It will be now seen at a glance, why it was that Winston fled from the attractions of Mildred at Genoa: he knew himself to be poor, and had become acquainted with the peculiar, and perhaps dependent, position in which Miss Willoughby stood. No one will blame him for running away from Genoa; but ought he to have lingered at Rome? We fear our friend was not remarkable for resolution of character. He had ardent feelings, and to counteract them he had just perceptions of what life demands from us; but he lacked, evidently, in steadiness of purpose.
And what now could he do? Flight, as at Genoa, was out of the question. He could not, by any rude or abrupt behaviour, forfeit that share of Mildred's esteem which he possessed. On his way back to his hotel he resolved—it was the utmost that his prudence suggested—that he would take occasion quietly and unostentatiously to intimate that, like Bassanio,
"All the wealth he had
Ran in his veins, he was a gentleman."
It would then be seen by Miss Willoughby, as clearly as by himself, that his attentions, to use the appropriate phrase, meant nothing. What might follow would be a torture merely to himself—the torture of a hopeless passion. She would know how to regulate her own feelings towards him. He alone should be the sufferer.
Very fallacious reasoning! If he with his eyes open loved and suffered, how could he tell but that Mildred might do the same? and this quiet intimation of certain barriers and impediments to his passion was likely to prove—as indeed it did prove—little better than a declaration of love, and not the less ardent because coupled with avowals of despondency.
Meanwhile, having made this concession to the cause of prudence and his honour, he resigned himself to the charms of Mildred's society. Every day brought some new excursion to scenes of surpassing beauty, in companionship with one of the most lovely and gifted of women. Winston's theory, that what is most beautiful in nature ought to be enjoyed in solitude, was entirely overthrown. He cared to visit nothing unless in her society; nor was there any scene whatever in which her presence was not felt to be the higher gratification.
Mr. Bloomfield and his sister, after their first visit to some of the environs of Naples, felt little disposed to make any unusual exertion. They had both discovered that the bay was much the same whether viewed from the right side or the left, and that in this warm weather—it was now the month of May—the shady walks in the Villa Reale, or a promenade in the town, was to be preferred to a ride in an open carriage. To Mildred, on the contrary, almost every excursion, whatever its professed object, derived its chief attraction from the different points of view it presented her of that bay, which every hour seemed to make more lovely. It followed, therefore, that Winston and Mildred were sometimes left to proceed on their expedition alone. How the heart of Winston beat as he, handed her into the carriage, and took his seat beside her! It was something very like a curse which fell at that moment upon the memory of his selfish parent. Had he been fairly dealt with, it might have been his lot to hand her into a carriage of his own—and hers.
Winston was almost in danger of forgetting the existence of Mr. Bloomfield; but habitual politeness so far prevailed, that he occasionally brought himself to listen to the account that gentleman gave of his own impressions or afflictions.
"I was never more disappointed," said Mr. Bloomfield on one of these occasions, "or rather, I was never more mistaken in any place in my life than in this town of Naples. I had heard much of lazzaroni lying about in the sun, eating maccaroni, and of the love of the people for gaudy colours and tinsel, even to the sticking gold-leaf and little flags of red paper upon the meat in the butcher's shop; and I had seen depicted the more curious costumes of man and horse, and especially this curiculo, as I believe they call it, which seems originally to have been like our old-fashioned one-horse chaise, but by the extension of the shafts into a sort of platform before and behind, and by means of a network suspended underneath between the wheels, has been made to hold a quite indefinite number of persons, and still remains a one-horse chaise, inasmuch as the whole cluster of mortals is generally carried on at a gallop by one little black horse, who, as some sort of compensation for the work they give him, is tricked out as fine as leather and brass nails, ribands and feathers, can make him. Well, out of all these materials I had contrived for myself a picture of utter and contented idleness on the one hand, and the extreme of hilarious activity on the other. I need not tell you how little such a picture answers to the reality, how little prepared I was to encounter the din, and more than Cheapside confusion of this main thoroughfare, the Toledo street. The impression which Naples actually makes, is of a city where noise and turmoil and confusion are at their very height. Carried one step further, "chaos would come again." There is the same incessant toil for gain as in London itself—as little of repose, as little of hilarity. Here is the spirit of trade without the order and method which trade should introduce. It is commerce bewildered, and passionate after pence. There are some parts of London more thickly stocked perhaps with carts and wagons, and carriages of all descriptions, but they are order itself compared to this Toledo street. Every thing one can desire to purchase, every thing one can desire to escape from, comes walking abroad upon its even, uniform pavement, where men and carriages are circulating together. Glass, and tea-trays, and crokery-ware, and haberdashery, all meet you in the street. You are running for dear life from some devil of a driver, who thinks that if he does but shout loud enough, he is at perfect liberty to break your bones, and you are stopt in your flight by an industrious chapman, who spreads his stock of pocket-handkerchiefs before your eyes. Men are walking about with live fowls, cocks, hens, turkeys, which they hold, head downwards, in a bunch, tied together by the legs. They are the quietest animals in the street. They seem to have been touched by the utter inutility of their loudest exclamations, and therefore to have resigned themselves in silence; only when some cart-wheel grazes that head of theirs, which they naturally hold up as high as possible, lest they should die of apoplexy, do they make any ineffectual attempt to call attention to their sufferings. Even money-changers, who, in all capitals of Europe, carry on their business with a certain dignity and decorum, are here to be seen, like our apple-women, ambulatory: they keep a stall with a sort of bird-cage upon it, between the wires of which are glistening a store of coins, gold, and silver, and much copper. I saw an old woman at one of these stalls laying down the rate of exchange. No doubt she knew her arithmetic that old crone, and made no mistake, at least on one side of the account. A couple of lads with a large trayful of spectacles and opera-glasses, were the great opticians of the day. I saw all sorts of men, priests among them, trying on spectacles in the jostle of this thoroughfare. The tailor and the hatter sit outside the door-way stitching. I look into a baker's shop, if that can be called a shop which is merely a square cavity laid open at the side near the street—it is verily a baker's, and bread is made there, for you may see the whole process carried on. Against the wall, on one side, a great wheel is turning—grinding the corn; at the opposite side stands a man up to his elbows in flour, kneading away with all his might; and in front of you, if you will wait a moment, you will see the fiery oven open, and the baked bread make its appearance—a sample of which is deposited in the wire safe that hangs up at the entrance, and serves for shop-window. Would that all handicrafts were but as peaceful! A few doors further on there is Rafaelle Papa, the copper-smith, hammering remorselessly at his copper pans. And, O heavens! the blacksmith himself has come out in the open air with his fire and his forge; he has established his smoking furnace in the only recess, the only place of refuge, the whole street afforded."
"And in the midst of all this, and at every corner, what heaps of beautiful flowers!" said Mildred. "It is curious, too," she added, "to see, moving through this Cheapside throng, the mendicant friar, cowled and sandaled, with his wallet, or double sack that hangs across his shoulder before and behind, actually then and there collecting alms for his convent."