S. Ambrogio and Neighbourhood
SINCE the opening of the railway, the old inn where the diligences and
private carriages used to stop has been closed; but I was made, in a
homely way, extremely comfortable at the Scudo di Francia, kept by Signor
Bonaudo and his wife. I stayed here over a fortnight, during which I
made several excursions.
[Picture: Inn at S. Ambrogio]
One day I went to San Giorio, as it is always written, though San Giorgio
is evidently intended. Here there is a ruined castle, beautifully placed
upon a hill; this castle shows well from the railway shortly after
leaving Bussoleno station, on the right hand going towards Turin. Having
been struck with it, I went by train to Bussoleno (where there is much
that I was unwillingly compelled to neglect), and walked back to San
Giorio. On my way, however, I saw a patch of Cima-da-Conegliano-looking
meadow-land on a hill some way above me, and on this there rose from
among the chestnuts what looked like a castellated mansion. I thought it
well to make a digression to this, and when I got there, after a lovely
walk, knocked at the door, having been told by peasants that there would
be no difficulty about my taking a look round. The place is called the
_Castel Burrello_, and is tenanted by an old priest who has retired
hither to end his days. I sent in my card and business by his servant,
and by-and-by he came out to me himself.
“Vous êtes Anglais, monsieur?” said he in French.
“Oui, monsieur.”
“Vous êtes Catholique?”
“Monsieur, je suis de la religion de mes pères.”
“Pardon, monsieur, vos ancêtres étaient Catholiques jusqu’au temps de
Henri VIII.”
“Mais il y a trois cent ans depuis le temps de Henri VIII.”
“Eh bien! chacun a ses convictions; vous ne parlez pas contre la
religion?”
“Jamais, jamais, monsieur; j’ai un respect énorme pour l’Eglise
Catholique.”
“Monsieur, faites comme chez vous; allez où vous voulez; vous trouverez
toutes les portes ouvertes. Amusez-vous bien.”
He then explained to me that the castle had never been a properly
fortified place, being intended only as a summer residence for the barons
of Bussoleno, who used to resort hither during the extreme heat, if times
were tolerably quiet. After this he left me. Taking him at his word, I
walked all round, but there was only a shell remaining; the rest of the
building had evidently been burnt, even the wing in which the present
proprietor resides being, if I remember rightly, modernised. The site,
however, and the sloping meadows which the castle crowns, are of extreme
beauty.
[Picture: S. Giorio—Comba di Susa]
I now walked down to San Giorio, and found a small inn where I could get
bread, butter, eggs, and good wine. I was waited upon by a good-natured
boy, the son of the landlord, who was accompanied by a hawk that sat
always either upon his hand or shoulder. As I looked at the pair I
thought they were very much alike, and certainly they were very much in
love with one another. After dinner I sketched the castle. While I was
doing so, a gentleman told me that a large breach in the wall was made a
few years ago, and a part of the wall found to be hollow, the bottom of
the hollow part being unwittingly removed, there fell through a skeleton
in a full suit of armour. Others, whom I asked, had heard nothing of
this.
Talking of hawks, I saw a good many boys with tame young hawks in the
villages round about. There was a tame hawk at the station of S.
Ambrogio. The station-master said it used to go now and again to the
church-steeple to catch sparrows, but would always return in an hour or
two. Before my stay was over it got in the way of a passing train and
was run over.
Young birds are much eaten in this neighbourhood. The houses and barns,
not to say the steeples of the churches, are to be seen stuck about with
what look like terra-cotta water-bottles with the necks outwards. Two or
three may be seen in the illustration on p. 113 outside the window that
comes out of the roof, on the left-hand side of the picture. I have seen
some outside an Italian restaurant near Lewisham. They are artificial
bird’s-nests for the sparrows to build in: as soon as the young are old
enough they are taken and made into a pie. The church-tower near the
Hotel de la Poste at Lanzo is more stuck about with them than any other
building that I have seen.
Swallows and hawks are about the only birds whose young are not eaten.
One afternoon I met a boy with a jay on his finger: having imprudently
made advances to this young gentleman in the hopes of getting acquainted
with the bird, he said he thought I had better buy it and have it for my
dinner; but I did not fancy it. Another day I saw the _padrona_ at the
inn-door talking to a lad, who pulled open his shirt-front and showed
some twenty or thirty nestlings in the simple pocket formed by his shirt
on the one side and his skin upon the other. The _padrona_ wanted me to
say I should like to eat them, in which case she would have bought them;
but one cannot get all the nonsense one hears at home out of one’s head
in a moment, and I am afraid I preached a little. The _padrona_, who is
one of the most fascinating women in the world, and at sixty is still
handsome, looked a little vexed and puzzled: she admitted the truth of
what I said, but pleaded that the boys found it very hard to gain a few
_soldi_, and if people didn’t kill and eat one thing, they would another.
