The Path to Rome Part 15

Then I left him, and as I went down the road a slight breeze came on, and brought with it the coolness of evening.

At last the falling plateau reached an edge, many little lights glittered below me, and I sat on a stone and looked down at the town of Lugano. It was nearly dark. The mountains all around had lost their mouldings, and were marked in flat silhouettes against the sky. The new lake which had just appeared below me was bright as water is at dusk, and far away in the north and east the high Alps still stood up and received the large glow of evening. Everything else was full of the coming night, and a few stars shone. Up from She town came the distant noise of music; otherwise there was no sound. I could have rested there a long time, letting my tired body lapse into the advancing darkness, and catching in my spirit the inspiration of the silence--had it not been for hunger. I knew by experience that when it is very late one cannot be served in the eating-houses of poor men, and I had not the money or any other. So I rose and shambled down the steep road into the town, and there I found a square with arcades, and in the south-eastern corner of this square just such a little tavern as I required. Entering, therefore, and taking off my hat very low, I said in French to a man who was sitting there with friends, and who was the master, 'Sir, what is the least price at which you can give me a meal?'

He said, 'What do you want?'

I answered, 'Soup, meat, vegetables, bread, and a little wine.'

He counted on his fingers, while all his friends stared respectfully at him and me. He then gave orders, and a very young and beautiful girl set before me as excellent a meal as I had eaten for days on days, and he charged me but a franc and a half. He gave me also coffee and a little cheese, and I, feeling hearty, gave threepence over for the service, and they all very genially wished me a good-night; but their wishes were of no value to me, for the night was terrible.

I had gone over forty miles; how much over I did not know. I should have slept at Lugano, but my lightening purse forbade me. I thought, 'I will push on and on; after all, I have already slept, and so broken the back of the day. I will push on till I am at the end of my tether, then I will find a wood and sleep.' Within four miles my strength abandoned me. I was not even so far down the lake as to have lost the sound of the band at Lugano floating up the still water, when I was under an imperative necessity for repose. It was perhaps ten o'clock, and the sky was open and glorious with stars. I climbed up a bank on my right, and searching for a place to lie found one under a tree near a great telegraph pole. Here was a little parched gra.s.s, and one could lie there and see the lake and wait for sleep. It was a benediction to stretch out all supported by the dry earth, with my little side-bag for pillow, and to look at the clear night above the hills, and to listen to the very distant music, and to wonder whether or not, in this strange southern country, there might not be snakes gliding about in the undergrowth. Caught in such a skein of influence I was soothed and fell asleep.

For a little while I slept dreamlessly.

Just so much of my living self remained as can know, without understanding, the air around. It is the life of trees. That under-part, the barely conscious base of nature which trees and sleeping men are sunk in, is not only dominated by an immeasurable calm, but is also beyond all expression contented. And in its very stuff there is a complete and changeless joy. This is surely what the great mind meant when it said to the Athenian judges that death must not be dreaded since no experience in life was so pleasurable as a deep sleep; for being wise and seeing the intercommunion of things, he could not mean extinction, which is nonsense, but a lapse into that under-part of which I speak. For there are G.o.ds also below the earth.

But a dream came into my sleep and disturbed me, increasing life, and therefore bringing pain. I dreamt that I was arguing, at first easily, then violently, with another man. More and more he pressed me, and at last in my dream there were clearly spoken words, and he said to me, 'You must be wrong, because you are so cold; if you were right you would not be so cold.' And this argument seemed quite reasonable to me in my foolish dream, and I muttered to him, 'You are right, I must be in the wrong. It is very cold...' Then I half opened my eyes and saw the telegraph pole, the trees, and the lake. Far up the lake, where the Italian Frontier cuts it, the torpedo-boats, looking for smugglers, were casting their search-lights. One of the roving beams fell full on me and I became broad awake. I stood up. It was indeed cold, with a kind of clinging and grasping chill that was not to be expressed in degrees of heat, but in dampness perhaps, or perhaps in some subtler influence of the air.

I sat on the bank and gazed at the lake in some despair. Certainly I could not sleep again without a covering cloth, and it was now past midnight, nor did I know of any house, whether if I took the road I should find one in a mile, or in two, or in five. And, note you, I was utterly exhausted. That enormous march from Faido, though it had been wisely broken by the siesta at Bellinzona, needed more than a few cold hours under trees, and I thought of the three poor francs in my pocket, and of the thirty-eight miles remaining to Milan.

