Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 61, No. 376, February, 1847

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."

"But you must not forget the sugar saints and saviours," said Miss Bloomfield, "that one sees amongst the sweetmeats; and how in every shop there hangs up the picture of some patron saint, before which on holydays candles are burning; nor above all, those lemonade stalls, which are certainly the gayest things in the town. But tell me," she continued, "I do not quite understand them. First, there is a sort of dresser heaped up with lemons and oranges. At each end of this rise two little pillars, painted with red and white stripes, and supporting a sort of canopy, on which figures, of course, the Virgin Mary—so that the whole looks like a little altar. Well, but on each side, between these pillars, there swings, suspended by the middle, a sort of wooden barrel, and when the damsel, who makes the lemonade, has nothing else to do, she gives it a touch, and sets it swinging. Now, what are those for?"

"They hold the snow," said her brother, "which serves instead of ice, and which the damsel, by this swinging process, helps to dissolve. Some day we will have a glass of lemonade at one of these altars, as you call them. We shall get it fresh enough, and cheap enough. But you must take your sugar with you, for sugar they do not give; their customers are in the habit of taking it without. I was amused to-day," he continued, "by watching the progress down the street of a very simple style of water-cart. A butt of water, with a leathern pipe issuing from it, is drawn on a low cart by a donkey. A bare-legged fellow ties a string to the end of the leathern pipe, and follows jerking it to and fro, this side and that side—of course with many loud vociferations—and so continues to distribute the contents of his butt over a pretty large area."

"Very surprising!" said Winston, who for some time past had not heard one syllable of what was uttered.

CHAPTER IX

We will not indulge ourselves, at the risk of wearying our readers, by traversing in the society of Mildred and Winston the environs of Naples; we will not wander with them through the disinterred streets and temples of Pompeii; nor attempt to partake of their delight at those exquisite views which their excursions, on both sides of the bay presented to them. Often did Winston sit by the side of Mildred, looking at those scenes, and his happy spirit for a while reflected them as calmly as the blue waters those beautiful islands within them. Alas! the pebble soon fell in one of those mirrors—the tranquil mood was ever and anon cruelly disturbed.

We will not even trust ourselves in the museum of Naples, so rich in the curiosities of the antiquarian, and in works of art; nor stand with Mildred before those statues of the goddess Isis, from which it was difficult to persuade her to move, so much was there of thought as well as beauty in the countenances. One especially (for there are several) of these statues of Isis—it was the smallest in the group—she confessed, after all she had seen of sculpture, had affected her more intensely than any work of art, by its thrilling union of deep mystery with perfect loveliness. Of Isis herself, or of the religion taught under her name, she confessed, she said, to have very obscure ideas; but if ever a temple should be erected to human philosophy, that statue, she thought, was worthy to occupy the chief place in it.

One of their excursions, however, it is necessary, for the sake of our narrative, to give some account of—it is that to Vesuvius. Perhaps there are few travellers who have not recorded the day they visited the burning mountain as amongst the most remarkable of their lives. The extreme beauty of the views as you ascend, the strange desolation immediately around, and the grand spectacle that awaits you on the summit, so vary and sustain the interest, that every emotion which nature is capable of producing, seems to have been crowded into one spot, and one hour.

The whole party started together on this expedition, but Mr. and Miss Bloomfield had no intention of proceeding further than the hermitage—a small house erected, as every one knows, half way up the mountain, before the ascent becomes steep or severe, and, for the rest, very little like a hermitage. Here they designed to stay, enjoying the magnificent view it commands, while the younger half of the party proceeded to scale the mountain. It would have been easy for them to ascend thus far by a circuitous route in a carriage, but, beside that horses could convey Mildred and her companion somewhat further than the carriage road extends, the uncle and aunt were not unwilling to partake to a certain extent the spirit of the enterprise. They all, therefore, mounted their horses, and, accompanied by their guide, advanced by the steeper and more direct path.

