Two days afterwards those on board drew a long breath when they saw the captain taken ashore.  The ship was moored in a very uncomfortable place,—­near some that were discharging coal,—­with the stern shored up so that the screw of the steamer might be repaired.  The workmen were replacing the damaged and broken plates with ceaseless hammering.  Since they would undoubtedly have to wait nearly a month, it would be much more convenient for the owner to go to a hotel; so he sent his baggage to the Albergo Partenope, on the ancient shore of S. Lucia,—­the very one that Freya had mentioned.

Upon installing himself in an upper room, with a view of the blue circle of the gulf framed by the outlines of the balcony, Ferragut’s first move was to change a bill for five liras into coppers, preparatory to asking various questions.  The jaundiced and mustached steward listened to him attentively with the complacency of a go-between, and at last was able to formulate a complete personality with all its data.  The lady for whom he was inquiring was the Signora Talberg.  She was at present away on an excursion, but she might return at any moment.

Ulysses passed an entire day with the tranquillity of one who awaits at a sure place, gazing at the gulf from the balcony.  Below him was the Castello dell’ Ovo connected with the land by a bridge.

The bersaglieri were occupying their ancient castle, work of the viceroy, Pedro of Toledo.  Many turrets of dark rose color were crowded together upon this narrow, egg-shaped island, where, in other days, the pusillanimous Spanish garrison was locked in the fortress for the purpose of aiming bombards and culverins at the Neapolitans when they no longer wished to pay taxes and imposts.  Its walls had been raised upon the ruins of another castle in which Frederick II had guarded his treasures, and whose chapel Giotto had painted.  And the medieval castle of which only the memory now remained had, in its turn, been erected upon the remnants of the Palace of Lucullus, who had located the center of his celebrated gardens in this little island, then called Megaris.

The cornets of the bersaglieri rejoiced the captain like the announcement of a triumphal entry.  “She’s going to come!  She’s going to come at any moment!...”  And he would look across the double mountain of the island of Capri, black in the distance, closing the gulf like a promontory, and the coast of Sorrento as rectilinear as a wall.  “There she is....”  Then he would lovingly follow the course of the little steamboats plowing across the immense blue surface, opening a triangle of foam.  In some of these Freya must be coming.

The first day was golden and full of hope.  The sun was sparkling in a cloudless sky, and the gulf was foaming with bubbles of light under an atmosphere so calm that not the slightest zephyr was rippling its surface.  The smoke plume of Vesuvius was upright and slender, expanding upon the horizon like a pine tree of white vapor.  At the foot of the balcony the strolling musicians kept succeeding each other from time to time, singing voluptuous barcarolles and love serenades....  And—­she did not come!