Chapter 17

It seems to me that the Mediterranean was never bluer than it is to-day. It has a shade or two the advantage of the sky: though I like the sky best, after all; for it is less opaque, and offers an illimitable opportunity of exploration. Perhaps this is because I am nearer to it. There are some little ruffles of air on the sea, which I do not feel here, making broad spots of shadow, and here and there flecks and sparkles. But the schooners sail idly, and the fishing-boats that have put out from the marina float in the most dreamy manner. I fear that the fishermen who have made a show of industry, and got away from their wives, who are busily weaving nets on shore, are yielding to the seductions of the occasion, and making a day of it. And, as I look at them, I find myself debating which I would rather be, a fisherman there in the boat, rocked by the swell, and warmed by the sun, or a friar, on the terrace of the garden on the summit of Deserto, lying perfectly tranquil, and also soaked in the sun. There is one other person, now that I think of it, who may be having a good time to-day, though I do not know that I envy him. His business is a new one to me, and is an occupation that one would not care to recommend to a friend until he had tried it: it is being carried about in a basket. As I went up the new Massa road the other day, I met a ragged, stout, and rather dirty woman, with a large shallow basket on her head. In it lay her husband, a large man, though I think a little abbreviated as to his legs. The woman asked alms. Talk of Diogenes in his tub! How must the world look to a man in a basket, riding about on his wife's head? When I returned, she had put him down beside the road in the sun, and almost in danger of the passing vehicles. I suppose that the affectionate creature thought that, if he got a new injury in this way, his value in the beggar market would be increased. I do not mean to do this exemplary wife any injustice; and I only suggest the idea in this land, where every beggar who is born with a deformity has something to thank the Virgin for. This custom of carrying your husband on your head in a basket has something to recommend it, and is an exhibition of faith on the one hand, and of devotion on the other, that is seldom met with. Its consideration is commended to my countrywomen at home. It is, at least, a new commentary on the apostolic remark, that the man is the head of the woman. It is, in some respects, a happy division of labor in the walk of life: she furnishes the locomotive power, and he the directing brains, as he lies in the sun and looks abroad; which reminds me that the sun is getting hot on my back. The little bunch of bells in the convent tower is jangling out a suggestion of worship, or of the departure of the hours. It is time to eat an orange.

Vesuvius appears to be about on a level with my eyes and I never knew him to do himself more credit than to-day. The whole coast of the bay is in a sort of obscuration, thicker than an Indian summer haze; and the veil extends almost to the top of Vesuvius. But his summit is still distinct, and out of it rises a gigantic billowy column of white smoke, greater in quantity than on any previous day of our sojourn; and the sun turns it to silver. Above a long line of ordinary looking clouds, float great white masses, formed of the sulphurous vapor. This manufacture of clouds in a clear, sunny day has an odd appearance; but it is easy enough, if one has such a laboratory as Vesuvius. How it tumbles up the white smoke! It is piled up now, I should say, a thousand feet above the crater, straight into the blue sky,--a pillar of cloud by day. One might sit here all day watching it, listening the while to the melodious spring singing of the hundreds of birds which have come to take possession of the garden, receiving southern reinforcements from Sicily and Tunis every morning, and think he was happy. But the morning has gone; and I have written nothing.

THE PRICE OF ORANGES

If ever a northern wanderer could be suddenly transported to look down upon the Piano di Sorrento, he would not doubt that he saw the Garden of the Hesperides. The orange-trees cannot well be fuller: their branches bend with the weight of fruit. With the almond-trees in full flower, and with the silver sheen of the olive leaves, the oranges are apples of gold in pictures of silver. As I walk in these sunken roads, and between these high walls, the orange boughs everywhere hang over; and through the open gates of villas I look down alleys of golden glimmer, roses and geraniums by the walk, and the fruit above,--gardens of enchantment, with never a dragon, that I can see, to guard them.

All the highways and the byways, the streets and lanes, wherever I go, from the sea to the tops of the hills, are strewn with orange-peel; so that one, looking above and below, comes back from a walk with a golden dazzle in his eyes,--a sense that yellow is the prevailing color. Perhaps the kerchiefs of the dark-skinned girls and women, which take that tone, help the impression. The inhabitants are all orange-eaters. The high walls show that the gardens are protected with great care; yet the fruit seems to be as free as apples are in a remote New England town about cider-time.

I have been trying, ever since I have been here, to ascertain the price of oranges; not for purposes of exportation, nor yet for the personal importation that I daily practice, but in order to give an American basis of fact to these idle chapters. In all the paths I meet, daily, girls and boys bearing on their heads large baskets of the fruit, and little children with bags and bundles of the same, as large as they can stagger under; and I understand they are carrying them to the packers, who ship them to New York, or to the depots, where I see them lying in yellow heaps, and where men and women are cutting them up, and removing the peel, which goes to England for preserves. I am told that these oranges are sold for a couple of francs a hundred. That seems to me so dear that I am not tempted into any speculation, but stroll back to the Tramontano, in the gardens of which I find better terms.