The ascent begins amongst gardens and vineyards—the vine flowing from tree to tree, and making of a whole field one continuous harbour. The path next winds along a vast barren hill-side, utterly without verdure, whose brown furrows present the appearance of a ploughed field; but the clods here do not give way to the tread of your animal; you stoop and touch them, they are of stone, they are the old lava. As you ascend, these clods grow larger, grow darker, till the narrow road winds between great blocks of black lava, pitched here and there in the wildest confusion. You then reach a level piece of road, on which stands the hermitage.

Here Mr. and Miss Bloomfield paused. The rest proceeded somewhat further on horseback, till the mountain, taking the shape of a cone, presents a steep ascent, to be mastered only on foot.

"Let us pause a moment here," said Mildred, when they had dismounted, "and look at the bay. I have longed several times upon the road to make a halt, but if I had, it would have been a signal for the general hubbub of conversation. You," she continued with a smile, "are a sensible companion, you know how to be silent, or can talk in those snatches or broken utterances which rather relieve silence than dissipate it, which do not scare the gentle goddess altogether from our company. Had I asked my uncle to stop, he would immediately have commenced talking, and talked till we went on again."

The scene lay outstretched before them in all its beauty, and under an almost cloudless sky. One peculiar charm of this celebrated bay depends on the islands scattered on both sides of its entrance, as Capri, Ischia, and others. These, as you shift your position on the bay, produce an endless variety—interlacing the azure water with stripes of blue mountainous land, in the same manner as well-defined clouds are sometimes set, ridge after ridge, in the clear sky. From their present point of view, the centre of their picture was open sea, and the sides filled up and diversified by these islands. Seen under the mid-day sun, they appear invested in a mist of light.

"They rise from the deep blue sea like sapphires that love has breathed upon," said Winston. "What fantastic tricks," he continued, "but always beautiful—Nature plays under her own high heaven. The hills on yonder coast, huge as they are, have a way of hiding themselves in the very air—vanishing in the very light. And, look, yonder, in the extreme distance, the light seems to have cut away the solid basis of the hills, and left nothing but the ridge, the wavy outline, which one might expect to rise into the air, it is so cloud-like."

"The earth and heaven do so mingle here, there is no separating them," said Mildred. "I wonder not that the inhabitants of such a region as this threw a certain dimness, as of twilight, over their future Elysium. Some difference it was necessary to imagine between it and their familiar earth, and could they fancy any thing more bright and beautiful than this?"

"Look behind you," said Winston. She turned, and started at the sudden and complete contrast which the utter desolation of the scathed mountain presented to her.

They then addressed themselves to their somewhat arduous undertaking. Mildred had refused to be carried up in a chair—had determined to walk. She had received a very accurate description of this part of her task, and found things exactly as she expected. The side of the mountain seems, at first, composed of large loose stones, of a brown colour; but the lava, which assumes this shape, is not loose, and you step from projection to projection with perfect safety,—with the same fatigue,—neither more nor less, as one walks up a flight of stairs. It is rather a long flight, however, and there is no bannister. This last deficiency the guide is in the habit of supplying—to such as condescend to accept his assistance—by fastening a leathern strap round his waist, and giving the end of it into the hand of the traveller. Winston insisted upon putting this strap round his own waist, and that Mildred should allow him to take what seemed to him the most enviable position, of the guide. It was a dangerous experiment. Not the weight of Mildred—for she leant very lightly—it was not the weight of Mildred which he felt at every step was exhausting his strength, till his heart beat and his knees trembled. After a little time he was compelled to sit down, faint as a child. Mildred was far from guessing the cause of this sudden weakness, but requested that the belt might be again transferred to the guide. Nor did he hesitate a moment. Had he attempted to proceed much farther they might both have been precipitated to the bottom.

