THE SCOURGE OF NAPLES, page 1
THE SCOURGE OF NAPLES
Translated by Alfred Allinson
First published in 1862, this journalistic article was very likely written by Dumas during his long residence at Naples from 1860 to 1864.
THE SCOURGE OF NAPLES.
I.
NAPLES possesses a glorious sky, a pellucid air, an azure sea. Its climate is perfect, except when the wind is due north, or due south. Naples has its promontory of Posilippo, its gulf of Baja, its oysters of Lake Fusaro to the west; it has Vesuvius, Pompeii, Castellamare, Sorrento to the east. But Naples has a scourge that utterly spoils all these beauties and delights.
Is it typhus, cholera, yellow fever?
No, these are only plagues, and what I write about is a scourge, a curse. The curse of Naples is mendicancy.
Given mendicancy, such as it exists at Naples, an earthly paradise becomes a hell.
The first thing that grips the traveller by the throat as he lands at the Custom-house Quay, is mendicancy.
You do not recognize the evil thing at first sight until you are actually in the Street of Toledo or of Santa Lucia; you will find at first it wears a veil of decency. To begin with, in the Custom-house, the Customs officer, as he searches your box, shows you the palm of his hand. Then you come on a soldier; the man, if you have a bit of ribbon in your button-hole, or failing that, a good coat and well-brushed boots, will present arms to you and hint at a gratuity.
The facchino, who tears your handbags away from you by force, and carries them to your conveyance, begins the whine for charity.
The coachman again, overpaid doubly and trebly as he will be through your ignorance of the proper fare, is not satisfied with robbery, but asks for more.
At the entrance to your hotel, your torments cease; the waiters, so neatly dressed, so clean and smart, are too
well drilled to beg on your arrival. They will await your departure.
There you are, smiling and happy! you have had a more or less stormy passage, and are glad to feel dry land under your feet again. The earth certainly still seems to rock a little like the boat; but your reason shows you how impossible this is, knowing, as you do, that the double motion of the earth, that through space round the sun, and that of the diurnal revolution on its axis, imparts no sense of movement to the beings which dwell upon the globe. You thus become reassured as to your equilibrium, you open your window, lean over the balcony and repeat the sacred, traditional, everlasting words, “See Naples and die.”
Poor fond tourist, how I pity thee!
Pardon me, dear traveller, for saying this. I do not know you, yet I treat you as a familiar friend. You must forgive me. The love I bear my neighbour, and the sorrow I feel at the sight of injured innocence, must be my excuse. You are then in your balcony, looking at the sea, at Vesuvius, at the houses of Castellamare which adorn the seashore and at those of Sorrento which dot the orange groves with white. Capri then catches your eye for a moment, and you are thinking of Tiberius, of Sir Hudson Lowe, of General Lamarque, of the Blue Grotto, when suddenly you become conscious of a murmur rising from the street below. The sound is not that of the brook, babbling among its pebbles, nor quite that of the leaves, rustling in the wind; the tones are monotonous, nasal, plaintive, such as you have heard nowhere else. You look down and see half a score of paupers who hold up to you, one, the stump of an arm; another, half a leg; a third, the battered remnants of a hat. What you are listening to is a prayer, in which you are addressed as Eccelenza, and besought to give, a grano. It is the first time you have been called Your Excellency, and as the title tickles your vanity, you deem it worth double the price demanded.
You throw down a silver tengrano piece, and call out “Per tutti,” delighted to be able to show the dirty vagabonds below what you have been impressing on the Customs officer, on the hotel manager, and on his waiters, namely, that you know Italian.
Your ten poor petitioners throw themselves in a heap on the piece of money and struggle for it. Instead of sharing it between them, the strongest man keeps it all, and the murmur grows into a storm.
Then all chatter to Your Excellency at once, all clamour, all shout, all weep, all sigh, all groan; and the whole seething mass twists, writhes, gathers in a crowd, separates again, and goes through such horrible contortions, that you see before you, in anticipation, the Gehenna of Holy Writ.
