I think she would like to
draft a set of rules and regulations for that community. She could be
trusted, I fancy, to make them sufficiently stringent.
I think I understand, now, why a certain line in her copy of Baudelaire
was marked with that derisive exclamation-point on the margin: "Fuyez
l'infini que vous portez en vous."
"Fuyez?" it seemed to say. "Why 'fuyez'?"
Fulfil it!
Soriano
Amid clouds of dust you are whirled to Soriano, through the desert
Campagna and past Mount Soracte, in a business-like tramway--different
from that miserable Olevano affair which, being narrow gauge, can go but
slowly and even then has a frolicsome habit of jumping off the rails
every few days. From afar you look back upon the city; it lies so low as
to be invisible; over its site hovers the dome of Saint Peter, like an
iridescent bubble suspended in the sky.
This region is unfamiliar to me. Soriano lies on the slope of an immense
old volcano and conveys at first glance a somewhat ragged and sombre
impression. It was an unpleasantly warm day, but those macaroni--they
atoned for everything. So exquisite were they that I forthwith vowed to
return to Soriano, for their sake alone, ere the year should end. (I
kept my vow.) The right kind at last, of lily-like candour and
unmistakably authentic, having been purchased in large quantities at the
outbreak of hostilities by the provident hostess, who must have
anticipated a rise in price, a deterioration in quality, or both, as the
result of war.
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