Читать книгу Letters from a Mourning City - Axel Munthe - Страница 7

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FTER having raged for a whole month with fearful rapidity, the cholera began to diminish, and the poor sorrow-stricken town of Naples to hope that her days of mourning were over. The voluntary ambulances granted a sorely-needed holiday to part of their staff, the great fires that had been lit at night in all the squares were discontinued, the strong smell of sulphur that had filled the air for so long, diminished gradually, the shops in the Strada di Toledo took down their shutters one after the other, there was traffic in the streets again, and the mayor telegraphed to the king that the epidemic had come to an end.

And the fruiterers began to smuggle in fresh figs from Sorrento, the beautiful blue luscious figs, of which the sale had been forbidden since the outbreak of the cholera; and the little osterias, "bettole," which had been closed for more than three weeks, began to lure in, one after the other, the thirsty customers unable any longer to resist the temptation of drowning the recollection of so many anxious days and nights in a glass of vino nuovo.

Now October was just at hand, when it was the people's custom to celebrate their merriest holidays in the osterias of Posilipo, in order to taste the first wine of the year, which had just been got ready about that time, Gragnano, Vino del Monte, del Vesuvio, del Procida, and whatever they are all called; and last Thursday, on the Ottobrata holiday, the sound of guitars and mandolines was heard in Posilipo as of old, and the tarantella's strains awoke the slumbering gladness to new life again—È morto il cholera, evviva la gioia!

Naples heaved a deep sigh of relief after her long spell of anguish, every one was in good spirits and on friendly terms, and every one felt as if they must congratulate each other upon the gloomy days that were over at last. Whom to thank for the fortunate and unexpected turn that things had taken, they hardly knew themselves; every one had something to say on the subject, and the newspapers rang the praises of first one and then the other. The official authorities thanked the king, whose courage and energy had put new life into every one, the middle classes thanked the Municipality and the Relief Committees, and the people, the poor people who had suffered most—they thanked the Mother of God. And I think the people were right. They had lit votive candles at her shrines when the distress was at its height; when death had entered almost all their homes, they had implored her assistance, and now that deliverance seemed at hand, humble and grateful they kissed the hem of her garment.

The present generation, grown old enough to have outgrown its faith in God, laughs at all this "superstition"; but I am one with the lazzaroni on that score; it is certainly very easy to live without God Almighty in prosperity and health, but I am beginning to realise that it is a good deal harder to die without Him.

I wish I had a collection of new-fledged young atheists out here, and that I were able to take them with me through the poor quarters of the town, where sorrow and misery are at home. I would show them the peace which the consolations of religion are able to bring to the closing eyes of even these poor creatures, who might certainly be excused for thinking that their debt of gratitude to God Almighty is no large one; I would show them that the crucifix over the bed is better able to soothe the pangs of death than all the doctors' morphine syringes. Ah, "there is more in heaven and earth than our philosophy has dreamt of"—and our science too for the matter of that; and perhaps such a sight as this might shake their reasoned philosophies, no matter from what source of wisdom they had been drawn, and precipitate the pure gold of their childhood's simple faith to the bottom of their souls.

But still, even though philosophy were silenced, we have the profound researches of science to fall back upon, the magnificent triumphs of medicine, and its brilliant discoveries! Well and good! amidst the olla-podrida of dead theories and living microbes, of groping experiments and troubled mixtures—"la main sur la conscience," what poor insignificant charlatans are not we all the same, and how little able to compete with the other Physician whose practice is so large, and who goes about from bed to bed with his one and only drug, his eternal sleeping draught! The poor ignorant people here knew at least to whom to carry their troubles and anxieties; they had from the first confided all their sorrows to the Mother of God. When every one else had abandoned them, her arms had always been stretched out to them; no matter how ragged they might be, she knew how to help them all.

