"Two days having elapsed, I accordingly presented myself at the office: I found a clerk there, who, with the utmost politeness, informed me that some difficulties having arisen on the subject of my visa, I had better make an application to the ambassador himself. I was obliged, therefore, whatever resolution I had made to the contrary, to present myself again to M. de Ludorf.
"I found the ambassador more cold, more measured than before, but reflecting that it would probably be the last time I should have the honour of seeing him, I resigned myself. He motioned to me to take a chair. This was some improvement upon the last visit; the last visit he left me standing.
"'Monsieur,' said he, with a certain air of embarrassment, and drawing out, one after the other, the folds of his shirt-front, 'I regret to say that you cannot go to Naples.'
"'Why so?' I replied, determined to impose upon our dialogue whatever tone I thought fit—'are the roads so bad?'
"'No, monsieur; the roads are excellent, but you have the misfortune to be on the list of those who cannot enter the kingdom of Naples.'
"'However honourable such a distinction may be, monsieur l'ambassadeur,' said I, suiting my tone to the words, 'it will at present be rather inconvenient, and I trust you will permit me to inquire into the cause of this prohibition. If it is nothing but one of those slight and vexatious interruptions which one meets with perpetually in Italy, I have some friends about the world who might have influence sufficient to remove it.'
"'The cause is one of a grave nature, and I doubt if your friends, of whatever rank they may be, will have influence to remove it.'
"'What may it be?'
"'In the first place, you are the son of General Matthieu Dumas, who was minister of war at Naples during the usurpation of Joseph.'
"'I am sorry,' I answered, 'to be obliged to decline any relationship with that illustrious general. My father was not General Matthieu, but General Alexandre Dumas. The same,' I continued, seeing that he was endeavouring to recall some reminiscences connected with the name of Dumas, 'who, after having been made prisoner at Tarentum, in contempt of the rights of hospitality, was poisoned at Brindisi, with Mauscourt and Dolomieu, in contempt of the rights of nations. This happened, monsieur l'ambassadeur, at the same time that they hanged Carracciolo in the Gulf of Naples. You see I do all I can to assist your recollection.'
"M. de Ludorf bit his lips.
"'Well, monsieur,' he resumed after a moment's silence, 'there is a second reason—your political opinions. You are marked out as a republican, and have quitted Paris, it is said, on some political design.'
"'To which I answer, monsieur, by showing you my letters of introduction. They bear nearly all the seals and signatures of our ministers. Here is one from the Admiral Jacob, another from Marshal Soult, another from M. de Villemain; they claim for me the aid of the French ambassador in any case of this description.'
"'Well, well,' said M. de Ludorf, 'since you have foreseen the very difficulty that has occurred, meet it with those means which are in your power. For me, I repeat, I cannot sign your passport. Those of your companions are quite regular; they can proceed when they please; but they must proceed without you.'
"'Has the Count de Ludorf' said I, rising, 'any commissions for Naples?'
"'Why so, monsieur?'
"'Because I shall have great pleasure in undertaking them.'
"'But I repeat, you cannot go to Naples.'
"'I shall be there in three days.'
"I wished M. de Ludorf good morning, and left him stupefied at my assurance."—Vol. ii. p. 5.
Our dramatical traveller ran immediately to a young friend, an artist then studying at Rome, and prevailed on him to take out a passport, in his own name for Naples. Fortified with this passport, and assuming the name of his friend, he left Rome that evening. The following day he reached Naples. But as he was exposed every moment to detection, it was necessary that he should pass over immediately to Sicily. The steam-boats at Naples, unlike the steam-boats every where else, start at no fixed period. The captain waits for his contingent of passengers, and till this has been obtained both he and his vessel are immovable. M. Dumas and his companion, therefore, hired a small sailing vessel, a speronara as it is called, in which they embarked the next morning. But before weighing anchor M. Dumas took from his portfolio the neatest, purest, whitest, sheet of paper that it contained, and indited the following letter to the Count de Ludorf:—
"Monsieur le Comte,
"I am distressed that your excellency did not think fit to charge me with your commissions for Naples. I should have executed them with a fidelity which would have convinced you of the grateful recollection I retain of your kind offices.
"Accept, M. le Comte, the assurance of those lively sentiments which I entertain towards you, and of which, one day or other, I hope to give you proof.
With the crew of this speronara we became as familiar as with the personages of a novel; and, indeed, about this time the novelist begins to predominate over the tourist.
On leaving the bay of Naples our traveller first makes for the island of Capri. The greatest curiosity which he here visits and describes in the azure grotto. He and his companion are rowed, each in a small skiff, to a narrow dark aperture upon the rocky coast, and which appears the darker from its contrast with the white surf that is dashing about it. He is told to lie down on his back in the boat, to protect his head from a concussion against the low roof.
"In a moment after I was borne upon the surge—the bark glided on with rapidity—I saw nothing but a dark rock, which seemed for a second to be weighing on my chest. Then on a sudden I found myself in a grotto so marvellous that I uttered a cry of astonishment, and started up in my admiration with a bound which endangered the frail bark on which I stood.
"I had before me, around me, above me, beneath me, a perfect enchantment, which words cannot describe, and which the pencil would utterly fail to give any impression of. Imagine an immense cavern, all pure azure—as if God had made a tent there with some residue of the firmament; a surface of water so limpid, so transparent, that you seem to float on air: above you, the pendant stalactites, huge and fantastical, reversed pyramids and pinnacles: below you a sand of gold mingled with marine vegetation; and around the margin of cave, where it is bathed by the water, the coral shooting out its capricious and glittering branches. That narrow entrance which, from the sea, showed like a dark spot, now shone at one end a luminous point, the solitary star which gave its subdued light to this fairy palace; whilst at the opposite extremity a sort of alcove led on the imagination to expect new wonders, or perhaps the apparition of the nymph or goddess of the place.
"In all probability the azure grotto was unknown to the ancients. No poet speaks of it; and surely with their marvellous imagination the Greeks could not have failed to make it the palace of some marine goddess, and to have transmitted to us her history. The sea, perhaps, was higher than it is now, and the secrets of this cave were known only to Amphitrite and her court of sirens, naiads, and tritons.
"Even now at times the sea rises and closes the orifice, so that those who have entered cannot escape. In which case they must wait till the wind, which had suddenly shifted to the east or west, returns to the north or south; and it has happened that visitors who came to spend twenty minutes in the azure grotto, have remained there two, three, and even four days. To provide against such an emergency, the boatmen always bring with them a certain quantity of biscuit to feed the prisoners, and as the rock affords fresh water in several