The only trouble is to find a sweet tree; for the Sorrento oranges are usually sour in February; and one needs to be a good judge of the fruit, and know the male orange from the female, though which it is that is the sweeter I can never remember (and should not dare to say, if I did, in the present state of feeling on the woman question),--or he might as well eat a lemon. The mercenary aspect of my query does not enter in here. I climb into a tree, and reach out to the end of the branch for an orange that has got reddish in the sun, that comes off easily and is heavy; or I tickle a large one on the top bough with a cane pole; and if it drops readily, and has a fine grain, I call it a cheap one. I can usually tell whether they are good by splitting them open and eating a quarter. The Italians pare their oranges as we do apples; but I like best to open them first, and see the yellow meat in the white casket. After you have eaten a few from one tree, you can usually tell whether it is a good tree; but there is nothing certain about it,--one bough that gets the sun will be better than another that does not, and one half of an orange will fill your mouth with more delicious juices than the other half.

The oranges that you knock off with your stick, as you walk along the lanes, don't cost anything; but they are always sour, as I think the girls know who lean over the wall, and look on with a smile: and, in that, they are more sensible than the lively dogs which bark at you from the top, and wake all the neighborhood with their clamor. I have no doubt the oranges have a market price; but I have been seeking the value the gardeners set on them themselves. As I walked towards the heights, the other morning, and passed an orchard, the gardener, who saw my ineffectual efforts, with a very long cane, to reach the boughs of a tree, came down to me with a basketful he had been picking. As an experiment on the price, I offered him a two-centime piece, which is a sort of satire on the very name of money,--when he desired me to help myself to as many oranges as I liked. He was a fine-looking fellow, with a spick-span new red Phrygian cap; and I had n't the heart to take advantage of his generosity, especially as his oranges were not of the sweetest. One ought never to abuse generosity.

Another experience was of a different sort, and illustrates the Italian love of bargaining, and their notion of a sliding scale of prices. One of our expeditions to the hills was one day making its long, straggling way through the narrow street of a little village of the Piano, when I lingered behind my companions, attracted by a handcart with several large baskets of oranges. The cart stood untended in the street; and selecting a large orange, which would measure twelve inches in circumference, I turned to look for the owner. After some time a fellow got from the open front of the neighboring cobbler's shop, where he sat with his lazy cronies, listening to the honest gossip of the follower of St. Crispin, and sauntered towards me.

“How much for this?” I ask.

“One franc, signor,” says the proprietor, with a polite bow, holding up one finger.

I shake my head, and intimate that that is altogether too much, in fact, preposterous.

The proprietor is very indifferent, and shrugs his shoulders in an amiable manner. He picks up a fair, handsome orange, weighs it in his hand, and holds it up temptingly. That also is one, franc.

I suggest one sou as a fair price, a suggestion which he only receives with a smile of slight pity, and, I fancy, a little disdain. A woman joins him, and also holds up this and that gold-skinned one for my admiration.

As I stand, sorting over the fruit, trying to please myself with size, color, and texture, a little crowd has gathered round; and I see, by a glance, that all the occupations in that neighborhood, including loafing, are temporarily suspended to witness the trade. The interest of the circle visibly increases; and others take such a part in the transaction that I begin to doubt if the first man is, after all, the proprietor.

At length I select two oranges, and again demand the price. There is a little consultation and jabber, when I am told that I can have both for a franc. I, in turn, sigh, shrug my shoulders, and put down the oranges, amid a chorus of exclamations over my graspingness. My offer of two sous is met with ridicule, but not with indifference. I can see that it has made a sensation. These simple, idle children of the sun begin to show a little excitement. I at length determine upon a bold stroke, and resolve to show myself the Napoleon of oranges, or to meet my Waterloo. I pick out four of the largest oranges in the basket, while all eyes are fixed on me intently, and, for the first time, pull out a piece of money. It is a two-sous piece. I offer it for the four oranges.

“No, no, no, no, signor! Ah, signor! ah, signor!” in a chorus from the whole crowd.

I have struck bottom at last, and perhaps got somewhere near the value; and all calmness is gone. Such protestations, such indignation, such sorrow, I have never seen before from so small a cause. It cannot be thought of; it is mere ruin! I am, in turn, as firm, and nearly as excited in seeming. I hold up the fruit, and tender the money.

“No, never, never! The signor cannot be in earnest.”

