It was no go.
If I had been a poet or a historian, or a person full of Chianti,
I presume I might have done it; but I am no poet and I had
not been drinking. All I could think of was that the guide on
my left had eaten too much garlic and that the guide on my right
had not eaten enough. So in self-defense I went away and ate a
few strands of garlic myself; for I had learned the great lesson
of the proverb:
When in Rome be an aroma!
Chapter XXII
Still More Ruins, Mostly Italian Ones
When I reached Pompeii the situation was different. I could conjure
up an illusion there - the biggest, most vivid illusion I have been
privileged to harbor since I was a small boy. It was worth spending
four days in Naples for the sake of spending half a day in Pompeii;
and if you know Naples you will readily understand what a high
compliment that is for Pompeii.
To reach Pompeii from Naples we followed a somewhat roundabout
route; and that trip was distinctly worth while too. It provided
a most pleasing foretaste of what was to come. Once we had cleared
the packed and festering suburbs, we went flanking across a terminal
vertebra of the mountain range that sprawls lengthwise of the land
of Italy, like a great spiny-backed crocodile sunning itself, with
its tail in the Tyrrhenian Sea and its snout in the Piedmonts; and
when we had done this we came out on a highway that skirted the bay.
