A RAINY DAY
The rain came down upon my head
Unsheltered, and the heavy wind
Rendered me mad, and deaf, and blind.
E. A. Poe.
It was not quite so bad as all that. I did not go out in the rain,
and at present I am neither deaf nor blind. I cannot be sure about the
madness. It was very wet, though, but it cleared up before the evening.
A really wet day may be dreary, but still it is rather pleasant to have
one sometimes. The rain affords such a grand excuse to be idle and do
nothing. One can lounge about, and smoke, and read the newspapers or a
novel all day, and justly feel it is quite impossible to be energetic.
I am often told that my besetting sin is laziness. I am not sure whether
it is true, but all I can say is, it is very pleasant to spend a lazy
day occasionally. One must have piles of work waiting to be done, or
it loses its charm. If there is really nothing to do, one is bored, and
wants something to fill up the time.
On this particular day, however, I was not lazy--far from it. We
explored the castle thoroughly from dungeon to attic, with a view to
discovering new beauties for "the book."
I must say that occasionally I almost repent of my rashness in promising
to write this book; my collaborator is so intensely business-like, and
keeps me at it from early morn till dewy eve. I never have a moment's
rest. It somewhat detracts too from the pleasure of going anywhere to
know that you have to write an account of everything you see afterwards.
[Illustration: THE GROTTO ROOM]
We began with the "grotto room." This is a summer drawing-room that we
usually sit in. It is a big room, with a tiled floor and an arched roof;
the latter and the walls are of cement, thickly studded with little bits
of stalactite, that glisten and gleam when the place is lighted up, and
give a fairy-like appearance to it. Birds of paradise and sea-gulls,
suspended by invisible wires, swing from the vaulted roof and appear to
be hovering about the room. Enormous shells, quaint Venetian lamps and
mirrors, funny old china, are scattered all about. There is a curious
old sedan chair standing in one corner, and near it are two pianos. I
never made out the mystery of those two pianos. I believe they are near
relations, and that they would be heart- (or string-) broken if they
were to be separated. There is a massive marble mantelpiece at the
farther end, surmounted by two shields, one bearing the Hohenlohe
leopards, and the other the tower and crossed lilies of the Della Torre.
Altogether it is a quaint room, without any particular order or style,
but very comfortable, and it has one great advantage in being cool. I
have spent many a weary hour here, labouring over these sketches,
or gazing out through the coloured glass at the sea and the glorious
sunsets.
The sunsets at Duino are magnificent--the whole western sky is one
flaming blaze of colour, of every tint, from the deepest crimson to the
faintest daffodil. The most beautiful moment is, I think, when the sun
has sunk to rest behind the distant Alps, that stand out pearly-gray
against the rose-coloured sky, and the sea in the foreground glows like
a huge bowl of melted gold.
We went next to see the dungeons. They are by no means cheerful--two
little damp and musty rooms, destitute of furniture, with grated windows
and enormously thick walls--you see their immense thickness when you
enter. The last man who was confined here (it was not so very long ago)
hung himself. He is now said to haunt them. Poor fellow! one cannot
wonder that he should have availed himself of the only possible way of
escape open to him.
We then penetrated a little room where the family archives are kept.
It has a massive iron door, and shelves full of dusty, musty old
parchments. We unearthed a grand treasure here--an old manuscript diary
of a tour through France and Italy at the beginning of this century,
written by an Englishman of the name of Cockburn. Fired by this
discovery we rushed up the tower stairs to another little room, formerly
used as a study by an old priest who had once belonged to the household.
We found it just as he had left it: the chair, the pens, the old
ink-bottle, and he, poor old man, dead years ago! He wrote a book in
Italian about Duino and the neighbourhood. It has been very useful to us
in some respects, though it is very confused.
We came down the tower stairs again, and I was shown the door of the
walled-up rooms; it has been carefully built up flush with the wall, and
recently whitewashed over, so as to conceal it. Then we explored all
the funny little staircases and passages that are everywhere about the
castle, and form a perfect labyrinth.
The rain had cleared off by this time, and the sun was struggling
to show himself through the clouds, so we went out, the "Other Boy"
accompanying us. First we went down into the old moat, long dry and
overgrown with grass and nettles, but in one corner some white lilies
rise pure and stately, and bloom unseen in this neglected spot.
