow. Has it snowed on the fields, on the trees?
No, the Vesuvian ashes, with the rain and the dew, have already changed into chlorate of ammonia, and all is now white and brilliant under the pale rays of the sun. Here on the right, behind the mountain of Somma, things have taken a dark, livid aspect. An immense cloud of ashes and smoke is bending down over the hidden cone in the direction of Torre Annunziata, Resina Portici, and night seems to reign there. Here instead, all is clear, all is candidly white. Our automobile is now going slower, it cracks between two deep sinks of ashes and lapillus. The wheels are now beginning to sink, and at the first little houses of Somma Vesuviana we stop, and ask the people if the king has passed. Yes, yes, the king has reached Somma Vesuviana with his automobile, and has insisted on continuing to Ottaiano, but the automobile having been caught and sunk in the ashes and lapillus, it has been impossible to advance. He has insisted on going on foot, but it would have been at least a four hours' journey. The carabineers have tried to push, the royal automobile with their arms, but without success. Then the king has decided to go back. And now, in the great solitude of this grand landscape, in the silence of things, we are really struck by the idea that something terrible must have happened up there, and that the disaster may come near being, what it was one day at Pompei!
At Somma Vesuviana
We leave our automobile. Two other large empty ones watched by a chauffeur, are here. One belongs to the duke of Aosta, who has come here this afternoon with count d'Aglié and lieutenant Gaston Pagliano proceeding with them on horseback or on foot to Ottaiano or S. Giuseppe di Ottaiano, knee deep through ashes, stones, and lava. The other automobile belongs to the duchess or Aosta. This brave and courageous woman has reached this place a little later, and has gone to Ottaiano on foot, not caring for the enormous difficulties and fatigue she would encounter. While we are trying to imitate her, here is all the population of pretty Somma Vesuviana around us: men, women, children, crowding, and putting to us a thousand questions, while we, answering, address just as many to them. Digging up the earth they show us the three stratus forming the mound that has covered their little homes and fields. Three stratus, a reddish one, a blackish one, and one of stones, alas! just like Pompei. Women with babies in their arms speak slow and low, and mournfully complain of their fate. They have, had, as they say, three nights of hell: the first all lightning and flashes, when their terror has been terrible, though they thought they were protected by the great mountain of Somma, and no lava would run down on their side. The second a night full of fright and ruination, and the third, the one between Saturday and Sunday, when the terrible rain of ashes, lapillus, and stones, began.
They have fled terrified through their farthest fields, way down as possible. The most courageous have past the night in the open air, with their children around them, trembling with fear praying, and weeping. Next day they have been wandering around their houses, trying to free them from the weight of the cinders and stones, helping each other, simply resigned and abandoned to their fate, trying all the means to conquer it. The third night, the last one, they have all slept with their poor little ones, clasped in their arms, on the straw, in the fields, not daring to go back into the houses.