A thousand feet below my window, and far away, lies the gap between the
Alban and Volscian hills; veiled in mists, the Pontine marches extend
beyond, and further still--discernible only to the eye of faith--the
Tyrrhenian.
The profile of these Alban craters is of inimitable grace. It recalls
Etna, as viewed from Taormina. How the mountain cleaves to earth, how
reluctantly it quits the plain before swerving aloft in that noble line!
Velletri's ramparts, twenty miles distant, are firmly planted on its
lower slope. Standing out against the sky, they can be seen at all hours
of the day, whereas the dusky palace of Valmontone, midmost on the green
plain and rock-like in its proportions, fades out of sight after midday.
Hard by, on your right, are the craggy heights of Capranica. Tradition
has it that Michael Angelo was in exile up there, after doing something
rather risky. What had he done? He crucified his model, desirous, like a
true artist, to observe and reproduce faithfully in marble the muscular
contractions and facial agony of such a sufferer. To crucify a man: this
was going almost too far, even for the Pope of that period, who seems to
have been an unusually sensitive pontiff--or perhaps the victim was a
particular friend of his. However that may be, he waxed wroth and
banished the conscientious sculptor in disgrace to this lonely mountain
village, there to expiate his sins, for a day or two....
One sleeps badly here. Those nightingales--they are worse than the
tram-cars in town. They begin earlier. They make more noise. Surely
there is a time for everything? Will certain birds never learn to sing
at reasonable hours?
A word as to these nightingales. One of them elects to warble, in
deplorably full-throated ease, immediately below my bedroom window. When
this particular fowl sets up its din at about 3.45 a.m. it is a
veritable explosion; an ear-rending, nerve-shattering explosion of
noise. I use that word "noise" deliberately. For it is not music--not
until your ears are grown accustomed to it.
I know a little something about music, having studied the art with
considerable diligence for a number of years. Impossible to enumerate
all the composers and executants on various instruments, the conductors
and opera-singers and ballet-girls with whom I was on terms of
familiarity during that incarnation. Perhaps I am the only person now
alive who has shaken hands with a man (Lachner) who shook hands with
Beethoven and heard his voice; all of which may appear when I come to
indite my musical memoirs. I have written a sonata in four movements,
opus 643, hitherto unpublished, and played the organ during divine
service to a crowded congregation. Furthermore I performed, not at my
own suggestion, his insipid Valse Caprice to the great Antoine
Rubinstein, who was kind enough to observe: "Yes, yes. Quite good. But I
rather doubt whether you could yet risk playing that in a concert." And
in the matter of sheer noise I am also something of an expert, having
once, as an infant prodigy, broken five notes in a single masterly
rendering of Liszt's polonaise in E Major--I think it is E
Major--whereupon my teacher, himself a pupil of Liszt, genially
remarked: "Now don't cry, and don't apologize. A polonaise like yours is
worth a piano." I set these things down with modest diffidence, solely
in order to establish my locus standi as a person who might be expected
to know the difference between sound and noise. As such, I have no
hesitation in saying that the first three bars of that nightingale
performance are, to sleeping ears, not music. They break upon the
stillness with the crash of Judgment Day.
And every night the same scare. It causes me to start up, bathed in
sudden perspiration, out of my first, and best, and often only sleep,
with the familiar feeling that something awful is happening. Windows
seem to rattle, plaster drops from the ceiling--an earthquake? Lord, no.
Nothing so trivial. Nothing so brief. It is that blasted bird clearing
its throat for a five hours' entertainment. Let it not be supposed that
the song of these southerners bears any resemblance to that of an
English nightingale. I could stand a hatful of English nightingales in
my bedroom; they would lull me to sleep with their anaemic whispers. You
might as well compare the voice of an Italian costermonger, the crowing
of a cock, the braying of a local donkey, with their representatives in
the north--those thin trickles of sound, shadowy as the squeakings of
ghosts. Something will have to be done about those nightingales unless I
am to find my way into a sanatorium. For hardly is this bird started on
its work before five or six others begin to shout in emulation--a little
further off, I am glad to say, but still near enough to be inconvenient;
still near enough to be reached by a brick from this window----A brick.
Methinks I begin to see daylight....
Meanwhile one can snatch a little rest out of doors, in the afternoon. A
delectable path, for example, runs up behind the cemetery, bordered by
butterfly orchids and lithospermum and aristolochia and other plants
worthy of better names; it winds aloft, under shady chestnuts, with
views on either side. Here one can sit and smoke and converse with some
rare countryman passing by; here one can dream, forgetful of
nightingales--soothed, rather, by the mellifluous note of the oriole
among the green branches overhead and the piping, agreeably remote, of
some wryneck in the olives down yonder. The birds are having a quiet
time, for the first time in their lives; sportsmen are all at the front.
I kicked up a partridge along this track two days ago.
Those wrynecks, by the way, are abundant but hard to see. They sit
close, relying on their protective colour. And it is the same with the
tree-creepers. I have heard Englishmen say there are no tree-creepers in
Italy. The olive groves are well stocked with them (there are numbers
even in the Borghese Gardens in Rome), but you must remain immovable as
a rock in order to see them; for they are yet shyer, more silent, more
fond of interposing the tree-trunk between yourself and them, than those
at home. Mouse-like in hue, in movement and voice--a strange case of
analogous variation....
As to this Scalambra, this mountain whose bleak grey summit overtops
everything near Olevano, I could soon bear the sight of it no longer. It
seemed to shut out the world; one must up and glance over the edge, to
see what is happening on the other side. I looked for a guide and
porter, for somebody more solid than Giulio, who is almost an infant;
none could be found. Men are growing scarce as the Dodo hereabouts, on
account of the war. So Giulio came, though he had never made the ascent.
Now common sense, to say nothing of a glance at the map, would suggest
the proper method of approach: by the village of Serrano, the Saint
Michael hermitage, and so up. Scouting this plan, I attacked the
mountain about half-way between that village and Rojate. I cannot
recommend my route. It was wearisome to the last degree and absolutely
shadeless save for a small piece of jungle clothing a gulley, hung with
myriads of caterpillars and not worth mentioning as an incident in that
long walk. No excitement--not the faintest chance, so far as I could
see, of breaking one's neck, and uphill all the time over limestone. One
never seems to get any nearer. This Scalambra, I soon discovered, is one
of those artful mountains which defend their summits by thrusting out
escarpments with valleys in between; you are kept at arm's length, as it
were, by this arrangement of the rock, which is invisible at a distance.
