Part 1

"STERMINATOR VESEVO"

MATILDE SERAO

"STERMINATOR VESEVO"

(Vesuvius the great Exterminator)

Diary of the eruption of April 1906.

NAPLES FRANCESCO PERRELLA, EDITOR 1907

(_Copyright_)

Naples--Print A. TRANI.

_In translating this book by Matilde Serao, I have felt as if none of its beautiful local colour, of its warmly felt and vivid description should be altered by an attempt on my part to give to its pages a perfect English intonation. One thing would have been, unavoidably, the loss of the other, as no language can render in all its truth and form, the warm and deep expression of southern Italian imagination and sentiment. Thus, this diary retains the deep impression of the moment in which it was written, while the bold strokes of colour and the tender pathos of some of its pages, bring, once more forward to public admiration, the brilliant name of Italy foremost woman writer, Matilde Serao_

_the translator_ L. H.

Friend and reader,

Do not ask of these pages the prestige of art or the fascination of stile. They were written day by day, with a trembling heart, and with an emotion that often caused the pen to drop from the hand of the tired and distressed writer. They were written, each night on returning from the country where the exterminating fury of the mountain had destroyed men and things, and while still under the horror of the terrible vision. Thus, rather than a cold literary dissertation, my reader, you will find in these pages, the simple, deep and tragic story of the eruption, witnessed by my own mortal eyes. You will find tales of heroic people, and noble deeds which deserve to be recalled and exalted. My friend and reader, these are pages of sorrow and distress, and they are written with a sincere heart. Nothing else.

Naples--May 1906.

MATILDE SERAO

QUIA PULVIS ES ...

It all happened very suddenly, just about half past two, while the last smart equipages were hurriedly driving to the Campo di Marte. In a moment a huge brownish cloud, pushed by the wind, arose from Vesuvius, spreading all over the sky, hiding the white light of the day, darkening the sun. An immense cloud which wrapped all the mountain in a black thick smutty shade, and fell dark and menacing on the green carpet of the race-ground, and on the brilliant gathered crowd. A strange curious, indescribable spectacle it was indeed, bringing to mind, as through an extraordinary vision, the feast-day when Pompei was destroyed and the people were crowding at the Circus. A spectacle both powerful and mysterious, with the strange contrasting effect of the select and gay crowd merrily circulating, on the spacious grounds. Then, all at once, to everybody's wonder, cinders began to fall, quite a rain of fine dusty ashes, gradually increasing into a regular shower. A whole array of elegant sun-shades were soon spread-open, and a general transformation took place all around. Ladies' white dresses became grayish almost black, dark clothes took instead a lighter almost whitish hue, white hats looked as if powdered all over, while all the roses, the innumerable roses on the hats were thickly spread with ashes, as if the «memento homo quia pulvis es», had been pronounced on them. Tears brought on by the caustic rain were in everybody's eyes, though, all smiled fearlessly and gayly. The Duchess of Aosta's black dress looked as if a gray gauze had been spread over it; every man, every officer, the most elegant young men, the smartest sportsmen were not to be recognised. As for the beaver hats, their condition was indescribable. And ashes, ashes on the coaches, on the autos, on the houses, ashes everywhere! At a certain moment however, the wind changed, the heavy cloud became lighter, the sun took leave from the dying day, and the pale azure sky smiled again on us. And nothing could be then more curious to look at, than all those people, all those equipages, all that scenery, bearing the signs of a strange and rare telluric phenomena. Yet, with the exception of servants, chambermaids, and coachmen, who naturally had hard work on hand brushing, washing and cleaning everything, nobody seemed preoccupied. As for the undersigned, a victim of her duty, while she is writing, ashes are falling thickly over her hair, shoulders, paper, and every object around her.

April 1906.

TOWARDS THE CITY OF FIRE

All night long, hour after hour, we have had more and more alarming news from Vesuvius, and a rain of cinders in the late night, has increased the terror in everybody's mind and heart. The morning is profoundly sad with its still dark sea, with all the streets so black, with that strange sense of anxiety and surprise, among those we meet.

The duke of Aosta has set off for Boscotrecase, Cardinal Prisco has gone also there, and later, the duchess of Aosta has followed. It looks as though a whole crowd was starting out for that town. All carriages seem to go in the same direction, towards the Circumvesuviana station. The tramways are loaded! What are we doing here, why don't we start like all the others? Let us go, and see these deserted, and destroyed countries, let us go and see Boscotrecase threatened by the monstruous lava ready to burn it up. Let us run to see Torre Annunziata threatened by the same, let us go to hear the desperate weeping of women, the screams of children, the moans of the old people. In the train, in the train, for it is too slow going by carriage. Let us go like thousand of people have gone, in the train, since we don't possess an automobile which could help us to fly on the main roads, way up yonder, where destruction takes place.

