young, handsome woman in rose-red costume, with gorgeous apron bordered
deep with grass-green, and a little, dark-purple waistcoat over her
white, full bodice, are sitting behind me talking. The workmen peasants
are subsiding into sleep. It is well on in the afternoon, we have long
ago eaten the meat. Now we finish the white loaf, the gift, and the tea.
Suddenly looking out of the window, we see Gennargentu's mass behind us,
a thick snow-deep knot-summit, beautiful beyond the long, steep spurs
among which we are engaged. We lose the white mountain mass for half an
hour: when suddenly it emerges unexpectedly almost in front, the great,
snow-heaved shoulder.
How different it is from Etna, that lonely, self-conscious wonder of
Sicily! This is much more human and knowable, with a deep breast and
massive limbs, a powerful mountain-body. It is like the peasants.
* * * * *
The stations are far between--an hour from one to another. Ah, how weary
one gets of these journeys, they last so long. We look across a
valley--a stone's throw. But alas, the little train has no wings, and
can't jump. So back turns the line, back and back towards Gennargentu, a
long rocky way, till it comes at length to the poor valley-head. This it
skirts fussily, and sets off to pelt down on its traces again, gaily.
And a man who was looking at us doing our round-about has climbed down
and crossed the valley in five minutes.
The peasants nearly all wear costumes now, even the women in the fields:
the little fields in the half-populated valleys. These Gennargentu
valleys are all half-populated, more than the moors further south.
It is past three o'clock, and cold where there is no sun. At last only
one more station before the terminus. And here the peasants wake up,
sling the bulging sacks over their shoulders, and get down. We see
Tonara away above. We see our old grimy black-and-white peasant greeted
by his two women who have come to meet him with the pony--daughters
handsome in vivid rose and green costume. Peasants, men in black and
white, men in madder-brown, with the close breeches on their compact
thighs, women in rose-and-white, ponies with saddle-bags, all begin to
trail up the hill-road in silhouette, very handsome, towards the
far-off, perched, sun-bright village of Tonara, a big village, shining
like a New Jerusalem.
* * * * *
The train as usual leaves us standing, and shuffles with trucks--water
sounds in the valley: there are stacks of cork on the station, and coal.
An idiot girl in a great full skirt entirely made of coloured patches
mops and mows. Her little waistcoat thing is also incredibly old, and
shows faint signs of having once been a lovely purple and black brocade.
The valley and steep slopes are open about us. An old shepherd has a
lovely flock of delicate merino sheep.
And at last we move. In one hour we shall be there. As we travel among
the tree slopes, many brown cork-trees, we come upon a flock of sheep.
Two peasants in our carriage looking out, give the most weird,
unnatural, high-pitched shrieks, entirely unproduceable by any ordinary
being. The sheep know, however, and scatter. And after ten minutes the
shrieks start again, for three young cattle. Whether the peasants do it
for love, I don't know. But it is the wildest and weirdest inhuman
shepherd noise I have ever heard.
* * * * *
It is Saturday afternoon and four o'clock. The country is wild and
uninhabited, the train almost empty, yet there is the leaving-off-work
feeling in the atmosphere. Oh twisty, wooded, steep slopes, oh glimpses
of Gennargentu, oh nigger-stripped cork-trees, oh smell of peasants, oh
wooden, wearisome railway carriage, we are so sick of you! Nearly seven
hours of this journey already: and a distance of sixty miles.
But we are almost there--look, look, Sorgono, nestling beautifully among
the wooded slopes in front. Oh magic little town. Ah, you terminus and
ganglion of the inland roads, we hope in you for a pleasant inn and
happy company. Perhaps we will stay a day or two at Sorgono.
The train gives a last sigh, and draws to a last standstill in the tiny
terminus station. An old fellow fluttering with rags as a hen in the
wind flutters, asked me if I wanted the _Albergo_, the inn. I said yes,
and let him take my knapsack. Pretty Sorgono! As we went down the brief
muddy lane between hedges, to the village high-road, we seemed almost to
have come to some little town in the English west-country, or in Hardy's
country. There were glades of stripling oaks, and big slopes with oak
trees, and on the right a saw-mill buzzing, and on the left the town,
white and close, nestling round a baroque church-tower. And the little
lane was muddy.
Three minutes brought us to the high-road, and a great, pink-washed
building blank on the road facing the station lane, and labelled in huge
letters: RISTORANTE RISVEGLIO: the letter N being printed backwards.
