Her anxiety visibly deepened to
despair when she missed a shilling, which must have looked as large to
her as a full moon as it sank slowly down into the sea.
But her despair did not last long; nothing lasts long in Naples except
the joyful noise, which is incessant and perpetual, and which seems the
expression of the universal temperament in both man and beast. Our
good-fortune placed us in a hotel fronting the famous Castel dell' Ovo,
across a little space of land and water, and we could hear, late and
early, the cackling and crowing of the chickens which have replaced the
hapless prisoners of other days in that fortress. At times the voices of
the hens were lifted in a choral of self-praise, as if they had among
them just laid the mighty structure which takes its name from its
resemblance to the egg they ordinarily produce. In other lands the
peculiar note of the donkey is not thought very melodious, but in Naples
before it can fade away it is caught up in the general orchestration and
ceases in music.
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