The result of it all was that I determined for the future to leave young
birds to their fate; they and the boys must settle that matter between
themselves. If the young bird was a boy, and the boy a young bird, it
would have been the boy who was taken ruthlessly from his nest and eaten.
An old bird has no right to have a homestead, and a young bird has no
right to exist at all, unless they can keep both homestead and existence
out of the way of boys who are in want of half-pence. It is all
perfectly right, and when we go and stay among these charming people, let
us do so as learners, not as teachers.
I watched the _padrona_ getting my supper ready. With what art do not
these people manage their fire. The New Zealand Maoris say the white man
is a fool: “He makes a large fire, and then has to sit away from it; the
Maori makes a small fire, and sits over it.” The scheme of an Italian
kitchen-fire is that there shall always be one stout log smouldering on
the hearth, from which a few live coals may be chipped off if wanted, and
put into the small square gratings which are used for stewing or
roasting. Any warming up, or shorter boiling, is done on the Maori
principle of making a small fire of light dry wood, and feeding it
frequently. They economise everything. Thus I saw the _padrona_ wash
some hen’s eggs well in cold water; I did not see why she should wash
them before boiling them, but presently the soup which I was to have for
my supper began to boil. Then she put the eggs into the soup and boiled
them in it.
After supper I had a talk with the _padrone_, who told me I was working
too hard. “Totam noctem,” said he in Latin, “lavoravimus et nihil
incepimus.” (“We have laboured all night and taken nothing.”) “Oh!” he
continued, “I have eyes and ears in my head.” And as he spoke, with his
right hand he drew down his lower eyelid, and with his left pinched the
pig of his ear. “You will be ill if you go on like this.” Then he laid
his hand along his cheek, put his head on one side, and shut his eyes, to
imitate a sick man in bed. On this I arranged to go an excursion with
him on the day following to a farm he had a few miles off, and to which
he went every Friday.
We went to Borgone station, and walked across the valley to a village
called Villar Fochiardo. Thence we began gently to ascend, passing under
some noble chestnuts. Signor Bonaudo said that this is one of the best
chestnut-growing districts in Italy. A good tree, he told me, would give
its forty francs a year. This seems as though chestnut-growing must be
lucrative, for an acre should carry some five or six trees, and there is
no outlay to speak of. Besides the chestnuts, the land gives a still
further return by way of the grass that grows beneath them. Walnuts do
not yield nearly so much per tree as chestnuts do. In three-quarters of
an hour or so we reached Signor Bonaudo’s farm, which was called the
_Casina di Banda_. The buildings had once been a monastery, founded at
the beginning of the seventeenth century and secularised by the first
Napoleon, but had been purchased from the state a few years ago by Signor
Bonaudo, in partnership with three others, after the passing of the
Church Property Act. It is beautifully situated some hundreds of feet
above the valley, and commands a lovely view of the _Comba_, as it is
called, or _Combe_ of Susa. The accompanying sketch will give an idea of
the view looking towards Turin. The large building on the hill is, of
course, S. Michele. The very distant dome is the Superga on the other
side of Turin.
[Picture: Casina di Banda]
The first thing Signor Bonaudo did when he got to his farm was to see
whether the water had been duly turned on to his own portion of the
estate. Each of the four purchasers had his separate portion, and each
had a right to the water for thirty-six hours per week. Signor Bonaudo
went round with his hind at once, and saw that the dams in the ducts were
so opened or closed that his own land was being irrigated.
Nothing can exceed the ingenuity with which the little canals are
arranged so that each part of a meadow, however undulating, shall be
saturated equally. The people are very jealous of their water rights,
and indeed not unnaturally, for the yield of grass depends in very great
measure upon the amount of irrigation which the land can get.
The matter of the water having been seen to, we went to the monastery,
or, as it now is, the homestead. As we entered the farmyard we found two
cows fighting, and a great strapping wench belabouring them in order to
separate them. “Let them alone,” said the _padrone_; “let them fight it
out here on the level ground.” Then he explained to me that he wished
them to find out which was mistress, and fall each of them into her
proper place, for if they fought on the rough hillsides they might easily
break each other’s necks.