_Risveglio_ if you please: which means waking up or rousing, like the
word _reveille_. Into the doorway of the Risveglio bolted the flutterer.
"Half a minute," said I. "Where is the Albergo d'Italia?" I was relying
on Baedeker.
"Non c'e piu," replied my rag-feather. "There isn't it any more." This
answer, being very frequent nowadays, is always most disconcerting.
"Well then, what other hotel?"
"There is no other."
Risveglio or nothing. In we go. We pass into a big, dreary bar, where
are innumerable bottles behind a tin counter. Flutter-jack yells: and at
length appears mine host, a youngish fellow of the Esquimo type, but
rather bigger, in a dreary black suit and a cutaway waistcoat suggesting
a dinner-waistcoat, and innumerable wine-stains on his shirt front. I
instantly hated him for the filthy appearance he made. He wore a
battered hat and his face was long unwashed.
Was there a bedroom?
Yes.
And he led the way down the passage, just as dirty as the road outside,
up the hollow, wooden stairs also just as clean as the passage, along a
hollow, drum-rearing dirty corridor, and into a bedroom. Well, it
contained a large bed, thin and flat with a grey-white counterpane, like
a large, poor, marble-slabbed tomb in the room's sordid emptiness; one
dilapidated chair on which stood the miserablest weed of a candle I
have ever seen: a broken wash-saucer in a wire ring: and for the rest,
an expanse of wooden floor as dirty-grey-black as it could be, and an
expanse of wall charted with the bloody deaths of mosquitoes. The window
was about two feet above the level of a sort of stable-yard outside,
with a fowl-house just by the sash. There, at the window flew lousy
feathers and dirty straw, the ground was thick with chicken-droppings.
An ass and two oxen comfortably chewed hay in an open shed just across,
and plump in the middle of the yard lay a bristly black pig taking the
last of the sun. Smells of course were varied.
The knapsack and the kitchenino were dropped on the repulsive floor,
which I hated to touch with my boots even. I turned back the sheets and
looked at other people's stains.
"There is nothing else?"
"Niente," said he of the lank, low forehead and beastly shirt-breast.
And he sullenly departed. I gave the flutterer his tip and he too ducked
and fled. Then the queen-bee and I took a few mere sniffs.
"Dirty, disgusting swine!" said I, and I was in a rage.
I could have forgiven him anything, I think, except his horrible
shirt-breast, his personal shamelessness.
We strolled round--saw various other bedrooms, some worse, one really
better. But this showed signs of being occupied. All the doors were
open: the place was quite deserted, and open to the road. The one thing
that seemed definite was honesty. It must be a very honest place, for
every footed beast, man or animal, could walk in at random and nobody to
take the slightest regard.
So we went downstairs. The only other apartment was the open public bar,
which seemed like part of the road. A muleteer, leaving his mules at the
corner of the Risveglio, was drinking at the counter.
* * * * *
This famous inn was at the end of the village. We strolled along the
road between the houses, down-hill. A dreary hole! a cold, hopeless,
lifeless, Saturday afternoon-weary village, rather sordid, with nothing
to say for itself. No real shops at all. A weary-looking church, and a
clutch of disconsolate houses. We walked right through the village. In
the middle was a sort of open space where stood a great, grey
motor-omnibus. And a bus-driver looking rather weary.
Where did the bus go?
It went to join the main railway.
When?
At half-past seven in the morning.
Only then?
Only then.
"Thank God we can get out, anyhow," said I.
We passed on, and emerged beyond the village, still on the descending
great high-road that was mended with loose stones pitched on it. This
wasn't good enough. Besides, we were out of the sun, and the place being
at a considerable elevation, it was very cold. So we turned back, to
climb quickly uphill into the sun.
* * * * *
We went up a little side-turning past a bunch of poor houses towards a
steep little lane between banks. And before we knew where we were, we
were in the thick of the public lavatory. In these villages, as I knew,
there are no sanitary arrangements of any sort whatever. Every villager
and villageress just betook himself at need to one of the side-roads. It
is the immemorial Italian custom. Why bother about privacy? The most
socially-constituted people on earth, they even like to relieve
themselves in company.
We found ourselves in the full thick of one of these meeting-places. To
get out at any price! So we scrambled up the steep earthen banks to a
stubble field above. And by this time I was in a greater rage.
