Alone
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Norman Douglas >> Alone
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It kept me company, this melodious and endearing fairy, till where a
path, diverging to the right, led up to the ruins already visible. There
the ethereal comrade took flight, scared, maybe, because my senses took
on a grossly mundane complexion--it is a way they have, thank
God--became absorbed, that is, in the contemplation of certain
blackberries wherewith the hedge was loaded. I thought: the tons of
blackberries that fall to earth in Italy, unheeded! And not even a
Scotsman knows what blackberries are, until he has tasted these. I am no
gourmet of such wild things; I rather agree with Goethe when he says:
"How berries taste, you must ask children." But I can sympathise with
the predilections of others, having certain predilections of my own.
Once, at a miserable place in North Ireland, region of bad whisky and
porter, they brought me at dinner some wine of which they knew
nothing--they had got it from a shipwreck or some local sale. I am
rather fond of hock. And this particular bottle bore on its label the
magic imprint of a falcon sitting on a hilltop. Connoisseurs will know
that falcon. They will understand how it came about that I remained in
the inn till the last bottle of nectar was cracked. What a shame to
leave a drop for anybody else! Once again, on a bicycle trip from Paris
to the Mediterranean, I came upon a broad, smiling meadow somewhere in
the Auvergne, thickly besprinkled with mushrooms. There was a village
hard by. In that village I remained till the meadow was close cropped.
Half a ton of mushrooms--gone. Some people are rather fond of mushrooms.
And that is the right spirit: to leave nothing but a tabula rasa for
those that come after. It hurt me to think that anybody else should have
a single one of those particular mushrooms. Let them find new ones, in
another field; not in mine.
Now what would your amateur of blackberries do in Italy? From the fate
which nearly overtook me he might save himself by specialising; by
dividing the many local varieties into two main classes and devoting his
whole attention to one or the other; to the kind such as I found on
Elba--small and round and fragrant, of ruddy hue, and palpitating with
warm sunbeams; or to that other kind, those that grow in clearings of
the Apennines where the boughs droop to earth with the weight of their
portentous clusters--swarthy as night, huge in size, oval, and fraught
with chilly mountain dews.
No true enthusiast, I feel sure, would ever be satisfied with such an
unfair division of labour--so one-sided an arrangement. He would curse
his folly for having specialised. While engaged upon one variety, he
would always be hankering after that other kind and thinking how much
better they were. What shall he do, then? Well, he might devote one year
to one species, the next to another, and so on. Or else--seeing that
every zone of altitude bears brambles at its season and that the
interval between the maturing of the extreme varieties is at least four
months--he might pilgrimage athwart the country in a vertical sense,
devouring blackberries of different flavour as he went along; he might
work his way upwards, boring a tunnel through the landscape as a beetle
drills an oak, and leaving a track of devastation in his rear--browsing
aloft from the sea-board, where brambles are black in June, through
tangled macchia and vine-clad slopes into the cooler acclivities of rock
and jungle--grazing ever upward to where, at close of September and in
the shadow of some lonely peak on which the white mantle of winter has
already fallen, he finds a few more berries struggling for warmth and
sunshine, and then, still higher up, just a few more--the last, the very
last, of their race--dwarfs of the mountains, earthward-creeping, and
frozen pink ere yet they have had time to ripen. Here, crammed to the
brim, he may retire to hibernate, curled up like a full-gorged bear and
ready to roll downhill with the melting snows and arrive at the
sea-coast in time to begin again. What a jolly life! How much better
than being Postmaster-General or Inspector of Nuisances! But such
enthusiasts are nowhere to be found. I wish they were; the world would
be a merrier place....
Here is the ruined town of Ferento, all alone on the arid brow of the
hill. Nothing human in sight. A charming spot it must have been in olden
times, when the country was more timbered; now all is bare--brown earth,
brown stones. Dutifully I inspect the ruins and, applying the method of
Zadig or something of that kind, conclude that Ferento, this particular
Ferento, was relatively unimportant and relatively modern, although so
fine a site may well have commended itself from early days as a
settlement. I pick up, namely, a piece of verde antico, a green marble
which came into vogue at a later period than many other coloured ones.
