I could see down, down from where I stood) was
not fordable. It did not run in streams but in one full current, and
was a true river. All the scene was wild. I had come close to the
central ridge of the Apennines. It stood above me but five or six
clear miles away, and on its slopes there were patches and fields of
snow which were beginning to glimmer in the diminishing light.
Four peasants sat on the edge of the road. They were preparing to go
to their quiet homesteads, and they were gathering their scythes
together, for they had been mowing in a field. Coming up to these, I
asked them how I might reach Collagna. They told me that I could not
go straight, as I had wished, on account of the impassable river, but
that if I went down the steep directly below me I should find a
bridge; that thence a path went up the opposite ridge to where a
hamlet, called Ceregio (which they showed me beyond the valley), stood
in trees on the crest, and once there (they said) I could be further
directed. I understood all their speech except one fatal word. I
thought they told me that Ceregio was _half_ the way to Collagna; and
what that error cost me you shall hear.
They drank my wine, I ate their bread, and we parted: they to go to
their accustomed place, and I to cross this unknown valley. But when I
had left these grave and kindly men, the echo of their voices remained
with me; the deep valley of the Enza seemed lonely, and as I went
lower and lower down towards the noise of the river I lost the sun.
The Enza was flooded. A rough bridge, made of stout logs resting on
trunks of trees that were lashed together like tripods and supported a
long plank, was afforded to cross it. But in the high water it did not
quite reach to the hither bank. I rolled great stones into the water
and made a short causeway, and so, somewhat perilously, I attained the
farther shore, and went up, up by a little precipitous path till I
reached the hamlet of Ceregio standing on its hill, blessed and
secluded; for no road leads in or out of it, but only mule-paths.
The houses were all grouped together round a church; it was dim
between them; but several men driving oxen took me to a house that was
perhaps the inn, though there was no sign; and there in a twilight
room we all sat down together like Christians in perfect harmony, and
the woman of the house served us.
Now when, after this communion, I asked the way to Collagna, they must
have thought me foolish, and have wondered why I did not pass the
night with them, for they knew how far off Collagna was.
