"She is sorry they will not let you stay at Levanto."
"Carrara lies just beyond the war-zone. I want to visit the marble-mines
when the weather grows a little warmer, and perhaps write something
about them. Ask her whether you can join me there for a week or so, if I
send the money. Make her say yes."
She said yes.
With a companion like this, to reflect my moods and act as buffer
between myself and the world, I felt I could do anything. Already I saw
myself exploring those regions, interviewing directors as to methods of
work and output, poking my nose into municipal archives and libraries to
learn the history of those various quarries of marble, plain and
coloured; tracking the footsteps of Michael Angelo at Seravezza and
Pietrasanta and re-discovering that old road of his and the inscription
he left on the rock; speculating why the Romans, who ransacked the
furthermost corners of the earth for tinted stones, knew so little of
the treasures here buried; why the Florentines were long content to use
that grey bigio, when the lordly black portovenere, [2] with its golden
streaks, was lying at their very doors....
The gods willed otherwise.
Then, leaving that hospitable dame, we strolled forth along a winding
road - a good road, once more - ever upwards, under the bare chestnuts. At
last the watershed was reached and we began a zigzag descent towards the
harbour of Monterosso, meeting not a soul by the way. Snow lay on these
uplands; it began to fall softly. As the luncheon hour had arrived we
took refuge in a small hut of stone and there opened the heavy basket
which gave forth all that heart could desire - among other things, a
large fiasco of strong white wine which we drank to the dregs. It made
us both delightfully tipsy. So passed an hour of glad confidences in
that abandoned shelter with the snowflakes drifting in upon us - one of
those hours that sweeten life and compensate for months of dreary
harassment.
A long descent, past some church or convent famous as a place of
pilgrimage, led to the strand of Monterosso where the waves were
sparkling in tepid sunshine. Then up again, by a steep incline, to a
signal station perched high above the sea. Attilio wished to salute a
soldier-relative working here. I remained discreetly in the background;
it would never do for a foreigner to be seen prying into Marconi
establishments in this confounded "zone of defense." Another hour by
meandering woodland paths brought us to where, from the summit of a
hill, we looked down upon Levanto, smiling merrily in its conch-shaped
basin....
All this cloudless afternoon we conversed in a flowery dell under the
pine trees, with the blue sea at our feet. It was a different climate
from yesterday; so warm, so balmy. Impossible to conceive of snow! I
thought I had definitely bidden farewell to winter.
Trains, an endless succession of trains, were rumbling through the
bowels of the mountain underneath, many of them filled with French
soldiers bound for Salonika. They have been going southward ever since
my arrival at Levanto.
Attilio was more pensive than usual; the prospect of returning to his
bricks was plainly irksome. Why not join for a change, I suggested, one
of yonder timber-felling parties? He knew all about it. The pay is too
poor. They are cutting the pines all along this coast and dragging them
to the water, where they are sawn into planks and despatched to the
battle-front. It seemed a pity to Attilio; at this rate, he thought,
there would soon be none left, and how then would we be able to linger
in the shade and take our pleasure on some future day?
"Have no fear of that," I said. "And yet - would you believe it? Many
years ago these hills, as far as you can see to right and left and
behind, were bare like the inside of your hand. Then somebody looked at
the landscape and said: 'What a shame to make so little use of these
hundreds of miles of waste soil. Let us try an experiment with a new
kind of pine tree which I think will prosper among the rocks. One of
these days people may be glad of them.'"
"Well?"
"You see what has happened. Right up to Genoa, and down below
Levanto - nothing but pines. You Italians ought to be grateful to that
man. The value of the timber which is now being felled along this
stretch of coast cannot be less than a thousand francs an hour. That is
what you would have to pay, if you wanted to buy it. Twelve thousand
francs a day; perhaps twice as much."
"Twelve thousand francs a day!"
"And do you know who planted the trees? It was a Scotsman."
"A Scozzese. What kind of animal is that?"
"A person who thinks ahead."
"Then my mother is a Scotsman."
I glanced from the sea into his face; there was something of the same
calm depth in both, the same sunny composure. What is it, this limpid
state of the mind? What do we call this alloy of profundity and
frankness? We call it intelligence. I would like to meet that man or
woman who can make Attilio say something foolish. He does not know what
it is to feel shy. Serenely objective, he discards those subterfuges
which are the usual safeguard of youth or inexperience - the evasions,
reservations and prevarications that defend the shallow, the weak, the
self-conscious. His candour rises above them. He feels instinctively
that these things are pitfalls.
"Have you no sweetheart, Attilio?"
"Certainly I have.