The stars were beyond the middle of their slow turning, and I watched them, splendid and in order, for sympathy, as I also regularly, but slowly and painfully, dragged myself along my appointed road. But in a very short time a great, tall, square, white house stood right on the roadway, and to my intense joy I saw a light in one of its higher windows. Standing therefore beneath, I cried at the top of my voice, 'Hola!' five or six times. A woman put her head out of the window into the fresh night, and said, 'You cannot sleep here; we have no rooms,'

then she remained looking out of her window and ready to a.n.a.lyse the difficulties of the moment; a good-natured woman and fat.

In a moment another window at the same level, but farther from me, opened, and a man leaned out, just as those alternate figures come in and out of the toys that tell the weather. 'It is impossible,' said the man; 'we have no rooms.'

Then they talked a great deal together, while I shouted, _'Quid vis?

Non e possibile dormire in la foresta! e troppo fredo! Vis ne me a.s.sa.s.sinare? Veni de Lugano--e piu--non e possibile ritornare!'_ and so forth.

They answered in strophe and antistrophe, sometimes together in full chorus, and again in semichorus, and with variations, that it was impossible. Then a light showed in the c.h.i.n.ks of their great door; the lock grated, and it opened. A third person, a tall youth, stood in the hall. I went forward into the breach and occupied the hall. He blinked at me above a candle, and murmured, as a man apologizing 'It is not possible.'

Whatever I have in common with these southerners made me understand that I had won, so I smiled at him and nodded; he also smiled, and at once beckoned to me. He led me upstairs, and showed me a charming bed in a clean room, where there was a portrait of the Pope, looking cunning; the charge for that delightful and human place was sixpence, and as I said good-night to the youth, the man and woman from above said good-night also. And this was my first introduction to the most permanent feature in the Italian character. The good people!

When I woke and rose I was the first to be up and out. It was high morning. The sun was not yet quite over the eastern mountains, but I had slept, though so shortly yet at great ease, and the world seemed new and full of a merry mind. The sky was coloured like that high metal work which you may see in the studios of Paris; there was gold in it fading into bronze, and above, the bronze softened to silver. A little morning breeze, courageous and steady, blew down the lake and provoked the water to glad ripples, and there was nothing that did not move and take pleasure in the day.

The Lake of Lugano is of a complicated shape, and has many arms. It is at this point very narrow indeed, and shallow too; a mole, pierced at either end with low arches, has here been thrown across it, and by this mole the railway and the road pa.s.s over to the eastern sh.o.r.e. I turned in this long causeway and noticed the northern view. On the farther sh.o.r.e was an old village and some pleasure-houses of rich men on the sh.o.r.e; the boats also were beginning to go about the water.

These boats were strange, unlike other boats; they were covered with hoods, and looked like floating waggons. This was to s.h.i.+eld the rowers from the sun. Far off a man was sailing with a little brown sprit-sail. It was morning, and all the world was alive.

Coffee in the village left me two francs and two pennies. I still thought the thing could be done, so invigorating and deceiving are the early hours, and coming farther down the road to an old and beautiful courtyard on the left, I drew it, and hearing a bell at hand I saw a tumble-down church with trees before it, and went in to Ma.s.s; and though it was a little low village Ma.s.s, yet the priest had three acolytes to serve it, and (true and gracious mark of a Catholic country!) these boys were restless and distracted at their office.

You may think it trivial, but it was certainly a portent. One of the acolytes had half his head clean shaved! A most extraordinary sight! I could not take my eyes from it, and I heartily wished I had an Omen-book with me to tell me what it might mean.