And when at last you set foot on the real ridge and climb laboriously to
what seems to be the top--lo! there is another peak a little further
off, obviously a few feet higher. Up you go, only to discover a third,
perhaps a few inches higher still. Alpine climbers know these tricks.
We reached the goal none the less and there lay, panting and gasping;
while an eagle, a solitary eagle with tattered wings, floated overhead
in the cloudless sky.
The descent to Rojate under that blazing sun was bad enough. My flask
had been drained to the dregs long ago, and the Scalambra, true to its
limestone tradition, had not supplied even a drop of water. Arriving at
the village at about two in the afternoon, we found it deserted;
everybody enjoying their Sunday nap. Rojate is a dirty hole. The water
was plainly not to be trusted; it might contain typhoid germs, and I was
responsible for Giulio's health; wine would be safer, we agreed. There,
in a little shop near the church--a dark and cool place, the first shade
we had entered for many hours--we drank without ever growing less
thirsty. We felt like cinders, so hot, so porous, that the liquid seemed
not only to find its way into the legitimate receptacle but to be
obliged to percolate, by some occult process of capillarity, the
remotest regions of the body. As time went on, the inhabitants dropped
in after their slumbers and kept us company. We told our adventures,
drank to the health of the Allies one by one and several times over; and
it was not until we had risen to our feet and passed once more into the
sunshine of the square that we suddenly felt different from what we
thought we felt.
The first indication was conveyed by Giulio, who called upon the
populace of Rojate, there assembled, to bear solemn witness to the fact
that I was his one and only friend, and that he would nevermore abandon
me--a sentiment in which I stoutly concurred. (A fellow-feeling makes us
wondrous blind.) Other symptoms followed. His hat, for example, which
had hitherto behaved in exemplary fashion, now refused to remain
steadily balanced on his head; it took some first-class gymnastics to
prevent it from falling to the ground. In fact, while I confined myself
to the minor part of Silenus--my native role--this youngster gave a
noteworthy representation of the Drunken Faun....
Now I see no harm in appreciating wine up to a certain point, and am
consoled to observe that Craufurd Tait Ramage, LL.D., was of the same
way of thinking. He says so himself, and there is no reason for doubting
his word. He frankly admits, for instance, that he enjoys the stuff
called moscato "with great zest." He samples the Falernian vintage and
pronounces it to be "particularly good, and not degenerated." Arrived at
Cutro, he is not averse to reviving his spirits with "a pretty fair
modicum of wine." He also lets slip--significant detail--the fact that
Dr. Henderson was one of his friends, and that he travelled about with
him. You may judge a man by the company he keeps. Who was this Dr.
Henderson? He was the author of "The History of Ancient Wines." Old
Henderson, I should say, could be trusted to know something of local
vintages.
And so far good.
At Licenza, however, Ramage tells us that he "got glorious on the wine
of Horace's Sabine farm." I do not know what he means by this
expression, which seems to be purposely ambiguous; in any case, it does
not sound very nice. At another place, again, he and his entertainer
consumed some excellent liquor "in considerable quantity"--so he avows;
adding that "it was long past midnight ere we closed our bacchanalian
orgies, and he (the host) ended by stating that he was happy to have
made my acquaintance." Note the lame and colourless close of that
sentence: he ended by stating. One always ends that way after
bacchanalian orgies, though one does not always gloss over the escapade
with such disingenuous language.
We can guess what really took place. It was something like what happened
at Rojate. Did not the curly-haired Giulio end by "stating" something to
the same effect?
I cannot make up my mind whether to be pleased with this particular
trait in friend Ramage's character. For let it never be forgotten that
our traveller was a young man at the time. He says so himself, and there
is no reason for doubting his word. Was he acting as beseemed his years?
I am not more straight-laced than many people, yet I confess it always
gives me a kind of twinge to see a young man yielding to intemperance of
any kind. There is something incongruous in the spectacle, if not
actually repellent. Rightly or wrongly, one is apt to associate that
time of life with stern resolve. A young man, it appears to me, should
hold himself well in hand. Youth has so much to spare! Youth can afford
to be virtuous. With such stores of joy looming ahead, it should be a
period of ideals, of self-restraint and self-discipline, of earnestness
of purpose. How well the Greek Anthology praises "Temperance, the nurse
of Youth!" The divine Plato lays it down that youngsters should not
touch wine at all, since it is not right to heap fire on fire. He adds
that older men like ourselves may indulge therein as an ally against the
austerity of their years--agreeing, therefore, with Theophrastus who
likewise recommends it for the "natural moroseness" of age.
Observe in this connection what happened to Craufurd Tait Ramage, LL.D.,
at Trebisacce. Here was a poor old coastguard who had been taken
prisoner by the Corsairs thirty years earlier, carried to Algiers, and
afterwards ransomed. Having "nothing better to do" (says our author) "I
confess I furnished him with somewhat more wine than was exactly
consistent with propriety"; with so liberal a quantity, indeed, that the
coastguard became quite "obstreperous in his mirth"; whereupon Ramage
hops on his mule and leaves him to his fate. Here, then, we have a young
fellow deliberately leading an old man astray. And why? Because he has
"nothing better to do." [13] It is not remarkably edifying. True, he
afterwards makes a kind of apology for "causing my brother to sin by
over-indulgence...."
But if we close our eyes to the fact that Ramage, when he gave way to
these excesses, was a young man and ought to have known better, what an
agreeable companion we find him!
