'It was afternoon. He explored the winding paths which went,
now up, now down, leading towards the point of the Penna, on
the seashore. He looked before him and around him with
curiosity, but, perhaps, with some forced attention, as if he
wished to understand obscure meanings hidden in these simple
scenes, to wrest from them some unseizable secret. Rising in
the heart of these hills of the coast the water of a brook,
directed by a homely aqueduct made of hollowed trees, crossed
the low-lying land between the two slopes. Other little
rivulets were caught and guided by concave tiles to water the
tilled earth grown with rich vegetation, and above these
streams, ever bright and rippling, there leaned some beautiful
purple flowers;[2] all these humble things seemed to him
pregnant with profound life. All the merry waters ran down
along the incline towards the pebbly beach, and passed under a
little bridge. In the shadow of its arch some women were
washing linen, and their gestures were mirrored in the stream.
On the shingle other linen was already outspread, whitening in
the sun. Along the path a man walked with bare feet, carrying
his shoes swinging in his hand. Two children, laden with linen,
ran along laughing and playing. An old woman hung up on a line
a blue mattress.
'On the edge of the path there were little white shells, out of
them frail tentacles trembled and stretched to the light. From
a rock above hung twisted dead roots like entwined snakes.
Farther on there was a large peasant's house, bearing on the
summit of its roof a floral ornament in clay. An outside
staircase led up to a covered terrace. Two women sat spinning
at the head of the stair, and the flax shone in the sun like
gold. You could hear the wheels turn. By a window sat another,
weaving; you could see her rhythmical gestures in moving the
shuttle. In the courtyard a huge grey ox was lying down; he
shook his ears and moved his tail faintly but incessantly in
war against the flies. The cocks and hens cackled and crowed
around him. Farther on still another little river crossed the
road; it laughed aloud, crisp, mirthful, vivid, limpid.
'Near another farmhouse a thick bay hedge shut in an orchard.
The straight, shining stems rose immovable, crowned with their
glistening foliage. One of the bay trees was enveloped in the
embrace of a clematis, which lovingly conquered the martial bay
with her blossoms of snow, the veil of her nuptial freshness.
Underneath, the earth was dewy and fragrant. In an angle a
black cross leaned over the hedge, the silence had the resigned
sadness of a graveyard. At the end of a line there arose a
flight of steps, half in shade, half in sunshine; they led to a
door standing half open, protected by two branches of olive
hung from its rustic architrave. On the lowest step sat an old
man asleep, his head uncovered, his chin on his breast, his
hands on his knees; the light touched his aged brow. From the
half-open door there came, to soothe his senile sleep, the
cadence of a rocking cradle, the rise and fall of a murmured
lullaby.'
[Footnote 2: Campanulas, spotted orchis, or foxglove, I suppose. It it
characteristic of him that he sighs for an 'unseizable secret,' and does
not take the trouble to learn the names of the flowers he sees.]
What can be more true or more beautiful than this? Mark the contrast of
the old man sleeping on the stone steps, with the young mother, unseen
within, singing _sotto voce_ her cradle song. In totally different style
and tone take these few lines on Orvieto:--
'A rock of tufa hanging above a melancholy valley; a city so
silent that it seems empty: the windows are closed, in the grey
lanes grass grows; a capuchin crosses a square; a bishop
descends from a closed carriage before the gate of a hospital;
a tower rises in a white and rainy sky; a clock strikes the
hour slowly; all at once at the end of the street a miracle in
stone--the Cathedral.'
Is not the city of Luca Signorelli set before you with those few lines?
There is here something far beyond dexterity or ingenuity of style;
there is the poet's, the painter's, power to embrace a world at a
glance, and with a touch set before duller eyes that world in all its
varieties and suggestions, all its past and its present, all its secrets
of the grave and of the future.