Ergo, Ferento was relatively modern as antiquities go; else this marble
would not occur there. I seek for coloured ones and find not the
smallest fragment; nothing but white. Ergo, the place was relatively
insignificant; else the reds and yellows would also be discoverable. I
observe incidentally--quite incidentally!--that the architecture
corroborates my theory; so do the guide-books, no doubt, if there are
any. Now I know, furthermore, the origin of that small slab of verde
antico which had puzzled me, mixed up, as it was, among the mosaics of
quite modern marbles in that church whither I had been conducted by a
local antiquarian to admire a certain fresco recently laid bare, and
some rather crude daubs by Romanelli.
Out again, into the path that overlooks the steep ravine. Here I find,
resting in the shadow of the wall, an aged shepherd and his flock and a
shaggy, murderous-looking dog of the Campagna breed that shows his teeth
and growls incessantly, glaring at me as if I were a wolf. "Barone" is
the brute's name. I had intended to clamber down and see whether the
rock-surface bears any traces of human workmanship; the rock-surface, I
now decide, may take care of itself. It has waited for me so long. It
can wait a little longer.
"Does that beast of yours eat Christians?"
"He? He is a perfect capo di c----. That is his trick, to prevent people
from kicking him. They think he can bite."
I produce half a cigar which he crushes up into his black clay pipe.
"Yours is not a bad life."
"One lives. But I had better times in Zurich."
He had stayed there awhile, working in some factory. He praised its
food, its beer, its conveniences.
Zurich: incongruous image! Straightway I was transported from this
harmonious desolation of Ferento; I lost sight of yonder clump of
withering thistles--thistles of recent growth; you could sit, you could
stand, in their shade--and found myself glancing over a leaden lake and
wandering about streets full of ill-dressed and ungracious folk;
escaping thence further afield, into featureless hills encrusted with
smug, tawdry villas and drinking-booths smothered under noisome
horse-chestnuts and Virginia creepers. How came they to hit upon the
ugliest tree, and the ugliest creeper, on earth? Infallible instinct!
Zurich: who shall sum up thy merciless vulgarity?
So this old man had been there.
And I remembered an expression in a book recently written by a friend of
mine who, oddly enough, had encountered some of these very Italians in
Zurich. He talks of its "horrible dead ordinariness"--some such phrase.
[33] It is apt. Zurich: fearsome town! Its ugliness is of the active
kind; it grips you by the throat and sits on your chest like a
nightmare.
I looked at the old fellow. He was sound; he had escaped the contagion.
Those others, those many hundred thousand others in Switzerland and
America--they can nevermore shake off the horrible dead ordinariness of
that life among machines. Future generations will hardly recognise the
Italian race from our descriptions. A new type is being formed, cold and
loveless, with all the divinity drained out of them.
Having a long walk before me and being due home for luncheon, I rose to
depart, and in so doing bestowed a vigorous kick upon Barone, in order
to test the truth of his master's theory. It worked. The glowering and
snarling ceased. He was a good dog--almost human. I think, with a few
more kicks, he might have grown quite friendly.
Along that hot road the spectre of Zurich pursued me, in all its
starkness. A land without atmosphere, and deficient in every element of
the picturesque, whether of man or nature. Four harsh, dominant tones,
which never overlap or intermingle: blue sky, white snow, black
fir-woods, green fields, and, if you insist upon having a fifth, then
take--yes, take and keep--that theatrical pink Alpengluehen which is
turned on at fixed hours for the delectation of gaping tourists, like a
tap of strontium light or the display of electric fluid at Schaffhausen
Falls.
"Did you observe the illumination of the Falls, sir, last night?"
"How can one avoid seeing the beastly thing?"
"Ah! Then we must add two francs to the bill."