He never rails at anything. Had I been subjected to half the annoyances
he endured, my curses would have been loud and long. Under such
provocation, Ramage contents himself with reproving his tormentors in
rounded phrases of oratio obliqua which savour strongly of those Latin
classics he knew so well. What he says of the countryfolk is not only
polite but true, that their virtues are their own, while their vices
have been fostered by the abuses of tyranny. "Whatever fault one may
find with this people for their superstition and ignorance, there is a
loveableness in their character which I am not utilitarian enough in my
philosophy to resist." This comes of travelling off the beaten track and
with an open mind; it comes of direct contact. When one remembers that
he wrote in 1828 and was derived from a bigoted stock, his religious
tolerance is refreshing--astonishing. He studies the observances of the
poorer classes with sympathetic eye and finds that they are "pious to a
degree to which I am afraid we must grant that we have no pretensions."
That custom of suspending votive offerings in churches he does not think
"worthy of being altogether condemned or ridiculed. The feeling is the
same that induces us, on recovery from severe illness, to give thanks to
Almighty God, either publicly in church or privately in our closets."
How many Calvinists of to-day would write like this?
We could do with more of these sensible and humane reflections, but
unfortunately he is generally too "pressed for time" to indulge in them.
That mania of hustling through the country....
One morning he finds himself at Foggia, with the intention of visiting
Mons Garganus. First of all he must "satisfy his curiosity" about Arpi;
it is ten miles there and back. Leaving Foggia for the second time he
proceeds twenty miles to Manfredonia, and inspects not only this town,
but the site of old Sipontum. Then he sails to the village of Mattinata,
and later to Vieste, the furthermost point of the promontory. About six
miles to the north are the presumable ruins of Merinum; he insists upon
going there, but the boatmen strike work; regretfully he returns to
Manfredonia, arriving at 11 p.m., and having covered on this day some
sixty or seventy miles. What does he do at Manfredonia? He sleeps for
three hours--and then a new hustle begins, in pitch darkness.
Another day he wakes up at Sorrento and thinks he will visit the Siren
Islets. He crosses the ridge and descends to the sea on the other side,
to the so-called Scaricatojo--quite a respectable walk, as any one can
find out for himself. Hence he sails to the larger of the islets, climbs
to the summit and makes some excavations, in the course of which he
observes what I thought I was the first to discover--the substructures
of a noble Roman villa; he also scrambles into King Robert's tower. Then
to the next islet, and up it; then to the third, and up it. After that,
he is tempted to visit the headland of Minerva; he goes there, and
satisfies his curiosity. He must now hence to Capri. He sails across,
and after a little refreshment, walks to the so-called Villa of Jupiter
at the easterly apex of the island. He then rows round the southern
shore and is taken with the idea of a trip to Misenum, twenty miles or
so distant. Arrived there, he climbs to the summit of the cape and
lingers a while--it is pleasant to find him lingering--to examine
something or other. Then he "rushes" down to the boat and bids them row
to Pozzuoli, where he arrives (and no wonder) long after sunset. A good
day's hustle....
The ladies made a great impression on his sensitive mind; yet not even
they were allowed to interfere with his plans. At Strongoli the
"sparkling eyes of the younger sister" proved the most attractive object
in the place. He was strongly urged to remain a while and rest from his
fatigues. But no; there were many reasons why he should press forward.
He therefore presses forward. At another place, too, he was waited upon
by his entertainer's three daughters, the youngest of whom was one of
the most entrancing girls he had ever met with--in fact, it was well
that his time was limited, else "I verily believe I should have
committed all kinds of follies." That is Ramage. He parts from his host
with "unfeigned regret"--but--parts. His time is always limited. Bit for
that craze of pressing forward, what fun he could have had!
Stroll to that grove of oaks crowning a hill-top above the Serpentaro
stream. It has often been described, often painted. It is a corner of
Latium in perfect preservation; a glamorous place; in the warm dusk of
southern twilight--when all those tiresome children are at last
asleep--it calls up suggestions of A Midsummer Night's Dream. Here is a
specimen of the landscape as it used to be. You may encounter during
your wanderings similar fragments of woodland, saved by their
inaccessibility from the invading axe. "Hands off the Oak!" cries an old
Greek poet.
The Germans, realizing its picturesque value, bought this parcel of land
and saved the trees from destruction. It was well done. Within, they
have cut certain letterings upon the rock which violate the sylvan
sanctity of the place--Germans will do these things; there is no
stopping them; it is part of their crudely expansive temperament--certain
letterings, among other and major horrors, anent the "Law of
the Ever-beautiful" (how truly Teutonic!)--lines, that is, signed by the
poet Victor von Scheffel, and dated 2 May, 1897. Scheffel was a kindly
and erudite old toper, who toped himself into Elysium via countless
quarts of Affenthaler. I used to read his things; the far-famed
Ekkehardt furnishing an occasion for a visit to the Hohentwiel mountain
in search of that golden-tinted natrolite mineral, which was duly found
(I specialized in zeolites during that period).
Now what was Scheffel doing at this Serpentaro in 1897? For I attended
his funeral, which took place in the 'eighties. Can it be that his son,
a scraggy youth in those days, inherited not only the father's name but
his poetic mantle? Was it he who perpetrated those sententious lines? I
like to think so. That "law of the ever-beautiful" does not smack of the
old man, unless he was more disguised than usual, and having a little
fun with his pedantic countrymen....
Climb hence--it is not far--to the village of Civitella, now called
Bellegra, a prehistoric fastness with some traces of "cyclopean"
defences. Those ancients must have had cisterns; inconceivable that
springs should ever have issued from this limestone crag. You can see
the women of to-day fetching water from below, from a spot which I was
too lazy to investigate, where perhaps the soft tertiary rock leans upon
this impervious stuff and allows the liquid to escape into the open. An
unclean place is Bellegra, and loud, like all these Sabine villages,
with the confused crying of little children. That multiple wail of
misery will ring in your ear for days afterwards. They are more
neglected by their mothers than ever, since women now have all the men's
work in the fields to do. They are hungrier than ever, on account of the
war which has imposed real hardships on these agricultural folk;
hardships that seize them by the throat and make them sit down, with
folded hands, in dumb despair: so I have seen them. How many of these
unhappy babies will grow to maturity?