In the train, in the train! It is easier said, than done. An immense crowd of people anxious to start, are seiging the station of the Circumvesuviana, and the most extraordinary scenes naturally happen, since, if this beautiful and fine railroad, girdling Vesuvius, carries generally about a thousand persons a day, it cannot transport to-day fifty thousand. And really it has already worked wonders, due of course, to the energy, calm, and tact of Mr. E. Rocco, and director Ingarami. It has worked wonders, doubling and multiplying its trains from dawn to mid-night, each of them starting with their platforms packed, with their cars jammed with people, standing the most impetuous assaults at every small, intermediate station. For whole bands of foreigners, are waiting in these small stations, and they rush in to take whatever seat they may find. Here all species of Neapolitans are coming, the best known as the least: groups, coteries, families, parties of friends, who like an immense human legion intend to go to Boscotrecase. And little by little, with the young foreign girls attired in their short excursion dresses, their hats covered with large white veils, with the elegant and loquacious Neapolitan ladies, with the friends and acquaintances which one meets, with the continuous screaming and yelling, now stronger, now softer, with the most extraordinary buzz of conversation, the sense of fright and anguish gradually dies away. The big cloud of ashes which wrapped us up in the beginning of the trip, disappears after Bellavista, the sky is getting clearer, and of a delicate azure colour. In the train people begin to joke, and at S. Giorgio a Cremano, a whole company of young girls, jesting and laughing, gets up in our train. And now this immense torrent of humanity running towards Boscotrecase, looks almost like a large pleasure excursion. One would think that merry and thoughtless life had had the best of fright. And what fright! The main-road going from Torre Annunziata to Boscotrecase, is getting dark, almost black with carriages and automobiles. One of these is coming down from Boscotrecase. There are friends in it, and the train having stopped, we ask them what is the latest news. "The lava has stopped", they cry, shaking their heads and shoulders as if disappointed. In the train people are getting altogether merry.

A big crowd of people coming down, meets at Boscotrecase a still bigger crowd going up, with a confusion of carriages, wagons, automobiles, byciclets, all moving towards that fine country, so richly surrounded, by farms, vines, gardens, and which seems still so calm under the grasp of its terrible enemy. And the people coming down describe with gesticulations, and impressive words, what they have seen not very far off, and they look all excited as though they had witnessed a grand and incomparable spectacle! The crowd moves on, then stands still for some time, for there is no place for it, in the beautiful little town. The peasants of Boscotrecase stand around the tourists, silent and still. Nobody is crying, no sad faces are to be seen, no complaints are to be heard, nobody asks or pretends to ask for anything. A liturgic sound reaches our ears at a cross path off the road, and a general silence is made in the thick crowd. A rough wooden cross appears, and behind it, over the heads of the people, an ancient statue of S. Anne, the protectress of Boscotrecase, the Madonna's mother. S. Anne, the powerful old woman, as these southern people call her, is seen. This statue must be very ancient. It has a thin face, crowned by locks of white hair, the thoughtful face of an old woman bending down on the fresh and young face of a little girl. The statue moving on, waves over the crowd. It was taken out yesterday from the church of the Oratorio, which is near B. quite close to the lava, and it has been left there, on the very extreme spot where the lava was rapidly advancing, in the direction of Boscotrecase. This morning, at ten o'clock, this first lava has stopped ten meters from the statue of S. Anne, while the other branch on the right, stopped half an hour later. Far away in the country, five or six farm houses, abandoned two days before, have been surrounded by it, fortunately they were empty, without even furniture in them. But Boscotrecase is safe, and S. Anne carried in triumphal procession, enters the town.

The women sing softly some religious verses while walking behind the statue. There is a certain sadness in their voices. Many kneel down and pray, men lift their hats. The old statue of the thoughtful woman, looking calmly to her daughter, is above the crowd. Foreigners look with interest, and the sceptic, and those who have no faith dare say nothing, for really, the lava has stopped this morning, at a certain distance from S. Anne, and if this fact is due to nature, these people don't care, all they want to know is that they have been saved once more, by the prayers of the Protectress.

Now, a priest speaks to the people, begging them to be calm and hope in God's help. This priest is very fervent, he has been preaching and speaking for two days, advising his people to be calm! This morning he has spoken before the lava. The statue descends slowly towards its church, having done its work of charity. Automobiles are rushing every where, whips are cracking, torrents of people push on. Bosco is black, the country is black all around, swarms of men and women rush down, while others come up. We pass by a mound of earth accumulated there for the purpose of deviating, if possible, the lava. Near this mound the houses are empty, and the doors open. Perhaps this same night, their owners, eluding the watch, will return to sleep in them. I have seen some mattresses brought in these abandoned houses.

