Not far from this homestead where I have spent sundry pleasant hours
there is a fountain gushing out of a hollow. In olden days it would have
been hung with votive offerings to the nymphs, and rightly. One
appreciates this nature-cult in a dry land. I have worshipped at many
such shrines where the water bounds forth, a living joy, out of the
rocky cleft - unlike those sluggish springs of the North that ooze
regretfully upwards, as though ready to slink home again unless they
were kicked from behind, and then trickle along, with barely perceptible
movement, amid weeds and slime.
Now this particular fountain (I think it is called acqua santa), while
nowise remarkable as regards natural beauty, is renowned for curing
every disease. It is not an ordinary rill; it has medicinal properties.
Hither those two little demons, the younger children, conducted me all
unsuspecting two days ago, desirous that I should taste the far-famed
spring.
"Try it," they said.
I refused at first, since water of every kind has a knack of disagreeing
with my weak digestion. As for them, they gulped down tumblers of it,
being manifestly inured to what I afterwards discovered to be its
catastrophic effects.
"Look at us drinking it," they went on. "Ah, how good! Delicious! It is
like Fiuggi, only better."
"Am I an invalid, to drink Fiuggi water?"
"It is not quite the same as Fiuggi. (True. I was soon wishing it had
been.) How many men would pay dearly for your privilege!