Death-rate must anyhow be high hereabouts, for nothing is done in the
way of hygiene. In the company of one who knows, I perambulated the
cemetery of Olevano and was astonished at the frequency of tombstones
erected to the young. "Consumption," my friend told me. They scorn
prophylactics. I should not care to send growing children into these
villages, despite their "fine air." Here, at Bellegra, the air must be
fine indeed in winter; too fine for my taste. It lies high, exposed to
every blast of Heaven, and with noble views in all directions.
Rest awhile, on your homeward march, at the small bridge near Olevano
where the road takes a turn. A few hundred yards up the glen on your
left is a fountain whose waters are renowned for their purity; the
bridge itself is not a favourite spot after sunset; it is haunted by a
most malignant spectre. That adds considerably, in my eyes, to the charm
of the place. Besides, here stands an elder tree now in full flower.
What recollections does that scent evoke! What hints of summer, after
rain!
A venerable tree, old as the hills; that last syllable tells its
tale--you may read it in the Sanscrit. A man-loving tree; seldom one
sees an elder by itself, away from human habitations, in the jungle. I
have done so; but in that particular jungle, buried beneath the soil,
were the ruins of old houses. When did it begin to attach itself to the
works of man, to walls and buildings? And why? Does it derive peculiar
sustenance from the lime of the masonry? I think not, for it grows in
lands where lime is rare, and in the shadow of log-huts. It seeks
shelter from the wind for its frail stalks and leaves, that shrivel
wondrously when the plant is set in exposed situations.
The Sabine mountains are full of elders. They use the berries to colour
the wine. A German writer, R. Voss, wove their fragrance into a kind of
Leit-motif for one of his local novels. I met him once by accident, and
am not anxious to meet him again. A sacerdotal and flabbily pompous old
man--straightway my opinion of his books, never very high, fell to zero,
and has there remained. He knew these regions well, and doubtless
sojourned at one time or another at yonder caravanserai-hotel, abandoned
of late, but then filled with a crowd of noisy enthusiasts who have
since been sacrificed to the war-god. Doubtless he drank wine with them
on that terrace overlooking the brown houses of Olevano, though I
question whether he then paid as much as they are now charging me;
doubtless he rejoiced to see that stately array of white lilies fronting
the landscape, though I question whether he derived more pleasure from
them than I do....
While at Bellegra, this afternoon, I gazed landwards to where, in the
Abruzzi region, the peaks are still shrouded in snow.
How are they doing our there, at Scanno? Is that driving-road at last
finished? Can the "River Danube" still be heard flowing underground in
the little cave of Saint Martin? Are the thistles of violet and red and
blue and gold and silver as gorgeous as ever? [14] And those legions of
butterflies--do they still hover among the sunny patches in the narrow
vale leading to Mount Terrata? And Frattura, that strange place--what
has happened to Frattura? Built on a fracture, on the rubble of that
shattered mountain which produced the lake lower down, it has probably
crumbled away in the last earthquake. Well I remember Frattura! It was
where the wolf ate the donkey, and where we, in our turn, often
refreshed ourselves in the dim hovel of Ferdinando--never with greater
zest than on the hot downward march from Mount Genzana. Whether those
small purple gentians are still to be found on its summit? And the
emerald lizard on the lower slopes? Whether the eagles still breed on
the neighbouring Montagna di Preccia? They may well be tired of having
their nest plundered year after year.
What foreigner has older and pleasanter memories of Scanno? I would like
to meet that man, and compare notes.
And so, glancing over the hills from Bellegra, I sent my thoughts into
those Abruzzi mountains, and registered a vow to revisit Scanno--if only
in order to traverse once more by moonlight, for the sake of auld lang
syne, the devious paths to Roccaraso, or linger in that moist nook by
the lake-side where stood the Scanno of olden days (the Betifuli, if
such it was, of the Pelignians), where the apples grow, where the sly
dabchick plays among the reeds, and where, one evening, I listened to
something that might have been said much sooner. Acque Vive....
I kept my vow. Our bill at Scanno for wine alone was 189 francs, and for
beer 92 francs; figures which look more formidable than they are and
which I cite only to prove that we--for of course I was not
alone--enjoyed ourselves fairly well during those eighteen days. By the
way, what does Baedeker mean by speaking of the "excellent wines" of
Scanno, where not a drop is grown? He might have said the same of
Aberdeen.
The season was too late for the thistles, too late for the little
coppers and fritillaries and queens of Spain and commas and all the rest
of that fluttering tribe in the narrow vale leading to Terrata, though
wood-pigeons were still cooing there. Scanno has been spared by the
earthquake which laid low so many other places; it has prospered;
prospered too much for my taste, since those rich smoky tints,
especially of the vaulted interiors, are now disappearing under an
invasion of iron beams and white plaster. The golden duskiness of
Scanno, heightened as it was by the gleaming copper vessels borne on
every young girl's head, will soon be a thing of the past. Young trees
along the road-side--well-chosen trees: limes, maples, willows, elms,
chestnuts, ashes--are likewise doing well and promise pretty effects of
variegated foliage in a few years' time; so are the plantations of pines
in the higher regions of the Genzana. In this matter of afforestation,
Scanno continues its system of draconic severity. It is worth while, in
a country which used to suffer so much from reckless grazing of goats on
the hill-sides, and the furious floods of water. The Sagittario stream
is hemmed in by a cunning device of stones contained within bags of
strong wire; it was introduced many years ago by an engineer from
Modena. And if you care to ascend the torrents, you will find they have
been scientifically dammed by the administration, whereas the peasant,
when they overflow and ruin his crops, contents himself with damning
them in quite an amateurish fashion. Which reminds me that I picked up
during this visit, and have added to my collection, a new term of abuse
to be addressed to your father-in-law: Porcaccio d'un cagnaccio! Novel
effects, you perceive, obtained by a mere intensification of colour.
As to Frattura--yes, it is shattered. Vainly we tried to identify
Ferdinando's abode among all that debris. The old man himself escaped
the cataclysm, and now sells his wares in one of the miserable wooden
shanties erected lower down. The mellow hermit at St. Egidio, of whom
more on p. 171, has died; his place is taken by a worthless vagabond.
Saint Domenico and his serpents, the lonely mead of Jovana (? Jovis
fanum), that bell in the church-tower of Villalago which bears the
problematical date of 600 A.D.--they are all in their former places.
