A Day at the _Cantine_
NEXT day we went to breakfast with Professor Vela, the father of my
friend Spartaco, at Ligornetto. After we had admired the many fine works
which Professor Vela’s studio contains, it was agreed that we should take
a walk by S. Agata, and spend the afternoon at the _cantine_, or cellars
where the wine is kept. Spartaco had two painter friends staying with
him whom I already knew, and a young lady, his cousin; so we all went
together across the meadows. I think we started about one o’clock, and
it was some three or four by the time we got to the _cantine_, for we
kept stopping continually to drink wine. The two painter visitors had a
fine comic vein, and enlivened us continually with bits of stage business
which were sometimes uncommonly droll. We were laughing incessantly, but
carried very little away with us except that the drier one of the two,
who was also unfortunately deaf, threw himself into a rhapsodical
attitude with his middle finger against his cheek, and his eyes upturned
to heaven, but to make sure that his finger should stick to his cheek he
just wetted the end of it against his tongue first. He did this with
unruffled gravity, and as if it were the only thing to do under the
circumstances.
The young lady who was with us all the time enjoyed everything just as
much as we did; once, indeed, she thought they were going a little too
far—not as among themselves—but considering that there were a couple of
earnest-minded Englishmen with them: the pair had begun a short
performance which certainly did look as if it might develop into
something a little hazardous. “Minga far tutto,” she exclaimed rather
promptly—“Don’t do all.” So what the rest would have been we shall never
know.
Then we came to some precipices, whereon it at once occurred to the two
comedians that they would commit suicide. The pathetic way in which they
shared the contents of their pockets among us, and came back more than
once to give little additional parting messages which occurred to them
just as they were about to take the fatal plunge, was irresistibly comic,
and was the more remarkable for the spontaneousness of the whole thing
and the admirable way in which the pair played into one another’s hands.
The deaf one even played his deafness, making it worse than it was so as
to heighten the comedy. By and by we came to a stile which they
pretended to have a delicacy in crossing, but the lady helped them over.
We concluded that if these young men were average specimens of the
Italian student—and I should say they were—the Italian character has an
enormous fund of pure love of fun—not of mischievous fun, but of the very
best kind of playful humour, such as I have never seen elsewhere except
among Englishmen.
Several times we stopped and had a bottle of wine at one place or
another, till at last we came to a beautiful shady place looking down
towards the lake of Lugano where we were to rest for half-an-hour or so.
There was a _cantina_ here, so of course we had more wine. In that air,
and with the walk and incessant state of laughter in which we were being
kept, we might drink _ad libitum_, and the lady did not refuse a second
small _bicchiere_. On this our deaf friend assumed an anxious, fatherly
air. He said nothing, but put his eyeglass in his eye, and looked first
at the lady’s glass and then at the lady with an expression at once kind,
pitying, and pained; he looked backwards and forwards from the glass to
the lady more than once, and then made as though he were going to quit a
scene in which it was plain he could be of no further use, throwing up
his hands and eyes like the old steward in Hogarth’s “Marriage à la
mode.” They never seemed to tire, and every fresh incident at once
suggested its appropriate treatment. Jones asked them whether they
thought they could mimic me. “Oh dear, yes,” was the answer; “we have
mimicked him hundreds of times,” and they at once began.
At last we reached Professor Vela’s own _cantina_, and here we were to
have our final bottle. There were several other _cantine_ hard by, and
other parties that had come like ourselves to take a walk and get some
wine. The people bring their evening meal with them up to the _cantina_
and then sit on the wall outside, or go to a rough table and eat it.
Instead, in fact, of bringing their wine to their dinner, they take their
dinner to their wine. There was one very fat old gentleman who had got
the corner of the wall to sit on, and was smoking a cigar with his coat
off. He comes, I am told, every day at about three during the summer
months, and sits on the wall till seven, when he goes home to bed, rising
at about four o’clock next morning. He seemed exceedingly good-tempered
and happy. Another family who owned a _cantina_ adjoining Professor
Vela’s, had brought their evening meal with them, and insisted on giving
us a quantity of excellent river cray-fish which looked like little
lobsters. I may be wrong, but I thought this family looked at us once or
twice as though they thought we were seeing a little more of the Italians
absolutely _chez eux_ than strangers ought to be allowed to see. We can
only say we liked all we saw so much that we would fain see it again, and
were left with the impression that we were among the nicest and most
loveable people in the world.
I have said that the _cantine_ are the cellars where the people keep
their wine. They are caves hollowed out into the side of the mountain,
and it is only certain localities that are suitable for the purpose. The
_cantine_, therefore, of any village will be all together. The _cantine_
of Mendrisio, for example, can be seen from the railroad, all in a row, a
little before one gets into the town; they form a place of _réunion_
where the village or town unites to unbend itself on _feste_ or after
business hours. I do not know exactly how they manage it, but from the
innermost chamber of each _cantina_ they run a small gallery as far as
they can into the mountain, and from this gallery, which may be a foot
square, there issues a strong current of what, in summer, is icy cold
air, while in winter it feels quite warm. I could understand the
equableness of the temperature of the mountain at some yards from the
surface of the ground, causing the _cantina_ to feel cool in summer and
warm in winter, but I was not prepared for the strength and iciness of
the cold current that came from the gallery. I had not been in the
innermost _cantina_ two minutes before I felt thoroughly chilled and in
want of a greatcoat.
Having been shown the _cantine_, we took some of the little cups which
are kept inside and began to drink. These little cups are common
crockery, but at the bottom there is written, Viva Bacco, Viva l’Italia,
Viva la Gioia, Viva Venere, or other such matter; they are to be had in
every crockery shop throughout the Mendrisiotto, and are very pretty. We
drank out of them, and ate the cray-fish which had been given us. Then
seeing that it was getting late, we returned together to Besazio, and
there parted, they descending to Ligornetto and we to Mendrisio, after a
day which I should be glad to think would be as long and pleasantly
remembered by our Italian friends as it will assuredly be by ourselves.
[Picture: Sommazzo]
The excursions in the neighbourhood of Mendrisio are endless. The walk,
for example, to S. Agata and thence to Meride is exquisite. S. Agata
itself is perfect, and commands a splendid view. Then there is the
little chapel of S. Nicolao on a ledge of the red precipice. The walk to
this by the village of Sommazzo is as good as anything can be, and the
quiet terrace leading to the church door will not be forgotten by those
who have seen it. Sommazzo itself from the other side of the valley
comes as on p. 247. There is Cragno, again, on the Monte Generoso, or
Riva with its series of pictures _in tempera_ by the brothers Giulio
Cesare and Camillo Procaccini, men who, had they lived before the days of
academics, might have done as well as any, except the few whom no academy
can mould, but who, as it was, were carried away by fluency and facility.
It is useless, however, to specify. There is not one of the many
villages which can be seen from any rising ground in the neighbourhood,
but what contains something that is picturesque and interesting, while
the _coup d’œil_, as a whole, is always equally striking, whether one is
on the plain and looks towards the mountains, or looks from the mountains
to the plains.