Diary of Marie Bashkirtseff
CZENUKFR

Monday, 26 February 1877

As Larderei continues not to arrive, I continue my infrequent excursions.
After a visit from Doenhoff, who was very proper, we go to San Martino. It is an old convent. [Five lines cancelled]
And I have never seen anything so delightful. Museums freeze one; that of San Martino amuses and draws one in. The old coach of the mayor and the galley of Charles III went to my head. And those corridors with mosaic floors and ceilings with their grand moldings, the church and the chapels — they are something marvelous; their moderate grandeur permits one to appreciate the details.
This assemblage of gleaming marbles, precious stones, mosaics in every corner from floor to ceiling, on the ceiling as on the floor. I do not think I saw many remarkable canvases — yes, those of Guido Reni, of Spagnoletto.
The patient works of Fra Buonaventura. The old Capo di Monte porcelains. The silk portraits and a painting on glass depicting the episode of Potiphar's wife, treated with a comic truthfulness. The white marble courtyard with its sixty columns is of rare beauty. Our guide told us that only five monks remain — three brothers and two lay brothers — dwelling somewhere above in an abandoned wing.
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[In the margin: Note this and remember it]
One climbs a kind of tower with two balconies suspended above heights that look like precipices — the view from there is dizzying in its beauty. One sees the mountains, the towns, the plains [Several words cancelled] and Naples, through a kind of blue haze that is nothing other than distance.
— But what is happening in Naples today? I said, straining my ears.
— Why, nothing — that is the Neapolitan people, replied the guide, smiling.
— Is it always like this?
— Always.
From that mass of rooftops rose a clamor, a continuous roar — like unceasing explosions of voices — of which one has no conception down in the city itself. It truly gives one a kind of fright, and this murmur rising with the blue haze strangely makes one feel how high one stands, and brings on vertigo.
These marble chapels ravished me. The country that possesses what Italy possesses is the richest country in the world. I compare Italy to the rest of the universe as a magnificent painting to a whitewashed wall.
How did I dare to judge Naples last year! Had I even seen it!
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The entire road from San Martino and the descent through Pausilippo present staggering beauties. And those scattered towns, and that sea, and Vesuvius and the sky, and the grotto of Pozzuoli glimpsed like a cannon's mouth! One loses one's head.
You know? The Counts Merjeewsky, father and son, are in Nice; the father told my aunt he had come expressly from Russia to marry his son to me. Poor souls! as Larderei says. Faugh!
Doenhoff came in the evening. I feel more free in spirit and am gradually becoming rational, but Larderei's wild expression drives me mad. I reread my account of the Florence journey, and then Dina — Doenhoff having left — acts out Merisano for us: in trousers, my riding-hot on her head, the fire tongs in place of a cane, and Altamura's visiting card rolled as a cigar.
She imitates him perfectly — how we laughed!

Notes

Povero gente! — In Italian in the original. ↩
Riding-hot — In English in the original; Marie's approximation of "riding hat." ↩