* * * * *
Evening was falling, the sun declining. Below us clustered the
Sodom-apple of this vile village. Around were fair, tree-clad hills and
dales, already bluish with the frost-shadows. The air bit cold and
strong. In a very little time the sun would be down. We were at an
elevation of about 2,500 feet above the sea.
No denying it was beautiful, with the oak-slopes and the wistfulness and
the far-off feeling of loneliness and evening. But I was in too great a
temper to admit it. We clambered frenziedly to get warm. And the sun
immediately went right down, and the ice-heavy blue shadow fell over us
all. The village began to send forth blue wood-smoke, and it seemed more
than ever like the twilit West Country.
But thank you--we had to get back. And run the gauntlet of that
stinking, stinking lane? Never. Towering with fury--quite unreasonable,
but there you are--I marched the q-b down a declivity through a wood,
over a ploughed field, along a cart-track, and so to the great high-road
above the village and above the inn.
It was cold, and evening was falling into dusk. Down the high-road came
wild half-ragged men on ponies, in all degrees of costume and
not-costume: came four wide-eyed cows stepping down-hill round the
corner, and three delicate, beautiful merino sheep which stared at us
with their prominent, gold-curious eyes: came an ancient, ancient man
with a stick: came a stout-chested peasant carrying a long wood-pole:
came a straggle of alert and triumphant goats, long-horned, long-haired,
jingling their bells. Everybody greeted us hesitatingly. And everything
came to a halt at the Risveglio corner, while the men had a nip.
I attacked the spotty-breast again.
Could I have milk?
No. Perhaps in an hour there would be milk. Perhaps not.
Was there anything to eat?
No--at half past seven there would be something to eat.
Was there a fire?
No--the man hadn't made the fire.
Nothing to do but to go to that foul bedroom or walk the high-road. We
turned up the high-road again. Animals stood about the road in the
frost-heavy air, with heads sunk passively, waiting for the men to
finish their drinks in the beastly bar--we walked slowly up the hill. In
a field on the right a flock of merino sheep moved mistily, uneasily,
climbing at the gaps in the broken road bank, and sounding their
innumerable small fine bells with a frosty ripple of sound. A figure
which in the dusk I had really thought was something inanimate broke
into movement in the field. It was an old shepherd, very old, in very
ragged dirty black-and-white, who had been standing like a stone there
in the open field-end for heaven knows how long, utterly motionless,
leaning on his stick. Now he broke into a dream-motion and hobbled after
the wistful, feminine, inquisitive sheep. The red was fading from the
far-off west. At the corner, climbing slowly and wearily, we almost ran
into a grey and lonely bull, who came stepping down-hill in his measured
fashion like some god. He swerved his head and went round us.
We reached a place which we couldn't make out: then saw it was a
cork-shed. There were stacks and stacks of cork-bark in the dusk, like
crumpled hides.
"Now I'm going back," said the q-b flatly, and she swung round. The last
red was smouldering beyond the lost, thin-wooded hills of this interior.
A fleece of blue, half-luminous smoke floated over the obscure village.
The high-way wound down-hill at our feet, pale and blue.
And the q-b was angry with me for my fury.
"Why are you so indignant! Anyone would think your moral self had been
outraged! Why take it morally? You petrify that man at the inn by the
very way you speak to him, _such_ condemnation! Why don't you take it as
it comes? It's all life."
But no, my rage is black, black, black. Why, heaven knows. But I think
it was because Sorgono had seemed so fascinating to me, when I imagined
it beforehand. Oh so fascinating! If I had expected nothing I should not
have been so hit. Blessed is he that expecteth nothing, for he shall not
be disappointed.
I cursed the degenerate aborigines, the dirty-breasted host who _dared_
to keep such an inn, the sordid villagers who had the baseness to squat
their beastly human nastiness in this upland valley. All my praise of
the long stocking-cap--you remember?--vanished from my mouth. I cursed
them all, and the q-b for an interfering female....
* * * * *
In the bar a wretched candle was weeping light--uneasy, gloomy men were
drinking their Saturday-evening-home-coming dram. Cattle lay down in the
road, in the cold air as if hopeless.
Had the milk come?
No.
When would it come.
He didn't know.
Well, what were we to do? Was there no room? Was there nowhere where we
could sit?
Yes, there was the _stanza_ now.