Their march was toilsome; and Mildred, taking advantage of a commodious place, sat down to rest upon the lava. At the altitude which they had reached the temperature changes,—a cold wintry wind was blowing—and she had not quite prepared herself for so sudden a change. Winston, anxious only that the breath of heaven should not visit her too rudely, and forgetting to ask himself whether there might not be a too familiar kindness in the act, pulled off a light over-coat which he wore, and, making the best shawl he could of it, put it over her shoulders. She was not a little confused at the unaffected anxiety which had evidently given rise to this prompt attention; and blushed as she refused to rob him of his own attire. She attempted, by some playful remark, to remove the feeling of embarrassment which had seized upon both parties.

"But from a poor gentleman," replied Winston, alluding to something that had passed between them at an earlier part of the day, "any gift may be safely accepted. Like the priest, he wears a tonsure, which at once gives him unusual privileges, and reduces him to a subject of indifference."

Mildred made no answer; but she thought that, in one of these cases, the tonsure was so little visible, was kept so much out of sight, that it might fail of its due precautionary influence. She rose, and they proceeded on their walk, or, rather, their climbing. And now the volume of smoke which had, for some time, been concealed from view by the mountain itself, burst upon them, and a few minutes placed them on the summit. They stood within the crater, or what has been such, for, at present, the mountain discharges itself through a lofty cone which rises on one side of this strange, black, sulphurous amphitheatre. All around them, however, the volcanic vapours were steaming up from innumerable crevices, and the hot lava pouring out, moving slowly, with a dull red heat. No need here of further clothing. Their feet were burning where they stood. They had again exchanged the cold of winter, not for the heat of summer, but of a furnace.

There is a terrific grandeur in the scene. The black masses of lava, whose surface, here, is of the hue and texture of cinders, are piled and jostled together with the utmost irregularity, with deep fissures between them, in the same manner, though the material is so different, as the blocks of ice in the glaciers of Mont Blanc. Sometimes these cindery surfaces undulate and take the appearance of black coils, as of a huge cable laid in parallel folds. These coils, as you advance, are explained; for you will see the dull red lava sweltering out from underneath one of those great blocks, in a long and narrow wave, which does not subside, but stiffens as it cools, and, in this form, is pushed forward by the succeeding wave. In another part, the lava is flowing in a small stream, about a foot in breadth, just as the metal in a foundery, but more slowly, and the surface dimmed with a black scaly film; on raising which, with your stick, the flame bursts out. It flows so slowly that, sometimes, you must watch it narrowly before you detect the motion; you may be looking at such a stream and not suspect it to be this stealthy Phlegethon, till suddenly it is seen to stir, like a vast serpent moving in its sleep.

To the left of them, as they stood in this crater, the wall of the mountain enclosed them in, utterly without vestige of any kind of verdure, bare brown ore, with fissures exhaling their sulphurous vapour; before them, extending to and meeting the horizon, lay the tumbled masses of black lava, with the glowing at intervals of their dull red furnaces, and every where the same vapour steaming up; and at their right rose the conical summit from which Vesuvius was discharging its artillery, the sides of which are covered with a green and yellow sulphur that, elsewhere, might be mistaken at a distance for some sort of moss or other vegetation, but the eye has learnt to expect here nothing of so peaceful a nature. From this cone volleys of huge stones were perpetually issuing, with thunder-like explosions; and, above all, that majestic column of smoke! Smoke seems a very ordinary word, expressive of a very ordinary thing, but it forms here no ordinary spectacle. At each explosion it bursts up impetuously, struggling like frenzy from its imprisonment, revolving with amazing rapidity, thick, turbid, ruddy, mixed with flame; as it rises, it revolves less rapidly, and becomes more pure, more calm; ever rising higher, and expanding in greater and purer volumes, it at length fills the heavens, towering majestically, whiter than the whitest cloud, and floating off in light etherial vapours, which the blue sky gladly receives. "The spirit of Beauty," said Mildred, as she gazed upwards, "has triumphed."

As she looked with increasing interest on this spectacle, the spirit of enterprise grew strong within her, and she wished to ascend this cone itself. But besides that the huge stones which at that time were being constantly projected, rendered the expedition dangerous, the guide assured her that the fatigue would be to her excessive. In fact, he resolutely declined to lend his aid to such a scheme.