* * * * *

But while we climb up towards the lava, the mouth of Vesuvius above our heads, roars and thunders. A great column of white, gray, and black smoke stands erect on the cone, and notwithstanding the full day light, we see through those dark and light clouds, long flames arising as through a veil, and showers of sparkles fall in a mass of fire around the mouth, towards our right. The mountain thunders, and breathes as a colossus, it sparkles terribly, dashing stones of fire, masses of fire, rocks of fire every where.

The merriness of the trip seems subdued, and the frivolous chattering is hushed altogether. People going towards the lava walk in awe, and silent wonder. Every path either steep or easy, is now getting black with people.

But in the great silence of this crowd, in that immense silence, only the roaring of the Vulcano tells the story of this great telluric cataclism. Are we not feeling, perhaps, the earth trembling under our steps? The mountain lightens in flames, getting redder and redder, more brilliant and dazzling every moment. Here in this great valley, once formed by another eruption, here were vines, and olives grew on old lavas of remote times, here is the lava of yesterday. Amazing spectacle! The gigantic black mass rises powerful and straight, quite at a few steps from us, and it looks like a dark sea petrified in its foaming waves, a stormy black sea, magically transformed in stone or rocky substance, a hardened, dead sea. Ah! why isn't it dead? Fire and flames are still living within, and now and then it blazes, burns out, shows its incandescence. Under our feet the earth is warm, but a little further it is burning.

On the right, the other branch of the lava, the one which has still an imperceptible movement, shows a burning furnace under its black and rough stratus, from which masses of fire detach themselves rolling down at our feet, while all around it, large drops of fire fall on the ground, and gradually melt away. Wonderful sight!

Little by little, the fascination of this tremendous thing, of this black and stony sea which once was fire and lava, which is now rock, but still is lava, still is fire inside, seems to fascinate all of us, even the most timid. Women, old people, children draw imprudently near, bend over, plunge theirs sticks, their umbrellas in the furnace, with a daring and audacity nearing madness. And Vesuvius continues to roar quite over us. Way up go the flames of the crater, while night falls.

Before us the brown and monstruous mass of the two still lavas, rises frightful and menacing. Terror seems now to take hold of peasants, gentlemen, indigens, Neapolitans, foreigners. A hush of tragedy is over that country of tragedy, with the hardly conjured danger of this night, and the imminent danger of to-morrow.

April 8 1906.

A PRAYER

Surely, there does not live a pious and tender soul who, in these days of anguish, has not pronounced with intimate ardour, with intimate impulse, some sacred words, imploring the mercy of God on a population struck by such terrible calamity.

There lives not a warm soul who, under the shock of this terrible pang, has not felt the need of appealing to a divine power of kindness and mercy. There lives not a cold soul who has not been moved and, has not silently asked for peace, in such a tragic misfortune.

Oh! yes. Let all tender and fervid hearts, all humble and brotherly spirits, all creatures strong with faith and hope, firm in an undoubtful promise, let them ask to the Lord, in every conceivable form, the end of this tremendous punishment.

It has fallen on too many people, it has devastated too many countries, it frightens now the most sceptic, and the most audacious. Let all those who know, who will, who can pray, in the secret of their consciences, of their houses, in the shadow of the churches, all, even those who never pray, those who will not pray, let them ask of God the end of this horrible calamity. It now weighs too heavily, with its terrible unforeseen, with its funestous surprises, with its more and more frightful forms, not only, on those picturesque and thriving villages, extending from the cone down to the sea, but it weighs on Naples, on its six hundred thousand inhabitants, and on all the southern region. All Italy is trembling with sorrow, listening to the fabulous and yet real story of such a great catastrophe. God of mercy listen, listen to the prayer of all those who pour out their soul to you, who raise their hands to you. Listen God of goodness, father of the unfortunate, of the miserable, of the poor, of those who are running away, grant the desolate, desperate, hopeful trusting prayers of those who ask of you the end of this terrible cataclysm. Sinners and innocents are begging you oh Lord of all Charities, children, women, old people, men who have lived too much, and young ones who have not lived enough, and together they implore you to let this tremendous sea of fire, stones, lapillus, and ashes be stopped. They implore you to let this lightning and thunder, these roars, these terrible convulsions of the mountain be ended, oh Lord, ended! Thousands, hundred of thousands of persons ask for the end of this dream of devastation and ruin! Cries, tears, sobs reach your throne oh! Lord, do grant the supreme grace, let this terrible destruction end. Man is only a poor being of flesh and blood, he is weak, and his mind wonders, and his conscience sinks. Oh Lord! oh Lord! what is happening is much stronger than our courage and patience so unexpected and unheard as it is, so monstrously sad, and irreparable, alas! If you don't help us, oh Lord, your children will perish of grief, or will end in untold anguish of despair while those who know, who want, who can pray implore your divine mercy on Naples on this splendid coast, and on this sublime gulf. Let all those who can think and act fight against this destruction, let them try to master it and to render it less terrible than it is, let the people go not only through frivolous curiosity to the places where the scenes of the Vesuvian catastrophe in all their horror are going on, but let them go with eyes of compassion, and earth souls full of charity.

