And a little while after he left for his house, but I went out on to
the balcony, where men and women were talking in subdued tones. There,
alone, I sat and watched the night coming up into these Tuscan hills.
The first moon since that waning in Lorraine--(how many nights ago,
how many marches!)--hung in the sky, a full crescent, growing into
brightness and glory as she assumed her reign. The one star of the
west called out his silent companions in their order; the mountains
merged into a fainter confusion; heaven and the infinite air became
the natural seat of any spirit that watched this spell. The fire-flies
darted in the depths of vineyards and of trees below; then the noise
of the grasshoppers brought back suddenly the gardens of home, and
whatever benediction surrounds our childhood. Some promise of eternal
pleasures and of rest deserved haunted the village of Sillano.
In very early youth the soul can still remember its immortal
habitation, and clouds and the edges of hills are of another kind from
ours, and every scent and colour has a savour of Paradise. What that
quality may be no language can tell, nor have men made any words, no,
nor any music, to recall it--only in a transient way and elusive the
recollection of what youth was, and purity, flashes on us in phrases
of the poets, and is gone before we can fix it in our minds--oh! my
friends, if we could but recall it! Whatever those sounds may be that
are beyond our sounds, and whatever are those keen lives which remain
alive there under memory--whatever is Youth--Youth came up that valley
at evening, borne upon a southern air. If we deserve or attain
beatitude, such things shall at last be our settled state; and their
now sudden influence upon the soul in short ecstasies is the proof
that they stand outside time, and are not subject to decay.
This, then, was the blessing of Sillano, and here was perhaps the
highest moment of those seven hundred miles--or more. Do not therefore
be astonished, reader, if I now press on much more hurriedly to Rome,
for the goal is almost between my hands, and the chief moment has been
enjoyed, until I shall see the City.
Now I cry out and deplore me that this next sixty miles of way, but
especially the heat of the days and the dank mists of the night,
should have to be told as of a real journey in this very repetitive
and sui-similar world. How much rather I wish that being free from
mundane and wide-awake (that is to say from perilously dusty)
considerations and droughty boredoms, I might wander forth at leisure
through the air and visit the regions where everything is as the soul
chooses: to be dropped at last in the ancient and famous town of
Siena, whence comes that kind of common brown paint wherewith men,
however wicked, can produce (if they have but the art) very surprising
effects of depth in painting: for so I read of it in a book by a fool,
at six shillings, and even that was part of a series: but if you wish
to know anything further of the matter, go you and read it, for I will
do nothing of the kind.
Oh to be free for strange voyages even for a little while! I am tired
of the road; and so are you, and small blame to you. Your fathers also
tired of the treadmill, and mine of the conquering marches of the
Republic. Heaven bless you all!
But I say that if it were not for the incredulity and doubt and
agnostico-schismatical hesitation, and very cumbersome air of
questioning-and-peering-about, which is the bane of our moderns, very
certainly I should now go on to tell of giants as big as cedars,
living in mountains of precious stones, and drawn to battle by dragons
in cars of gold; or of towns where the customs of men were remote and
unexpected; of countries not yet visited, and of the gods returning.
For though it is permissible, and a pleasant thing (as Bacon says), to
mix a little falsehood with one's truth (so St Louis mixed water with
his wine, and so does Sir John Growl mix vinegar with his, unless I am
greatly mistaken, for if not, how does he give it that taste at his
dinners? eh? There, I think, is a question that would puzzle him!) yet
is it much more delectable, and far worthier of the immortal spirit of
man to soar into the empyrean of pure lying--that is, to lay the
bridle on the neck of Pegasus and let him go forward, while in the
saddle meanwhile one sits well back, grips with the knee, takes the
race, and on the energy of that steed visits the wheeling stars.
This much, then, is worth telling of the valley of the Serchio, that
it is narrow, garrulous with water brawling, wooded densely, and
contained by fantastic mountains. That it has a splendid name, like
the clashing of cymbals--Garfagnana; that it leads to the Tuscan
plain, and that it is over a day's march long. Also, it is an oven.
Never since the early liars first cooked eggs in the sand was there
such heat, and it was made hotter by the consciousness of folly, than
which there is no more heating thing; for I think that not old
Championnet himself, with his Division of Iron, that fought one to
three and crushed the aged enormities of the oppressors as we would
crush an empty egg, and that found the summer a good time for fighting
in Naples, I say that he himself would not have marched men up the
Garfagnana in such a sun. Folly planned it, Pride held to it, and the
devils lent their climate. Garfagnana! Garfagnana! to have such a
pleasant name, and to be what you are!
