He made a short pause.
"If the lady and gentleman wish," he continued, "I will take them, on returning, to Piedigrotta. Then we'll see the little church of S. Vitale. Many foreign ladies hunt for it in order to put flowers on the sepulcher of a hunch-back who made verses,—Giacomo Leopardi."
The silence with which his two clients received these explanations made him abandon his mechanical oratory in order to take a good look at them. The gentleman was taking the lady's hand and was pressing it, speaking in a very low tone. The lady was pretending not to listen to him, looking at the villas and the gardens at the left of the road sloping down toward the sea.
With noble magnanimity, however, the driver still wished to instruct his indifferent clients, showing them with the point of his whip the beauty and wonders of his repertoire.
"That church is S. Maria del Parto, sometimes called by others the Sannazaro. Sannazaro was also a noted poet who described the loves of shepherdesses, and Frederick II of Aragon made him the gift of a villa with gardens in order that he might write with greater comfort… Those were other days, sir! His heirs converted it into a church and——"
The voice of the coachman stopped short. Behind him the pair were talking in an incomprehensible language, without paying the slightest attention to him, without acknowledging his erudite explanations. Ignorant foreigners!… And he said no more, wrapping himself in offended silence, relieving his Neapolitan verbosity with a series of shouts and grunts to his horse.
The new road from Posilipo, the work of Murat, skirted the gulf, rising along the mountain edge and constantly emphasizing the declivity between the covering of its feet and the border of the sea. On this hanging slope may be seen villas with white or rosy facades midst the splendor of a vegetation that is always green and glossy. Beyond the colonnades of palm trees and parasol pines, appeared the gulf like a blue curtain, its upper edge showing above the murmuring tops of the trees.
An enormous edifice appeared facing the water. It was a palace in ruins, or rather a roofless palace never finished, with thick walls and huge windows. On the lower floor the waves entered gently through doors and windows which served as rooms of refuge for the fishermen's skiffs.
The two travelers were undoubtedly talking about this ruin, and the forgiving coachman forgot his snub in order to come to their aid.
"That is what many people call the Palace of Queen Joanna…. A mistake, sir. Ignorance of the uneducated people! That is the Palazzo di Donn' Anna, and Donna Anna Carafa was a great Neapolitan signora, wife of the Duke of Medina, the Spanish viceroy who constructed the palace for her and was not able to finish it."…