While we were at Fosdinovo the sky filmed over, and there came a halo
round the sun. This portended change; and by evening, after we had
reached La Spezzia, earth, sea, and air were conscious of a coming
tempest. At night I went down to the shore, and paced the sea-wall they
have lately built along the Rada. The moon was up, but overdriven with
dry smoky clouds, now thickening to blackness over the whole bay, now
leaving intervals through which the light poured fitfully and fretfully
upon the wrinkled waves; and ever and anon they shuddered with electric
gleams which were not actual lightning. Heaven seemed to be descending
on the sea; one might have fancied that some powerful charms were
drawing down the moon with influence malign upon those still resisting
billows. For not as yet the gulf was troubled to its depth, and not as
yet the breakers dashed in foam against the moonlight-smitten
promontories. There was but an uneasy murmuring of wave to wave; a
whispering of wind, that stooped its wing and hissed along the surface,
and withdrew into the mystery of clouds again; a momentary chafing of
churned water round the harbour piers, subsiding into silence petulant
and sullen. I leaned against an iron stanchion and longed for the sea's
message. But nothing came to me, and the drowned secret of Shelley's
death those waves which were his grave revealed not.
"Howler and scooper of storms! capricious and dainty sea!"
Meanwhile the incantation swelled in shrillness, the electric shudders
deepened. Alone in this elemental overture to tempest I took no note of
time, but felt, through self-abandonment to the symphonic influence, how
sea and air, and clouds akin to both, were dealing with each other
complainingly, and in compliance to some maker of unrest within them. A
touch upon my shoulder broke this trance; I turned and saw a boy beside
me in a coastguard's uniform. Francesco was on patrol that night; but my
English accent soon assured him that I was no contrabbandiere, and he
too leaned against the stanchion and told me his short story. He was in
his nineteenth year, and came from Florence, where his people live in
the Borgo Ognissanti. He had all the brightness of the Tuscan folk, a
sort of innocent malice mixed with _espieglerie_. It was diverting to
see the airs he gave himself on the strength of his new military
dignity, his gun, and uniform, and night duty on the shore. I could not
help humming to myself _Non piu andrai_; for Francesco was a sort of
Tuscan Cherubino. We talked about picture galleries and libraries in
Florence, and I had to hear his favourite passages from the Italian
poets. And then there came the plots of Jules Verne's stories and
marvellous narrations about _l'uomo cavallo_, _l'uomo volante_, _l'uomo
pesce_. The last of these personages turned out to be Paolo Boynton (so
pronounced), who had swam the Arno in his diving dress, passing the
several bridges, and when he came to the great weir "allora tutti stare
con bocca aperta." Meanwhile the storm grew serious, and our conversation
changed. Francesco told me about the terrible sun-stricken sand shores of
the Riviera, burning in summer noon, over which the coastguard has to
tramp, their perils from falling stones in storm, and the trains that
come rushing from those narrow tunnels on the midnight line of march. It
is a hard life; and the thirst for adventure which drove this boy--il piu
matto di tutta la famiglia--to adopt it, seems well-nigh quenched. And
still, with a return to Giulio Verne, he talked enthusiastically of
deserting, of getting on board a merchant ship, and working his way to
southern islands where wonders are.
A furious blast swept the whole sky for a moment almost clear. The
moonlight fell, with racing cloud-shadows, upon sea and hills, the
lights of Lerici, the great _fanali_ at the entrance of the gulf, and
Francesco's upturned handsome face. Then all again was whirled in mist
and foam; one breaker smote the sea-wall in a surge of froth, another
plunged upon its heels; with inconceivable swiftness came rain;
lightning deluged the expanse of surf, and showed the windy trees bent
landward by the squall. It was long past midnight now, and the storm was
on us for the space of three days.