We had to pass through the vestibule of the modern Hôtel Diomède to enter the domains of the past, and on our way back we had dinner there. I was glad to be out of the circle of the dead centuries and back into the world of living men. I had just read a French novel written by Georges de Peyrebrune in which the author described the wonderful beauty of Signorina Sofia Prospezi the daughter of the proprietor of Hôtel Diomède, and wanted to see if the reputation of her beauty was not exaggerated. It appeared to be quite true. Signorina Prospezi was beyond question endowed with great beauty: she was tall, slender, with a pure oval face, finely chiselled features and luminous velvety, brown eyes, shaded by curling black lashes. I asked her to give me her photograph, and she begged for mine in return. Her father was wonderfully amiable and attentive towards us. Instead of regaling us with diluted wine, which was usually served to his customers, he ordered the oldest and best wine in his cellars to be brought to us. Our host evidently meant to be complimentary, and said that he thought me very much like his wife—who appeared to be a compatriot of ours—when she was young and beautiful.
On the following day we drove to Castellamare; a succession of villages lined the way. The tramway took up half the breath of the road, encumbered with huge waggons drawn by great powerful horses; I felt rather frightened. On approaching Sorrento we ran against a car drawn by a horse, a cow and a donkey as well! There was a local feast of Saint-somebody, I didn’t know who, at Sorrento, and flags were suspended from house to house across the narrow streets. We passed before the house which had been inhabited by Torquato Tasso transformed now into an hotel. Just in front of it stands the statue of the great poet. The distant sound of low chanting attracted our attention; it grew louder, and presently, far up the street, we saw a religious procession come in sight. At the head came a pilgrim holding a high crucifix. Behind followed a group of curates in white surplices, bearing a large grotto in which stood the statue of a saint dressed as a Franciscan monk, surrounded by a number of statuettes representing worshippers kneeling to him. A number of little girls, arrayed in white, with crowns of roses on their heads, carried an altar decorated with vases full of paper-flowers, in the middle of which stood the statue of the Virgin, clad in a rich brocade dress and a long blue mantle embroidered with silver stars; the Madonna’s long hair fell in ringlets on her shoulders. A large crowd of pilgrims came behind. We begged a constable to clear a passage for us through the throng and gained the high road by a back street. From afar we saw the lava running down Vesuvius. Our vetturino, turning round, said, “That’s my home,” pointing with his whip to a little village sheltered beneath the treacherous mountain.
On arriving at Castellamare we were just in time to catch the train with which we were to return to Naples. We got into the first railway carriage occupied by an ill-assorted Italian pair, a fat middle-aged lady and a good-looking young man resembling an opera tenor, and at least a quarter of a century younger than his companion, who made beside him, the sharpest contrast, looking very thick and clumsy. She gazed at her interesting cavalier with an admiration and tenderness in her old eyes, which was quite ridiculous. The evening being fresh, I closed the window, to the great displeasure of my voluminous neighbour, who began to grumble and said to her companion that she was on the point of being suffocated. “She must certainly feel hot, the fatty!” I exclaimed in Russian very imprudently, for after I had just made this flattering statement, the young Italian said to Sergy, in a most natural tone, that his wife, as it appears, is a compatriot of ours. I felt pretty bad at that moment, I confess, having got into a terrible scrape. I could have bitten off my tongue! Unfortunately I always speak first and think afterwards! But apparently the fat lady didn’t hear my complimentary adverb, as she amiably entered into conversation, and in a few minutes we felt as if we had known her for ages. She became very confidential, and by the time the train reached Naples we were in possession of the entire history of her life. She told us, with a coquettish glance at her husband, which would have been very effective thirty years ago, that she had been married five years, and was feeling perfectly happy, only rather home-sick for Moscow, her native town. How in the world did she manage to catch that handsome fellow—who, for his part, certainly didn’t seem to adore his caricature spouse.
Our great desire was to make the ascent by the Funicular Railway of Mount Vesuvius, whilst it was in eruption. Our wish was fulfilled on the following day. It took us three hours to drive in a carriage to the aerial railway-station. We passed a great number of macaroni factories, and saw rows of macaroni hanging on strings to dry. The road was most picturesque, having the blue Mediterranean strewn with white sails on one side and Vesuvius on the other. At length we reached the foot of the mountain, its head wrapped in a gloomy wreath of smoke and cloud. The volcano was in full activity at that moment, and a large torrent of lava was running down the right slope of the Vesuvius. We saw the Funicular Railway crawling up the steepest part of the cone. We began to climb a very steep ascent leading to the aerial station, paved with different-coloured tiles of petrified lava. On each side of our way rose mountains of black lava. A group of street-singers followed our carriage singing Neapolitan folk-songs. When we arrived at the railway-station, standing near the observatory and the carbiniers’ lodge, the carriage-road ended. After having secured our tickets at the booking-office, we had lunch in the restaurant, and saw from the open window a funicular car crawling down the mountain. The Funicular Railway has only two cars, attached to an endless cable, named “Vesuvius” and “Etna,” one at the top and one at the bottom of the mountain; the one that comes down pulls the other one up.
