Jettatura by Theophile Gautier

Alicia's friend returned to the Hotel de Rome by the same road he had come. The night was incomparably beautiful; the bright, splendid moon cast upon the diaphanous blue waters a long trail of silvery spangles, the perpetual motion of which, due to the lipping of the wavelets, increased their brilliancy. In the offing, the fishing boats, each bearing in the bows an iron cradle filled with lighted tow, studded the sea with read stars and left ruddy wakes behind them. The smoke from Vesuvius, white by day, had changed into a pillar of fire and also cast its reflection upon the bay, that, at his moment, had that appearance which strikes Northern eyes as improbable, and which it has in those Italian water-colours, in the black frames, so widespread a few years ago, and which were more accurate than one would have supposed, judging by their crude exaggeration.

A few noctambulistic lazzaroni still mooned about the beach, unconsciously moved the the wondrous prospect, and looked out into the blue distance with their great black eyes. Others, seated on the rail of some boat hauled up on the shore, were singing the aria from "Lucia" or the then popular romance, "Ti voglio ben' assai," in a voice that many a highly paid tenor would have envied. Naples sits up late, like all southern cities, yet the lights in the windows were going out one by one, and only the lottery offices, with their coloured paper decorations, their favourite numbers, and their bright lights, remained open, ready to receive the money of capricious gambles who, as they wended homeward, might be seized with the fancy of wagering a few carlini or a few ducats upon some number they had dreamed of.