And those who sneered at their superstitions and forbad their processions, what had they to offer them in exchange for their obscure but rock-like faith? Ah yes, sanitary rules, veritable sarcasms on their poverty, printed advertisements, which most of them were unable to read and none of them were able to understand, recommending them to live in airy rooms, to avoid vegetables, and take to meat, to disinfect constantly, either with carbolic acid, which is an excellent remedy according to one Sanitary Committee, but no good according to another, or with "corrosive sublimate," the most effective microbe antidote according to Dr. Koch—although the idea that it is useless is quite worthy of consideration also.

And what has the obtuse brain of a lazzarone to do with Koch and microbes, he whose thoughts have never crossed the bay beyond which the whole of the remaining world is "Barbaria" to him, he who knows a host of saints' days, a few prayers that he has been taught as a child, the names of a dozen fish he has seen jumping in the nets at Mergellina, he who can play at morra and sing Santa Lucia, and that is about all! How is he to manage to "air the room," he who lives with ten or twelve others in one of those fondaci, into which the light of day has never been known to penetrate, where one of us is unable to remain for more than a moment without going out to take a breath of fresh air! And he is, forsooth, to choose his food, he whose expenses at the best of times never exceed one or two soldi a day, he who never in his life has had the chance of tasting meat, and whom you may perhaps see standing in front of the baker's shop, watching, with the expression of a hungry animal in his eyes, the piece of bread which you have just given your dog, and then fighting over the remaining crumbs with a crowd of others such as himself!—

And as to disinfection! what does he know about that, he who, alas, shows so little inclination to master the first great rule of disinfection, the popular antiseptic which consists in sometimes dipping one's hands and face in water. . . .

Just give a thought to all this, and then it will no longer strike you as so wonderful that these poor people should believe more in the censer's clouds than in the sulphur's fumes, and more in holy water than in a ten per cent solution of carbolic acid.

** *

I had lingered in Posilipo last Thursday evening, and it was already late as I sauntered home towards the town. In the Strada di Piedegrotta sat a boy singing La bella Sorrentina—

"Io te vidi a Piedegrotta

Tutta gioia, tutta festa."

And a little further on I halted for a moment at Mergellina to let the sea-breeze blow over me, whilst I watched the fishing-smacks as one by one they sailed home from their day's work out on the bay. From Villa Reale there were sounds of music and dancing, and the Chiaia was swarming with people as though it were a feast-day; and it was a feast-day in deed and truth, the cholera had ceased, and it was the first day of that year on which they had been allowed to taste the new wine! È morto il cholera, evviva la gioia!

But no—it was not dead. During the night the grim guest had gone his rounds again, and when Naples awoke next morning, several fresh cases of cholera were reported to have occurred the previous day, and the authorities were unable to conceal the fact that the epidemic had broken out again with renewed virulence. I see no reason for transcribing the official bulletins published in the newspapers; they have already been transmitted by telegraph, and their numbers have no other significance than that of announcing the increase or decrease of the epidemic. That the figures have always been kept too low is a well-known fact here, and no one has ever made a secret of it. That the figures of the dead are as untrustworthy as those of the sick, I was able to see for myself yesterday evening, when I was up at the cholera cemetery; I must have remained there a good hour, and during that time alone, eighty-three bodies were left there (the official report of the day announcing fifty-seven deaths and no more).

The dead are laid in a row before they are buried. We bent over every one of them; it was impossible to make any mistake: they had all died that day. After they have been lowered into the grave, their names are written down in the register. The impression produced by the quantity of blank spaces in the book is singularly uncanny, nothing but a number to distinguish them, anonymous dead, homeless during their lifetime, one common cholera grave after their death!

Several hundred of these nameless dead lie sleeping there since the outbreak of the epidemic; ah yes! they also had a name of their own, which was about all that society had ever bestowed on them—but Death has grudged them even that. They certainly had a name of their own, which once upon a time was whispered lovingly over them in the most melodious language on earth, when they were infants sleeping on their mother's knee; but perhaps the only one who knew it had preceded them to the grave, or perhaps the hungry little orphans who at this very moment are wandering about the filthy alleys of the poor quarter are the only ones who might be able to tell us something about them—no one knows anything about them up here, a number round each one's neck in turn, no coffin, no shroud, nothing but a covering of quicklime. And so on to the next one.