The Shelleys
did not spend a long time in Naples. They arrived on December 1, 1818, left at
the end of February 1819—three months. But their sojourn there was active—and,
in one case, mysterious. They did lots of sight-seeing, reading, writing—their
usual forms of recreation. And on December 16, they ascended Vesuvius.
I arrived in
Naples aboard a Eurostar train, reading the novel Glenarvon as I went (well, and when I wasn’t staring out the window
at the rushing countryside that displayed natural beauty, enormous wealth,
abysmal poverty). Glenarvon, 1816, by
Lady Caroline Lamb, one of Lord Byron’s former lovers, tells a fictional
version of their relationship. In our day, abandoned lovers hop on Facebook and/or
Twitter and fire away—or, if they’re involved with celebrities, they talk to
gossip magazines or TV shows. Or maybe file charges.
She has some
harsh words for the Byron figure (Glenarvon himself): That in which Glenarvon most prided himself—that in which he most
excelled, was the art of dissembling. And lots of bitter regret: They know not the force of passion, who have
not felt it—they know not the agony of guilt, who have not plunged into its
burning gulf, and trembled there.[1]
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| The very copy I read. |
Byron
himself read the novel, and on February 7, 1820, wrote to a later mistress: Your little head is heated now by that
damned novel—the author of which has been—in every country and at all times—my
evil Genius.[2] By “Genius,” of course, he
means “spirit,” the dark one that opposes the bright one, who, presumably, was
his new lover, Teresa Guiccioli.
After my
arrival on April 26, 1999, I ran around making arrangements—a hotel room, a
ticket for an all-night train (in a couple of days) that would take me to
Munich, directions to the start of the trail up Vesuvius. I also went to the
address where the Shelleys had lived those months, but there’s a new building
there now—no historical marker.
I was also
feeling stupid. I knew—as I’ve written—very little Italian (I emphasize very), and the railway ticket clerk employed
the universal strategy for dealing with someone who doesn’t know the local
language: speak louder and louder and
louder. All, of course, to no
effect. But I went to bed that night with plans to “do” the volcano the next
morning. After all, only a few years before, chasing Jack London’s life, I’d
climbed the Chilkoot Pass from Alaska into the Yukon … so how hard could this be?
Below: Some of my photos from Naples, April 1999.
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| Address where Shelleys lived--obviously, this is a newer structure. |
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