I
turned in this long causeway and noticed the northern view. On the
farther shore was an old village and some pleasure-houses of rich men
on the shore; the boats also were beginning to go about the water.
These boats were strange, unlike other boats; they were covered with
hoods, and looked like floating waggons. This was to shield the rowers
from the sun. Far off a man was sailing with a little brown
sprit-sail. It was morning, and all the world was alive.
Coffee in the village left me two francs and two pennies. I still
thought the thing could be done, so invigorating and deceiving are the
early hours, and coming farther down the road to an old and beautiful
courtyard on the left, I drew it, and hearing a bell at hand I saw a
tumble-down church with trees before it, and went in to Mass; and
though it was a little low village Mass, yet the priest had three
acolytes to serve it, and (true and gracious mark of a Catholic
country!) these boys were restless and distracted at their office.
You may think it trivial, but it was certainly a portent. One of the
acolytes had half his head clean shaved! A most extraordinary sight! I
could not take my eyes from it, and I heartily wished I had an
Omen-book with me to tell me what it might mean.
When there were oracles on earth, before Pan died, this sight would
have been of the utmost use. For I should have consulted the oracle
woman for a Lira - at Biasca for instance, or in the lonely woods of
the Cinder Mountain; and, after a lot of incense and hesitation, and
wrestling with the god, the oracle would have accepted Apollo and,
staring like one entranced, she would have chanted verses which,
though ambiguous, would at least have been a guide. Thus:
_Matutinus adest ubi Vesper, et accipiens te
Saepe recusatum voces intelligit hospes
Rusticus ignotas notas, ac flumina tellus
Occupat - In sancto tum, tum, stans
Aede caveto Tonsuram Hirsuti
Capitis, via namque pedestrem
Ferrea praeveniens cursum, peregrine, laborem_
Pro pietate tua inceptum frustratur, amore
Antiqui Ritus alto sub Numine Romae._
LECTOR. What Hoggish great Participles!
AUCTOR. Well, well, you see it was but a rustic oracle at 9 3/4 d. the
revelation, and even that is supposing silver at par. Let us translate
it for the vulgar:
When early morning seems but eve And they that still refuse receive:
When speech unknown men understand; And floods are crossed upon dry
land. Within the Sacred Walls beware The Shaven Head that boasts of
Hair, For when the road attains the rail The Pilgrim's great attempt
shall fail.
Of course such an oracle might very easily have made me fear too much.
The 'shaven head' I should have taken for a priest, especially if it
was to be met with 'in a temple' - it might have prevented me entering
a church, which would have been deplorable. Then I might have taken it
to mean that I should never have reached Rome, which would have been a
monstrous weight upon my mind. Still, as things unfolded themselves,
the oracle would have become plainer and plainer, and I felt the lack
of it greatly. For, I repeat, I had certainly received an omen.
The road now neared the end of the lake, and the town called Capo di
Lago, or 'Lake-head', lay off to my right. I saw also that in a very
little while I should abruptly find the plains. A low hill some five
miles ahead of me was the last roll of the mountains, and just above
me stood the last high crest, a precipitous peak of bare rock, up
which there ran a cog-railway to some hotel or other. I passed through
an old town under the now rising heat; I passed a cemetery in the
Italian manner, with marble figures like common living men. The road
turned to the left, and I was fairly on the shoulder of the last
glacis. I stood on the Alps at their southern bank, and before me was
Lombardy.
Also in this ending of the Swiss canton one was more evidently in
Italy than ever. A village perched upon a rock, deep woods and a
ravine below it, its houses and its church, all betrayed the full
Italian spirit.
The frontier town was Chiasso. I hesitated with reverence before
touching the sacred soil which I had taken so long to reach, and I
longed to be able to drink its health; but though I had gone, I
suppose, ten miles, and though the heat was increasing, I would not
stop; for I remembered the two francs, and my former certitude of
reaching Milan was shaking and crumbling. The great heat of midday
would soon be on me, I had yet nearly thirty miles to go, and my bad
night began to oppress me.
I crossed the frontier, which is here an imaginary line. Two slovenly
customs-house men asked me if I had anything dutiable on me. I said
No, and it was evident enough, for in my little sack or pocket was
nothing but a piece of bread. If they had applied the American test,
and searched me for money, then indeed they could have turned me back,
and I should have been forced to go into the fields a quarter of a
mile or so and come into their country by a path instead of a
highroad.
This necessity was spared me. I climbed slowly up the long slope that
hides Como, then I came down upon that lovely city and saw its frame
of hills and its lake below me.
