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Page 70
"A terrible retribution," said Mrs. Portheris, looking severely at the
Tavern of Phoebus, forever empty of wine-bibbers. "They worshipped
Jupiter, I understand, and other deities even less respectable. Can we
wonder that a volcano was sent to destroy them! One thing we may be
quite sure of--if the city had only turned from its wickedness and
embraced Christianity, this never would have happened."
Momma compressed her lips and then relaxed them again to say, "I think
that idea perfectly ridiculous." I scented battle and hung upon the
issue, but the Senator for the third time interposed.
"Why no, Augusta," he said, "I guess that's a working hypothesis of Aunt
Caroline's. Here's Vesuvius smokin' away ever since just the same, and
there's Naples with a bishop and the relics of Saint Januarius. You can
read in your guide-book that whenever Vesuvius has looked as if he meant
business for the past few hundred years, the people of Naples have
simply called on the bishop to take out the relics of Saint Januarius
and walk 'em round the town; and that's always been enough for Vesuvius.
Now the Pompeii folks didn't know a saint or a bishop by sight, and
Jupiter, as Aunt Caroline says, was never properly qualified to
interfere. That's how it was, I _presume_. I don't suppose the people of
Naples take much stock in the laws of nature; they don't have to, with
Januarius in a drawer. And real estate keeps booming right along."
"You have an extraordinary way of putting things," remarked Mrs.
Portheris to her nephew. "Very extraordinary. But I am glad to hear that
you agree with me," and she looked as if she did not understand momma's
acquiescent smile.
We went our several ways to see the baths, and the Comic Theatre, the
bakehouse and the gymnasium; and I had a little walk by myself in the
Street of Abundance, where the little empty houses waited patiently on
either side for those to return who had gone out, and the sun lay full
on their floors of dusty mosaic, and their gardens where nothing grew.
It seemed to me, as it seems to everybody, that Pompeii was not dead,
but asleep, and her tints were so clear and gay that her dreams might be
those of a ballet-girl. A solitary yellow dog chased a lizard in the
sun, and the pebbles he knocked about made an absurdly disturbing noise.
Beyond the vague tinted roofless walls that stretched over the pleasant
little peninsula, the blue sea rippled tenderly, remembering much
delight, and the place seemed to smile in its sleep. It was easy to
understand why Cicero chose to have his villa in the midst of such
light-heartedness, and why the gods, perhaps, decided that they had lent
too much laughter to Pompeii. I made free of the hospitality of
Cornelius Rufus and sat for a while in his _exedra_, where he himself,
in marble on a little pillar in the middle of the room, made me as
welcome as if I had been a client or a neighbour. We considered each
other across the centuries, making mutual allowances, and spent the most
sociable half-hour. I take a personal interest in the city's disaster
now--it overwhelmed one of my friends.
CHAPTER XVII.
On the Lungarno in Florence, in the cool of the evening, we walked
together, the Senator, momma, Dicky, and I. Dicky radiated depression,
if such a thing is atmospherically possible; we all moved in it. Mr. Dod
had been banished from the Portheris party, and he groaned over the
reflection that it was his own fault. At Pompeii I had exerted myself in
his interest to such an extent that Mr. Mafferton detached himself from
Mrs. Portheris and attached himself to momma for the drive home. Little
did I realise that one could be too agreeable in a good cause. Dicky
insinuated himself with difficulty into Mr. Mafferton's vacant place
opposite Mrs. Portheris, and even before the carriages started I saw
that he was going to have a bad time. His own version of the experience
was painful in the extreme, and he represented the climax as having
occurred just as they arrived at the hotel. The unfortunate youth must
have been goaded to his fate, for his general attitude toward matters of
orthodoxy was most discreet.
"There is something _Biblical_," said Mrs. Portheris (so Dicky related),
"that those Pompeiian remains remind me of, and I cannot think what it
is."
"Lot's wife, mamma?" said Isabel.
"_Quite_ right, my child--what a memory you have! That wretched woman
who stopped to look back at the city where careless friends and
relatives were enjoying themselves, indifferent to their coming fate, in
direct disobedience to the command. Of course, she turned to salt, and
these people to ashes, but she must have looked very much like them when
the process was completed."
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