"If you had been alone," she said to Winston, "you would have gone farther. I am a sore hinderance to you, I fear."

"On the contrary," he replied, "if you had not come, I should not have ascended so far as this."

And he spoke the simple truth; for Vesuvius itself would have been forgotten in the society of Mildred. To ascend the mountain at night-time had been one of the most conspicuous objects he had proposed to himself in his visit to Italy; but as it was out of the question (the uncle and aunt would not have listened to it for a moment) that she should accompany him in such an expedition, he had at once foregone it, or rather it had slipped from his thoughts.

After some time longer spent in this remarkable scene, they began their descent, which they found to be quite an easy and amusing piece of business. The descent is made on a side of the mountain covered with loose ashes that yield to the foot. Up this it would be impossible to get, but you go down it with the same facility as if you were skating along the side of the mountain. Mildred, with the help of a staff, accomplished this part of her task with much ease, and not without hilarity.

Mr. and Miss Bloomfield were happy to see them return—had begun to wonder what could keep them so long—had for some time grown quite tired of their own position. The carriage had been ordered to come slowly round by the other road, and meet them at the hermitage. It was waiting for them. They were all willing to enter it, and return by the carriage road to Naples.

On the ride home Mildred was very silent. Many little incidents had occurred, many words had dropped, during the course of the day, which became subjects of reflection, not quite so calm as the works of art or nature had hitherto supplied. Winston—she could not refuse to see it—loved! But loved, as he desired to intimate, without the least hope, the least prospect of alliance. Well, she was warned. What remained for her but to keep her own heart quite sure? Keep! was she quite sure that she still retained it in undisputed custody?

But we have lost sight, all this while, of Mrs. Jackson and her daughter, which it was not our intention to do. They had not lost sight of Winston. As they had inquired of him, when at Rome, what hotel he would recommend them at Naples, and as he had very naturally mentioned the one he had selected for himself, it was not at all surprising that he should find himself, one afternoon, seated very snugly by Mrs. and Miss Jackson, at the comfortable quiet table-d'hôte of the Hôtel des Etrangers. Happily there existed no secrets, and no division of opinion between the mother and daughter on what now chiefly preoccupied the thoughts of both. Mrs. Jackson had herself conceived a great partiality for Winston—sympathised entirely with her daughter's romantic attachment—and was willing to promote her views by all means in her power. She was at heart a generous woman, though certain petty and rooted habits would, at first acquaintance, lead to an opposite impression. There was nothing she was not ready to do for Winston. It was only the good sense, or the somewhat better sense, of the daughter, that prevented her at Rome from secretly calling for his bill and paying it for him behind his back. At Naples, Winston almost always met them at the dinner table; and it was impossible for him to be churlish towards persons who seemed so very pleased with whatever he said, and so kindly disposed towards him. Mrs. Jackson was confidential in the extreme as to the several items which formed her worldly prosperity, and very clearly intimated the extremely benevolent designs she had upon himself. To Louisa, indeed, it was a sad blow and heavy discouragement when she met him in the company of one so beautiful as Mildred; but she had tact enough, even from Winston himself, to extract certain particulars respecting the fortune of the lady, which went far to set her fears at rest.

And now began in Winston's mind one of the saddest conflicts and confusions that could visit a poor mortal. On the one hand was hopeless passion—poverty forbidding; on the other, a fortune offered to a needy gentleman—ay, and affection too, if he could resign himself to accept it. Strange as it may seem, it was his very love for Mildred that gave its greatest influence to the fortune of Miss Jackson. By a marriage with this latter lady he should escape from the tortures of his hopeless passion; it would be a refuge from this, and all like disquietudes. Most people will be doubtless of opinion that the attractions of wealth need no auxiliary. Those, however, who are well read in the human heart, will have no difficulty in believing us when we say of Winston, that if he had never encountered Mildred, he would have merely smiled at the idea of a marriage with Louisa Jackson. It now came recommended to him as an escape from an intolerable torture: he would rush into matrimony as a shelter from love.