Mount Velino still glitters over the landscape, for those who climb high
enough to see it. The cliff-swallows are there, and dippers skim the
water as of old. Women, in their unhygienic costume, still carry those
immense loads of wood on their heads, though payment is considerably
higher than the three half-pence a day which it used to be.
Enough of Scanno!
Whoever wishes to leave the place on foot and by an unconventional
route, may go to Sora via Pescasseroli. Adventurous souls will scramble
over the Terrata massif, leaving the summit well on their right, and
descend on its further side; others may wander up the Valle dei Prati
and then, bending to the right along the so-called Via del Campo, mount
upwards past a thronged alp of sheep, over the watershed, and down
through charming valleys of beechen timber. A noble walk, and one that
compares favourably with many Abruzzi excursions. What deserts they
often are, these stretches of arid limestone, voiceless and waterless,
with the raven's croak for your only company!
I am glad to have seen Pescasseroli, where we arrived at about 9 a.m.
For the rest, it is only one of many such places that have been brought
to a state of degradation by the earthquake, the present war, and
governmental neglect. Not an ounce of bread was procurable for money, or
even as a gift. The ordinary needs of life--cigars, matches, maccheroni
and so forth: there were none of them. An epidemic of the gapes,
infecting the entire race of local hens, had caused the disappearance of
every egg from the market. And all those other countless things which a
family requires for its maintenance--soap and cloth and earthenware and
kitchen utensils and oils--they have become rarities; the natives are
learning to subsist without them; relapsing into a kind of barbarism. So
they sit among the cracked tenements; resentful, or dumbly apathetic.
"We have been forgotten," said one of them.
The priests inculcate submission to the will of God. What else should
they teach? But men will outgrow these doctrines of patience when
suffering is too acute or too prolonged. "Anything is better than this,"
they say. Thus it comes about that these ruined regions are a goodly
soil for the sowing of subversive opinions; the land reeks of
ill-digested socialism.
We found a "restaurant" where we lunched off a tin of antediluvian
Spanish sardines, some mouldy sweet biscuits, and black wine. (A
distinction is made in these parts between black and red wine; the
former is the Apulian variety, the other from Sulmona.) During this
repast, we were treated to several bear-stories. For there are bears at
Pescasseroli, and nowhere else in Italy; even as there are chamois
nearby, between Opi and Villetta Barrea, among the crags of the
Camosciara, which perpetuates their name. One of those present assured
us that the bear is a good beast; he will eat a man, of course, but if
he meets a little boy, he contents himself with throwing stones at
him--just to teach him good manners. Certain old bears are as big as a
donkey. They have been seen driving into their cave a flock of
twenty-five sheep, like any shepherd. It is no rare thing to encounter
in the woods a bear with a goat slung over his shoulder; he must
breakfast, like anybody else. One of these gentlemen told us that the
bears, not long ago, were a source of considerable profit to the
peasantry round about. It was in this wise. Their numbers had been
reduced, it seems, to a single pair and the species was threatened with
extinction, when, somehow or other, this state of affairs became known
to the King who, alarmed at the disappearance from his realm of a
venerable and autochtonous quadruped, the largest European beast of
prey, conceived the happy idea of converting the whole region into a
Royal Preserve. On pain of death, no bear was to be molested or even
laughed at; any damage they might do would be compensated out of the
Royal Purse.
For a week or so after this enactment, nothing was heard of the bears.
Then, one morning, the conscientious Minister of the Royal Household
presented himself at the palace, with a large sheaf of documents under
his arm.
"What have we here?" inquired the King.
"Attestations relating to the bears of Pescasseroli, Your Majesty. They
seem to be thriving."
"Ah! That is nice of them. They are multiplying once more, thanks to Our
Royal protection. We thought they would."
"Multiplying indeed, Sire. Here are testimonials, sworn before the local
syndic, showing that they have devoured 18 head of cattle and 43 sheep."
"In that short time? Is it possible? Well, well! The damage must be
paid. And yet We never knew the bears could propagate so fast. Maybe our
Italian variety is peculiarly vigorous in such matters."
"Seems so, Your Majesty. Very prolific."
A week or so passed and, once more, His Excellency was announced. The
King observed:
"You are not looking quite yourself this morning, my good Minister.
Would it be indiscreet to inquire the cause? No family or parliamentary
worries, We trust?"
"Your Majesty is very kind! No. It is the bears of Pescasseroli. They
have eaten 75 head of cattle, 93 sheep, and 114 goats. Ah--and 18
horses. Here are the claims for damages, notarially attested."
"We must pay. But if only somebody could teach the dear creatures to
breed a little more reasonably!"
"I cannot but think, Sire, that the peasants are abusing Your
Majesty's----"
"May We never live to hear anything against Our faithful and
well-beloved Abruzzi folk!"
Nearly a month elapsed before the Minister again presented himself. This
time he looked really haggard and careworn, and was bowed down under an
enormous bundle of papers. The King glanced up from that writing-desk
where, like all other sovereigns, he had been working steadily since
4.30 a.m., and at once remarked, with that sympathetic intuition for
which he is famous among crowned heads:
"We think We know. The bears."
Your Majesty is never wrong. They have devoured 126 cows and calves and
bullocks, 418 sheep and goats, 62 mules, 37 horses, and 96 donkeys. Also
55 shepherd dogs and 827 chickens. Here are the claims."
"Dear, dear, dear. This will never do. If it is a question of going to
ruin, We prefer that it should be the bears rather than Ourselves. We
must withdraw Our Royal protection, after settling up these last items.
What say you, my good Minister?"
"Your Majesty is always right. A private individual may indulge in the
pastime of breeding bears to the verge of personal bankruptcy. Ruling
sovereigns will be guided by juster and more complex considerations."
And from that moment, added our gentlemanly informant, there began a
wonderful shrinkage in the numbers of the bears. Within a day or two,
they were again reduced to a single couple.
Gladly would I have listened to more of these tales but, having by far
the worst of the day's walk still before us, we left the stricken
regions about midday and soon began an interminable ascent, all through
woods, to the shrine of Madonna di Tranquillo. Hereabouts is the
watershed, whence you may see, far below, the tower of Campoli Apennino.
