But You Really Mustn't Annoy This Gentleman Any More - Her Husband
And Son Were Both Killed In The War, That's What Started It - We'll Fetch
Them Tomorrow At The Palace, All Those Things, And The Children, Only
Don't Talk So Much - They Thought She Was Cured, But Just Hark At
Her!
- Va bene, it's all yours, only get along - she'll be back there in a
day or two, won't she?
- Really, you are chattering much too much, for a
Queen; va bene, va bene, va bene - "
A sad little incident, under the pines....
A fortnight has elapsed.
I refuse to budge from Viareggio, having discovered the village of
Corsanico on the heights yonder and, in that village, a family
altogether to my liking. How one stumbles upon delightful folks! Set me
down in furthest Cathay and I will undertake to find, soon afterwards,
some person with whom I am quite prepared to spend the remaining years
of life.
The driving-road to Corsanico is a never-ending affair. Deep in mire, it
meanders perversely about the plain; meanders more than ever, but of
necessity, once the foot of the hills is reached. I soon gave it up in
favour of the steam-tram to Cammaiore which deposits you at a station
whose name I forget, whence you may ascend to Corsanico through a
village called, I think, Momio. That route, also, was promptly abandoned
when the path along the canal was revealed to me. This waterway runs in
an almost straight line from Viareggio to the base of that particular
hill on whose summit lies my village. It is a monotonous walk at this
season; the rich marsh vegetation slumbers in the ooze underground,
waiting for a breath of summer. At last you cross that big road and
strike the limestone rock.
Here is no intermediate region, no undulating ground, between the upland
and the plain. They converge abruptly upon each other, as might have
been expected, seeing that these hills used to be the old sea-board and
this green level, in olden days, the Mediterranean. Three different
tracks, leading steeply upward through olives and pines and chestnuts
from where the canal ends, will bring you to Corsanico. I know them all.
I could find my way in darkest midnight.
Days have passed; days of delight. I climb up in the morning and descend
at nightfall, my mind well stored with recollections of pleasant talk
and smiling faces. A large place, this Corsanico, straggling about the
hill-top with scattered farms and gardens; to reach the
tobacconist - near whose house, by the way, you obtain an unexpected
glimpse into the valley of Cammaiore - is something of an excursion. As a
rule we repose, after luncheon, on a certain wooded knoll. We are high
up; seven or eight hundred feet above the canal. The blue Tyrrhenian is
dotted with steamers and sailing boats, and yonder lies Viareggio in its
belt of forest; far away, to the left, you discern the tower of Pisa.
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