CHAPTER III

LA CITTA MORTA

Pompeii can never be visited without the same haunting conviction, the
same oppressive thought: how terribly difficult it is to understand the
City of the Dead which holds in so small a space the whole secret of the
antique world! There are far more grandiose and impressive ruins to be
seen in Rome; the city of Timgad in Northern Africa is more complete as a
specimen of a Roman settlement than the half-excavated town near Vesuvius;
yet here, and here only, can the men of the past stretch hands, as it
were, across the barrier of eighteen intervening centuries to the dweller
of to-day, and the dead-and-gone spirits of a highly organized
civilization can whisper into the living ears of the twentieth century.
For Pompeii will speak to us, if we will take the trouble to learn the
tongue in which alone she can convey the secret of her story. It is
needless to say that this language is not obtainable by one or two cursory
visits to the Naples Museum, and a few hurried half-hours given to the
contents of the guide-book; no, the language of Pompeii, which constitutes
the key of access to the hidden chambers of the Roman world, can only be
acquired with much expenditure of precious time and with infinite trouble.
But "life is short and time is fleeting," and our bustling age expects to
seize its required knowledge in the twinkling of an eye; well, in that
case the story of Pompeii must remain a sealed volume to the traveller,
who is conveyed to the City of the Dead in a train crammed with
fellow-tourists; who eats a heavy unwholesome luncheon to the sound of
mandoline-players twanging sprightly Neapolitan airs; and who is finally
piloted round the sacred area by a chattering guide in the oppressive heat
and glare of a sunny afternoon. Fatigued in mind and body, such an one
will sink with ill-concealed relief upon the dusty velvet cushions of the
returning train, thoroughly disappointed in the vaunted marvels of
Pompeii, which his imagination had led him to expect. A vague impression
of low broken walls, of narrow--to his eyes absurdly narrow--streets, of
broken columns and of peeling frescoes fills his tired brain, as he is
borne back to his hotel in Naples. But this disenchantment is his own
fault, for no one who sets foot within the Sea Gate of the buried city in
the proper spirit of knowledge and appreciation can possibly fail to enjoy
the privilege which has thu