Not that there were not old towers on the steep woods of the Apennine,
nor glimpses of the higher peaks; towns also: one castle surrounded by
a fringe of humble roofs--there were all these things. But it was an
oven. So imagine me, after having passed chapels built into rocks, and
things most curious, but the whole under the strain of an intolerable
sun, coming, something after midday, to a place called Castel-Nuovo,
the first town, for Campogiamo is hardly a town.
At Castel-Nuovo I sat upon a bridge and thought, not what good men
think (there came into my memory no historical stuff; for all I know,
Liberty never went by that valley in arms); no appreciation of beauty
filled me; I was indifferent to all save the intolerable heat, when I
suddenly recognized the enormous number of bridges that bespattered
the town.
'This is an odd thing,' I mused. 'Here is a little worriment of a town
up in the hills, and what a powerful lot of bridges!'
I cared not a fig for the thousand things I had been told to expect in
Tuscany; everything is in a mind, and as they were not in my mind they
did not exist. But the bridges, they indeed were worthy of admiration!
Here was a horrible little place on a torrent bank. One bridge was
reasonable for by it went the road leading south to Lucca and to Rome;
it was common honour to let men escape. But as I sat on that main
bridge I counted seven others; indeed there must have been a worship
of a bridge-god some time or other to account for such a necklace of
bridges in such a neglected borough.
You may say (I am off hard on the road to Borgo, drooping with the
heat, but still going strongly), you may say that is explicable
enough. First a thing is useful, you say, then it has to become
routine; then the habit, being a habit, gets a sacred idea attached to
it. So with bridges: _e.g._ Pontifex; Dervorguilla, our Ballici saint
that built a bridge; the devil that will hinder the building of
bridges; _cf. _the Porphyry Bridge in the Malay cosmogony;
Amershickel, Brueckengebildung im kult-Historischer. Passenmayer;
Durat, _Le pont antique, etude sur les origines Toscanes;_ Mr Dacre's
_The Command of Bridges in Warfare; Bridges and Empire,_ by Captain
Hole, U.S.A. You may say all this; I shall not reply. If the heat has
hindered me from saying a word of the fine open valley on the left, of
the little railway and of the last of the hills, do you suppose it
will permit me to discuss the sanctity of bridges? If it did, I think
there is a little question on 'why should habit turn sacred?' which
would somewhat confound and pose you, and pose also, for that matter,
every pedant that ever went blind and crook-backed over books, or took
ivory for horn. And there is an end of it. Argue it with whom you
will. It is evening, and I am at Borgo (for if many towns are called
Castel-Nuovo so are many called Borgo in Italy), and I desire to be
free of interruption while I eat and sleep and reflect upon the error
of that march in that heat, spoiling nearly thirty miles of road,
losing so many great and pleasurable emotions, all for haste and from
a neglect of the Italian night.
And as I ate, and before I slept, I thought of that annotated Guide
Book which is cried out for by all Europe, and which shall tell blunt
truths. Look you out _'Garfagnana, district of, Valley of Serchio'_
in the index. You will be referred to p. 267. Turn to p. 267. You
will find there the phrase--
'One can walk from the pretty little village of Sillano, nestling in
its chestnut groves, to the flourishing town of Borgo on the new Bagni
railway in a day.'
You will find a mark [1] after that phrase. It refers to a footnote.
Glance (or look) at the bottom of the page and you will find:
[1] But if one does one is a fool.
So I slept late and uneasily the insufficient sleep of men who have
suffered, and in that uneasy sleep I discovered this great truth: that
if in a southern summer you do not rest in the day the night will seem
intolerably warm, but that, if you rest in the day, you will find
coolness and energy at evening.
The next morning with daylight I continued the road to Lucca, and of
that also I will say nothing.
LECTOR. Why on earth did you write this book?
AUCTOR. For my amusement.
LECTOR. And why do you suppose I got it?
AUCTOR. I cannot conceive... however, I will give up this much, to
tell you that at Decimo the mystery of cypress trees first came into
my adventure and pilgrimage: of cypress trees which henceforward were
to mark my Tuscan road. And I will tell you that there also I came
across a thing peculiar (I suppose) to the region of Lucca, for I saw
it there as at Decimo, and also some miles beyond. I mean fine
mournful towers built thus: In the first storey one arch, in the
second two, in the third three, and so on: a very noble way of
building.
And I will tell you something more. I will tell you something no one
has yet heard. To wit, why this place is called Decimo, and why just
below it is another little spot called Sexta.