It made
us both delightfully tipsy. So passed an hour of glad confidences in
that abandoned shelter with the snowflakes drifting in upon us - one of
those hours that sweeten life and compensate for months of dreary
harassment.
A long descent, past some church or convent famous as a place of
pilgrimage, led to the strand of Monterosso where the waves were
sparkling in tepid sunshine. Then up again, by a steep incline, to a
signal station perched high above the sea. Attilio wished to salute a
soldier-relative working here. I remained discreetly in the background;
it would never do for a foreigner to be seen prying into Marconi
establishments in this confounded "zone of defense." Another hour by
meandering woodland paths brought us to where, from the summit of a
hill, we looked down upon Levanto, smiling merrily in its conch-shaped
basin....
All this cloudless afternoon we conversed in a flowery dell under the
pine trees, with the blue sea at our feet. It was a different climate
from yesterday; so warm, so balmy. Impossible to conceive of snow! I
thought I had definitely bidden farewell to winter.
Trains, an endless succession of trains, were rumbling through the
bowels of the mountain underneath, many of them filled with French
soldiers bound for Salonika.