Some fragments of Roman columns have been built into the wall of the
castle--one sees them from the moat. Then we explored some terraces that
are round the outside walls, where enormous yellow roses cling to the
crumbling stones and lemon-scented verbenas grow wild. We made another
interesting discovery here--at least it would be interesting if the
general opinion about it is correct. We found a hole in the wall of the
tower under the terrace. My collaborator maintains it is the beginning
of a ventilating shaft that communicates with the underground passage,
but I am afraid it is nothing but a rat-hole.
We descended some rickety stairs, and after inspecting a sculptured
Madonna, who, half overgrown with ivy, looks down on the occasional
passers-by (people admire her; I do _not_, as she has her nose on one
side), proceeded to the battlements. There are two old field-pieces here
that formerly belonged to the French Republic. They have the _fasces_
engraved upon them and the inscription, "An VII. République francaise 6
Fructidor." I could not discover the history of these guns. I was told a
hazy story about Duino being in the hands of the French in the beginning
of this century; of its being stormed, taken, and partially burnt by the
English, and that the English captain was always drunk; but the story
lacks confirmation--particularly the last part of it.
[Illustration: CASTLE DUINO FROM THE MOAT]
In any case, the French were here, and took away all the contents of the
armoury. In 1813, too, Trieste being in the possession of the French,
Admiral Freemantle sailed up the Adriatic with some English men-of-war,
whilst General Nugent advanced on the land side with the Austrian
troops. The French commander retired into the citadel, and was there
besieged by the English and Austrians. On October 24th the French
surrendered.
This being so, it is quite possible that there was a siege of Duino, as
it is very strongly situated and has always been an object for attack.
Even as recently as 1866, in the war between Austria and Italy, the
Italians had intended to land at Duino, had not their fleet been
destroyed in the battle of Lissa.
We went down the old staircase to the little bathing-place near Dante's
island. There is a strong wire net in the water to guard against the
sharks. "Our host" disapproves of this net. He maintains that if any one
bathing at Duino is unfortunate enough to be eaten by the one solitary
shark that cruises in the Adriatic, he or she is the victim of such
extraordinary bad luck that it is much better for him or her to be
finished off at once.
Then we wandered through the "Riviera" to the old ruin and the little
sombre wood "sacred to Diana." The ruined castle rises dark and
threatening on a massive and perpendicular rock, which is on three sides
surrounded by the sea. The position is immensely strong--one can only
approach by one little narrow path that could easily have been held in
the old days by two or three resolute men. There is not much to be seen
in the ruin. It is all crumbling to pieces and is half-smothered with
creepers and grass. In one vaulted arch, probably once part of the
chapel, there are faint traces of fresco-painting; and there are one or
two enormous stone bullets lying about that must have been thrown from
some kind of catapult. Every provision was made for a siege. One sees
the old well, which still holds water.
[Illustration: THE RUIN]
Just under the old ruined castle the ground sinks and forms a hollow,
and there a little wood of ilex-trees has grown, through whose dark and
thick evergreen foliage no ray of sunlight seems ever to penetrate. It
is a weird and uncanny sort of place: the trees seem black, the ground
is black, and no grass or flowers grow there. Only on some bit of old
crumbling masonry the ivy has extended a funereal pall. No birds seem
to nestle in this solitary spot, and the earth smells damp, whilst you
shiver a little in the cool shade of the sacred trees. It is peculiarly
quiet and silent under the ilex; and if, sitting there in the long
summer afternoons, you get drowsy and dreamy, thinking perhaps of times
long, long ago, you would not wonder very much if, through the dark
green of the melancholy trees that make a dome of shade over your head,
a white form should glide, swift and silent--glide down from the golden
light beyond into the darkness and gloom of the ilex wood.
Dream or reality, what does it matter, since both pass away in the night
of time, and after a while are remembered no more?
How many may have come under the old, old ilex-trees in drowsy hot
summer afternoons, or later, when the silver moon tried with her
trembling rays to pierce the dark gloom of the wood! how many, each with
his burden of joy or sorrow--gone--forgotten--faded away!
Dream or reality, what does it matter?
[Illustration]