Fast the model's
fleeting outline - so fleeting, at that particular age of life, that
every month, and every week, brings about new conditions of surface and
texture. A child of Niobe? Very likely. There is suffering also here, a
suffering different from theirs; struck by the Sun-God's arrow, he is in
the act of sinking to earth. Over this tension broods a divine calm.
Here is the antidote to mummified Incas.
Alatri
What brought me to Alatri?
Memories of a conversation, by Tiber banks, with Fausto, who was born
here and vaunted it to be the fairest city on earth. Rome was quite a
passable place, but as to Alatri - -
"You never saw such walls in all your life. They are not walls. They are
precipices. And our water is colder than the Acqua Marcia."
"Walls and water say little to me. But if the town produces other
citizens like yourself - - "
"It does indeed! I am the least of the sons of Alatri."
"Then it must be worthy of a visit...."
In the hottest hour of the afternoon they deposited me outside the city
gate at some new hotel - I forget its name - to which I promptly took an
unreasoning dislike. There was a fine view upon the mountains from the
window of the room assigned to me, but nothing could atone for that lack
of individuality which seemed to exhale from the establishment and its
proprietors.