That village was passed in due course, and Sora lay before us, after a
thirteen hours' march....
That same night in Sora--it may have been 2 a.m.--some demon drew nigh
to my bedside and whispered in my ear: "What are you doing here, at
Sora? Why not revisit Alatri? (I had been there already in June.) Just
another little promenade! Up, sluggard, while the night-air is cool!"
I obeyed the summons and turned to rouse my slumbering companion, to
whom I announced my inspiration. His remarks, on that occasion, were
well worth listening to.
Next evening found us at Alatri.
Now whoever, after walking from Scanno over Pescasseroli to Sora in one
day, and on the next, in the blazing heat of early autumn, from Sora
over Isola Liri and Veroli to Alatri--touching in two days the soil of
three Italian provinces: Aquila, Caserta, and Rome--whoever, after doing
this, and inspecting the convent of Casamari en route, feels inclined
for a similar promenade on the third day: let him rest assured of my
profound respect.
Calm, sunny days at Olevano. And tranquil nights, for some time past.
The nightingale has been inspired to move a little up country, into
another bush. Its rivals have likewise retired further off, and their
melodramatic trills sound quite pleasant at this distance.
So tin cans have their uses, even when empty. Certain building
operations may have been interrupted. I apologise, though I will not
promise not to repeat the offence. They can move their nests; I cannot
move this house. Bless their souls! I would not hurt a hair on their
dear little heads, but one must really have a few hours' sleep, somehow
or other. A single night's repose is more precious to me than a myriad
birds or quadrupeds or bipeds; my ideas on the sacred nature of sleep
being perfectly Oriental. That Black Hole of Calcutta was an infamous
business. And yet, while nowise approving the tyrant's action, I can
thoroughly understand his instructions on the subject of slumber.
Not every one at Olevano is so callous. Waiting the other day at the
bifurcation of the roads for the arrival of the station motor-car--the
social event of the place--I noticed two children bringing up to a
bigger one the nest of a chaffinch, artfully frosted over with silver
lichen from some olive, and containing a naked brood which sprawled
pathetically within. Wasn't it pretty, they asked?
"Very pretty," he replied. "Now you will take it straight back where you
found it. Go ahead. I am coming with you." And he marched them off.
I am glad to put this incident on record. It is the second of its kind
which I have observed in this country, the first being when a fisherman
climbed up a bad piece of rock to replace a nest--idle undertaking--which
some boys had dislodged with stones. At a short distance from
the scene sat the mother-bird in pensive mood, her head cocked on one
side. What did she think of the benevolent enthusiast?...
Olevano is said to have been discovered by the Germans. I am sceptical
on this point, having never yet found a place that was discovered by
them. An English eccentric or two is sure to have lived and died here
all by himself; though doubtless, once on the spot, they did their best
to popularise and vulgarise it. In this matter, as in art or science or
every department of life, a German requires forerunners. He must follow
footsteps. He gleans; picks the brains of other people, profits by their
mistakes and improves on their ideas.
I know nothing of the social history of Olevano--of its origin, so far
as foreigners are concerned. It is the easiest and the flimsiest thing
in the world to invent; there are so many analogies!
The first foreign resident of Olevano was a retired Anglo-Indian army
officer with unblemished record, Major Frederick Potter. He came across
the place on a trip from Rome, and took a fancy to it. Decent climate.
Passable food. You could pick up a woodcock or two. He was accustomed to
solitude anyhow, all his old friends being dead or buried, or scattered
about the world. He had tried England for a couple of years and
discovered that people there did not like being ordered about as they
should be; they seemed to mind it less, at Olevano. He had always been
something of a pioneer, and the mere fact of being the first "white man"
in the place gave him a kind of fondness for it.
It was he, then, who discovered Olevano--Freddy Potter. We can see him
living alone, wiry and whiskered and cantankerous, glorying in his
solitude up to the fateful day when, to his infinite annoyance, a
fellow-countryman turns up--Mr. Augustus Browne of London. Mr. Browne is
a blameless personality who, enjoying indifferent health, brings an
equally blameless old housekeeper with him. He is not a sportsman like
Potter, but indulges in a pretty taste for landscape painting, with
elaborate flowers and butterflies worked into the foreground. So they
live, each in jealous seclusion, drinking tea at fixed hours, importing
groceries from England, dressing for dinner, avoiding contact with the
"natives" and, of course, pretending to be unaware of one another's
existence.
As time goes on, their mutual distrust grows stronger. The Major has
never forgiven that cockney for invading Olevano, his private domain,
while Browne finds no words to express his disgust at Potter, who
presumably calls himself a Briton and yet smokes those filthy cheroots
in public (this was years and years ago). Why is the fellow skulking
here, all by himself? Some hanky-panky with regimental money; every one
knows how India plays the devil with a man's sense of right and wrong.
And Potter is not long in making up his mind that this civilian has
bolted to Olevano for reasons which will not bear investigation and is
living in retirement, ten to one, under an assumed name. Browne! He
really might have picked out a better one, while he was about it. That
water-colour business--a blind, a red herring; the so-called lady
companion----
The natives, meanwhile, observe with amazement the mutual conduct of two
compatriots. They are known, far and wide, as "the madmen" till some
bright spirit makes the discovery that they are not madmen at all, but
only homicides hiding from justice; whereupon contempt is changed to
grudging admiration.
Browne dies, after many years. His lady packs up and departs. The old
Major's delight at being once more alone is of short duration; he falls
ill and is entombed, his last days being embittered by the arrival of a
party of German tourists who declare they have "discovered" this
wonderful new spot, and threaten to bring more Teutons in their rear to
participate in its joys.
They come, singly and in batches, and soon make Olevano uninhabitable to
men of the Potter and Browne type. They keep the taverns open all night,
sing boisterous choruses, kiss each other in the street "as if they were
in their bedrooms," organise picnics in the woods, sketch old women
sitting in old doorways, start a Verschoenerungsverein and indulge in a
number of other antics which, from the local point of view, are held to
be either coarse or childish. The natives, after watching their doings
with critical interest, presently pronounce a verdict--a verdict to
which the brightest spirits of the place give their assent--a verdict
which, by the way, I have myself heard uttered.