We walked all over the monastery. The day was steamy with frequent
showers, and thunderstorms in the air. The rooms were dark and mouldy,
and smelt rather of rancid cheese, but it was not a bad sort of rambling
old place, and if thoroughly done up would make a delightful inn. There
is a report that there is hidden treasure here. I do not know a single
old castle or monastery in North Italy about which no such report is
current, but in the present case there seems more than usual ground (so
the hind told me) for believing the story to be well founded, for the
monks did certainly smelt the quartz in the neighbourhood, and as no gold
was ever known to leave the monastery, it is most likely that all the
enormous quantity which they must have made in the course of some two
centuries is still upon the premises, if one could only lay one’s hands
upon it. So reasonable did this seem, that about two years ago it was
resolved to call in a somnambulist or clairvoyant from Turin, who, when
he arrived at the spot, became seized with convulsions, betokening of
course that there was treasure not far off: these convulsions increased
till he reached the choir of the chapel, and here he swooned—falling down
as if dead, and being resuscitated with apparent difficulty. He
afterwards declared that it was in this chapel that the treasure was
hidden. In spite of all this, however, the chapel has not been turned
upside down and ransacked, perhaps from fear of offending the saint to
whom it is dedicated.
[Picture: Votive Picture]
In the chapel there are a few votive pictures, but not very striking
ones. I hurriedly sketched one, but have failed to do it justice. The
hind saw me copying the little girl in bed, and I had an impression as
though he did not quite understand my motive. I told him I had a dear
little girl of my own at home, who had been alarmingly ill in the spring,
and that this picture reminded me of her. This made everything quite
comfortable.
We had brought up our dinner from S. Ambrogio, and ate it in what had
been the refectory of the monastery. The windows were broken, and the
swallows, who had built upon the ceiling inside the room, kept flying
close to us all the time we were eating. Great mallows and hollyhocks
peered in at the window, and beyond them there was a pretty
Devonshire-looking orchard. The noontide sun streamed in at intervals
between the showers.
After dinner we went “al cresto della collina”—to the crest of the
hill—to use Signor Bonaudo’s words, and looked down upon S. Giorio, and
the other villages of the _Combe_ of Susa. Nothing could be more
delightful. Then, getting under the chestnuts, I made the sketch which I
have already given. While making it I was accosted by an underjawed man
(there is an unusually large percentage of underjawed people in the
neighbourhood of S. Ambrogio), who asked whether my taking this sketch
must not be considered as a sign that war was imminent. The people in
this valley have bitter and comparatively recent experience of war, and
are alarmed at anything which they fancy may indicate its recurrence.
Talking further with him, he said, “Here we have no signori; we need not
take off our hats to any one except the priest. We grow all we eat, we
spin and weave all we wear; if all the world except our own valley were
blotted out, it would make no difference, so long as we remain as we are
and unmolested.” He was a wild, weird, St. John the Baptist looking
person, with shaggy hair, and an Andrea Mantegnesque feeling about him.
I gave him a pipe of English tobacco, which he seemed to relish, and so
we parted.
I stayed a week or so at another place not a hundred miles from Susa, but
I will not name it, for fear of causing offence. It was situated high,
above the valley of the Dora, among the pastures, and just about the
upper limit of the chestnuts. It offers a summer retreat, of which the
people in Turin avail themselves in considerable numbers. The inn was a
more sophisticated one than Signor Bonaudo’s house at S. Ambrogio, and
there were several Turin people staying there as well as myself, but
there were no English. During the whole time I was in that neighbourhood
I saw not a single English, French, or German tourist. The ways of the
inn, therefore, were exclusively Italian, and I had a better opportunity
of seeing the Italians as they are among themselves than I ever had
before.
Nothing struck me more than the easy terms on which every one, including
the waiter, appeared to be with every one else. This, which in England
would be impossible, is here not only possible but a matter of course,
because the general standard of good breeding is distinctly higher than
it is among ourselves. I do not mean to say that there are no rude or
unmannerly Italians, but that there are fewer in proportion than there
are in any other nation with which I have acquaintance. This is not to
be wondered at, for the Italians have had a civilisation for now some
three or four thousand years, whereas all other nations are,
comparatively speaking, new countries, with a something even yet of
colonial roughness pervading them. As the colonies to England, so is
England to Italy in respect of the average standard of courtesy and good
manners. In a new country everything has a tendency to go wild again,
man included; and the longer civilisation has existed in any country the
more trustworthy and agreeable will its inhabitants be. This preface is
necessary, as explaining how it is possible that things can be done in
Italy without offence which would be intolerable elsewhere; but I confess
to feeling rather hopeless of being able to describe what I actually saw
without giving a wrong impression concerning it.