Looking round me for a moment, and assuming a theatrical manner, befitting the gestures of those about me, I fling the fruit down, and, with a sublime renunciation, stalk away.

There is instantly a buzz and a hum that rises almost to a clamor. I have not proceeded far, when a skinny old woman runs after me, and begs me to return. I go back, and the crowd parts to receive me.

The proprietor has a new proposition, the effect of which upon me is intently watched. He proposes to give me five big oranges for four sous. I receive it with utter scorn, and a laugh of derision. I will give two sous for the original four, and not a centesimo more. That I solemnly say, and am ready to depart. Hesitation and renewed conference; but at last the proprietor relents; and, with the look of one who is ruined for life, and who yet is willing to sacrifice himself, he hands me the oranges. Instantly the excitement is dead, the crowd disperses, and the street is as quiet as ever; when I walk away, bearing my hard-won treasures.

A little while after, as I sat upon the outer wall of the terrace of the Camaldoli, with my feet hanging over, these same oranges were taken from my pockets by Americans; so that I am prevented from making any moral reflections upon the honesty of the Italians.

There is an immense garden of oranges and lemons at the village of Massa, through which travelers are shown by a surly fellow, who keeps watch of his trees, and has a bulldog lurking about for the unwary. I hate to see a bulldog in a fruit orchard. I have eaten a good many oranges there, and been astonished at the boughs of immense lemons which bend the trees to the ground. I took occasion to measure one of the lemons, called a citron-lemon, and found its circumference to be twenty-one inches one way by fifteen inches the other,--about as big as a railway conductor's lantern. These lemons are not so sour as the fellow who shows them: he is a mercenary dog, and his prices afford me no clew to the just value of oranges.

I like better to go to a little garden in the village of Meta, under a sunny precipice of rocks overhung by the ruined convent of Camaldoli. I turn up a narrow lane, and push open the wooden door in the garden of a little villa. It is a pretty garden; and, besides the orange and lemon-trees on the terrace, it has other fruit-trees, and a scent of many flowers. My friend, the gardener, is sorting oranges from one basket to another, on a green bank, and evidently selling the fruit to some women, who are putting it into bags to carry away.

When he sees me approach, there is always the same pantomime. I propose to take some of the fruit he is sorting. With a knowing air, and an appearance of great mystery, he raises his left hand, the palm toward me, as one says hush. Having dispatched his business, he takes an empty basket, and with another mysterious flourish, desiring me to remain quiet, he goes to a storehouse in one corner of the garden, and returns with a load of immense oranges, all soaked with the sun, ripe and fragrant, and more tempting than lumps of gold. I take one, and ask him if it is sweet. He shrugs his shoulders, raises his hands, and, with a sidewise shake of the head, and a look which says, How can you be so faithless? makes me ashamed of my doubts.

I cut the thick skin, which easily falls apart and discloses the luscious quarters, plump, juicy, and waiting to melt in the mouth. I look for a moment at the rich pulp in its soft incasement, and then try a delicious morsel. I nod. My gardener again shrugs his shoulders, with a slight smile, as much as to say, It could not be otherwise, and is evidently delighted to have me enjoy his fruit. I fill capacious pockets with the choicest; and, if I have friends with me, they do the same. I give our silent but most expressive entertainer half a franc, never more; and he always seems surprised at the size of the largesse. We exhaust his basket, and he proposes to get more.

When I am alone, I stroll about under the heavily-laden trees, and pick up the largest, where they lie thickly on the ground, liking to hold them in my hand and feel the agreeable weight, even when I can carry away no more. The gardener neither follows nor watches me; and I think perhaps knows, and is not stingy about it, that more valuable to me than the oranges I eat or take away are those on the trees among the shining leaves. And perhaps he opines that I am from a country of snow and ice, where the year has six hostile months, and that I have not money enough to pay for the rich possession of the eye, the picture of beauty, which I take with me.

FASCINATION

There are three places where I should like to live; naming them in the inverse order of preference,--the Isle of Wight, Sorrento, and Heaven. The first two have something in common, the almost mystic union of sky and sea and shore, a soft atmospheric suffusion that works an enchantment, and puts one into a dreamy mood. And yet there are decided contrasts. The superabundant, soaking sunshine of Sorrento is of very different quality from that of the Isle of Wight. On the island there is a sense of home, which one misses on this promontory, the fascination of which, no less strong, is that of a southern beauty, whose charms conquer rather than win. I remember with what feeling I one day unexpectedly read on a white slab, in the little inclosure of Bonchurch, where the sea whispered as gently as the rustle of the ivy-leaves, the name of John Sterling. Could there be any fitter resting-place for that most, weary, and gentle spirit? There I seemed to know he had the rest that he could not have anywhere on these brilliant historic shores. Yet so impressible was his sensitive nature, that I doubt not, if he had given himself up to the enchantment of these coasts in his lifetime, it would have led him by a spell he could not break.