"Those Englishmen"--thus it runs--"were at least assassins. These people
are merely fools."
POSTSCRIPT--One thing has occurred of late which would hardly have
happened were the Germans still in occupation of Olevano. At the central
piazza is a fountain where the cattle drink and where, formerly, you
could rest and glance down upon the country lying below--upon a piece of
green landscape peering in upon the street. This little view was like a
window, it gave an aerial charm to the place. They have now blocked it
up with an ugly house. The beauty of the site is gone. It is surprising
that local municipalities; however stupid, however corrupt, should not
be aware of the damage done to their own interests when they permit such
outrages. The Germans--were any of them still here--would doubtless have
interfered en masse and stopped the building.
Something should be done about these reviewers.
There has followed me hither a bundle of press notices of a recent book
of mine. They are favourable. I ought to be delighted. I happen to be
annoyed.
What takes place in this absurd book? The three unities are preserved. A
respectable but rather drab individual, a bishop, whose tastes and moods
are fashioned to reflect those of the average drab reader, arrives at a
new place and is described as being, among other things, peculiarly
sensitive on the subject of women. He cannot bear flippant allusions to
the sex. He has preserved a childlike faith in their purity, their
sacred mission on earth, their refining influence upon the race. His
friends call him old-fashioned and quixotic on this point. A true woman,
he declares, can do no wrong. And this same man, towards the end of the
book, watches how the truest woman in the place, the one whom he admires
more than all the rest, his own cousin and a mother, calmly throws her
legitimate husband over a cliff. He realises that he is "face to face
with an atrocious and carefully planned murder." Such, however, has been
the transformation of his mind during a twelve days' sojourn that he
understands the crime, he pardons it, he approves it.
Can this wholesale change of attitude be brought about without a plot?
Yet many of these reviewers discover no such thing in the book. "It
possesses not the faintest shadow of a plot," says one of the most
reputable of them. This annoys me.
I see no reason why a book should have a plot. In regard to this one, it
would be nearer the truth to say that it is nothing but plot from
beginning to end. How to make murder palatable to a bishop: that is the
plot. How? You must unconventionalise him, and instil into his mind the
seeds of doubt and revolt. You must shatter his old notions of what is
right. It is the only way to achieve this result, and I would defy the
critic to point to a single incident or character or conversation in the
book which does not further the object in view. The good bishop soon
finds himself among new influences; his sensations, his intellect, are
assailed from within and without. Figures such as those in chapters 11,
19 and 35; the endless dialogue in the boat; the even more tedious
happenings in the local law-court; the very externals--relaxing wind and
fantastic landscape and volcanic phenomena--the jovial immoderation of
everything and everybody: they foster a sense of violence and
insecurity; they all tend to make the soil receptive to new ideas.
If that was your plot, the reviewer might say, you have hidden it rather
successfully. I have certainly done my best to hide it. For although the
personalities of the villain and his legal spouse crop up periodically,
with ominous insistence, from the first chapter onwards, they are always
swallowed up again. The reason is given in the penultimate chapter,
where the critic might have found a résumé of my intentions and the key
to this plot--to wit, that a murder under those particular circumstances
is not only justifiable and commendable but--insignificant. Quite
insignificant! Not worth troubling about. Hundreds of decent and honest
folk are being destroyed every day; nobody cares tuppence; "one dirty
blackmailer more or less--what does it matter to anybody"? There are so
many more interesting things on earth. That is why the bishop--i.e. the
reader--here discovers the crime to be a "contemptible little episode,"
and decides to "relegate it into the category of unimportant events." He
was glad that the whole affair had remained in the background, so to
speak, of his local experiences. It seemed appropriate. In the
background: it seemed appropriate. That is the heart, the core, of the
plot. And that is why all those other happenings find themselves pushed
into the foreground.
I know full well that this is not the way to write an orthodox English
novel. For if you hide your plot, how shall the critic be expected to
see it? You must serve it on a tray; you must (to vary the simile) hit
the nail on the head and ask him to be so good as to superintend the
operation. That is the way to rejoice the cockles of his heart. He can
then compare you to someone else who has also hit the nail on the head
and with whose writings he happens to be familiar. You have a flavour of
Dostoievsky minus the Dickens taint; you remind him of Flaubert or
Walter Scott or somebody equally obscure; in short, you are in a
condition to be labelled--a word, and a thing, which comes perilously
near to libelling. If, to this description, he adds a short summary of
your effort, he has done his duty. What more can he do? He must not
praise overmuch, for that might displease some of his own literary
friends. He must not blame overmuch, else how shall his paper survive?
It lives on the advertisements of publishers and--say those persons,
perhaps wisely--"if you ill-treat our authors, there's an end to our
custom." Commercialism....
Which applies far less to literary criticism than to other kinds. Of
most of the critics of music and art the best one can say is that there
are hearty fellows among them who, with the requisite training, might
one day become fit for their work. England is the home of the amateur in
matters intellectual, the specialist in things material. No bootmaker
would allow an unpractised beginner to hack his leather about in a
jejune attempt to construct a pair of shoes. The other commodity, being
less valuable than cowhide, may be entrusted to the hands of any
'prentice who cares to enliven our periodicals with his playful
hieroglyphics. Criticism in England--snakes in Iceland. [15]
All alone, for a wonder, I climbed up to the sanctuary of St. Michael
above Serrone, that solitary white speck visible from afar on the upper
slopes of Mount Scalambra. It is a respectable walk, and would have been
inconveniently warm but for the fact that I rose with the nightingales,
reaching my destination at the very moment when the sun peered over the
ridge of the mountain at its back. A delicious ramble in the dewy shade
of morning, with ten minutes' rest on a wall at Serrone, talking to an
old woman who wore those ponderous red ornaments designed, I suppose, to
imitate coral.
