I had marched 378 miles and some three furlongs, or thereabouts.
Thus did I break - but by a direct command - the last and dearest of my
vows, and as the train rumbled off, I took luxury in the rolling
wheels.
I thought of that other medieval and papistical pilgrim hobbling along
rather than 'take advantage of any wheeled thing', and I laughed at
him. Now if Moroso-Malodoroso or any other Non-Aryan, Antichristian,
over-inductive, statistical, brittle-minded man and scientist, sees
anything remarkable in one self laughing at another self, let me tell
him and all such for their wide-eyed edification and astonishment that
I knew a man once that had fifty-six selves (there would have been
fifty-seven, but for the poet in him that died young) - he could evolve
them at will, and they were very useful to lend to the parish priest
when he wished to make up a respectable Procession on Holy-days. And I
knew another man that could make himself so tall as to look over the
heads of the scientists as a pine-tree looks over grasses, and again
so small as to discern very clearly the thick coating or dust of
wicked pride that covers them up in a fine impenetrable coat. So much
for the moderns.
The train rolled on. I noticed Lombardy out of the windows. It is
flat. I listened to the talk of the crowded peasants in the train. I
did not understand it. I twice leaned out to see if Milan were not
standing up before me out of the plain, but I saw nothing. Then I fell
asleep, and when I woke suddenly it was because we were in the
terminus of that noble great town, which I then set out to traverse in
search of my necessary money and sustenance. It was yet but early in
the afternoon.
What a magnificent city is Milan! The great houses are all of stone,
and stand regular and in order, along wide straight streets. There are
swift cars, drawn by electricity, for such as can afford them. Men are
brisk and alert even in the summer heats, and there are shops of a
very good kind, though a trifle showy. There are many newspapers to
help the Milanese to be better men and to cultivate charity and
humility; there are banks full of paper money; there are soldiers,
good pavements, and all that man requires to fulfil him, soul and
body; cafes, arcades, mutoscopes, and every sign of the perfect state.
And the whole centres in a splendid open square, in the midst of which
is the cathedral, which is justly the most renowned in the world.
My pilgrimage is to Rome, my business is with lonely places, hills,
and the recollection of the spirit. It would be waste to describe at
length this mighty capital. The mists and the woods, the snows and the
interminable way, had left me ill-suited for the place, and I was
ashamed. I sat outside a cafe, opposite the cathedral, watching its
pinnacles of light; but I was ashamed. Perhaps I did the master a hurt
by sitting there in his fine great cafe, unkempt, in such clothes,
like a tramp; but he was courteous in spite of his riches, and I
ordered a very expensive drink for him also, in order to make amends.
I showed him my sketches, and told him of my adventures in French, and
he was kind enough to sit opposite me, and to take that drink with me.
He talked French quite easily, as it seems do all such men in the
principal towns of north Italy. Still, the broad day shamed me, and
only when darkness came did I feel at ease.
I wandered in the streets till I saw a small eating shop, and there I
took a good meal. But when one is living the life of the poor, one
sees how hard are the great cities. Everything was dearer, and worse,
than in the simple countrysides. The innkeeper and his wife were
kindly, but their eyes showed that they had often to suspect men. They
gave me a bed, but it was a franc and more, and I had to pay before
going upstairs to it. The walls were mildewed, the place ramshackle
and evil, the rickety bed not clean, the door broken and warped, and
that night I was oppressed with the vision of poverty. Dirt and
clamour and inhuman conditions surrounded me. Yet the people meant
well.
With the first light I got up quietly, glad to find the street again
and the air. I stood in the crypt of the cathedral to hear the
Ambrosian Mass, and it was (as I had expected) like any other, save
for a kind of second _lavabo_ before the Elevation. To read the
distorted stupidity of the north one might have imagined that in the
Ambrosian ritual the priest put a _non_ before the _credo,_ and
_nec's_ at each clause of it, and renounced his baptismal vows at the
_kyrie;_ but the Milanese are Catholics like any others, and the
northern historians are either liars or ignorant men. And I know three
that are both together.
Then I set out down the long street that leads south out of Milan, and
was soon in the dull and sordid suburb of the Piacenzan way. The sky
was grey, the air chilly, and in a little while - alas! - it rained.
Lombardy is an alluvial plain.
That is the pretty way of putting it. The truth is more vivid if you
say that Lombardy is as flat as a marsh, and that it is made up of
mud.