After lunch, when we made our way to the Funicular, we were accosted by a crowd of tattered boys, who proposed to clean our boots, and begged plaintively for some coins “Per mangiare macaroni.” We descended into a sort of dark cave and entered an open railway-carriage in sloping position, holding only ten passengers sitting in pairs opposite each other, the back seats on a level with their heads. Two carbiniers escorted our car. I shuddered when we began the ascent, for it was not at all comforting to be aware that lava only served as foundation to the Funicular Railway and might be falling to pieces at any moment. The mount which only takes a few minutes, seemed a whole century to me. Vesuvius was throwing great balls of fire all the time, and the smoke coming out of the volcano spread around us. We had arrived at the highest point that the waggon could reach and had to leave the Funicular and climb to the summit of Vesuvius on foot. We walked on very rough ground, steaming with sulphurous springs. A score of ragged fellows proposed to serve as guides to us, and said that we must absolutely take two men, each of us, to push and pull us up, but I announced proudly that I could perfectly do with one guide only. I hadn’t made the ascent of Mont Blanc for nothing, I suppose! We walked on a moving soil, consisting of ashes and pumice-stone, sulphur smoke passed off in vapour from crevices beneath us; the soil burnt our feet and our shoes filled with lava. The smell of sulphur nearly choked me. I could not breathe without coughing or gasping. Our mount became more and more difficult: there was no longer any path, it was merely like going up a very steep cinder heap; with each step we sank in it to knee-depth. It was very fatiguing and I had to seek the aid of three guides; one guide took me by the right arm, another took me by the left one, and the third pushed vigorously behind. By the time we arrived at the top my dress was in rags. At last, after an hour’s toil, we succeeded in reaching the summit of the cone and were approaching the lip of the crater. At the same time we heard a long low rumbling, like the sound of the sea when the tide is breaking on a distant beach. Right below us yawned an enormous pit, whose sides were gnarled and twisted by the action of terrible heat; we saw the burning liquid issue from the crater. I managed to get so near that the ashes fell on my dress. It was a wonderful sight and needs the pen of Dante to describe the awful impression received when I stood on the brink of the crater and gazed into the depths of an inferno. The head-guide requested me not to approach too near its fiery mouth, but I felt it draw me like a magnet. We could hear the roar of the fire beneath us. We stood there fascinated when a loud report shook the ground and a shower of hot cinders fell around us. We felt like being under a war-fire. I never was in such a fright in all my life and thought our last moment had come. “We are lost,” I said to myself trembling all over.
Following the command of our guides we fell flat on our faces, at once. All this happened in the space of a second. A smell of burning wool spread around us. It was my dress which had caught fire. Next moment we got up hurriedly and fled in terror to the other end of the cone, as the direction these rivulets of liquid fire take, depends entirely on the wind. By some miracle nobody was hurt. We have had evidently a very narrow escape of our lives. We were now on our way back to the Funicular Railway. Oh! that descent! We slid down as on skates and reached the Funicular Station in shoes almost entirely without soles.
The next day we went to visit the “Certosa,” an ancient grey abbey perched on a high rock, a veritable eagle’s nest. Only six monks are left now in the monastery, to make the famous “Certosa liqueur.” They gather the herbs in the mountains and keep the recipe of their liqueur as a great secret. The convent is now converted into a Museum. Among other curiosities we were shown a shallop in which Charles the Tenth had landed in Spain. Looking out from the terrace the whole city of Naples lay revealed; only the distant splashing of the sea below was heard.