Do not let this visit to the squalid and deserted villages, to the places where the black mountain of lava is advancing in waves of stone, and in waves of fire, be a sport. Don't let it be a diversion or a pastime to relate among friends the sensational scenes which have been witnessed. Men of good will, women of good will, each as one may, as one knows, as one must, put your energy, your patience and all your virtues in a sublime effort to mitigate this calamity, to fight it, and, at last, with the help of God and that of men, to conquer it. Let every man find all his strength, forgetting himself and his own small, and perhaps miserable interests, and let the sense of charity become heroic in all those who have some will, strength, courage, and valor.

Let everybody do his own duty and even beyond his duty, and to this terrible catastrophe will then be opposed another amount of will, of thinking and reasoning will. Let this panic of the more cultured classes be conquered by influential words, and by the example of all the directing classes; let everybody sacrifice himself, from the prince to the civil functioneer, and let each of them perform those acts of abnegation which are the seal of human fraternity. Let cold blood and the stubborn decision to fight the conflagration triumph, and victory will be man's. Let this folly of lies, inventions, and exaggerations end, and with it, this infamy of false news printed in some papers with the sole intent to sell them. Let those who have some heart show it by advising others to be calm, by consoling the afflicted and the poor, and providing to their material and moral needs! Let this heart be demonstrated by all the civic virtue which are necessary in these terrible crisis, and this will be another way to show that they are men, christians, and that they are all bound in a same part of joy and sorrow.

9th April 1906.

IN THE DEAD TOWNS

To day, our trip towards the countries where destruction goes on, is much sadder and silent. Whilst on every side, from every person, from every telephonic communication, from every telegram, the most distracting news reach us, whilst the first impulse is that of starting, of running there where people are suffering, where they are agonizing with fright and sorrow, we all know that the Circumvesuviana railway is interrupted, and we understand how difficult it is to go there quickly, or in any useful way. A secret rage is in our heart against this blind and brutal power on which all our arms of civilisation fall and break, and we unwillingly resign ourselves to go as we can, just where the lava permits us, where the eruption allows us, where Vesuvius wishes, and no further.

We leave Naples by carriage, in the afternoon. The city has a depressed look, and is unusually quiet. While we cross from Ponte della Maddalena to S. Giovanni a Teduccio, the last people on the road disappear. Only now and then an automobile passes us, but the people inside are quite hidden under their wraps and masks. Then an old dirty char-banc rolls by, then again a loaded tram, but nobody is laughing, nobody is speaking. All along the streets, on the sidewalks, in the shops, silence is getting deeper, and more intense. True it is Sunday, it is four o'clock, the hour when people here rest, but the silence is still more intense at Portici, and its closed villas, its closed shops, have a singular aspect. Now and then something moving comes towards us, directed to Naples. It is a little cart, two little carts, several carts, all loaded with furniture, especially with mattresses. A silent driver leads the wagon, and we turn round to look at these last people escaping, for in these last fifteen hours everybody has been running away with his furniture, in all directions, especially towards Naples. These whom we meet must have been delayed in their flight, they are worn out from exertion, and almost prostrated. Portici is deserted and solitary, not a single woman at the window, not a person before the houses.

Hall doors and shutters are locked, and the most absolute emptiness and desertion reigns every where. Our mind is getting depressed, and our sadness increases when we see the complete solitude of Resina and Torre del Greco, the lovely little towns layed between gardens of orange trees, and the sea. It is indeed a heart-rending squallor! The charming towns of Portici, Resina, Torre del Greco, are now completely abandoned, not a soul is left there. They look as dead towns, quite as if dead and deserted since many and many years--Nobody is there to tell us the panic, the terrible panic that has set these people flying for safety, but we know it, we can easily imagine it since we see with our mortal eyes, abandon and death every where. But did Resina, Portici, and Torre del Greco, ever live? Did these windows, these doors ever open? Were there ever people in these houses, in these streets? Like an immense colossus the pine of smoke rises on the mountain, and everything is shut out from our sight on account of the ashes, clouds, and vapors filling the air. Only the lightning is visible, the thousand flashes cutting the livid and opaque gray. And life is only there on the mountain of horrors, whilst here nothing more is living.

* * *

We now wonder whether we shall still find Torre Annunziata the same thriving town, full of energy, work, and action, Torre Annunziata of which we are so proud, which is a glory of ours, since its life has a great importance, and its population is good active; and very laborious. This is our hope as we enter it. Alas! Here are some wagons coming with furniture, and there is a sick man, an old man on a mattress, laying in a small carriage. They are all slowly moving towards Naples.