Many are the schools of art that have grown up in England and elsewhere
and flourished side by side, vying with one another to express the
protean graces of man, of architecture and domestic interior, of earth
and sky and sea. Where is the Swiss school? Where, in any public
gallery, will you find a masterpiece which triumphantly vindicates the
charm of Swiss scenery? You will, find it vindicated only on condensed
milk tins. These folks can write. My taste in lyrics may be peculiar,
but I used to love my Leuthold--I wish I had him here at this moment;
the bold strokes of Keller, the miniature work, the cameo-like touches,
of C. F. Meyer--they can write! They would doubtless paint, were there
anything to paint. Holbein: did the landscape of Switzerland seduce him?
And Boecklin? He fled out of its welter of raw materialism. Even his
Swiss landscapes are mediterraneanized. Boecklin----
And here, as the name formulated itself, that little sprite of Brahms,
that intermezzo, once more leapt to my side out of the parched fields. I
imagine it came less for my sake than for the companionship of Boecklin.
They were comrades in the spirit; they understood. What one had heard,
the other beheld--shapes of mystery, that peer out of forest gloom and
the blue hush of midday and out of glassy waters--shapes that shudder
and laugh. No doubt you may detect a difference between Boecklin's
creations and those of classic days; it is as if the light of his
dreamings had filtered through some medium, some stained-glass window in
a Gothic church which distorted their outlines and rendered them
somewhat more grotesque. It is the hand of time. The world has aged. Yet
the shapes are young; they do but change their clothes and follow the
fashion in externals. They laugh as of old. How they laugh! No mortal
can laugh so heartily. No mortal has such good cause. Theirs is not the
serene mirth of Olympian spheres; it sounds demoniac, from the midway
region. What are they laughing at, these cheerful monsters? At the
greatest jest in the universe. At us....
That lake of Conterano--the accent is on the ante-penultima--it looked
appetising on the map, all alone out there. It attracted me strongly. I
pictured a placid expanse, an eye of blue, sleepily embowered among
wooded glens and throwing upward the gleam of its calm waters. Lakes are
so rare in Italy. During the whole of this summer I saw only one other,
fringed with the common English reed--two, rather, lying side by side,
one turbid and the other clear, and filling up two of those curious
circular depressions in the limestone. I rode past them on the watershed
behind Cineto Romano. These were sweet water. Of sulphur lakelets I also
saw two.
Sitting on a stone into which the coldness of midnight had entered
(Alatri lies at a good elevation) I awaited my companion in the dusk of
dawn. Soon enough, I knew, we should both be roasted. This half-hour's
shivering before sunrise in the square of Alatri, and listening to the
plash of the fountain, is one of those memories of the town which are
graven most clearly in my mind. I could point out, to-day, the very spot
whereon I sat.
We wandered along the Ferentino road to begin with, profiting by some
short cuts through chestnut woods; turned to the right, ever ascending,
behind that strange village of Fumone, aloft on its symmetrical hill;
thence by a mule-track onward. Many were the halts by the way. A decayed
roadside chapel with faded frescoes--a shepherd who played us some
melodies on his pipe--those wondrous red lilies, now in their prime,
glowing like lamps among the dark green undergrowth--the gateway of a
farmhouse being repaired--a reservoir of water full of newts--a
fascinating old woman who told us something about something--the distant
view upon the singular peak of Mount Cacume, they all gave us occasion
for lingering. Why not loaf and loiter in June? The days are so endless!
At last, through a gap in the landscape, we saw the lake at our feet,
simmering in the noonday beams--an everyday sheet of water, brown in
colour, with muddy banks and seemingly not a scrap of shade within
miles; one of those lakes which, by their periodical rising and sinking,
give so much trouble that there is talk, equally periodical, of draining
them off altogether. This one, they say, shifts continually and
sometimes reaches so low a level that rich crops are planted in its oozy
bed.
Here are countless frogs, and fish--tench; also a boat that belongs to
the man who rents the fishing. A sad accident happened lately with his
boat. A party of youngsters came for an outing and two boys jumped into
the tub, rowed out, and capsized it with their pranks. They were both
drowned--a painful and piteous death--a death which I have tried, by
accident, and can nowise recommend. They fished them out later from
their slimy couch, and found that they had clasped one another so
tightly in their mortal agony that it was deemed impious ever to
unloosen that embrace. So they were laid to rest, locked in each other's
arms.