_Now!_ Taking the only weed of a candle, and leaving the drinkers in
the dark, he led us down a dark and stumbly earthen passage, over loose
stones and an odd plank, as it would seem underground, to the stanza:
the room.
The stanza! It was pitch dark--But suddenly I saw a big fire of
oak-root, a brilliant, flamy, rich fire, and my rage in that second
disappeared.
The host, and the candle, forsook us at the door. The stanza would have
been in complete darkness, save for that rushing bouquet of new flames
in the chimney, like fresh flowers. By this firelight we saw the room.
It was like a dungeon, absolutely empty, with an uneven, earthen floor,
quite dry, and high bare walls, gloomy, with a handbreadth of window
high up. There was no furniture at all, save a little wooden bench, a
foot high, before the fire, and several home-made-looking rush mats
rolled up and leaning against the walls. Furthermore a chair before the
fire on which hung wet table-napkins. Apart from this, it was a high,
dark, naked prison-dungeon.
But it was quite dry, it had an open chimney, and a gorgeous new fire
rushing like a water-fall upwards among the craggy stubs of a pile of
dry oak roots. I hastily put the chair and the wet corpse-cloths to one
side. We sat on the low bench side by side in the dark, in front of this
rippling rich fire, in front of the cavern of the open chimney, and we
did not care any more about the dungeon and the darkness. Man can live
without food, but he can't live without fire. It is an Italian proverb.
We had found the fire, like new gold. And we sat in front of it, a
little way back, side by side on the low form, our feet on the uneven
earthen floor, and felt the flame-light rippling upwards over our faces,
as if we were bathing in some gorgeous stream of fieriness. I forgave
the dirty-breasted host everything and was as glad as if I had come into
a kingdom.
So we sat alone for half an hour, smiling into the flames, bathing our
faces in the glow. From time to time I was aware of steps in the
tunnel-like passage outside, and of presences peering. But no one came.
I was aware too of the faint steaming of the beastly table-napkins, the
only other occupants of the room.
* * * * *
In dithers a candle, and an elderly, bearded man in gold-coloured
corduroys, and an amazing object on a long, long spear. He put the
candle on the mantel-ledge, and crouched at the side of the fire,
arranging the oak-roots. He peered strangely and fixedly in the fire.
And he held up the speared object before our faces.
It was a kid that he had come to roast. But it was a kid opened out,
made quite flat, and speared like a flat fan on a long iron stalk. It
was a really curious sight. And it must have taken some doing. The whole
of the skinned kid was there, the head curled in against a shoulder, the
stubby cut ears, the eyes, the teeth, the few hairs of the nostrils: and
the feet curled curiously round, like an animal that puts its fore-paw
over its ducked head: and the hind-legs twisted indescribably up: and
all skewered flat-wise upon the long iron rod, so that it was a complete
flat pattern. It reminded me intensely of those distorted, slim-limbed,
dog-like animals which figure on the old Lombard ornaments, distorted
and curiously infolded upon themselves. Celtic illuminations also have
these distorted, involuted creatures.
The old man flourished the flat kid like a bannerette, whilst he
arranged the fire. Then, in one side of the fire-place wall he poked the
point of the rod. He himself crouched on the hearth-end, in the
half-shadow at the other side of the fire-place, holding the further end
of the long iron rod. The kid was thus extended before the fire, like a
hand-screen. And he could spin it round at will.
[Illustration: SORONGO]
But the hole in the masonry of the chimney-piece was not satisfactory.
The point of the rod kept slipping, and the kid came down against the
fire. He muttered and muttered to himself, and tried again. Then at
length he reared up the kid-banner whilst he got large stones from a
dark corner. He arranged these stones so that the iron point rested on
them. He himself sat away on the opposite side of the fire-place, on the
shadowy hearth-end, and with queer, spell-bound black eyes and
completely immovable face, he watched the flames and the kid, and held
the handle end of the rod.
We asked him if the kid was for the evening meal--and he said it was. It
would be good! And he said yes, and looked with chagrin at the bit of
ash on the meat, where it had slipped. It is a point of honour that it
should never touch the ash. Did they do all their meat this way? He said
they did. And wasn't it difficult to put the kid thus on the iron rod?
He said it was not easy, and he eyed the joint closely, and felt one of
the forelegs, and muttered that was not fixed properly.