You feel deep pity for all this misery. But since, while it excites pity, it also almost turns your stomach, you throw down a second coin, saying, still in the soft Italian tongue you love to pronounce, “Very well! Fight it out among yourselves!”
And you shut your window, reflecting that the distant view from Naples may be truly glorious, but the foreground is hideous.
“I will go and see the more distant landscape,” say you. You ring; a waiter answers the bell; you demand a carriage.
“In ten minutes’ time it shall be here, your Excellency,” says the attendant.
You pass the ten minutes in arranging your necktie, in brushing your hair and adjusting your eyeglasses accurately on the bridge of your nose. The carriage is announced, and you go down stairs.
At the door, you find awaiting you, not some dozen beggars, but a whole army of mendicants. The word has been passed that, at a certain hotel, a distinguished forestiere is staying, who gives alms. The lawful and the lawless, the cripples in tubs, the tattered on crutches, the deaf, the blind, the lepers, have gathered from far and near. You are no longer your Excellency — that is too common a title — you are now your Royal Highness the Prince.
This second patent of nobility costs you yet another piece of silver. From that time forth you are lost! You have put in practice one of the Christian virtues, you have followed the Gospel precept, and given alms of what you possess.
For you Naples has become that tenth circle of the Nether Hell, into the depths of which Dante himself dared not plunge.
II.
Let us suppose, dear reader, that you have been a week in Naples, and that, having seen all the sights of the town and its neighbourhood, you now go out only for your own amusement: to dream day dreams, to lounge in your carriage, to collect your thoughts, to commune with yourself or with God.
Probably now, when coming out of your hotel, when walking through the army of beggars, which has been growing larger day by day, and which grumbles if you do not give enough, and threatens you if you give nothing; probably, I say, at this period of your stay, you will shout to your coachman as loud as you can, “Go on! Go on!”
You have given up speaking Italian, you have proclaimed far and wide your ignorance of the language. To every word addressed to you in the beggar’s whine, you answer in forbidding accents: “Non capisco “(I do not understand). This is your second manner.
At Naples, the foreigner has three different styles, like Raphael. At first, he gives money to the Customs officer, to the sentries, to the porters, to the cabbies, to the beggars. First manner.
After this, he answers every voice that implores, every hand that is outstretched, every hat that pesters him, every clatter of the beggar’s box, with the one phrase, “Non capisco.” Second manner.
At last, however, he swears, rages, thunders, pours out every term of abuse he knows, borrows the coachman’s whip, and lays about him. This is the third manner.
You, my dear tourist! Allow me to call you my dear tourist, for we have been friends for ten days. At Naples, after ten days’ acquaintance, we do not ask you to dinner, for at Naples people never do ask each other to dine, but we address you by your Christian name or nickname.
Well my dear tourist, to resume, you are so far only at the second manner. So you say to your driver “Go on! Go on!” in your native tongue.
The driver starts at a gallop, but presently goes slower and slower. As he gets to the entrance to the Chiaja, under pretence of falling into single file, although there is not another vehicle in sight, he drops into a walk. Just after passing the Hotel Vittoria, when your horses have got half-way round the square, and have their heads pointing towards the Grotto of Pozzuoli, your carriage is suddenly surrounded by virtue of some inexplicable strategical manoeuvre, not as at Florence with flower girls — this would not be very disagreeable, for some of these pretty merchants are as charming and fresh as their own bouquets — but by dirty men selling flowers, who hang on to your carriage, stand on the steps, climb over the back seats, and push their bouquets into your face. You have been a purchaser of bouquets for four days. The first day you have given a piastre for each nosegay; the second day a ducat; the third, half a ducat; the fourth, ten granos.