A terrible calamity has befallen the Island of Ischia. The little town of Casamicciola, destroyed by a recent tremendous earthquake, is nothing but a heap of deplorable ruins. Through the awful cataclysm the inhabitants are deprived of home and bread. In pursuit of strong sensations we wanted to visit these ruins and embarked on a small steamer which plied from the Bay of Naples to Ischia. It takes only two hours to cross. There was not a breath of air and the sea looked like a polished mirror. Whilst we gazed at the frolics of the dolphins from deck, we passed a man-of-war that had cast anchor in the Bay, and did not remark that it was a Russian cruiser. A young chap who sold photographs on board, offered to show us the ruins of Casamicciola. He could murder enough French to be our interpreter and we accepted his offer. He told us that he had lost both his parents and all his belongings in the recent earthquake; the only object he had found amongst the ruins was his watch. The poor boy had remained several hours unconscious under the ruins and was just out of hospital. On approaching Ischia, we stopped before what had formerly been Casamicciola, a desolate black desert now. The earthquake had in a few moments changed the prosperous little town into a ruin. Hundreds and hundreds of homes had entirely gone. Many people were buried beneath the fallen houses. About two hundred corpses remained under the ruins and a terrible smell came forth. In fear of infection the inhabitants are forbidden to dig out the corpses. Another slight earthquake took place the other day: a rock tumbled down, destroying the remaining houses, and large crevices have been formed in the mountains all around. The whole population is in terrible distress. The only inhabitants who escaped death are those who were working out in the fields at the moment of the catastrophe, and had fled panic-stricken to the mountains for refuge. We were told that a Russian couple, living at the Hôtel des Étrangers, had been saved through their children who were having a fight in the park belonging to the hotel. Their parents had just come down to set them apart, when the earth shook, and the whole hotel came down, falling to pieces. Looking at this bright place and its luxurious vegetation, it seems to be a perfect paradise on earth, but this beautiful soil opens treacherously under your feet, transforming everything into a “vale of tears.” Oh! the irony of the things of this world! And still men will build up new dwellings again and will not think of the danger of a repetition of the past catastrophe! An old cab, with a skeleton of a horse between the shafts, drove us through the demolished streets heaped up with stones, trunks of trees and plaster, but soon there was no road at all, and we had to walk amidst a mass of broken stones and woodwork. We saw women seeking forgotten objects on the threshold of their crumbled houses, a wreck of broken stones and fallen walls. A young girl sat with her head buried in her hands, rocking her body to and fro, and kept wailing “Why, oh, why was I saved!” It was a sorrowful spectacle and my heart bled for her. Workmen had been sent in haste to build barracks for the victims of the catastrophe, and huts have been erected in the vicinity of the ill-fated town. We visited that sordid encampment where the poor wretches slept on the hard ground, pêle-mêle, like Bohemians. A troup of carbiniers have just arrived to keep order. We were surrounded by hundreds of poor starving creatures. Sad-faced women, with tragic eyes, stood in groups with children of all ages holding to their skirts. They spread out their hands in a gesture of despair and burst into lamentations, begging for bread. Sergy gave away nearly all the contents of his purse. The poor wretches murmured their thanks, pressing kisses on my hands, against my inclination. In token of gratitude, an old, toothless granny, wrinkled like a crumpled apple, her hooked nose nearly in contact with her chin, patted me on the back; being very much afraid that she meant to kiss my reluctant cheek, I went prudently behind my husband. My one desire was to get back to Naples, and I breathed freely when our boat left the shores of Ischia. A group of Neapolitan women, with red handkerchiefs on their heads, had come out from third class on our deck to dance the Tarantella, to the accompaniment of a band of strolling musicians. One of the women had been hurt by the earthquake, and this was her first day out of the hospital.
On approaching Naples, I was delighted to see on the quay a group of Russian sailors belonging to the man-of-war which had cast anchor in the bay. I hastened to land, in order to boast of my countrymen before our fellow passengers. But, O horror! it appeared that the sailors were all desperately drunk, and looked awful. With bleeding faces, their clothes all in tatters, they made a disgusting spectacle of themselves. We were told that they had just had a fight with some Italian sailors who had cheated them in a tavern where they had been drinking together. Our compromising compatriots were shouting in Russian, “Give back our money or we’ll throw you into the water!” It was not a very edifying scene and made me blush for my country. On our way to the hotel we met another group of Russian sailors walking in a friendly way—arm-in-arm—with their Italian comrades, also tolerably drunk and zig-zagging somewhat, their two feet being hopelessly at variance. There will be a fight between them ere long, I am sure. Passing by a coral shop, we entered to purchase a necklace, and made out that the owner of the shop was a fellow-countryman of ours, living in Naples for the last thirty years. He had been sexton at the Russian church, and having married the daughter of an Italian merchant, he had settled down for good in this country. His eldest son can just speak a few words in Russian, but the younger ones cannot speak a word of our mother-tongue.
The next day we started back to Russia. I left La bella Napoli with regret.