And All Those Other Countless Things Which A
Family Requires For Its Maintenance - Soap And Cloth And Earthenware And
Kitchen Utensils And Oils - They Have Become Rarities; The Natives Are
Learning To Subsist Without Them; Relapsing Into A Kind Of Barbarism.
So
they sit among the cracked tenements; resentful, or dumbly apathetic.
"We have been forgotten," said one of them.
The priests inculcate submission to the will of God. What else should
they teach? But men will outgrow these doctrines of patience when
suffering is too acute or too prolonged. "Anything is better than this,"
they say. Thus it comes about that these ruined regions are a goodly
soil for the sowing of subversive opinions; the land reeks of
ill-digested socialism.
We found a "restaurant" where we lunched off a tin of antediluvian
Spanish sardines, some mouldy sweet biscuits, and black wine. (A
distinction is made in these parts between black and red wine; the
former is the Apulian variety, the other from Sulmona.) During this
repast, we were treated to several bear-stories. For there are bears at
Pescasseroli, and nowhere else in Italy; even as there are chamois
nearby, between Opi and Villetta Barrea, among the crags of the
Camosciara, which perpetuates their name. One of those present assured
us that the bear is a good beast; he will eat a man, of course, but if
he meets a little boy, he contents himself with throwing stones at
him - just to teach him good manners. Certain old bears are as big as a
donkey.
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