When there were oracles on earth, before Pan died, this sight would have been of the utmost use. For I should have consulted the oracle woman for a Lira--at Biasca for instance, or in the lonely woods of the Cinder Mountain; and, after a lot of incense and hesitation, and wrestling with the G.o.d, the oracle would have accepted Apollo and, staring like one entranced, she would have chanted verses which, though ambiguous, would at least have been a guide. Thus:

_Matutinus adest ubi Vesper, et accipiens te Saepe recusatum voces intelligit hospes Rusticus ignotas notas, ac flumina tellus Occupat--In sancto tum, tum, stans Aede caveto Tonsuram Hirsuti Capitis, via namque pedestrem Ferrea praeveniens cursum, peregrine, laborem Pro pietate tua inceptum frustratur, amore Antiqui Ritus alto sub Numine Romae._

LECTOR. What Hoggish great Participles!

AUCTOR. Well, well, you see it was but a rustic oracle at 9 3/4 d. the revelation, and even that is supposing silver at par. Let us translate it for the vulgar:

When early morning seems but eve And they that still refuse receive: When speech unknown men understand; And floods are crossed upon dry land. Within the Sacred Walls beware The Shaven Head that boasts of Hair, For when the road attains the rail The Pilgrim's great attempt shall fail.

Of course such an oracle might very easily have made me fear too much.

The 'shaven head' I should have taken for a priest, especially if it was to be met with 'in a temple'--it might have prevented me entering a church, which would have been deplorable. Then I might have taken it to mean that I should never have reached Rome, which would have been a monstrous weight upon my mind. Still, as things unfolded themselves, the oracle would have become plainer and plainer, and I felt the lack of it greatly. For, I repeat, I had certainly received an omen.

The road now neared the end of the lake, and the town called Capo di Lago, or 'Lake-head', lay off to my right. I saw also that in a very little while I should abruptly find the plains. A low hill some five miles ahead of me was the last roll of the mountains, and just above me stood the last high crest, a precipitous peak of bare rock, up which there ran a cog-railway to some hotel or other. I pa.s.sed through an old town under the now rising heat; I pa.s.sed a cemetery in the Italian manner, with marble figures like common living men. The road turned to the left, and I was fairly on the shoulder of the last glacis. I stood on the Alps at their southern bank, and before me was Lombardy.

Also in this ending of the Swiss canton one was more evidently in Italy than ever. A village perched upon a rock, deep woods and a ravine below it, its houses and its church, all betrayed the full Italian spirit.

The frontier town was Chia.s.so. I hesitated with reverence before touching the sacred soil which I had taken so long to reach, and I longed to be able to drink its health; but though I had gone, I suppose, ten miles, and though the heat was increasing, I would not stop; for I remembered the two francs, and my former cert.i.tude of reaching Milan was shaking and crumbling. The great heat of midday would soon be on me, I had yet nearly thirty miles to go, and my bad night began to oppress me.

I crossed the frontier, which is here an imaginary line. Two slovenly customs-house men asked me if I had anything dutiable on me. I said No, and it was evident enough, for in my little sack or pocket was nothing but a piece of bread. If they had applied the American test, and searched me for money, then indeed they could have turned me back, and I should have been forced to go into the fields a quarter of a mile or so and come into their country by a path instead of a highroad.

This necessity was spared me. I climbed slowly up the long slope that hides Como, then I came down upon that lovely city and saw its frame of hills and its lake below me.

These things are not like things seen by the eyes. I say it again, they are like what one feels when music is played.

I entered Como between ten and eleven faint for food, and then a new interest came to fill my mind with memories of this great adventure.

The lake was in flood, and all the town was water.

Como dry must be interesting enough; Como flooded is a marvel. What else is Venice? And here is a Venice at the foot of high mountains, and _all_ in the water, no streets or squares; a fine even depth of three feet and a half or so for navigators, much what you have in the Spitway in London River at low spring tides.

There were a few boats about, but the traffic and pleasure of Como was pa.s.sing along planks laid on trestles over the water here and there like bridges; and for those who were in haste, and could afford it (such as take cabs in London), there were wheelbarrows, coster carts, and what not, pulled about by men for hire; and it was a sight to remember all one's life to see the rich men of Como squatting on these carts and barrows, and being pulled about over the water by the poor men of Como, being, indeed, an epitome of all modern sociology and economics and religion and organized charity and strenuousness and liberalism and sophistry generally.

For my part I was determined to explore this curious town in the water, and I especially desired to see it on the lake side, because there one would get the best impression of its being really an aquatic town; so I went northward, as I was directed, and came quite unexpectedly upon the astonis.h.i.+ng cathedral. It seemed built of polished marble, and it was in every way so exquisite in proportion, so delicate in sculpture, and so triumphant in att.i.tude, that I thought to myself--

'No wonder men praise Italy if this first Italian town has such a building as this.'

