The tram-car employees in Naples were on strike: a string of empty cars stretched the entire length of the Riviera di Chiaia and a crowd of conductors and drivers, jolly, voluble Neapolitans, as volatile as quicksilver, had gathered on Piazza della Vittoria. Above their heads over the park fence sparkled a fountain jet like the slender blade of a sword, around them pressed a large, hostile crowd of people who had to travel on business to all parts of the huge city and all these shop assistants, artisans, tradesmen and seamstresses loudly reproached the strikers. Harsh words and biting jibes were exchanged and there was much gesticulating, for the Neapolitans speak as expressively and eloquently with their hands as with their indefatigable tongues.
A light breeze wafted from the sea, the dark green fronds of the tall palms in the city park swayed gently, their trunks looking strangely like the clumsy legs of some monster elephants. Urchins, the half-naked children of the Neapolitan streets, romped about, filling the air with their sparrow-like twitter and laughter.
The city, which resembled an old engraving, was bathed in the generous rays of the blazing sun and seemed to reveberate like an organ; the blue waves in the gulf splashed against the stone embankment adding a muffled beat, like the throbbing of a tambourine, to the hubbub and cries of the city.
The striken huddled gloomily together, barely replying to the irritable outcries of the crowd; some of them climbed on to the railing of the park peering anxiously down ihe street over the heads of the people, like a pack of wolves surrounded by the hounds. It was clear that these people in their uniformed attire were closely linked by an unshakable resolve to stand their ground, and this irritated the crowd still more. But the crowd had its philosophers. Smoking calndy, they admonished the more impassioned opponents of the strikers thus:
"Ah, signor! What is a man to do if he can't afford macaroni for his children?"
Sprucely attired agents of the municipal police stood by in groups of two and three to see that the crowd did not obstruct the movement of the carriages. They kept strictly neutral, regarding with like equanimity the censurers and censured and good-humouredly chaffing both sides when shouts and gestures became too heated. A detachment of Carabinieri carrying their short, light rifles were lined up against the buildings on a narrow side-street, ready to intervene in the event of serious clashes. They made a rather sinister group in their three-cornered hats, abbreviated capes and the scarlet stripes like two streaks of blood running down their trousers.
Suddenly the wrangling, jeers, reproaches and persuasions subsided. Some new spirit swept the crowd, a pacifying spirit it seemed; the strikers moved closer together with set faces as a shout went up from the crowd: "The soldiers!"
Whisdes of mockery and triumph directed at the strikers mingled with shouts of greeting and one stout man in a light-grey suit and a panama hat broke into a caper, tapping with his feet against the stone cause-way.
The conductors and drivers made their way slowly through the crowd to the cars, some climbed aboard. They looked grimmer than before as they forced their way through the crowd snapping retorts to the exclamations from all sides. The hubbub subsided.
Up from the Santa Lucia embankment with a light, dancing step came the little grey soldiers, their feet beating a rhythmic tattoo and their left hands swinging with a mechanical motion. They looked like tin soldiers and as fragile as toys. They were led by a tall handsome officer with knit brows and a contemptuous twist to his lips; beside him hopped a scout man in a top hat chattering volubly and cleaving the air with innumerable gestures.
The crowd fell back from the cars; the soldiers scattered like so many grey beads, taking up positions at the platforms of the cars where the strikers stood. The man in the top hat and several other respectable-looking citizens around him waved their arms wildly and shouted: "The last time... ultima volta! Do you hear?"
The officer stood with his head inclined twirling his moustache with a bored air; the man ran up to him waving his top hat and shouting something in a hoarse voice. The officer glanced at him out of the corner of his eye, then drew himself up, threw out his chest and rapped out commands in a loud voice.
Whereupon the soldiers began jumping on to the platforms of the cars, two on each platform, while the drivers and conductors jumped down one after the other.
This struck the crowd as funny — it roared, whistled and laughed, but all at once the noise subsided and with grim, tense faces and eyes wide with horror the people fell back from the cars in heavy silence, and pressed towards the front car.
There, within two feet of its wheels, stretched across the rails, lay one of the drivers. His grey head was bared and his face, the face of a soldier with the moustaches bristling angrily, stared up at the sky. As the crowd gaped, a lad, small and agile as a monkey, threw himself down beside the driver, and one by one others followed suit.
A low hum rose from the crowd and voices were heard calling fearfully on the Madonna, some cursed grimly, the women screamed and groaned and the urchins jumped up and down in excitement, like rubber balls.
The man in the top hat yelled something in a hysterical voice, the officer looked at him and shrugged his shoulders — his soldiers had been sent to take over the cars from the tram men but he had no orders to fight the striken.
Then the top hat, surrounded by some obliging citizens, rushed over to the Carabinieri — and now they came forward and bent over the men lying on the rails with the intention of removing them.
There was a brief scuffle; then suddenly the whole grey dusty crowd of onlookers swayed, bellowed, howled and rushed over to the rails — the man in the panama snatched off his hat, threw it into die air and was the first to lie down beside the end striker, slapping him on the shoulder and shouting words of encouragement at him.
One by one people began to drop down on to the rails, as if their feet had given way beneath them — jolly, noisy folk who had not been there at all two minutes before. They threw themselves on the ground, laughing and pulling faces at one another and shouting to the officer who was talking to the top-hatted individual, shaking his gloves under his nose with a slight smile, and tossing his handsome head.
More and more people poured on to the rails, women dropped their baskets and bundles, small boys, shaking with laughter, curled up like shivering puppies, and decently dressed people too rolled about in the dust.
The five soldiers standing on the platform of the front car looked down at the heap of bodies under the wheels and roared with laughter, clinging to the bars for support, throwing back their heads and bending forward, convulsed with amusement. They did not look at all like tin soldiers now. ... Half an hour later the tram-cars, scraping and clanging, were speeding through the streets of Naples, and on the platforms stood the beaming victors and down the cars walked the victors, asking politely: "Biglietti?!"
And the passengers handed them red and yellow notes with much winking, smiling and good-natured grumbling.