Among the visitors was the head confidential clerk of a well-known
Milanese house, with his wife and sister. The sister was an invalid, and
so also was the husband, but the wife was a very pretty woman and a very
merry one. The waiter was a good-looking young fellow of about
five-and-twenty, and between him and Signora Bonvicino—for we will say
this was the clerk’s name—there sprang up a violent flirtation, all open
and above board. The waiter was evidently very fond of her, but said the
most atrociously impudent things to her from time to time. Dining under
the veranda at the next table I heard the Signora complain that the
cutlets were burnt. So they were—very badly burnt. The waiter looked at
them for a moment—threw her a contemptuous glance, clearly intended to
provoke war—“Chi non ha appetito {124} . . . ” he exclaimed, and was
moving off with a shrug of the shoulders. The Signora recognising a
challenge, rose instantly from the table, and catching him by the nape of
his neck, kicked him deftly downstairs into the kitchen, both laughing
heartily, and the husband and sister joining. I never saw anything more
neatly done. Of course, in a few minutes some fresh and quite
unexceptionable cutlets made their appearance.
Another morning, when I came down to breakfast, I found an altercation
going on between the same pair as to whether the lady’s nose was too
large or not. It was not at all too large. It was a very pretty little
nose. The waiter was maintaining that it was too large, and the lady
that it was not.
One evening Signor Bonvicino told me that his employer had a very large
connection in England, and that though he had never been in London, he
knew all about it almost as well as if he had. The great centre of
business, he said, was in Red Lion Square. It was here his employer’s
agent resided, and this was a more important part than even the city
proper. I threw a drop or two of cold water on this, but without avail.
Presently I asked what the waiter’s name was, not having been able to
catch it. I asked this of the Signora, and saw a little look on her face
as though she were not quite prepared to reply. Not understanding this,
I repeated my question.
“Oh! his name is Cesare,” was the answer.
“Cesare! but that is not the name I hear you call him by.”
“Well, perhaps not; we generally call him Cricco,” {125a} and she looked
as if she had suddenly remembered having been told that there were such
things as prigs, and might, for aught she knew, be in the presence of one
of these creatures now.
Her husband came to the rescue. “Yes,” said he, “his real name is Julius
Cæsar, but we call him Cricco. Cricco è un nome di paese; parlando così
non si offende la religione.” {125b}
The Roman Catholic religion, if left to itself and not compelled to be
introspective, is more kindly and less given to taking offence than
outsiders generally believe. At the Sacro Monte of Varese they sell
little round tin boxes that look like medals, and contain pictures of all
the chapels. In the lid of the box there is a short printed account of
the Sacro Monte, which winds up with the words, “La religione _e lo
stupendo panorama_ tirano numerosi ed allegri visitatori.” {126}
Our people are much too earnest to allow that a view could have anything
to do with taking people up to the top of a hill where there was a
cathedral, or that people could be “merry” while on an errand connected
with religion.
On leaving this place I wanted to say good-bye to Signora Bonvicino, and
could not find her; after a time I heard she was at the fountain, so I
went and found her on her knees washing her husband’s and her own
clothes, with her pretty round arms bare nearly to the shoulder. It
never so much as occurred to her to mind being caught at this work.
Some months later, shortly before winter, I returned to the same inn for
a few days, and found it somewhat demoralised. There had been grand
doings of some sort, and, though the doings were over, the moral and
material débris were not yet quite removed. The _famiglia_ Bonvicino was
gone, and so was Cricco. The cook, the new waiter, and the landlord (who
sings a good comic song upon occasion) had all drunk as much wine as they
could carry; and later on I found Veneranda, the one-eyed old
chambermaid, lying upon my bed fast asleep. I afterwards heard that, in
spite of the autumnal weather, the landlord spent his night on the grass
under the chestnuts, while the cook was found at four o’clock in the
morning lying at full length upon a table under the veranda. Next day,
however, all had become normal again.
Among our fellow-guests during this visit was a fiery-faced eructive
butcher from Turin. A difference of opinion having arisen between him
and his wife, I told the Signora that I would rather be wrong with her
than right with her husband. The lady was delighted.