But, as you will learn later, many of the things praised are ugly, and are praised only by certain followers of charlatans.

So I went on till I got to the lake, and there I found a little port about as big as a dining-room (for the Italian lakes play at being little seas. They have little ports, little lighthouses, little fleets for war, and little custom-houses, and little storms and little lines of steamers. Indeed, if one wanted to give a rich child a perfect model or toy, one could not give him anything better than an Italian lake), and when I had long gazed at the town, standing, as it seemed, right in the lake, I felt giddy, and said to myself, 'This is the lack of food,' for I had eaten nothing but my coffee and bread eleven miles before, at dawn.

So I pulled out my two francs, and going into a little shop, I bought bread, sausage, and a very little wine for fourpence, and with one franc eighty left I stood in the street eating and wondering what my next step should be.

It seemed on the map perhaps twenty-five, perhaps twenty-six miles to Milan. It was now nearly noon, and as hot as could be. I might, if I held out, cover the distance in eight or nine hours, but I did not see myself walking in the middle heat on the plain of Lombardy, and even if I had been able I should only have got into Milan at dark or later, when the post office (with my money in it) would be shut; and where could I sleep, for my one franc eighty would be gone? A man covering these distances must have one good meal a day or he falls ill. I could beg, but there was the risk of being arrested, and that means an indefinite waste of time, perhaps several days; and time, that had defeated me at the Gries, threatened me here again. I had nothing to sell or to p.a.w.n, and I had no friends. The Consul I would not attempt; I knew too much of such things as Consuls when poor and dirty men try them. Besides which, there was no Consul I pondered.

I went into the cool of the cathedral to sit in its fine darkness and think better. I sat before a shrine where candles were burning, put up for their private intentions by the faithful. Of many, two had nearly burnt out. I watched them in their slow race for extinction when a thought took me.

'I will,' said I to myself, 'use these candles for an ordeal or heavenly judgement. The left hand one shall be for attempting the road at the risk of illness or very dangerous failure; the right hand one shall stand for my going by rail till I come to that point on the railway where one franc eighty will take me, and thence walking into Milan:--and heaven defend the right.'

They were a long time going out, and they fell evenly. At last the right hand one shot up the long flame that precedes the death of candles; the contest took on interest, and even excitement, when, just as I thought the left hand certain of winning, it went out without guess or warning, like a second-rate person leaving this world for another. The right hand candle waved its flame still higher, as though in triumph, outlived its colleague just the moment to enjoy glory, and then in its turn went fluttering down the dark way from which they say there is no return.

None may protest against the voice of the G.o.ds. I went straight to the nearest railway station (for there are two), and putting down one franc eighty, asked in French for a ticket to whatever station that sum would reach down the line. The ticket came out marked Milan, and I admitted the miracle and confessed the finger of Providence. There was no change, and as I got into the train I had become that rarest and ultimate kind of traveller, the man without any money whatsoever-- without pa.s.sport, without letters, without food or wine; it would be interesting to see what would follow if the train broke down.

I had marched 378 miles and some three furlongs, or thereabouts.

Thus did I break--but by a direct command--the last and dearest of my vows, and as the train rumbled off, I took luxury in the rolling wheels.

I thought of that other medieval and papistical pilgrim hobbling along rather than 'take advantage of any wheeled thing', and I laughed at him. Now if Moroso-Malodoroso or any other Non-Aryan, Antichristian, over-inductive, statistical, brittle-minded man and scientist, sees anything remarkable in one self laughing at another self, let me tell him and all such for their wide-eyed edification and astonishment that I knew a man once that had fifty-six selves (there would have been fifty-seven, but for the poet in him that died young)--he could evolve them at will, and they were very useful to lend to the parish priest when he wished to make up a respectable Procession on Holy-days. And I knew another man that could make himself so tall as to look over the heads of the scientists as a pine-tree looks over gra.s.ses, and again so small as to discern very clearly the thick coating or dust of wicked pride that covers them up in a fine impenetrable coat. So much for the moderns.