DOI Kapitel:
Chapter XI: Ischia
DOI Seite / Zitierlink:https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.59000#0452
Naples
eggs at Easter. On Palm Sunday it is the custom for a
young affianced girl to send a gift of a hundred and
one eggs and a branch of olive to her lover ; and on
the day of S. Restituta, May 17, the grateful lover
sends her in return twelve pounds of torrone, a sweet-
meat peculiar to Italy, made of honey and almonds,
and harder than most stones. A young fellow asked
this favour of an egg one day as he looked up at the
window of a mischievous girl. “ Ma certo,” she
answered, and, fetching one fresh and raw, broke it
neatly over his face. But far from discouraging him,
this proceeding filled him with such hope and deter-
mination that they were speedily married, and have
now a merry family of children, both parents probably
believing it was one of the substantial sources of their
prosperity.
Some one has said that Forio is Turneresque ; and
indeed there is something of the idealism of the great
painter in the broad sweep of its white towers and
houses straggling into the sea from the distant slopes of
the mountain behind, on which clouds rest softly, or
float away like a breath from the barren crater. The
Cistercian Convent, the Moorish towers, the white
fishing houses, the peaceful bay lapping their feet,—all
show with wonderful distinctness in the lucid air.
Farther on the road dwindles away, and finally stops on
the eminence of S. Angelo. Far away over the slopes
of vineyards a narrow neck of land runs into a jutting
promontory forming twin bays to right and left and
crowned with peasants’ huts all the way. And as the
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eggs at Easter. On Palm Sunday it is the custom for a
young affianced girl to send a gift of a hundred and
one eggs and a branch of olive to her lover ; and on
the day of S. Restituta, May 17, the grateful lover
sends her in return twelve pounds of torrone, a sweet-
meat peculiar to Italy, made of honey and almonds,
and harder than most stones. A young fellow asked
this favour of an egg one day as he looked up at the
window of a mischievous girl. “ Ma certo,” she
answered, and, fetching one fresh and raw, broke it
neatly over his face. But far from discouraging him,
this proceeding filled him with such hope and deter-
mination that they were speedily married, and have
now a merry family of children, both parents probably
believing it was one of the substantial sources of their
prosperity.
Some one has said that Forio is Turneresque ; and
indeed there is something of the idealism of the great
painter in the broad sweep of its white towers and
houses straggling into the sea from the distant slopes of
the mountain behind, on which clouds rest softly, or
float away like a breath from the barren crater. The
Cistercian Convent, the Moorish towers, the white
fishing houses, the peaceful bay lapping their feet,—all
show with wonderful distinctness in the lucid air.
Farther on the road dwindles away, and finally stops on
the eminence of S. Angelo. Far away over the slopes
of vineyards a narrow neck of land runs into a jutting
promontory forming twin bays to right and left and
crowned with peasants’ huts all the way. And as the
214