I had hoped to meet at this hermitage some amiable and garrulous
anchorite who would share my breakfast. It is the ideal place for such a
life, and many are the mountain solitaries of this species I have known
in Italy (mostly retired shepherds). There was he of Scanno--dead, I
doubt not, by this time--that simple-hearted venerable with whom I
whiled away the long evenings at the shrine of Sant' Egidio, gazing over
the placid lake below, or up stream, at the dusky houses of Scanno
theatrically ranged against their hill-side. I became his friend, once
and for ever, after finding a wooden snuff-box he had lost--his only
snuff-box; it lay at the edge of the path among thick shrubs, and he
could hardly believe his eyes when he saw it again. One of my many
strokes of luck! Once I found a purse--
The little structure here was barred and deserted. I had no company save
a couple of ravens who, after assuring themselves, with that infernal
cunning of theirs, that I carried no gun, became as friendly as could be
expected of such solemn fowls. They are always in pairs--incurably
monogamous; whereas the carrion crow, for reasons of its own, has a
fondness for living in trios. This ménage à trois may have subtle
advantages and seems to be a step in the direction of the truly social
habits of the rook; it enables them to fight with more success against
their enemies, the hawks, and fosters, likewise, a certain
lightheartedness which the sententious raven lacks. No one who has
watched the aerial antics of a triplet of carrion crows can deny them a
sense of fun.
After an hour's contemplation of the beauties of nature I descended once
more through that ilex grove to Serrone. And now it began to grow
decidedly warm. The wide depression between this village and Olevano
used to be timbered and is still known as la selva or la foresta. Vines
now occupy the whole ground. If they had only left a few trees by the
wayside! Walking along, I encountered a sportsman who said he was on the
look-out for a hare. Always that hare! They might as well lie in wait
for the Great Auk. Not long ago, an old visionary informed me that he
had killed a hare beside the Ponte Milvio at Rome. Hares at Ponte
Milvio! They reminded me of those partridges in Belgrave Square. In my
younger days there was not a general in the British army who had not (1)
shot partridges in Belgrave Square and (2) been the chosen lover of
Queen Isabella of Spain....
Up to the castle, in the afternoon, for a final chat. We sit under the
vine near the entrance of that decayed stronghold, while babies and hens
scramble about the exposed rock; he talks, as usual, about the war. He
can talk of nothing else. No wonder. One son is maimed for life; the
other has been killed outright, and it looks as if no amount of
ironmongery (medals, etc.) would ever atone for the loss. This happy
land is full of affliction. Mourning everywhere, and hardships and
bitterness and ruined homes. Vineyards are untilled, olives unpruned,
for lack of labourers. It will take years to bring the soil back into
its old state of productivity. One is pained to see decent folk
suffering for a cause they fail to understand, for something that
happens beyond their ken, something dim and distant--unintelligible to
them as that Libyan expedition. None the less, he tells me, there is not
a single deserter in Olevano. An old warrior-brood, these men of
Latium....
Thence onward and upward, towards evening by that familiar path, for a
second farewell visit to Giulio's farm. It is a happy homestead, an
abode of peace, with ample rooms and a vine-wreathed terrace that
overlooks the smiling valley to the south. A mighty bush of rosemary
stands at the door. The mother is within, cooking the evening meal for
her man and the elder boys who work in the fields so long as a shred of
daylight flits about the sky. The little ones are already half asleep,
tired with a long day's playing in the sunshine.
Here is my favourite, Alberto, an adorable cherub and the pickle of the
family. I can see at a glance that he has been up to mischief. Alberto
is incorrigible. No amount of paternal treatment will do him any good.
He hammers nails into tables and into himself, he tumbles down from
trees, he throws stones at the girls and cuts himself with knives and
saws; he breaks things and loses things, and chases the hens
about--disobeys all the time. Every day there is some fresh disaster and
fresh chastisement. Two weeks ago he was all but run over by the big
station motor--pulled out from the wheels in the nick of time; that scar
across his forehead will remain for life, a memento of childish
naughtiness. Alberto understands me thoroughly. He is glad to see me.
But a certain formality must be gone through; every time we meet there
is a moment of shy distrust, while the ice has to be broken afresh--he
must assure himself that I have not changed since our last encounter.
Everything, apparently, is in order to-night, for he curls up
comfortably on my knee and is soon fast asleep, all his little tragedies
forgotten.
"It appears you like children," says the mother.
"I like this one, because he is never out of trouble. He reminds me of
myself. I shall steal him one of these days, and carry him off to Rome.
From there we will walk on foot to Brindisi, along an old track called
the Via Appia. It will require two of three years, for I mean to stop a
day, or perhaps a week, at every single tavern along the road. Then I
will write a book about it; a book to make myself laugh with, when I am
grown too old for walking."
"Giulio is big enough."
"I'll wait."
No chance of undertaking such a trip in these times of war, when a
foreigner is liable to be arrested at every moment. Besides, how far
would one get, with Giulio? Nevermore to Brindisi! As far as Terracina;
possibly even to Formia. There, at Formia, we would remain for the rest
of our natural lives, if the wine at the Albergo della Quercia is
anything like what it used to be; there, at Formia, we would pitch our
tent, enacting every day, or perhaps twice a day, our celebrated
Faun-and-Silenus entertainment for the diversion of the populace. I have
not forgotten Giulio's besetting sin. How nearly he made me exceed the
measure of sobriety at Rojate!...
Night descends. I wander homewards. Under the trees of the driving-road
fireflies are dancing; countrymen return in picturesque groups, with
mules and children, from their work far afield; that little owl, the
aluco, sits in the foliage overhead, repeating forever its plaintive
note. The lights of Artena begin to twinkle.
This Artena, they say, had such a sorry reputation for crime and
brigandage that the authorities at one time earnestly considered the
proposition of razing it to the ground. Then they changed their minds.
It seemed more convenient to have evil-doers all collected into one
place than scattered about the country. To judge by the brightness of
the lamps at this distance of twelve miles, the brigands have evidently
spared no expense in the matter of street-illumination.
And now the lights of Segni station are visible, down in the malarious
valley, where the train passes from Rome to Naples. Every night I have
beheld them from my window; every night they tinged my thoughts with a
soft sadness, driving them backwards, northwards--creating a link
between present and past. Now, for the last time, I see them and recall
those four journeys along that road; four, out of at least a hundred;
only four, but in what rare company!