When passing the morning in the society of Mildred, not a single fragment of a thought fell to the share of Louisa. But when, having left her, he proceeded to his hotel with a heavy and perplexed heart, and asked himself where all this was tending—when he afterwards found himself seated by the side of two persons, somewhat silly and ridiculous it is true, but kind-hearted and most amiably disposed, able and anxious to offer him that only safe harbour of life which property builds up for us—a harbour, too, which would secure him from that wild tempest so evidently preparing for him—it seemed that a very little more would turn the balance in favour of Louisa.

That very little more, an incident which we have to record, supplied.

Whilst walking and sitting with Mildred in the Villa Reale, he had noticed that a tall, military-looking gentleman had appeared singularly struck with the beauty Of his fair companion. In this there was nothing unusual. Few people passed her without paying a certain silent homage to those blue eyes and their singular sweetness of expression. Even the common people, even the beggars, when they had received their alms and stayed no longer to beg, would still stay, lingering about, to catch another look at that face, when it should be turned towards them. But in the stranger's manner there was something more than admiration expressed; and, what was more remarkable and more alarming to the feelings of Winston, Mildred herself manifested towards this stranger—if he were a stranger—an almost equal degree of interest. On the last occasion, when they encountered him, this gentleman was observed to turn and follow them, and watch them to the door of Mr. Bloomfield's residence. Winston, after parting with his companion, re-entered the gardens opposite, and from this position he saw the same stranger return to Mr. Bloomfield's door, ring at the bell, ask, as it seemed, several questions of the porter, and then—enter the house!

As he stood staring at this inexplicable vision, he was accosted by a young Englishman, with whom he had some slight travelling acquaintance; and, by a singular coincidence, the very first question his companion put, was—whether he knew that gentleman who had just entered the house opposite?

"No! do you?" was the prompt reply of Winston.

"I do not," said the other; "but I confess I am rather curious to learn. He must be somebody—travels in grand style—has taken the best rooms in the Victoria. I took him for a Russian prince, but he speaks English like a native."

"The Russians are said to be such good linguists, this may be no criterion," said Winston, hiding, as best he could, under the commonplace remark, the agitation that he felt. He very soon made some excuse to escape from his companion, and returned to his hotel. That day he was at dinner more absent than usual; yet there was something in his manner which Louisa liked, which gave her more hope than she had lately entertained.

The next morning Winston called as usual at the Bloomfields. They had ridden out; and he learned, on inquiry, that his seat in the carriage had been occupied by this mysterious stranger. Where should he go? what should he do? He now felt how complete a slave he had become—how utterly dependent for all his happiness upon another. His happiness! what but misery could he reap from this passion? And now to love was to be added all the pangs of jealousy.

He entered the gardens opposite the Villa Reale. That "prince of promenades," as some one has called it, extending as it does along a quay unparalleled for the beauty of its position, with its thick dark shelter of olives on the one side of you, and its light and graceful avenue of acacias on the other, with its statues surrounded each by its parterre of flowers or niched in its green recess, with the fountain bubbling from the ground at its feet—all had ceased to please. At one part the promenade projects into a small semicircle, fitted up with marble seats, which commands an uninterrupted view of the bay and of Vesuvius. It is difficult to recognise our old boisterous friend, the sea, such as we know him in our northern latitudes, in the dancing blue waters which, stirred by the lightest breeze, are here flinging the whitest foam over the polished black rocks or stones that line these coasts, and still more, in the glassy azure which extends, like a lake, in the distance: it is a scene to induce the most perfect repose. But Winston found no repose in it, and its beauty awoke not a single emotion of enthusiasm. He turned towards Vesuvius. Its column of smoke, rising always there, neither subsiding nor increasing, now irritated him by its sameness and its constancy. "Always thus!" he mentally exclaimed. "Why does it not explode at once? Why not at once give out all its rage?"