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.
Pages:
141
142
143
144
145
146
147
148
149
150
151
152
153
154
155
156
157
158
159
160
161
162
163
164
165