The way lay through the main streets, but not through
the Strada Nuova, or the Strada Balbi, which are the
famous streets of palaces. I never in my life
was so dismayed! The wonderful novelty of everything,
the unusual smells, the unaccountable filth (though
it is reckoned the cleanest of Italian towns), the
disorderly jumbling of dirty houses, one upon the roof
of another; the passages more squalid and more close
than any in St. Giles’s or old Paris; in and
out of which, not vagabonds, but well-dressed women,
with white veils and great fans, were passing and repassing;
the perfect absence of resemblance in any dwelling-house,
or shop, or wall, or post, or pillar, to anything
one had ever seen before; and the disheartening dirt,
discomfort, and decay; perfectly confounded me.
I fell into a dismal reverie. I am conscious
of a feverish and bewildered vision of saints and
virgins’ shrines at the street corners—of
great numbers of friars, monks, and soldiers—of
vast red curtains, waving in the doorways of the churches—of
always going up hill, and yet seeing every other street
and passage going higher up—of fruit-stalls,
with fresh lemons and oranges hanging in garlands
made of vine-leaves—of a guard-house, and
a drawbridge—and some gateways—and
vendors of iced water, sitting with little trays upon
the margin of the kennel—and this is all
the consciousness I had, until I was set down in a
rank, dull, weedy court-yard, attached to a kind of
pink jail; and was told I lived there.
I little thought, that day, that I should ever come
to have an attachment for the very stones in the streets
of Genoa, and to look back upon the city with affection
as connected with many hours of happiness and quiet!
But these are my first impressions honestly set down;
and how they changed, I will set down too. At
present, let us breathe after this long-winded journey.
CHAPTER IV—GENOA AND ITS NEIGHBOURHOOD
The first impressions of such a place as Albaro,
the suburb of Genoa, where I am now, as my American
friends would say, ‘located,’ can hardly
fail, I should imagine, to be mournful and disappointing.
It requires a little time and use to overcome the
feeling of depression consequent, at first, on so much
ruin and neglect. Novelty, pleasant to most
people, is particularly delightful, I think, to me.
I am not easily dispirited when I have the means
of pursuing my own fancies and occupations; and I believe
I have some natural aptitude for accommodating myself
to circumstances. But, as yet, I stroll about
here, in all the holes and corners of the neighbourhood,
in a perpetual state of forlorn surprise; and returning
to my villa: the Villa Bagnerello (it sounds
romantic, but Signor Bagnerello is a butcher hard by):
have sufficient occupation in pondering over my new
experiences, and comparing them, very much to my own
amusement, with my expectations, until I wander out
again.
Copyrights
Pictures from Italy from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.
