August 9: Villa Lante.
August 12: Ferento. What happened at Ferento?
Now what happened at Ferento? Let me try to reconstruct that morning's
visit.
I have clear memories of the walk from Viterbo - it would be eighteen
chilometres there and back, they told me. I had slept well in my quaint
little room with the water rushing under the window, and breakfasted in
receptive and responsive mood. I recall that trudge along the highway
and how I stepped across patches of sunlight from the shade of one
regularly planted tree into that of another. The twelfth of August....
It set me thinking of heathery moorlands and grouse, and of those
legions of flies that settle on one's nose just as one pulls the
trigger. It all seemed dim and distant here, on this parching road,
among southern fields. I was beginning to be lost in a muse as to what
these boreal flies might do with themselves during the long winter
months while all the old women of the place are knitting Shetland
underwear when, suddenly, a little tune came into my ears - a wistful
intermezzo of Brahms. It seemed to spring out of the hot earth. Such a
natural song, elvishly coaxing! Would I ever play it again? Neither
that, nor any other.
It turned my thoughts, as I went along, to Brahms and led me to
understand why no man, who cares only for his fellow-creatures, will
ever relish that music.
