Over this tension broods a divine calm.
Here is the antidote to mummified Incas.
Alatri
What brought me to Alatri?
Memories of a conversation, by Tiber banks, with Fausto, who was born
here and vaunted it to be the fairest city on earth. Rome was quite a
passable place, but as to Alatri----
"You never saw such walls in all your life. They are not walls. They are
precipices. And our water is colder than the Acqua Marcia."
"Walls and water say little to me. But if the town produces other
citizens like yourself----"
"It does indeed! I am the least of the sons of Alatri."
"Then it must be worthy of a visit...."
In the hottest hour of the afternoon they deposited me outside the city
gate at some new hotel--I forget its name--to which I promptly took an
unreasoning dislike. There was a fine view upon the mountains from the
window of the room assigned to me, but nothing could atone for that lack
of individuality which seemed to exhale from the establishment and its
proprietors. It looked as though I were to be a cypher here. Half an
hour was as much as I could endure. Issuing forth despite the heat, I
captured a young fellow and bade him carry my bags whithersoever he
pleased. He took me to the Albergo della----
The Albergo della----is a shy and retiring hostelry, invisible as such
to the naked eye, since it bears no sign of being a place of public
entertainment at all. Here was individuality, and to spare. Mine host is
an improvement even upon him of the Pergola at Valmontone; a man after
my own heart, with merry eyes, drooping white moustache and a lordly
nose--a nose of the right kind, a flame-tinted structure which must have
cost years of patient labour to bring to its present state of
blossoming.
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