He spoke with a very soft mutter, hard to catch, and sideways, never to
us direct. But his manner was gentle, soft, muttering, reticent,
sensitive. He asked us where we came from, and where we were going:
always in his soft mutter. And what nation were we, were we French? Then
he went on to say there was a war--but he thought it was finished. There
was a war because the Austrians wanted to come into Italy again. But
the French and the English came to help Italy. A lot of Sardinians had
gone to it. But let us hope it is all finished. He thought it was--young
men of Sorgono had been killed. He hoped it was finished.
Then he reached for the candle and peered at the kid. It was evident he
was the born roaster. He held the candle and looked for a long time at
the sizzling side of the meat, as if he would read portents. Then he
held his spit to the fire again. And it was as if time immemorial were
roasting itself another meal. I sat holding the candle.
* * * * *
A young woman appeared, hearing voices. Her head was swathed in a shawl,
one side of which was brought across, right over the mouth, so that only
her two eyes and her nose showed. The q-b thought she must have
toothache--but she laughed and said no. As a matter of fact that is the
way a head-dress is worn in Sardinia, even by both sexes. It is
something like the folding of the Arab's burnoose. The point seems to be
that the mouth and chin are thickly covered, also the ears and brow,
leaving only the nose and eyes exposed. They say it keeps off the
malaria. The men swathe shawls round their heads in the same way. It
seems to me they want to keep their heads warm, dark and hidden: they
feel secure inside.
She wore the workaday costume: a full, dark-brown skirt, the full white
bodice, and a little waistcoat or corset. This little waistcoat in her
case had become no more than a shaped belt, sending up graceful,
stiffened points under the breasts, like long leaves standing up. It was
pretty--but all dirty. She too was pretty, but with an impudent, not
quite pleasant manner. She fiddled with the wet napkins, asked us
various questions, and addressed herself rather jerkily to the old man,
who answered hardly at all--Then she departed again. The women are
self-conscious in a rather smirky way, bouncy.
When she was gone I asked the old man if she was his daughter. He said
very brusquely, in his soft mutter, No. She came from a village some
miles away. He did not belong to the inn. He was, as far as I
understood, the postman. But I may have been mistaken about the word.
But he seemed laconic, unwilling to speak about the inn and its keepers.
There seemed to be something queer. And again he asked where we were
going. He told me there were now two motor-buses: a new one which ran
over the mountains to Nuoro. Much better go to Nuoro than to Abbasanta.
Nuoro was evidently the town towards which these villages looked, as a
sort of capital.
* * * * *
The kid-roasting proceeded very slowly, the meat never being very near
the fire. From time to time the roaster arranged the cavern of red-hot
roots. Then he threw on more roots. It was very hot. And he turned the
long spit, and still I held the candle.
Other people came strolling in, to look at us. But they hovered behind
us in the dark, so I could not make out at all clearly. They strolled in
the gloom of the dungeon-like room, and watched us. One came forward--a
fat, fat young soldier in uniform. I made place for him on the
bench--but he put out his hand and disclaimed the attention. Then he
went away again.
The old man propped up the roast, and then he too disappeared for a
time. The thin candle guttered, the fire was no longer flamy but red.
The roaster reappeared with a new, shorter spear, thinner, and a great
lump of raw hog-fat spitted on it. This he thrust into the red fire. It
sizzled and smoked and spit fat, and I wondered. He told me he wanted it
to catch fire. It refused. He groped in the hearth for the bits of twigs
with which the fire had been started. These twig-stumps he stuck in the
fat, like an orange stuck with cloves, then he held it in the fire
again. Now at last it caught, and it was a flaming torch running
downwards with a thin shower of flaming fat. And now he was satisfied.
He held the fat-torch with its yellow flares over the browning kid,
which he turned horizontal for the occasion. All over the roast fell the
flaming drops, till the meat was all shiny and browny. He put it to the
fire again, holding the diminishing fat, still burning bluish, over it
all the time in the upper air.
* * * * *
While this was in process a man entered with a loud _Good evening_. We
replied Good-evening--and evidently he caught a strange note. He came
and bent down and peered under my hat-brim, then under the q-b's
hat-brim, we still wore hats and overcoats, as did everybody. Then he
stood up suddenly and touched his cap and said _Scusi_--excuse me. I
said _Niente_, which one always says, and he addressed a few jovial
words to the crouching roaster: who again would hardly answer him. The
omnibus was arrived from Oristano, I made out--with few passengers.