Seem to be mud
when one saw how the moistening soil showed cracks from the last day's
heat.
Lombardy has no forests, but any amount of groups of trees; moreover
(what is very remarkable), it is all cultivated in fields more or less
square. These fields have ditches round them, full of mud and water
running slowly, and some of them are themselves under water in order
to cultivate rice. All these fields have a few trees bordering them,
apart from the standing clumps; but these trees are not very high.
There are no open views in Lombardy, and Lombardy is all the same.
Irregular large farmsteads stand at random all up and down the
country; no square mile of Lombardy is empty. There are many, many
little villages; many straggling small towns about seven to eight
miles apart, and a great number of large towns from thirty to fifty
miles apart. Indeed, this very road to Piacenza, which the rain now
covered with a veil of despair, was among the longest stretches
between any two large towns, although it was less than fifty miles.
On the map, before coming to this desolate place, there seemed a
straighter and a better way to Rome than this great road. There is a
river called the Lambro, which comes east of Milan and cuts the
Piacenzan road at a place called Melegnano. It seemed to lead straight
down to a point on the Po, a little above Piacenza. This stream one
could follow (so it seemed), and when it joined the Po get a boat or
ferry, and see on the other side the famous Trebbia, where Hannibal
conquered and Joubert fell, and so make straight on for the Apennine.
Since it is always said in books that Lombardy is a furnace in summer,
and that whole great armies have died of the heat there, this river
bank would make a fine refuge. Clear and delicious water, more limpid
than glass, would reflect and echo the restless poplars, and would
make tolerable or even pleasing the excessive summer. Not so. It was a
northern mind judging by northern things that came to this conclusion.
There is not in all Lombardy a clear stream, but every river and brook
is rolling mud. In the rain, not heat, but a damp and penetrating
chill was the danger. There is no walking on the banks of the rivers;
they are cliffs of crumbling soil, jumbled anyhow.
Man may, as Pinkerton (Sir Jonas Pinkerton) writes, be master of his
fate, but he has a precious poor servant. It is easier to command a
lapdog or a mule for a whole day than one's own fate for half-an-hour.
Nevertheless, though it was apparent that I should have to follow the
main road for a while, I determined to make at last to the right of
it, and to pass through a place called 'Old Lodi', for I reasoned
thus: 'Lodi is the famous town. How much more interesting must Old
Lodi be which is the mothertown of Lodi?' Also, Old Lodi brought me
back again on the straight line to Rome, and I foolishly thought it
might be possible to hear there of some straight path down the Lambro
(for that river still possessed me somewhat).
Therefore, after hours and hours of trudging miserably along the wide
highway in the wretched and searching rain, after splashing through
tortuous Melegnano, and not even stopping to wonder if it was the
place of the battle, after noting in despair the impossible Lambro, I
came, caring for nothing, to the place where a secondary road branches
off to the right over a level crossing and makes for Lodi Vecchio.
It was not nearly midday, but I had walked perhaps fifteen miles, and
had only rested once in a miserable Trattoria. In less than three
miles I came to that unkempt and lengthy village, founded upon dirt
and living in misery, and through the quiet, cold, persistent rain I
splashed up the main street. I passed wretched, shivering dogs and
mournful fowls that took a poor refuge against walls; passed a sad
horse that hung its head in the wet and stood waiting for a master,
till at last I reached the open square where the church stood, then I
knew that I had seen all Old Lodi had to offer me. So, going into an
eating-house, or inn, opposite the church, I found a girl and her
mother serving, and I saluted them, but there was no fire, and my
heart sank to the level of that room, which was, I am sure, no more
than fifty-four degrees.
Why should the less gracious part of a pilgrimage be specially
remembered? In life were remember joy best - that is what makes us sad
by contrast; pain somewhat, especially if it is acute; but dulness
never. And a book - which has it in its own power to choose and to
emphasize - has no business to record dulness. What did I at Lodi
Vecchio? I ate; I dried my clothes before a tepid stove in a kitchen.
I tried to make myself understood by the girl and her mother. I sat at
a window and drew the ugly church on principle. Oh, the vile sketch!
Worthy of that Lombard plain, which they had told me was so full of
wonderful things. I gave up all hope of by-roads, and I determined to
push back obliquely to the highway again - obliquely in order to save
time! Nepios!
These 'by-roads' of the map turned out in real life to be all manner
of abominable tracks. Some few were metalled, some were cart-ruts
merely, some were open lanes of rank grass; and along most there went
a horrible ditch, and in many fields the standing water proclaimed
desolation.