While my companion told me these things we had plodded further and
further along this flat and inhospitable shore, and grown more and more
taciturn. We were hungry and thirsty and hot, for one feels the
onslaught of these first heats more acutely than the parching drought of
August. Things looked bad. The luncheon hour was long past, and our
spirits began to droop. All my mellowness took flight; I grew snappy and
monosyllabic. Was there no shade?
Yonder ... that dusky patch against the mountain? Brushwood of some
kind, without a doubt. The place seemed to be unattainable, and yet,
after an inordinate outlay of energy, we had climbed across those torrid
meadows. It proved to be a hazel copse mysteriously dark within,
voiceless, and cool as a cavern.
Be sure that he who planted these hazels on the bleak hillside was no
common son of earth, but some wise and inspired mortal. My blessings on
his head! May his shadow never grow less! Or, if that wish be already
past fulfilment, may he dwell in Elysium attended by a thousand
ministering angels, every one of them selected by himself; may he
rejoice in their caresses for evermore. Naught was amiss. All conspired
to make the occasion memorable. I look back upon our sojourn among those
verdant hazels and see that it was good--one of those moments which are
never granted knowingly by jealous fate. So dense was the leafage in the
greenest heart of the grove that not a shred of sunlight, not a particle
as large as a sixpence, could penetrate to earth. We were drowned in
shade; screened from the flaming world outside; secure--without a care.
We envied neither God nor man.
I thought of certain of my fellow-creatures. I often think of them. What
were they now doing? Taking themselves seriously and rushing about, as
usual, haggard and careworn--like those sagacious ants that scurry
hither and thither, and stare into each other's faces with a kind of
desperate imbecility, when some sportive schoolboy has kicked their
ridiculous nest into the air and upset all their solemn little
calculations.
As for ourselves, we took our ease. We ate and drank, we slumbered
awhile, then joked and frolicked for five hours on end, or possibly six.
[34] I kept no count of what was said nor how the time flew by. I only
know that when at last we emerged from our ambrosial shelter the muscles
of my stomach had grown sore from the strain of laughter, and Arcturus
was twinkling overhead.
THE END
INDEX
Abbade, author
Abbadia San Salvatore
Abruzzi, limestone deserts
Acqua Acetosa, Rome
Acqua santa, mineral fountain, its appalling effects
Acque Vive, old Scanno
Addison, J.
Afforestation at Scanno
Agave, plant; dislikes change of scene
Alatri; its nameless tavern; citadel; ideal families at
Alban volcanoes
Alpengluehen, an abomination
Amiata, mountain
Anagni
Analphabetics, their charm
Anastasio, F.
Aniene, river
Anthology, Greek
Anticoli
Apennines, their general coloration
Argos
Aristotle
Arno river, its colour-moods
Artena
Athene (Minerva), promontory and temple
Attilio, a sagacious youngster
Bacon, misquoted
Baedeker, on wine of Scanno
Banca d'ltalia, its soi-disant director makes a fool of himself
"Barone," an almost human dog
Bathing in Tiber
Baudelaire, C.
Bears of Pescasseroli, rapid breeders
Beds in England, neolithic features of
Belgrave Square, its legendary partridges
Bellegra, village
Beloch, J.
Bennet, Dr. J. H.
Bentham, J.
Berceau, mountain
Bessel, F. W.
Betifuli, ancient Scanno
Bigio, marble
Birds, their conservative habits
Blackberries in Italy
Blasphemies, as a pick-me-up
Blind, Mathilde
Blue, basic note of Italian landscape
Board of Trade Labour Emergency Bureau, its lightning methods
Boecklin, A.
Borghese Gardens
Bournemouth
Bowles, Dr. R.
Brachycephalism, menace to humanity
Brahms, J., his inspiration
Breil
Brewster, H. B.
Buckle, H. T.
Building materials, of Florence, impart peculiar character to towns
Bunbury, E. H., quoted
Butter, French method of weighing, Italian regulations regarding
Cacume, mountain
Calypso, her island
Cammaiore
Camosciara, mountain
Campagna of Rome
Campanella, headland
Campoli Apennino
Capaccio, G. C.