“Do you hear that, my dear?” said she. “He says he had rather be wrong
with me than right with you. Isn’t he a naughty man?”
She said that if she died her husband was going to marry a girl of
fifteen. I said: “And if your husband dies, ma’am, send me a dispatch to
London, and I will come and marry you myself.” They were both delighted
at this.
She told us the thunder had upset her and frightened her.
“Has it given you a headache?”
She replied: No; but it had upset her stomach. No doubt the thunder had
shaken her stomach’s confidence in the soundness of its opinions, so as
to weaken its proselytising power. By and by, seeing that she ate a
pretty good dinner, I inquired:
“Is your stomach better now, ma’am?”
And she said it was. Next day my stomach was bad too.
I told her I had been married, but had lost my wife and had determined
never to marry again till I could find a widow whom I had admired as a
married woman.
Giovanni, the new waiter, explained to me that the butcher was not really
bad or cruel at all. I shook my head at him and said I wished I could
think so, but that his poor wife looked very ill and unhappy.
The housemaid’s name was La Rosa Mistica.
The landlord was a favourite with all the guests. Every one patted him
on the cheeks or the head, or chucked him under the chin, or did
something nice and friendly at him. He was a little man with a face like
a russet pippin apple, about sixty-five years old, but made of iron. He
was going to marry a third wife, and six young women had already come up
from S. Ambrogio to be looked at. I saw one of them. She was a
Visigoth-looking sort of person and wore a large wobbly-brimmed straw
hat; she was about forty, and gave me the impression of being familiar
with labour of all kinds. He pressed me to give my opinion of her, but I
sneaked out of it by declaring that I must see a good deal more of the
lady than I was ever likely to see before I could form an opinion at all.
On coming down from the sanctuary one afternoon I heard the landlord’s
comic song, of which I have spoken above. It was about the musical
instruments in a band: the trumpet did this, the clarinet did that, the
flute went tootle, tootle, tootle, and there was an appropriate motion of
the hand for every instrument. I was a little disappointed with it, but
the landlord said I was too serious and the only thing that would cure me
was to learn the song myself. He said the butcher had learned it
already, so it was not hard, which indeed it was not. It was about as
hard as:
The battle of the Nile
I was there all the while
At the battle of the Nile.
I had to learn it and sing it (Heaven help me, for I have no more voice
than a mouse!), and the landlord said that the motion of my little finger
was very promising.
The chestnuts are never better than after harvest, when they are
heavy-laden with their pale green hedgehog-like fruit and alive with
people swarming among their branches, pruning them while the leaves are
still good winter food for cattle. Why, I wonder, is there such an
especial charm about the pruning of trees? Who does not feel it? No
matter what the tree is, the poplar of France, or the brookside willow or
oak coppice of England, or the chestnuts or mulberries of Italy, all are
interesting when being pruned, or when pruned just lately. A friend once
consulted me casually about a picture on which he was at work, and
complained that a row of trees in it was without sufficient interest. I
was fortunate enough to be able to help him by saying: “Prune them freely
and put a magpie’s nest in one of them,” and the trees became interesting
at once. People in trees always look well, or rather, I should say,
trees always look well with people in them, or indeed with any living
thing in them, especially when it is of a kind that is not commonly seen
in them; and the measured lop of the bill-hook and, by and by, the click
as a bough breaks and the lazy crash as it falls over on to the ground,
are as pleasing to the ear as is the bough-bestrewn herbage to the eye.
To what height and to what slender boughs do not these hardy climbers
trust themselves. It is said that the coming man is to be toeless. I
will venture for it that he will not be toeless if these chestnut-pruning
men and women have much to do with his development. Let the race prune
chestnuts for a couple of hundred generations or so, and it will have
little trouble with its toes. Of course, the pruners fall sometimes, but
very rarely. I remember in the Val Mastallone seeing a votive picture of
a poor lady in a short petticoat and trousers trimmed with red round the
bottom who was falling head foremost from the top of a high tree, whose
leaves she had been picking, and was being saved by the intervention of
two saints who caught her upon two gridirons. Such accidents, however,
and, I should think, such interventions, are exceedingly rare, and as a
rule the peasants venture freely into places which in England no one but
a sailor or a steeple-jack would attempt.
And so we left this part of Italy, wishing that more Hugo de
Montboissiers had committed more crimes and had had to expiate them by
building more sanctuaries.