On the fifth day you see that flowers are very cheap at Naples, while the camellias have wire stalks and the violets have no scent, and you take a dislike to all flowers; then, when you are pursued by flowers, you fly from them, and finding that they follow faster than you can flee, you take to hating flowers. You detest, you curse, you excommunicate all flowers.
And yet, you know well how sweet a thing is a flower, when, instead of being forced upon you by an ugly, dirty pedlar, it is given by a soft, white hand; when it holds, mingled with its own perfume, that of the fair lips which have touched it, and carries, hidden in its tender petals, the memory of a loving kiss.
Well, then, here is another illusion of yours vanished. You have been four days in Naples, and you hate flowers. And why? Because they are pressed on you by the hideous beggar horde. Oh, but do not despair! Let some fairy carry you to a meadow of Touraine, to the pasture lands of Normandy, or to a
You escape from the flower sellers and continue your drive. In Margellina you pass between living hedges of beggars. But you shut your eyes and avoid the sight of them, and fortunately they cannot follow you, for your carriage travels fast over the level road; moreover, it is the lame beggars’ district. But at the Villa Barbaja the road ascends, and your driver brings his horses to a walk.
Any excuse is good enough for the Neapolitan driver to make his horses walk. The road is uphill, the road is downhill, the road is paved, the road is sandy, the road is winding. It is always the fault of the road, never that of the horses.
Directly the horses come to a walk, a tribe of troglodytes appears from among the quarries in the hills. There are children of all ages from three to twelve. The youngest, from three to five years, pretend to cry. Others, from five to seven years of age, call out to you that they have had nothing to eat since last night. Others, from seven to nine years, play castanettes with their chins. Lastly, the biggest of all turn cartwheels. Of those who possess neither musical nor gymnastic talents, some cry “Viva Garibaldi “and some “Viva Cialdini,” so that all may be pleased and both sets of opinion may be fairly represented.
You are terribly tempted to get out of your carriage and smash up at least one of these young scamps. It is not philanthropy which keeps you seated on your cushions; it is nothing but the fear of consequences; you feel that if only capital punishment were abolished, you would gladly run the risk of the galleys. At last you get past them. All goes well till you get to the top of the hill. As you begin the descent, at a turn in the road, you come on a hidden house, lying as it were in ambush, with an open door. It is a fresh blockhouse of the enemy, garrisoned by little girls. These latter cannot turn cartwheels, but they address you as “Your Highness,” and the lady who accompanies you, if there is one, as “Beautiful Princess.”
You can get along faster as you are going downhill. You call out to your driver “Gallop!”
You leave behind all these ragged brats who have spoilt for you one of the most beautiful views of Naples, that of the bay of Pozzuoli from Nisida to Cape Miseno, as seen from the summit of Posilippo. Your coachman slackens speed again; look out for squalls. A quarry pit comes in sight on your left hand, a sort of hermit comes up from it. This holy man enjoys a very doubtful reputation; when night falls and the road is unfrequented, he likes, they say, to see the time by travellers’ watches and to count the money they may carry in their purses. He comes forward now and quietly plants himself in the middle of the road. The first three days you met him, you gave him something; this time, in consequence of the evil stories you have heard about him, you simply say to your driver, “Whip up the horses! “The coachman obeys your orders unwillingly. The Neapolitan coachmen have a great weakness for their begging compatriots, because it is their fares, and not they themselves, who have to pay the money. The good hermit, to avoid being run over, gets out of the way, grumbling as he goes. If you are obliged to repass his cave by night, take care to carry a good revolver.
A hundred paces further you come on a board painted white, and lettered in French as follows:
GROTTE DE SEJAN (Sejanus’ Grotto)
CONDUISANT A L’ECUEIL DE VIRGILE (leading to Virgil’s Rock)
Here is something for us to argue about with the authorities responsible for the inscription. How is it that in Naples, the town of the learned, the learned are not clever enough to know that this grotto is simply the tunnel made by Lucullus as a road from one side of the mountain to the other — that is, from his villa of Pausilippus to his Island of Nisida — and that Sejanus, the Minister of Tiberius, and lover of his master’s daughter-in-law, never had anything to do with making it, bored, as it was, by the magnificent conqueror of Mithridates? So much for the first line, “Grotte de Séjan.”