Cap Martin (Mentone), a vulgarized spot
Capasso, B.
Capranica
Capri
Carbineers, good men and questionable institution
Carrara
Carrion crows, relatively gay fowls
Casamari convent
Casanova, J.
Cascine Gardens
Cats in Rome, their distressful condition
Cement floors, a detestable invention
Cemetery of Mentone of Rome; Scanno; Olevano
Censorship Department, gratifying interview at
Cervesato, A.
Chamois
Chaucer
Children, good company neglected in war-time
China, fatal morality of pre-Tartar period
Ciminian forest
Cineto Romano
Circe, nymph
Cisterna, a death-trap
Civilization, its characteristic
Civitella
Coal-supply, a sore subject in Italy
Coliseum, flora and fauna of
Collepardo
Conscience, national versus individual
Consumption on Riviera; at Olevano
Conterano, lake
Corsanico
Corsi, F.
Crapolla, sea-cove
Crinagoras, poet
Critics, spleenfully criticized
Cro-Magnon racev Cross, futility of bearing a
Darwin
Deakin, botanist
Dennis, G.
Deserters at Valmontone
Deslys, Gaby
Dewlessness, a peculiarity of Italian townsmen
Dialects of Italy
Dictionary of National Biography
Diodorus Siculus
Dohrn, Dr. A.
Donnorso, V.
Doria, A.
Dreams, recurrent; of flying
Drowning accidents
Drunkenness, not everybody's affair
Eagles
Education Office, a "Sleepy Hollow"
Edwards, Tam, naturalist
Elba
Elder tree, a venerable growth
England, to be visited as a tourist
English language, should remain in flux
Englishmen, change in race-characters; contrasted with Italians;
influence of new surroundings on
Enthusiasm, unrewarded
Eratosthenes
Eugenie, Empress
Experience, its uses
Faces, possibilities of improving
Ferentino
Ferento, ruined city
Filangieri, di Candida, R.
Flies, a curse
Florence, its river; Cascine Gardens; pavements; local blasphemies;
revisited
Fontanella, village
Food in war-time
Football worth watching
Fountains in Rome; responsible for shocking behaviour; in Villa Borghese
France, its one irremediable drawback
Frattura, village
Frosinone, "Garibaldi" hotel; visited by Ramage
Fumone
Functionaries, social parasites
Gambling instinct, correlated with religion
Gardeners, professional, imbeciles
Gargiulli, O.
Gautier, T.
Germans, at Mentone; at Levanto; save oaks of Olevano; must follow
footsteps
Ghosts, mankind surrounded by, in; away with them
Giannettasio, N. P.v Girtanner, Dr. A., beaver-specialist
Giulio, a young reprobate
Goethe, quoted
Golden Ages of literature
Gorbio
Grant Duff, M. E.
Greek words, surviving
Grimaldi caves, incident at
Grocery business, appeals to Frenchmen
Gross feeders, beware of
Grotta delle Palumbe
Guardie regie, official loafers
Gunther, Dr. A.
H., Mr., an ardent book-lover
Hares in Italy
Hebrews of military age, their enviable immunity from conscription
Henderson, Dr., an old tippler
Heredity, speculations on
Hermits in Italy
Hippocrates
Hohentwiel, mountain
Homer
Horace
Housemaid, a noteworthy
Hutton, E.
Ierate, locality
Imagination, needful to travel-literature,
Imperialism in Italy
Individual, contrasted with race
Insomnia
Intelligence, its two ingredients
Isola Liri
Italians, evolution of new type
Italy, reasons for visiting; over-policed
Ives, G.
J. O. M., a memorable type
Jefferies, R.
Johnson, S.
Johnston-Lavis, H. J.
Jovana, meadow
Keller, G.
Kew Gardens
King of Italy, protects bears
Kingfisher, a wary old one
Kneeling boy, statue
Knop, Professor
Lachner, V.
Ladbroke Grove, its enlightened children
Landlady, of Mentone; the
London variety; she of Viareggio; of Florence
Lante, Villa
La Croce, mountain
La Rocca, village
Lawrence, D. H.