I am sometimes in doubt what is the spell of Sorrento, and half believe that it is independent of anything visible. There is said to be a fatal enchantment about Capri. The influences of Sorrento are not so dangerous, but are almost as marked. I do not wonder that the Greeks peopled every cove and sea-cave with divinities, and built temples on every headland and rocky islet here; that the Romans built upon the Grecian ruins; that the ecclesiastics in succeeding centuries gained possession of all the heights, and built convents and monasteries, and set out vineyards, and orchards of olives and oranges, and took root as the creeping plants do, spreading themselves abroad in the sunshine and charming air. The Italian of to-day does not willingly emigrate, is tempted by no seduction of better fortune in any foreign clime. And so in all ages the swarming populations have clung to these shores, filling all the coasts and every nook in these almost inaccessible hills with life. Perhaps the delicious climate, which avoids all extremes, sufficiently accounts for this; and yet I have sometimes thought there is a more subtle reason why travelers from far lands are spellbound here, often against will and judgment, week after week, month after month.

However this may be, it is certain that strangers who come here, and remain long enough to get entangled in the meshes which some influence, I know not what, throws around them, are in danger of never departing. I know there are scores of travelers, who whisk down from Naples, guidebook in hand, goaded by the fell purpose of seeing every place in Europe, ascend some height, buy a load of the beautiful inlaid woodwork, perhaps row over to Capri and stay five minutes in the azure grotto, and then whisk away again, untouched by the glamour of the place. Enough that they write “delightful spot” in their diaries, and hurry off to new scenes, and more noisy life. But the visitor who yields himself to the place will soon find his power of will departing. Some satirical people say, that, as one grows strong in body here, he becomes weak in mind. The theory I do not accept: one simply folds his sails, unships his rudder, and waits the will of Providence, or the arrival of some compelling fate. The longer one remains, the more difficult it is to go. We have a fashion--indeed, I may call it a habit--of deciding to go, and of never going. It is a subject of infinite jest among the habitues of the villa, who meet at table, and who are always bidding each other good-by. We often go so far as to write to Naples at night, and bespeak rooms in the hotels; but we always countermand the order before we sit down to breakfast. The good-natured mistress of affairs, the head of the bureau of domestic relations, is at her wits' end, with guests who always promise to go and never depart. There are here a gentleman and his wife, English people of decision enough, I presume, in Cornwall, who packed their luggage before Christmas to depart, but who have not gone towards the end of February,--who daily talk of going, and little by little unpack their wardrobe, as their determination oozes out. It is easy enough to decide at night to go next day; but in the morning, when the soft sunshine comes in at the window, and when we descend and walk in the garden, all our good intentions vanish. It is not simply that we do not go away, but we have lost the motive for those long excursions which we made at first, and which more adventurous travelers indulge in. There are those here who have intended for weeks to spend a day on Capri. Perfect day for the expedition succeeds perfect day, boatload after boatload sails away from the little marina at the base of the cliff, which we follow with eves of desire, but--to-morrow will do as well. We are powerless to break the enchantment.

I confess to the fancy that there is some subtle influence working this sea-change in us, which the guidebooks, in their enumeration of the delights of the region, do not touch, and which maybe reaches back beyond the Christian era. I have always supposed that the story of Ulysses and the Sirens was only a fiction of the poets, intended to illustrate the allurements of a soul given over to pleasure, and deaf to the call of duty and the excitement of a grapple with the world. But a lady here, herself one of the entranced, tells me that whoever climbs the hills behind Sorrento, and looks upon the Isle of the Sirens, is struck with an inability to form a desire to depart from these coasts. I have gazed at those islands more than once, as they lie there in the Bay of Salerno; and it has always happened that they have been in a half-misty and not uncolored sunlight, but not so draped that I could not see they were only three irregular rocks, not far from shore, one of them with some ruins on it. There are neither sirens there now, nor any other creatures; but I should be sorry to think I should never see them again. When I look down on them, I can also turn and behold on the other side, across the Bay of Naples, the Posilipo, where one of the enchanters who threw magic over them is said to lie in his high tomb at the opening of the grotto. Whether he does sleep in his urn in that exact spot is of no moment. Modern life has disillusioned this region to a great extent; but the romance that the old poets have woven about these bays and rocky promontories comes very easily back upon one who submits himself long to the eternal influences of sky and sea which made them sing. It is all one,--to be a Roman poet in his villa, a lazy friar of the Middle Ages toasting in the sun, or a modern idler, who has drifted here out of the active currents of life, and cannot make up his mind to depart.

MONKISH PERCHES