As for the second line of the legend, the artist in calligraphy who adorned the board with these majestic capitals translated scuola (school) by écueil (a rock); he was quite at liberty to do so: but, again, I appeal to authority and common sense. You are promised the sight of Virgil’s Rock, and you expect to see a rock, on which the author of the “Aeneid “may have suffered shipwreck, perhaps on his return from the journey to Brindisi, or on his way home from Athens. Instead of this, you are shown one of those circular seats to which the Ancients gave the name of schools, because three or four chatterers they called philosophers, seated upon them, used to be listened to by a dozen simpletons they called disciples.
In a learned city like Naples, such gross mistakes ought not to be tolerated. All very well for France, for, as everybody knows, all Frenchmen are uneducated boors, a fact your Neapolitan especially is firmly convinced of. As for Lucullus, who had the tunnel made, or of his house, not a word is said of either.
If you were to talk of the house of Lucullus with the two cicerones who show you the Grotto of Sejanus, probably they would answer you as a native of Frankfort replied to me when I asked to be shown the house of Goethe.
“Sir, I do not know the house; it is probably one that has left off business, or that has become bankrupt.”
Here we have another kind of mendicancy; only this is more serious than the other sort, seeing that it is carried on under a Government guarantee, for the sole benefit of two ignorant, lazy rascals. We hereby request the Minister for Public Instruction to do so much for science as to change the reading of the signboard in question, and instead of the words — ” Grotto of Sejanus, leading to Virgil’s Rock,” to have the following inscribed: “The Grotto of Lucullus, leading to a circular seat, commonly called (without any historical foundation) the School of Virgil.”
III.
As you have now seen the Grotto of Lucullus under the name of the Grotto of Sejanus, and a circular seat called Virgil’s Rock, which has no inscription or bas-relief to attract your attention; as, except two amphitheatres, one of which is marvellously rich and elegant, and the villa of Lucullus, which no one has said a word about, although it is not without some merit of its own; as, except the above mentioned, you have not seen any striking curiosities, you return again through the famous tunnel, in the clearing of which Ferdinand II. spent seventy-four thousand ducats (thereby proving his enlightened taste for art), and you continue your route along the road you had temporarily left, to visit the further side of Posilippo.
Here, we must give the scene the credit of being quiet and peaceful. Except for three or four fat, plump urchins who await your arrival at the foot of the hill and run alongside crying: “Morti di fame!” in tones of direst distress; except, also, for a refreshment vendor, who plants his table in the middle of the road and insists on your getting down to eat Fusaro oysters, you drive on for about two miles without anything to disturb you.
But about five hundred yards from Pozzuoli, three or four loafers get up from the side of the road, where they are sitting; one offers you a miniature Egyptian idol, another an old coin, and a third cries:
“The Temple of Serapis, your Excellency! “The man with the Egyptian god and the man with the antique coin give you up after a run of from a hundred to a hundred and fifty yards, according to whether your carriage goes faster or slower. But this is not at all the case with the servitor of the Temple of Serapis. As the abode of the god of health is at the further side of the town, while you have not yet passed Pozzuoli, and have not taken the road to Baja, he hopes to practise his trade on you. Nothing discourages him; he lays hold of your carriage, adapts his pace to that of the horses and, whatever you may say to drive him away, he repeats in a voice which becomes more and more breathless:
“Temple of Serapis, Excellency! Temple of Serapis! “You shout at him, in Italian this time: “I have been at your Temple of Serapis, I know it — I have seen your columns, with their lithophagons, I know them by heart — I have tasted your mineral spring — I know it, I know it all perfectly, I tell you, I tell you.”
__english_preview.jpg)