Laws, raison d'etre of Italian
Leuthold, H.
Levanto, arrival at; situation; company at hotel; the local magistrate;
stroll to Monterosso
Licenza
Ligurians, their bad character
Lizard, making a friend of; a disconsolate one
Love affairs, Italian, how to conduct
Lucian
Lucretilis, mountain
Lyme Regis
Macaroni, war-time substitutes; the right kind
Maccarese, village
Machinery, cult of; depraves Italian character
Madonna della Neve, chapel
Madonna di Tranquillo, wayside shrine
Malaria
Mandela
Marbles
Mathew, Rev.
Maudsley, H.
Maupassant
Mazzella, S.
Megara
Mentone, recent transformation of; landscape; vegetation; produces dull
schoolboys; prehistoric man of
Merle blanc, a meritorious establishment
Metaphysicians, atrophied poets
Meyer, C. F.
Meysenbug, Malwida von
Michael Angelo; gets into trouble
Migration of labourers, annual
Mill, J. S.
Militarism, the modern infame
Milvain Bridge
Mineralogy
Momio, village
Monogamous habits, bad for songsters
Mons Canutarius
Montalto, cliff
Monte-Carlo, its well-groomed flowers; lamentable episode at Casino
Montecelio
Monterosso
Mortella, cliff
Mortola, village
Mosquitoes in Rome
Moulinet
Mummies, Peruvian
Munitions Office, develops a craving for bankers
Mure of Caldwell, traveller
Muretta, mountain
Museum, Kircher; delle Terme
Music
Mythopoeic faculty, example of
Neighbours, an over-rated class
Nerano
Newspaper reading, to be discouraged
Nice
Nietzsche, his blind spot
Nightingales, too much of a good thing; cease from troubling
Ninetta, an attractive maiden
Nose, degeneration of
Odysseus at Alatri
Office-hunters, should respect their betters
Olevano, its nightingales; oak grove at; first English resident at
Opi, town
Ornithology
Orte, town
Orvinio
Ouida, her writings and character
Paestum, roses of
Pais, Prof. E.
Palombaro
Pantheon
Patriotism, chilled
Pavements, life on
Peira Cava
Perfumes, react on physiognomy
Persico, G. B.
Pescasseroli; its bears
Peutinger Table
Philosophers, contradistinguished from metaphysicians
Piccadilly Goat
Pietrasanta
Pig, in distress
Pines, at Levanto; at Viareggio
Pisa in war-time
Plaster-casts, how to dispose of
Plato
Pliny
Pollius Felix
Pontine Marshes
Ponza island, megalithic ruin on
Portovenere, marble
Potter, Major Frederick, discovers Olevano
Pottery, index of national taste
Powder magazine, explosion of
Preccia, mountain
Prehistoric races, possible reasons for their extinction
Press, the daily, its disastrous functions
"Prison, The," a Socratic dialogue
Race ideals, contrasted with individual
Ramage, Craufurd Tait, a centrifugal Scotsman, his book and umbrella;
mania for hurrying; other travels of; compared with Waterton;
on Italian country life; gets drunk; makes formal profession of
sobriety;
his tolerance; sensitive to female charms; still hustling; his
humanistic outlook; little failings; other publications; zest for
knowledge; at Licenza
Rat-hunts
Ravens, their conjugal fidelity
Reading, to be done with reverence
Recomone, inlet
Red colour, unfashionable in Italy; in favour with other races
Rhetoric, necessary to success in courtship
Rhodian marble
Ripa, a liquid poison
Rivers, Italian
Riviera, French, its inanity; typical visitors to; lack of native genius
Roccaraso
Rojate
Rolfe, Neville
Romanelli, painter
Romans and British, their world dominion; unimaginative people
Rome, changed aspect of railway station; protestant cemetery; explosion
near; its fountains; tramcar nuisance; shadelessness; disadvantages of
site; evening breeze; neglected cats; bad food; its building stone;
unpleasant experience at; dearth of apartments
Rubinstein, A.
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