CLEMENTINA had enticed me to her cottage with the promise of country
beans cooked in country fashion, to be followed by a story under the
chestnut woods. So at about four in the afternoon, when the heat of
the day was over in the breezy mountain village, I sauntered through
the street, past the swarming black-eyed children, and the cheerful,
smiling washerwomen busy at the tank under the pump, out on the white
road beyond; and, gazing now at the landscape on the left, now at the
ever-varying forms of the Apennines before me—
“Ever some new head or breast of them,
Thrusts into view,”
says Browning—now climbing the bank on the right for flowers or
mountain-strawberries, I arrived, after half an hour’s stroll, at the
little hamlet of Ciecafumo.
There stood the cluster of smoke-blackened cottages, with the large
patch of rye, beans, etc. (apparently common property), before them,
against a background of magnificent chestnut trees. Passing under a
picturesque archway, and crossing a cobbled space which did duty as a
street, I pushed open the wooden door of Clementina’s house. Before me
was a flight of stairs which might have been washed towards the end
of the last century: on the right the kitchen; and, dim in the blue,
arching wood-smoke, Clementina, with eyes as bright as ever under her
kerchief; and sprightly little Nella, barefooted, and, still more
extraordinary, bareheaded.
It was a large, low room, with stone walls and a gaping plank ceiling,
which formed also the floor of the room above, all encrusted with the
black lichen-like deposit, harder than the stone itself, produced by
the smoke of wood-fires. In one corner was a tiny window, and on the
same side with it the hearth, with a wooden roof over it in lieu of
chimney. The wood-fire, the cat, the red pipkin with the old woman
bending over it, formed a pretty interior against the dark shadows
of the great stack of brushwood which, with a flight of very rickety
stairs, occupied the further end of the room.
“Where do the stairs lead, Nonna?” I asked.
“Oh, those lead into the cat’s rooms. You can go up if you like, but
I advise you not to. It’s years since I have been there, and I expect
they’re rather dirty.”
It need hardly be said that I did _not_ go up. The beans being now
ready, a space was cleared on one of the two tables, which, loaded with
most heterogeneous material, were propped up against the wall opposite
the fire. Above the tables was the one patch of colour on the black
walls—a coloured print or so of saints, a couple of rosaries, and a
tiny hanging tin lamp. The old woman spread a coarse, newly-washed
table-napkin on the space she had cleared, and placed on it a hunch
of bread (brought that morning from the village), one glass, a little
bottle of oil, and some salt in a piece of paper. The wicker-covered
water-flask was put on the ground beside us; three chairs were
produced, and three soup-plates, with brass spoons. Then the beans were
divided and dressed with oil and salt, the bread was carved into three
parts with a great clasp-knife from the old woman’s pocket, and we
made a very excellent and nourishing meal. The one glass did duty for
all three of us, being rinsed out with a peculiar jerk on to the stone
floor after each had drunk.
“Now the story, Nonna,” said I.
So Clementina took up her knitting, and, locking the door behind us,
we went out into the fresh, sweet evening air. We sat down under a
huge chestnut tree. A number of little girls came clustering around
us, busily engaged in making chestnut-leaf pockets for their wild
strawberries and whortle-berries, and the old woman began:—
Once upon a time there was a poor woman who had one daughter. One day,
as this daughter was out in the forest getting firewood she struck her
axe into a hollow tree. As soon as she had done so, a beautiful lady
appeared and said to her:—
“Will you come with me, little girl? I will take care of you, and give
you everything you want.”
So the little girl said yes, she would go, and the lady, who was really
a fairy, took her to a beautiful palace.
“Now,” said this fairy, “when you’re alone, and want me, you must call
me Tassa, but when anyone else is with you, you must call me Aunt. You
won’t always see me, but as soon as you call me I shall come to you.
You may do what you like and go where you like in this palace.”
So the girl lived for some time in the palace in the forest, and grew
more and more beautiful every day. At last it happened that the king’s
son, out hunting in that forest, came to the palace and saw the girl at
the window. He rode round trying to find a door, but there was none.
“Let me come in and talk to you,” he said to the girl. So she went into
the next room, and called out “Tassa.”
“What do you want, pretty maiden?”
“The king’s son asks to come and talk to me.”
“Let him come.”
And immediately the prince saw a door and went in. After a little while
he said:—
“I should like to marry you; you are the most beautiful woman I have
seen.”
So the girl went into the next room and called “Tassa.”
“What is it, pretty maiden?”
“The prince wants to marry me.”
“Let him come in a week with all his court and fetch you.”